Controversial opinions

[PkmnTrainerV]

We don't really see Alain training either. He battled against Mega Pokemon with his Mega Charizard X,

Couldn’t the mega battles be seen as battles to train?

 

[FinnishPokéFan92]

Alain is just an overpowered trainer designed to prevent Ash from winning the League. He's not really different from Tobias in that regard.

True, but what sets him apart from Tobias was the fact that he did get some backstory and an explanation for why he was so OP.

That being said, while I also think that Ash losing the Kalos League was perfectly fine, Alain winning is kind of a double-edged thing. While I do think that Alain was good enough to win, I didn't like the way how he was obsessed with winning (an issue which I have previously addressed on this very thread) and the way how his Charizard was portrayed as nearly unstoppable. I know I'm repeating my past self a lot here, but I feel a good loss would've been a nice wake-up call for Alain. Not necessarily at the Kalos League, but somewhere. Unfortunately, the call ended up coming from Lysandre when it was already too late.

Also, I agree that most of Alain's team came pretty much out of nowhere, which is why them losing doesn't seem like that big of a deal, when it was once again his OP Charizard that won him the match in the end. It was obvious that Alain had clearly favored his Charizard over his other Pokémon, which were not even nearly as well trained and thus were much easier to beat. He just chose to lead with his weaker 'mon in his battle with Ash because he wanted to enjoy the match with him specifically as long as possible, instead of bringing out the big guns right away and just sweeping the opposition, like he did with all of his previous opponents. To him, they were nothing more than fodder to be wiped out before getting to face Ash.

 

[PkmnTrainerV]

Alain could have been handled better but imo he doesn’t deserve the amount of hate he gets.
He was something more than your standard "I'm a trainer and I wanna win the league!" rival, with an actual backstory and we saw him bond with Mairin in the ME specials.

And of course there was the fact that he actually made an effort to face as many opponents as possible to get stronger, unlike Ash.

Glimpses of his other Pokémon in the ME specials, and his having Korrina and Wulfric's badges beforehand would’ve made him slightly better handled.

 

[Hidden Mew]

Couldn’t the mega battles be seen as battles to train?

I don't think so, mainly because only Charizard participated in those battles. It wouldn't explain why Alain's other Pokemon are so powerful and his Charizard was already ridiculously strong right from the start. Plus, those battles weren't really treated as training exactly.

True, but what sets him apart from Tobias was the fact that he did get some backstory and an explanation for why he was so OP.

Alain was a supporting rival character rather than the traditional League only rival, so getting more backstory than Tobias makes sense. I don't think he gets that much of a better explanation as to why he's so overpowered though. Sure, he battles against Mega Pokemon, but I don't think that's a good enough reason to explain his strength, especially when that only explains Mega Charizard X and his Charizard became ridiculously broken as the series progressed. It was especially bad when Alain practically swept all of his opponents with just his Charizard and Metagross. They were trying way too hard to hype up Alain to the point where he was just unbelievable strong.

Tobias was handled in a similar way with how Darkrai defeated all of its opponents before Ash and I believed he only used it for his Gym battles too, but I find that to be a much easier to believe explanation by comparison. Legendary Pokemon have always been treated as powerful Pokemon in the anime and Darkrai had an effective combo that would make it difficult for most regular trainers to defeat it. Mega Pokemon are treated as powerful Pokemon in the anime too, but not on the level of Legendary Pokemon. Mega Charizard X defeating ten Mega Pokemon in a row, including one from an Elite 4 member, holding its own against Zygarde and defeating all of its opponents during the Kalos League, including Ash-Greninja, comes off more as trying desperately hard to make Alain a huge threat to Ash than an impressive trainer. Not to mention there's much more of a bias here given Charizard and Mega Charizard X's popularity.

I don't dislike Alain. I thought he was okay during the first few Mega Evolution specials, his friendship with Mairin was nice and I liked the relationship he develops with Ash too, especially when fans were eager for them to finally meet. But if they just wanted to have another overpowered trainer defeat Ash to prevent the status quo from changing, I would have preferred for another Tobias to happen instead of Alain to basically fill that role with his victory instead.

