Pokémon anime

I deleted that moment of suck entry for violating several rules. It never ceases to amuse me how desperate some fans are getting with this stuff though.

edited 27th Aug '16 4:20:30 PM by VeryMelon

Second preview aired. Looks like Alain cracked after all:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfuzBBNaSWo

edited 27th Aug '16 4:47:44 PM by Psi001

At long last, Alain finally breaks down after realizing that his entire goal (becoming the strongest to protect those he cares about) has been nothing more than a lie told by his evil mentor, and all of his actions he has done in their name simply brought the destruction he so feared.

Good....good....

I now like you a bit more. But you still have a lot to go if you want to be fully redeemed. Freeing Ash is a start, but that's only a fraction of atonement you have paid.

Hmmm, seems like Lysandre's Mega Gyarados would be quite an overpowered monster considering that it's fighting Ash's entire team, Ash-Greninja, and Mega Charizard X.

edited 27th Aug '16 7:05:38 PM by Shadao

Well, of course. We need to have a moment where we have to go Alain did nothing wrong.

Well, Alain did do nothing when Ash got captured by Team Flare. Some might say at least he did nothing wrong, but he did nothing right either.

Watched the first two episodes of X and Y with my brother out of boredom.

Ash is still a black hole of a character and the show is still unbearably saccharine, but I do really respect the animators and background artists for all the effort they put into the show. we had just been watching the first season in Kanto and the difference in quality is night and day.

Told you Alain's not the villain you make him out to be and it was going this route. Because if he was ever going to align with Team Flare, they would have just done it from the start instead of having him duped. By having Alain duped, the writers protected him from being portrayed as an actual bad person. They aren't making him the Final Boss of this arc or any of that. And as said, all of your criticisms don't exist in the actual show nor is he Lonely at the Top or so on.

To note, if Alain isn't an antagonist in any form in this arc, it makes every single league related justification invalid and the results even more bullshit. I decided that I'll see this through to the end either for vindication that the league ending was stupid or it'll make it up to me by entertaining me. Either way, I get something I consider positive out of it before I leave the Pokemon anime. Oh and, if this does surprise or impress me in what's to come in a way that makes up for The League, I will happily eat my words that nothing past that point will matter to the vast majority as Ash's league victory would.

edited 27th Aug '16 10:36:49 PM by Prime_of_Perfection

I have never seen popular opinion of a character sour this fast. Cameron was always hated, and Paul was hated more after everyone praised his training method.

Oh, no one can deny that Alain will change sides. That's a given. I've called him an Anti-Villain before to emphasize the point that much of his actions have greatly contributed to the disaster that Team Flare caused. But maybe that is me being too harsh or me getting fed up by people writing off the League results without knowing or caring what is going to happen in the Flare. Though I am right that he was the reason why Ash was captured (Betrayal by Inaction).

That being said, Alain is finally understanding just how bad his actions have really done. Which is what I really want out of him. Guilt. But that's only a fraction of what he needs to learn.

His epiphany has been ignored several times, the epiphany of having fun instead of winning all the time. It needs to be free in the last match with Ash and Ash-Greninja. There is still a lot of factors in play.

I do wonder wonder what tricks Lysandre has up his sleeves with Mega Gyarados. He isn't going to battle two OP Pokémon without a little catch.

edited 27th Aug '16 10:40:13 PM by Shadao

Just like how Paul learned it? :P

I feel that if Betrayal by Inaction is "the worst" that'll come of him as an antagonist in this arc, then it's a waste and Alain should have just lost the league.

edited 27th Aug '16 10:43:04 PM by Prime_of_Perfection

The difference is that Alain is constantly feeling that epiphany while Paul I don't recall ever having it.

Plus Paul made his own path while Alain was misled by Lysandre's philosophy.

edited 27th Aug '16 10:42:48 PM by Shadao

I think they'll just go with an 'Ash lost the League but saved the world' route, which kinda happens all the time anyway.

Except in the games, where you win the League AND save the world :P

edited 27th Aug '16 10:45:09 PM by lalalei2001

That's what I've been saying. Which we've had that already. This is just it executed on a larger level and with an admittedly well-written Team Flare. Regardless, same old shit. I just can't get excited for Ash to save the world again when he's saved the world multiple times before. And I don't care about Alain's character arc as I feel you could achieve the exact same things while he losses and you avoid that fan backlash. Just imagine how many people would be into things now if Ash won the league and then you have this?

I feel bad for Ash since this pretty much cemented him as a Memetic Loser no matter how competent he is.

Also, I'm not a fan of all the "Alain cheated" stuff or so on. It's an excuse. Nothing hinted at that. He was just the stronger trainer in a situation where he shouldn't have been. He had Plot Armor.

edited 27th Aug '16 10:51:21 PM by Prime_of_Perfection

The thing about winning a League is that it does not make you a master or even a strong hero. Alain learns that the hard way. He was at the top of his game, his peak... and then it all came crashing down.

