Which would you say was handled better? The Grand Festival or the League? (DP)

[Ashfangirl22]

Some say it was too rushed but over all which was better? I felt the league was, they gave a good ending to Ash and Paul's rivalry, had Ash nearly beat two legendaries. What's more epic than that?

 

[Legacy]

Yup league was better handled IMO. It was fun to see the full-circle thing with Paul, Ash and Infernape. Got to see Ash's pokemon take down Darkrai, and saw some old friends from the past. Overall, good league.

Grand festival was fine, but contests don't excite me, so I voted for the league.

 

[Necrozma]

Where's the option for both?

Although they needed at least one episode more, both were done well. I can't complain neither with the league nor the grand festival.

 

[#Daisuke#]

Overall, I say the league was handled better. I hated how Dawn lostthe Jessie/Dawn battle was way to rushed.

But I liked the Grand Festival better. I'm more of a contest person.

 

[Magmortar123]

The league for sure. Although I hated the Darkrai battle, Ash Vs. Paul was single handedly the best battle I've ever seen.

 

[severus6]

The league for sure. Although I hated the Darkrai battle, Ash Vs. Paul was single handedly the best battle I've ever seen.

Agreed. The Darkrai battle was just cheap, but Ash vs. Paul was epic. Plus, I also liked the battles involving the other rivals.

The Grand Festival, though, seemed kind of unreal, with Dawn reaching the Final. (Good thing she didn't win!)

 

[Cascada]

Voted for the Grand Festival, because honestly, IMO, Dawn was handled much better than Ash this saga, IMO.

 

[CommanderPigg]

League. And I like the non-ambiguous poll choices, it makes it less confusing XD

Yeah, I think that the Paul vs. Ash battle made up for everything. I don't care how "lame" or "cheap" the other battles were, I am lucky to have lived to see that ;_;

But for the record, I don't think that the other battles were that bad either. They were more memorable than the appeals and battle rounds of the GF (seeing as how I rewatched those episodes).

This had been the greatest accomplishment for Ash, whom we've followed for a while and seen grow as a trainer. As for Dawn, she got second place on her first try...hm. Not that that's bad or anything, but I feel like there should be room for logical improvement.

Oh, don't get me started on the difference in the rivalries >_>

 

[winstein]

I didn't watch the Festival, so I can only think the League is better, because I was impressed by the battles.

 

[Rhyperior]

The GF is handled so badly. Dawn doesn't deserve to be in the final as a rookie. And her match against Jessie is too one-sided, considering Jessie's experience in contests.

 

[Pokeshipper15]

Both were good, I'm not gonna vote..

It seemed to me both were awesome but with a few rushed battles/contest matches

 

[Insanish Danish]

The league I guess.

Though I suppose my overall dislike towards the Sinnoh GF is biased (for obvious reasons if you know me well enough), but by this point I think contests have gotten really boring anyway, so I think the league was handled better.

 

[Shinneth]

The League, easily. The only real missteps in the League were Takuto as a whole, Barry and Conway not getting full battles, and Nando being in the competition to begin with. Seriously, he pretty much stole the show in the Grand Festival; why does he need to waste our time in the League when we know he won't be anywhere near as good? If they had cut him out, maybe we would have gotten some meatier battles from Barry and Conway, who clearly deserve it more.

Outside of that, the League was great and I greatly struggle to think of how Best Wishes will top Ash vs Paul.

The Grand Festival... eh. The main thing is that I stopped giving a damn about Dawn's story midway in when I realized the majority of her rivals were boring and weren't going to improve and the rivals that didn't suck didn't get to appear as much and poor Ursula never got a proper win. Not to mention, of course, the lop-sidedness that was Nando vs Zoey being much more interesting than all of the other GF battles, including Dawn vs Zoey. Plus it bugged me that by the time it came down to the quarterfinals, it was all down to a bunch of first-year newbies aside from Jessie. Just seemed awfully lazy and I didn't think anyone except Jessie really deserved to win the GF anyway.

And if this GF was the one to end all GFs... I honestly gotta say Kanto's GF would've suited it better as a send-off. For some reason Zoey and Dawn being in the finals just because they "promised" they would in Jubilife City early on in the series just felt so... underwhelming and cheap. At least Kenny got booted out early; that was a positive, but then they went and let him star in his own episode later where he could be grating as he usually was.

So yeah. Gotta say the Sinnoh League was "leagues" ahead of the Grand Festival in overall performance.

 

[Afrojisiac-19]

LEAGUE. The Grand Festival was not only rushed, but its overall importance seemed lacking...the festival taking place before Ash's eight gym badge should speak volumes...

 

[Buizelfan!]

