Pokémon anime

I agree. It would also show that anyone who thinks they just have to beat Greninja to beat Ash is in for a rude awakening.

As I expected most of Ash's early Kalos league matches will mostly be off-screen or skipped over as the writers focus on the rival battles. I kinda wish they didn't do this, as obviously the audience cares far more to see Ash battle than two rivals battle, but oh well.

It doesn't matter too much since Ash is only using his Kalos team, so we'd only see the same 5 pokemon and Pikachu battle anyway. Still the same thing happened in Hoenn and they gave Ash 3 different 6 on 6 battles that league as well as 3 different 2 on 2 battles.

If anything this gives me hope Ash will beat Alan in the finals. Mega Charizard is shown to be this unstoppable force and Greninja already lost to it twice when they battled in earlier episodes, so it does seem like Ash will beat it with Greninja in their match. Let's just hope Alan doesn't whip out a legendary out of nowhere after Mega Charizard loses. I don't want to see a repeat of the Tobias match where half of Ash's team falls to Mega Charizard and then Ash only has Pikachu leftover to battle whatever Alan uses after.

To be fair, we know Ash isn't going to lose to a random trainer in the league, so it makes more sense to focus on characters we're meant to care about more since Ash making it to the finals to face Alan is a Foregone Conclusion.

At least its confirmed Ash makes it to the finals of his first league, only took nearly 20 years into the anime. They had Ash come in the Top 8 in 3 different leagues (Johto, Hoenn and Unova), so its ridiculous to see them give him the same final rank 3 different times, only getting into the top 4 in Sinnoh just to be shut down by Tobias.

Honestly, Ash vs. Paul felt like it should have been the finals of the Sinnoh league; its the climax of the entire arc; everything afterword was really just tacked on.

Ash Vs. Tyson should have been the finals of the Hoenn league too, given Tyson won the league after that and Ash nearly beat him. I think people often forget how close Ash was to winning the Hoenn league, Pikachu just barely faints and since there was no stronger trainer than Tyson there Ash probably would have beaten whoever came after easily.

Paul was basically the final battle, but Ash had to lose to keep going on his journey, and Paul beating Ash would have all kind of negative implications that the only way to win a league is to be a jackass.

Hence Tobias coming out of nowhere to ruin Ash's day. Because they must stick to formula, that's why he's gonna lose here too. Maybe he'll get to beat Alain first and maybe the tournament will be crashed so he can at least he probably would have won if not for that but this time next year he'll be in the new reason with new characters an Pokemon, rarely think of XY stuff again, because that's the formula and they refuse to break it.

Its getting increasingly hard for them to justify him losing though; like, he's way too competent to not win at this point, especially since DP and XY have been his finest hours.

Like, Ash is a straight up Showy Invincible Hero in this arc, he has no reason to even lose at this point.

It will still happen. I do not have the faith that they will ever change.

Nor do I.

And nor should anybody else.

Cynicism is cool and justified!

You know I wouldn't go that far. But I mean you can only get burned by something so many times before you becoming cynical about it.

By Diamond and Pearl's end I was convinced the show was ready to evolve past it's stagnation and start moving forward and it took a massive heaping dump all over me with that Tobias BS. So yeah, I have no hope for this.

We had a trainer battle him midway through the league and nearly get him disqualified and it looks like TR have some sort of scheme planned as well. Maybe these interruptions are to wear his Pokemon down for a case of Worf Had the Flu like in the Kanto league.

edited 30th Jun '16 5:06:41 PM by Psi001

TR just said they'll be looking for chances to get Pokémon while working at the league. My guess is that they're there so they'll be ready for the beginning of the Team Flare climax once the league is over (or interrupted). Notice how every other key player is already there, including Ash's group (obviously), Malva, Alan, Diantha (who thought to herself she'd protect Ash and Kalos last time they met) and Sycamore (spoken of by Olympia as "the one who will lead the way" in her prophecy).

Like I said, I didn't say it wasn't going to happen, but they really have no excuse to keep doing it at this point beyond just being formulaic.