And then the question the anime poses would be: Does winning the League actually make you a Pokémon Master as many fans would say? Now that sounds hypocritical considering that I have view Alain keeping the champion's title and not revoking it to render it as a worthless title, but that is mainly because I don't want it to be okay for the champion's title to be associated with being duped and villains, as it would set a bad example for future trainers. Alain needs to consider if he is even worthy for such a sought-after title.

edited 27th Aug '16 10:52:29 PM by Shadao

Of course Alain was the stronger trainer, he always was; this is the same guy who's Mega Charizard X took down ten Mega Evolutions in a row, including the Mega Houndoom of one of the Elite Four. That Charizard also went up against Steven Stone's Mega Metagross, and survived against Primal Groudon and Kyogre, whereas the only thing of note of Ash-Greninja was beating the Mega Evolution of the final Kalos Gym Leader, beating Sawyer's Mega Sceptile, and pushing back Diantha's Mega Gardevoir, who was pretty much spamming the ineffective Shadow Ball throughout that entire fight barring the use of a single Moonblast and three to four Reflects.

Also, the Pokemon movies are about as canon as the Dragon Ball Z movies are; they never happened in the anime's continuity, so Ash has never saved anything more than the regions he's been to, and even then that only happened in the Hoenn, Sinnoh, and Unova regions.

edited 27th Aug '16 11:04:12 PM by Ssj3Gojira

Makes you wonder how Lysandre is going to deal with Alain with Mega Gyarados then? Knowing him, I suspect he would try to shutdown Alain first for insubordination. Story conventions will not have the villain be easily defeated, so Lysandre will have to showcase a Worf Effect when dealing with two powerful trainers.

I don't care if the title makes you a master or so on. I don't care about Alain.

What I, and many other people, cared about was Ash's victory. Because the anime is, in many ways, a sport's story structure. People can talk about all this other stuff that Pokemon is, but at its root, it's based all around teaching them to fight better, earning badges by fighting, and going to the big event that rarely happens to try and become the big winner.

Bringing up Alain is pointless to me because I don't care. He is not why we were here.

To create an analogy, let's say there is this burger place that all signs point to having the greatest burgers in the entire world. They've teased that they have the best burgers, a burger so rare that nobody has ever believed it would be made, but there's hope now. A burger which has been 20 years in the making. We learn progressively about all the ingredients going into this burger and, hell, it's trending about these burgers. People who stopped going to this place hve shown up in droves just for these burgers. And then they serve spaghetti.

Now, that spaghetti might be delicious. Under other circumstances, I'd probably like that spaghetti. However, many people wanted the rarest burger of them all on that day and aren't going to want to return to that place. Then, when they voice their complaint, by someone else going on and on about how good the spaghetti is or the potential things that can happen with the spaghetti, it just misses the point that it wasn't what was desired. And structuring an entire location around burgers only to serve spaghetti is going to piss people off.

Plus, it's just hard to have faith in change anymore when the decisive moment of change showed us that Status Quo Is God. It's why I find many of the ideas put forth interesting, but I have 0 hope in any of it. Because 20 years of conditioning tops someone's cool theories.

Honestly, the thing that just frustrates me most is this was the breaking point. I start with the OS and I've stuck with it through every season. I have been someone who could accept things like Misty and Brock going. I was fine with the rotating females. I was cool with... quite frankly, a lot. Some things I learned to tolerate and I defended what I could while still agreeing on some weaknesses. But this was the breaking point. Especially when we know they can do better.

I could swear some of the movies are canon, though even if they aren't, that doesn't change that we've seen it. Whether it's canon or not doesn't matter, the experience has been had countless times. And he's still helped out with region and legendaries before.

edited 27th Aug '16 11:08:46 PM by Prime_of_Perfection

Well...where do you think all that Mega Evolution energy was going to in the first place?

Also, this was always gonna happen, because we've already established that the Japanese love repetition. It's why the Japanese fans actually disliked Team Rocket becoming competent during Best Wishes; they liked it better when they were mostly comic relief villains who always failed.

edited 27th Aug '16 11:09:00 PM by Ssj3Gojira

x4

The movies are canon to the show though? It's rare but the show does tend to acknowledge the events of the movies. I know for a fact that one of the movies from the DP era gets referenced later on in DP.

edited 27th Aug '16 11:14:09 PM by Chariot

The first movie and eighth are canon, as 1 has Mewtwo and its origins and 8 has Ash''s aura powers.

What if Alain dies? This IS the Darker and Edgier season, after all.

The Japanese were angry too. But I am aware. Which is fair if they wish to stick with that. I just know that if Failure Is the Only Option, then I have nothing to get out of it. Don't get me wrong, I do think the journey in itself matters, but I can only take so much repetition before it becomes static. And it's become static for me now in a world of other options.

He won't. This arc is darker, but it's still the Pokemon anime, not fanfiction. Killing Alain off isn't their voice as storyteller. Or at least it's never been before.

edited 27th Aug '16 11:15:53 PM by Prime_of_Perfection

If that is the case, what would that imply for Alain then? That Lysandre's Flare Mega Ring was beefing up Mega Charizard X the whole time without Alain knowing every time he fights another Mega?

Nah, Lysandre would mostly beef up Gyarados with Plot Armor. It'll only be weaker because he's the bad guy.

edited 27th Aug '16 11:14:50 PM by Shadao

The last time Mewtwo has ever shown up was in the TV special with Giovanni; after that he just dropped off the face of the earth. And the Lucario movie never gets mentioned again, and Ash's ability to use Aura is instead brought up in the Riolu episodes, and then the concept as a whole is promptly never heard of again barring a mention in a Pokedex entry for Medicham.

Also, I was saying that all the Mega Energy would be going to Lysandre himself, who'd boost his Mega Gyarados to godly levels of power; I mean, there has to be some reason for Complete Zygarde to show up in this arc.

edited 27th Aug '16 11:18:26 PM by Ssj3Gojira