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Anime & Manga General Discussion

I'd say there's 3 camps:

1. Some hate Goh with a passion and say that his character now can't redeem himself from a Mary Sue status.
2. Some think that some parts were cute, but that the writing is still forced to justify Goh receiving a legendary.
3. Some find the idea of catching a legendary weird but think that the episode was heartwarming and that Goh's bond with Suicune was geniune.

Mine is

4. It doesn't matter the character legendary pokemon that serve a purpose shouldn't be captured, even if there is a bond established throughout the episode.
 
In all honesty, they could have just replaced Goh with Hop and made the Sakuragi Laboratory be in Galar instead of Kanto. We could have had Hop doing the Gym Challenge in Galar and Ash could do the PWC while they both travel the world, there, it's that easy, the Entirety of Pokemon Journeys is fixed. You have Gym Battles which is back and yet to continue to do something different (like SM), everyone is satisfied.

I do think Hop will appear in Journeys eventually since his elder brother, Leon is a Main Character but it will be the Cameron/Hau Treatment.
 
In all honesty, they could have just replaced Goh with Hop and made the Sakuragi Laboratory be in Galar instead of Kanto. We could have had Hop doing the Gym Challenge in Galar and Ash could do the PWC while they both travel the world, there, it's that easy, the Entirety of Pokemon Journeys is fixed. You have Gym Battles which is back and yet to continue to do something different (like SM), everyone is satisfied.

I do think Hop will appear in Journeys eventually since his elder brother, Leon is a Main Character but it will be the Cameron/Hau Treatment.

As much as I would have loved for Hop to be a main character, I think it would have been kind of hard to explain why Ash wasn't also taking part in the Galar Gym Challenge. It still feels slightly out of character for him to not want to travel around a new region or battle against more Galar Gym Leaders once he learned about them. Having Gym battles back and still doing something different for Ash would be an ideal kind of solution for a lot of people, but I still don't know why Ash wouldn't want to do both with that setup. Plus, I'm not sure how well they could adapt Hop's storyline from the games, mainly because a big problem with Journeys is that it is way too fast paced for its own good. This affects both Ash and Goh's goals and their teams, so I'm not sure if it would be any different with Hop being a main character instead. I really hope that Hop won't get the Hau SM treatment. I wouldn't be surprised if he did, but it would be such a massive disappointment.

Making the Sakuragi Laboratory be in Galar instead of Kanto really should have happened though. It might not have improved upon the world tour gimmick that much, especially if they still limit themselves to one episode per region in most cases, but it would give the newest region and its Pokemon a bit more attention, which definitely would have been nice. At least showcasing Pokemon from older generations and introducing the newest batch of Pokemon might have felt more balanced than it currently does. It probably also would have made it easier for them to setup the Darkest Day plot instead of cramming it into half of an episode.
 
As much as I would have loved for Hop to be a main character, I think it would have been kind of hard to explain why Ash wasn't also taking part in the Galar Gym Challenge.
I suppose they could have just had him not receive a sponsorship but that would leave the elephant in the living room of why the first winner of a new league would have any trouble finding one.
 
I suppose they could have just had him not receive a sponsorship but that would leave the elephant in the living room of why the first winner of a new league would have any trouble finding one.

Not to mention that Ash is an experienced trainer even without factoring in the Alola League victory and he loves to battle anyway. It would have been really difficult for them to write around Ash not taking part in the Galar Gym challenge if the other lead character was doing so. It wasn't really a problem with Contests since those were ultimately different kinds of battles than Ash was used to, so they wouldn't appeal to him as much as Gym battles would.
 
If Ash could not take the Galar Gym Challenge because he is a foreigner, how was he able to take on the Gym Challenge in Johto, Hoenn, Sinnoh, Unova, and Kalos (same with Alola's Trail/ISland Challenge)?
 
If Ash could not take the Galar Gym Challenge because he is a foreigner, how was he able to take on the Gym Challenge in Johto, Hoenn, Sinnoh, Unova, and Kalos (same with Alola's Trail/ISland Challenge)?
I'd imagine because of this:
it's meant for Trainers starting out in Galar
Galar could run its league differently than the rest of the regions.
 
I suppose they could have just had him not receive a sponsorship but that would leave the elephant in the living room of why the first winner of a new league would have any trouble finding one.

Tbh, they could have made it so Hop was the last one to be endorsed (Because only one space left) before Ash arrived in Galar.
 
I suppose if they really wanted to keep Ash out of the Galar Gym Challenge then they could make up some sort of excuse about how it's meant for Trainers starting out in Galar and either because Ash is a foreigner or because he's a Champion now he doesn't qualify or something. :unsure:

That would feel really forced considering that he was able to take part in other Gym challenges in other regions in the past. The Galar Gym Challenge does seem to be focused more on new trainers than more experienced trainers in the games, but the anime has shown both new and experienced trainers taking part in Gym battles in most regions.