I'm going for the grand festival just because I felt the league was a big let down

 

[danh19]

I have to say they were both handled well but for me personally it was the league I found it to be near perfect outside of a few small issues

 

[Hidden Mew]

It was definitely the Sinnoh League for me as well. The Sinnoh Grand Festival wasn't terrible, but it was extremely rushed. I didn't mind the idea of Dawn or Zoey being in the finals. Despite being her first Grand Festival, Dawn had become a stronger Coordinator over the course of the series. And I honestly kept forgetting that Zoey was a rookie. She never acted like one, most likely because of the mentor/student relationship they were kind of going between her and Dawn. So that wasn't the problem. The biggest problem is that we didn't really see much of Dawn's progress to the finals. We saw her defeat Ursula again, in which I found the victory to be extremely cheap given how much damage her Pokemon had taken and yet she was able to land some strong critical hits on Ursula's Pokemon to win it, and then a clip version of her match against Jessie before getting to the finals.

I know that Contest battles aren't designed to be as long as regular battles, but that still felt extremely unsatisfying to me. It was like jumping from point A to point D with traces of the other points shown briefly. It made what should have been a huge moment way more annoying and frustrating than it should have been. Plus, Ursula really should have lasted at least one more round. That evolution appeal was just far too fantastic and unique for her to lose in the second round, especially when she had so much talent compared to most of Dawn's other rivals. And we definitely should have seen Jessie's last battle as Coordinator. I did like most of the appeals, Zoey vs. Nando was just fantastic and Dawn vs. Zoey was still pretty solid. But I'd say it was easily the weakest of the Grand Festivals as a whole because of how rushed it felt.

The Sinnoh League had problems too. Nando was not interesting or good enough to be featured in both competition, Quilava should have been the one to win the match instead of Heracross, or at least we saw its full battle after they finally decided to evolve it, and Barry should have been able to take down one of Paul's Pokemon during their battle. But the battle with Nando was still pretty good, Ash vs. Conway was great, Ash vs. Paul is still the closest to perfection that a full battle has gotten in the show and I still like Ash' vs. Tobias. Ash taking down two Legendary Pokemon in a blaze of glory and become the unofficial runner up for the Sinnoh League by being the only person to defeat Tobias' Darkrai was awesome. Out of all of the ways Ash has been defeated, that has been the most satisfying for me. It was a really good League arc and handled much better than the Grand Festival was.

 

[danh19]

I can see what you mean about Jessie they should have shown the contest battle in full as well as add an extra episode or two to the grand festival arc

 

[Mikuri]

This is the kind of question that should never be asked because it is so unfair to compare these two competitions. Even I have to admit that the Pokémon League Conference was handled in a more satisfactory way. And I think everyone here knows that I'm crazy about Pokémon Contests and I'm always saying how they are so much better than everything the writers have ever done in the anime.

The thing we all need to realize is that the match between Ash and Paul in the Lily of the Valley Conference took place over the span of three episodes. Yes, one single battle, three whole episodes. That is the entire Battle Stage of the Sinnoh Grand Festival. So yes, the Grand Festival was rushed as hell. They got rid of Kenny in the Performance Stage and the semifinal battle between Dawn and Jessilina lasted half a minute.

Ideally, the Grand Festival would have lasted six episodes. That way, we would have one episode for a battle against Kenny and another for the battle against Jessilina. With these two extra episodes, the writers could even show Zoey and Nando defeating unimportant Coordinators so that we wouldn't feel like "wow they reached the semifinals already."

I would be so happy if, in these two extra episodes, the writers used three minutes to show Zoey defeating Kyle from the Wallace Cup. The battle could be as simple as Glameow vs Shuckle in Double-Time Battle Training! when Zoey got her fifth Ribbon. It was short but it was good enough, better than Dawn vs Jessilina's crappy montage.

For what it was, the Sinnoh Grand Festival was excellent. I love the battle between Zoey and Nando and you can really feel the writers have come such a long way since they introduced us to the concept of Contest Battles. I also love the final round. I was amazed to see Dawn using Piplup's powered up Peck from the Jubilife Contest in that match along with other new, more complex combinations.

In my opinion the Grand Festival delivered better battles than the League. I know I am biased but think about it, Paul vs Ash was basically Drapion taking out half of Ash's team and Infernape taking out half of Paul's team. It wasn't balanced at all. And let's not forget how Barry's battle against Paul was ridiculous to watch. Barry was completely humiliated in that match and I feel very sorry for him to this day.

The League wins here because it had more episodes to properly showcase the battles of Ash and his rivals. Heck, even freaking Conway got an episode to himself while poor Kenny was eliminated in the very first round. Giving Kenny one battle against Dawn and a shippy farewell after his defeat would have been a thousand times better than everything that happened in Four Roads Diverged in a Pokémon Port!.

 

[SinnohEevee]

The Festival. Maybe it wasn't that good, but the League was trolled by Trollbias. Ash getting crushed by someone who popped out of nowhere with Legendaries was bad writing and only shows that the writers are dead set on making Ash lose. The only part of Ash vs Tobias I like watching is Sceptile beating Darkrai, but even after that, Trollbias comes with another Legendary. Heck, I wonder what else Tobias had and how Cynthia managed to preserve her title.

We saw that Ash deserved to do well, but that he only loses just because the writers want it. They did manage to make him win the Orange League without the show ending, but no one cares about that part.

And I don't like how Barry lost 0 to 6 against Paul. They wanted to show Paul was strong, but is he that strong? Plus, he's not a character I like because he would abuse his Pokémon.