I have long pushed for the idea of Ash winning the Kalos League ever since I saw his XY outfit and so far, they have yet to let me down on that aspect. Never before has Ash gotten this close, and never before has he been this well skilled and competent in seasons past. While many rightfully be angry and cynically, burned by the Sinnoh League ending in the form of Tobias and the subsequent Reset Button in Black and White, one should take in account of how Black and White was wrapped up (particularly the goodbye segment of the Unova gang) and consider the possibility of a Win Back the Crowd scenario.

And personally, if nothing else, I am more than eager to XY&Z go beyond the limits of the status quo just to see how future series could ever live up to it.

edited 30th Jun '16 7:21:04 PM by Shadao

Black and White does seem like an meta version of Old Shame.

They didn't even have Iris do her cameo. They clearly want to distance themselves from it.

Outside of Jessie and James being slightly more competent (though still getting blasted off), I don't think anything from it carried over.

If Jesse didn't get disqualified for entering on stolen badges and using a wild Pokemon, nobody should be disqualified from the Pokemon League.

Just as I thought, Trevor got curbstomped horribly by Alain. And this time, I feel no sympathy. Trevor didn't seem too disappointed either, so that helped also.

edited 30th Jun '16 8:29:28 PM by bubblesishot46853

I just thought of something: what if Ash's battle with Alain ends in a tie? I could see Greninja vs. Charizard in the final bout ending in a Double Knockout.

Its weird how the writers decided to randomly have Alan as Ash's rival in the league, when this character started off in his own specials just to advertise Mega Evolutions and had nothing to do with Ash. Feels like it was a last minute change to bring him into the main anime.

Ash's only rival in XY was Tierno really until Shota showed up, so the writers probably felt Ash's rivals were too friendly and not important enough so they made Alan into the next Gary or Paul as the "big rival" Ash has to beat. Alan is officially XY's version of Paul.

I hope they don't pull a Zoey and have him ALWAYS win.

I think he lost to Malva in the Mega Evolution specials ? I haven't really kept up with those however.

Well I kinda saw that coming once the Team Flare plot began showing up in the main series, it'd be weird for Alain not to show up as well. I wonder what they're going for with Ash and Alain tho; Ash & Gary were rivals since childhood and long since had a score to settle, and Ash & Paul had to see which one of their worldviews would win out in the end.

It's kinda annoying that South Africa doesn't get the Mega Evolution specials…

Do other countries get the specials?
(Aside from Japan and the United States, I mean.)

They never showed Ash using his other mons in this ep because why bother? He steam rolls the punk (while a retread of the OS plot, is actually more meaningful in this ep) and his first fight (who is actually Tomohisa Sako in his anime appearance) is pretty much a curbstomp. The preview next ep shows him fighting Ayaka with Hawlucha out for that revenge match.

Basically this league is different. Unlike older leagues where it's just battles battle battles, this one has full of plot related shit. With stuff like showing how you're not gonna last in this league without a mega (which is an important plot point - you'll see why in a bit), showing how even if you have a Mega you won't stand a chance when you face someone like Alan, and that it shows more on Ash's determination.

Shipping moments though - Serena immediately reigns in Ash from fighting a stranger who challenged him and immediately dodges Tierno's flying kiss. And while Alan tries to rebuff Sycamore's handshake, he nearly spills Team Flare's plan in front of Ash!

For some random fun, the trainer Ash fought - Tomohisa Sako in-show named Tomo - was rp-ing in twitter when the ep was airing, tweeting stuff like "I am gonna do my best!" and "That Satoshi took me by surprise... I'll try my best next time!" Tomohisa Sako sang and wrote Getta Ban-Ban and Kira-Kira, and wrote XY&Z, and is currently the show's song director. His favorite mon is Altaria and yep, his ace in the fight is Altaria.

edited 1st Jul '16 7:32:29 AM by Ookamikun

Sounds like this is an interesting League.

Funny how they are putting more effort into the plot when the game that had more plot (Black and White) is the season where they massively botched things.

Then again, there was other stuff going on during that season—the skipped episode, the time jump for black and white 2 that probably messed with their plans, etc—but still.