 

[Muur]

Alain beating Ash is fine IMO because he was shown as strong over a few years. The way he entered was slightly BS but when he entered no one but him was winning. People like to say "Ash lost when he had the advantage" but Mega Charizard isn't weak to Water attacks lol.

I also agree the league sucked so Ash winning it wouldn't have felt that good. Sinnoh was the best time to do it, the Kalos league was way too rushed

 

[EscLucy]

My view about overpowered trainers is generally negative such as Tobias. However, Alain trained a lot for the League and he had the passion required to do so. I was fine with Ash losing because in XY, I found Ash annoying as he seemed very overconfident and hardly trained as he was very dependent on Greninja such as in the battle against Wulfric.

Personally, I feel that Ash should’ve won in the Sinnoh league because he worked incredibly hard for it and he actually beat Paul. It showed the development of his Pokemon from the start of his journey and it was a nice end. I felt annoyed when his Pokemon were crushed by Tobias tbh.

 

[Muur]

Yeah Tobias and brain dead gen five guy are who we should moan about. Then again gen five Ash was just as brain dead and unlikable so perhaps it was a learning point for Ash to stop sucking

 

[PkmnTrainerV]

Not to mention it would feel just wrong for the Power of Bond™ alone to overcome a trainer who worked hard to train his Charizard.

We're looking at Alain's training (or battling Pokémon) but did Ash even do that? No. The maximum I remember him doing is mastering his bond with Greninja by saving a bunch of Spewba.
Ash just battled whenever necessary or challenged by rivals and nothing more than that (except Diantha).

 

[FinnishPokéFan92]

Personally for me, Ash's loss to Alain is probably my second or third favorite League loss for him. My favorite is probably his loss to Harrison, because I like knowing that despite losing, Ash technically crippled Harrison by preventing him from using his ace in his next battle, causing him to lose. Also, the Ash vs. Harrison battle was pretty good by the the standards of the day, and I can perfectly but Charizard barely losing to an opponent as powerful as Harrison's Blaziken.

 

[ForeverSnowbirdin]

Serena sucks. Misty best.
It's the truth bros. Don't try and lie to yourselves about it.

 

[LazySpy]

Serena sucks. Misty best.
It's the truth bros. Don't try and lie to yourselves about it.

Thats not very controversial, Serena has huge hatebase and Misty is fan-favourite.
I'll say I hate Misty, but not as a comparission to Serena, rather as a standalone character.
The way she treated Ash, her Pokemon, Team Rocket and everyone else is my main reason, and when I watched EP121 I was like: There's no justice in this world!
So yeah, Misty may be best compared to Serena. But as a character, I sort of despise her. But thats just my opinion, and I seemingly am in minority.

 

[EscLucy]

Personally for me, Ash's loss to Alain is probably my second or third favorite League loss for him. My favorite is probably his loss to Harrison, because I like knowing that despite losing, Ash technically crippled Harrison by preventing him from using his ace in his next battle, causing him to lose. Also, the Ash vs. Harrison battle was pretty good by the the standards of the day, and I can perfectly but Charizard barely losing to an opponent as powerful as Harrison's Blaziken.

I really liked the Ash vs Harrison battle. Harrison was a really good opponent for Ash and it made Ash adapt which is always good for character development when battling. Harrison was a worthy winner tbh.

I felt as though Tyson won against Ash because of Meowth and its Thunderbolt. I don't think that Tyson was that special tbh. But I liked Tyson so I didn't care. I just really hated Tobias winning against Ash.

Serena sucks. Misty best.
It's the truth bros. Don't try and lie to yourselves about it.

I think that because they are two different people that do two different things in the anime its hard to compare. In terms of companionship, I would agree with you that Misty is better because of the sass and I find AmourShipping boring lol

 

[FinnishPokéFan92]

Serena sucks. Misty best.
It's the truth bros. Don't try and lie to yourselves about it.

Thats not very controversial, Serena has huge hatebase and Misty is fan-favourite.
I'll say I hate Misty, but not as a comparission to Serena, rather as a standalone character.
The way she treated Ash, her Pokemon, Team Rocket and everyone else is my main reason, and when I watched EP121 I was like: There's no justice in this world!
So yeah, Misty may be best compared to Serena. But as a character, I sort of despise her. But thats just my opinion, and I seemingly am in minority.