Saying that he doesn't qualify because he's a Champion now would also feel a bit forced, if not just a bit unrealistic for the show. I say unrealistic because I don't think that the show would use Ash's Alola League Champion victory as a justification for why he couldn't do Gym battles. It wasn't even the reason he decided to take part in the PWC. It was mainly because winning the PWC was potentially the fastest way to battle Leon again. He also hadn't heard of Galar having Gyms by that point either. Plus, I don't think that they'd want to completely shut the door on Gym battles by saying that Ash no longer qualifies for them.
 
It’s kinda funny how SM was the series that did that. It was the most harshly criticised and hated series when it first released but it ended on such a high note. How ironic.
And yet, there still are some people who hate the art style of SM based on their first impressions early on in the series when it may have still been a bit unrefined, dismiss Ash's League win because they think it "wasn't a real League, because anyone could enter and Principal Oak got to Top 16 and James got to Top 8", and say that Ash should have won the Kalos League instead of the Alola League.
 
And yet, there still are some people who hate the art style of SM based on their first impressions early on in the series when it may have still been a bit unrefined, dismiss Ash's League win because they think it "wasn't a real League, because anyone could enter and Principal Oak got to Top 16 and James got to Top 8", and say that Ash should have won the Kalos League instead of the Alola League.

tbh, if James would focus on Gym Challenges and the league, he could easily place top 8/16 in any league (Depending on the league).
 
And yet, there still are some people who hate the art style of SM based on their first impressions early on in the series when it may have still been a bit unrefined, dismiss Ash's League win because they think it "wasn't a real League, because anyone could enter and Principal Oak got to Top 16 and James got to Top 8", and say that Ash should have won the Kalos League instead of the Alola League.
I admit I'm a little unsure what you're getting at, here. If Ash had won the Kalos League XY's rep wouldn't have fallen and SuMo wouldn't have gotten the boost from running damage control.
 
And yet, there still are some people who hate the art style of SM based on their first impressions early on in the series when it may have still been a bit unrefined, dismiss Ash's League win because they think it "wasn't a real League, because anyone could enter and Principal Oak got to Top 16 and James got to Top 8", and say that Ash should have won the Kalos League instead of the Alola League.

To be fair, I think characters like Principal Oak and James getting far into the Alola League are pretty fair points against the Alola League. I wouldn't use the whole not a real League argument, especially when people have been doing that to the Orange Islands League for ages, but I think those are pretty good reasons to not see winning the Alola League as that big of an accomplishment if characters like James could get far ahead. Aside from Ash, Gladion, Guzma and maybe Kiawe, none of the other SM characters would stand a chance in a regular Pokemon League, especially when most of them don't have more than two Pokemon on their teams.

A part of me can't really blame people for saying that he should have won the Kalos League instead either. There was just a lot more hype going into the Kalos League with Ash-Greninja and the results not being spoiled or completely obvious for once. There was still a lot of excitement when Ash won the Alola League, which was nice, but despite that outcome, I don't think that there was as much excitement for the Alola League as a whole. It still might be a bit much to be still that upset about it, but given all of the excitement around the Kalos League at the time, I can understand why it's still a bit of a sore spot, especially when people still complain about Tobias and Cameron after all these years.
 
To be fair, I think characters like Principal Oak and James getting far into the Alola League are pretty fair points against the Alola League. I wouldn't use the whole not a real League argument, especially when people have been doing that to the Orange Islands League for ages, but I think those are pretty good reasons to not see winning the Alola League as that big of an accomplishment if characters like James could get far ahead. Aside from Ash, Gladion, Guzma and maybe Kiawe, none of the other SM characters would stand a chance in a regular Pokemon League, especially when most of them don't have more than two Pokemon on their teams.

A part of me can't really blame people for saying that he should have won the Kalos League instead either. There was just a lot more hype going into the Kalos League with Ash-Greninja and the results not being spoiled or completely obvious for once. There was still a lot of excitement when Ash won the Alola League, which was nice, but despite that outcome, I don't think that there was as much excitement for the Alola League as a whole. It still might be a bit much to be still that upset about it, but given all of the excitement around the Kalos League at the time, I can understand why it's still a bit of a sore spot, especially when people still complain about Tobias and Cameron after all these years.
Overall, I think the Alola League is severely underrated, and many people's judgment of it is clouded by bias and saltiness towards the Kalos League, instead of trying to objectively judge it on its own. Also, while I'm ready to believe the victory was an "apology" for the Kalos League finals, I also think it could've just as much been a reference to the Alola games, where the player character and the first Champion of Alola is originally from Kanto.
 
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