I think that because they are two different people that do two different things in the anime its hard to compare. In terms of companionship, I would agree with you that Misty is better because of the sass and I find AmourShipping boring lol

I personally think Misty is overrated. She didn't have any kind of solid goal to strive for, other than just being a better Water-type Trainer, which literally amounts to just her wanting to be stronger without any means of measuring how well she advances towards that goal, which in an of itself is kind of ambiguous to begin with. Any Misty fans should try to take off their nostalgia goggles for a moment and try to look at her without being blinded by those.

Serena, meanwhile, had a solid character arc and a goal to reach out for, even if it took a while for her to figure it out. And it's not just Serena: May and Dawn had similar goals too and a mean to measure their growth. That's one of the reasons why Iris was so disappointing: she was basically just like Misty: a girl with an ambiguous goal, which doesn't really have any way of measuring how she's getting closer to it.

For everyone interested in learning more about PokéGirls, check out this YouTube fellow named RThor. He has made some darn good analysis videos about the Pokémon anime and its characters, which have even affected my long-standing opinions about them, and I completely recommend you check at least some of them out, maybe even subscribe if you find his content appealing to you.

I felt as though Tyson won against Ash because of Meowth and its Thunderbolt. I don't think that Tyson was that special tbh. But I liked Tyson so I didn't care. I just really hated Tobias winning against Ash.

I personally hated Tyson, mainly because of his Meowth. I felt that his Meowth treated Team Rocket's Meowth like literal dirt, something that even he doesn't deserve, and Ash's Pikachu losing to it made little to no sense to me. Also, while I understand that this also applies to Ash's Pikachu, the contrast between Meowth and, say, Metagross, is kinda drastic, especially when the former is the star of Tyson's team and the latter isn't.

 

[Hidden Mew]

Yeah Tobias and brain dead gen five guy are who we should moan about. Then again gen five Ash was just as brain dead and unlikable so perhaps it was a learning point for Ash to stop sucking

I still don't think that the loss to Tobias was that bad. At least Ash went out in a blaze of glory and if he had to lose after defeating Paul, losing to a Legendary Pokemon is cooler than if it was some regular trainer. Cameron on the other hand was worse and even when rewatching that match, it was still a poor way to get Ash out of the Unova League. Although, I honestly don't think that Ash was nearly as stupid or unlikable as Cameron was during BW. I'm close to finishing my rewatch of BW, so I'll hopefully be able to expand on that once I finish watching the series again.

Not to mention it would feel just wrong for the Power of Bond™ alone to overcome a trainer who worked hard to train his Charizard.

We're looking at Alain's training (or battling Pokémon) but did Ash even do that? No. The maximum I remember him doing is mastering his bond with Greninja by saving a bunch of Spewba.
Ash just battled whenever necessary or challenged by rivals and nothing more than that (except Diantha).

How hard Alain worked to train his Charizard is debatable. His Charizard was already really strong when Alain first debuted, so it's not like there was a steady progression in its strength starting from the first Mega Evolution. It was already strong and then became broken. That doesn't really make me think his Charizard is the result of Alain's hard work. It makes me think that his Charizard is just ridiculously overpowered because they really wanted to make him more of a challenge for Ash.

It's also kind of ironic that people have complained about Ash focusing just on strengthen his bond with Greninja and how it overshadowed Ash's other Pokemon during that stretch of the series when that isn't too much different than what Alain was doing for most of XY. Alain only focused on training Charizard to the point where we honestly didn't know if he even had other Pokemon on him until his second battle with Ash, which was a good couple of years after the first Mega Evolution special aired.

 

[PkmnTrainerV]

How hard Alain worked to train his Charizard is debatable. His Charizard was already really strong when Alain first debuted, so it's not like there was a steady progression in its strength starting from the first Mega Evolution. It was already strong and then became broken. That doesn't really make me think his Charizard is the result of Alain's hard work. It makes me think that his Charizard is just ridiculously overpowered because they really wanted to make him more of a challenge for Ash.

I guess our views differ because we’re looking from different perspectives.
You’re looking from the writers and the audience point of view while I’m thinking more from an in-universe standpoint (more specifically Alain’s point of view).

We know Charizard was once a little starter Pokemon which Alain raised to a very powerful (and later broken) Charizard. This wouldn’t have been possible without training.

It isn’t implausible to think that Alain had been training charmander/charmeleon a lot due to his tendency to look for opponents.

Ash’s Greninja would appear OP to a large extent too if we disregarded it’s growth as a Froakie and Frogadier.

It's also kind of ironic that people have complained about Ash focusing just on strengthen his bond with Greninja and how it overshadowed Ash's other Pokemon during that stretch of the series when that isn't too much different than what Alain was doing for most of XY. Alain only focused on training Charizard to the point where we honestly didn't know if he even had other Pokemon on him until his second battle with Ash, which was a good couple of years after the first Mega Evolution special aired.

Do we know that both complaints are made by the same people?
This personally doesn’t apply to me since I wasn’t complaining about Greninja-focus.

 

[Hidden Mew]

I guess our views differ because we’re looking from different perspectives.
You’re looking from the writers and the audience point of view while I’m thinking more from an in-universe standpoint (more specifically Alain’s point of view).

We know Charizard was once a little starter Pokemon which Alain raised to a very powerful (and later broken) Charizard. This wouldn’t have been possible without training.

It isn’t implausible to think that Alain had been training charmander/charmeleon a lot due to his tendency to look for opponents.

Ash’s Greninja would appear OP to a large extent too if we disregarded it’s growth as a Froakie and Frogadier.

I can understand looking at it from that perspective, but it doesn't quite work for me. It relies too much on assumptions that Alain had to have spent a lot of time training Charizard when it was a Charmander and Charmeleon. To be fair, that isn't an unfair assumption to make or anything like that, but I think it's just too much of a hand wave explanation for Charizard's overpowered strength. If we actually saw more of Alain's efforts to train Charizard before it became extremely strong or at least if it didn't become so ridiculously broken by the end of the series, then maybe I'd be okay with it. They are more limited with Alain's screentime compared to a main character like Ash and they wanted him to be a strong trainer given that he faces Mega Pokemon, but considering how powerful he became, I just would have preferred something more solid than assuming he spent a lot of time training Charizard since it was a Charmander.

It also ties into why I still prefer Ash losing to Tobias over how he lost to Alain. Since Tobias was a League only rival, it was much easier for me to just wave off his overpowered strength due to how the anime has presented Legendary Pokemon. Since Alain is a supporting character/rival and shown through more of the series than the League, his strength isn't as easy for me to brush off, especially when there was some clear favoritism towards Charizard/Mega Charizard X.

Do we know that both complaints are made by the same people?
This personally doesn’t apply to me since I wasn’t complaining about Greninja-focus.

I don't know, but I was speaking more in general rather than focusing on specific people since the thought just came to mind as I was writing that post.

 

[PkmnTrainerV]

I can understand looking at it from that perspective, but it doesn't quite work for me. It relies too much on assumptions that Alain had to have spent a lot of time training Charizard when it was a Charmander and Charmeleon. To be fair, that isn't an unfair assumption to make or anything like that, but I think it's just too much of a hand wave explanation for Charizard's overpowered strength. If we actually saw more of Alain's efforts to train Charizard before it became extremely strong or at least if it didn't become so ridiculously broken by the end of the series, then maybe I'd be okay with it. They are more limited with Alain's screentime compared to a main character like Ash and they wanted him to be a strong trainer given that he faces Mega Pokemon, but considering how powerful he became, I just would have preferred something more solid than assuming he spent a lot of time training Charizard since it was a Charmander.

It also ties into why I still prefer Ash losing to Tobias over how he lost to Alain. Since Tobias was a League only rival, it was much easier for me to just wave off his overpowered strength due to how the anime has presented Legendary Pokemon. Since Alain is a supporting character/rival and shown through more of the series than the League, his strength isn't as easy for me to brush off, especially when there was some clear favoritism towards Charizard/Mega Charizard X.

It’s a completely fair way of thinking. I just wish we could have more Mega Evolution specials which focused on Alain becoming stronger.

Personally Ash's loss to Tobias felt extremely unfair to me since Legendaries are depicted as being supreme beings which are usually not confined to a Pokeball and used for personal battling purposes, and Darkrai happens to be my favourite mythical so it feels just wrong for it to be used by a trainer.

I just don’t hold an extreme opinion on Alain winning against Ash. I'd have been happy if Ash won, but Alai winning wasn’t such a huge loss for me.

 

[Muur]

honestly don't think that Ash was nearly as stupid or unlikable as Cameron was during BW. I'm close to finishing my rewatch of BW, so I'll hopefully be able to expand on that once I finish watching the series again.

Two things stick out for me-

Unlikeable - takes one Pokemon to Elesa's gym because he assumes he'll win with only one Pokemon. Leaves and comes back with another one... more than once.

Stupid: uses his Pokedex to scan a Corpish and a Buizel

 

[Hidden Mew]

It’s a completely fair way of thinking. I just wish we could have more Mega Evolution specials which focused on Alain becoming stronger.

Personally Ash's loss to Tobias felt extremely unfair to me since Legendaries are depicted as being supreme beings which are usually not confined to a Pokeball and used for personal battling purposes, and Darkrai happens to be my favourite mythical so it feels just wrong for it to be used by a trainer.

I just don’t hold an extreme opinion on Alain winning against Ash. I'd have been happy if Ash won, but Alai winning wasn’t such a huge loss for me.

I can understand that too. I think that was at least part of the reason why people had such a negative reaction to Tobias winning in the first place. Legendary Pokemon are usually seen as such powerful Pokemon and it's not normal for people to capture them. I wouldn't go as far as saying that it feels wrong for them to be used by a trainer, but it is a quick and easy way to make a trainer instantly overpowered, which may also come off as cheap/lazy to others. If Ash had loss to anyone besides Alain in the final round, it wouldn't have bothered me as much, especially when I was positive that Team Flare would interrupt the Kalos League finals anyway.

Two things stick out for me-

Unlikeable - takes one Pokemon to Elesa's gym because he assumes he'll win with only one Pokemon. Leaves and comes back with another one... more than once.

That definitely bothered me too. It's something that I don't think Ash would have done even during the original series and it's easily the worst Gym battle in BW. With that in mind, I don't think that made Ash unlikable for the whole series or even the episode. It was really frustrating to see him basically leave the battlefield because he wasn't prepared for the match and not have any consequences for it, but it didn't get to the point where I couldn't like Ash anymore. In spite of the problems he suffers from during this series, I still find BW Ash to be pretty likable. I'm also pretty sure he only left to get Snivy, although I don't remember if he was about to leave to get another Pokemon before Pikachu convinced Ash to use it for the rest of the battle instead. That doesn't make it less of a terrible episode for Ash, but I only remember him leaving the field once during that match.

Stupid: uses his Pokedex to scan a Corpish and a Buizel

I've never been a fan of judging Ash's intelligence because he keeps using his Pokedex on Pokemon he's already seen. I know that he has a Corpish and Buizel in this case, but I don't think that Corpish had been seen since the end of AG and I think that episode aired around five years after the fact. Buizel was more recent by comparison, but that episode also aired during BW's second year, so it is possible that not a lot of kids watching the series by that point had seen DP. Ash using the Pokedex is usually so that kids watching the show can learn more about a specific Pokemon than anything else. Plus, there are new entries for older Pokemon with every generation, so for an in-universe explanation, Ash could still learn something new by using his Pokedex on a Pokemon he has already seen before. It doesn't mean that he has forgotten he has seen them or that he has his own in this case.

Ash has never been the book smart kind of character, but I still don't think he was nearly as stupid as Cameron. Ash didn't try to use a TV remote like a Pokedex, think that the Unova League would be in Johto or didn't know what a full battle meant. The closest similarity the two had in that department was how Cameron thought that registration was a kind of Pokemon. Ash has done that before, although I don't know if those kind of jokes make more sense in Japanese than in English.

 

[Muur]

I don't think "registration is a Pokemon" joke was used in the dub because I don't remember it. You're prob right that he planned to leave and Piakchu jumped in but he DID intend to leave a second time at least