Controversial opinions

[Pokemonfan5]

Actually, no. There is an easy excuse for that. Alola's bar for a league is lower than the usual (they don’t have a 6 Pokémon requirement as well). While that doesn’t invalidate Ash's victory there, it means that Galar, where the Gym challenge is even stricter, is a new territory for Ash, with some trainers like Raihan of such a caliber that they could be champions of other regions if they wanted to. Not to mention Galar being restrictive on who challenges the gyms via sponsorships. There is plenty of room for Ash to grow in the Galar gym challenge anyways, and it’s bound to be more of a spectacle than PWC is, and the goal is virtually the same: reach Leon and defeat him. I don’t see why there is anything inherently wrong with Galar gyms as a goal for Ash. Galar's gym leaders are clearly shown to be more powerful and competitive than those of other regions: see Bea progressing to the top 100 trainers.

Whether the bar is lower or not it doesn't matter because to win a legaue Ash at least beat powerful trainers like Gladion who is more powerful than some league winners like Tyson and Virgil and Kukui+Tapu Koko which is easily champion tier trainer.

If he take Galar league and become champion his character won't grow like how he was top 8 in Hoenn league similar to Johto, Leon being world champion and Ash beat him in that tournament actually show his character progress, that's how story work

For e.g in inazuma eleven anime raimon team first win local tournament than national than international (while battling some so called aliens in middle).

If he somehow either lost Galar league or didn't become champion than this would be no different than Unova league where Ash did worst than Sinnoh, if he lost in PWC master 8 tournament than nothing will effect his character as the bar was world level.

 

[Hidden Mew]

Whether we agree or disagree it doesn't change the FACT that Ash is now Regional Champion tier trainer, there are some strong opponents Ash has defeated in Alola league like Guzma who is much stronger than some average Kalos league trainer illima or Gladion more powerful than even Hoenn league winner Tyson (compared to Tyson he literally face way more experience Ash with far more powerful Pokemons especially Pikachu)

Also lastly Ash beat Kukui who is also like in game Champion than Tapu Koko Koko who is BEYOND champion challenge in both games and anime, Tapu Koko is at least champion ace level opponent and than he also had Guardian of Alola one of the most powerful z move in existence, this is more than enough proof that Ash is same tier as Steven or Cynthia, seriously Ash defeated w guardian deity and guardian of Alola which use to save entire region in crisis is far more powerful than anything he defeated in his life

That is not a fact in the slightest. That is an opinion based mostly on subjective takes on the Alola League. Guzma and Gladion were some of the few strong trainers in the Alola League, which admittedly might not say much given their competition, but there's really nothing to say that they're more powerful than trainers with full teams like with Tyson.

People have said that Kukui's strength is akin to a Champion and while I can understand that, I also think that's overselling him a bit. He was the most popular trainer in Alola as the Masked Royal, but we didn't see most of his team until their match. It was still a good battle that made Ash winning the Alola League more satisfying than it would have been otherwise, but he didn't quite seem like Champion tier to me. Defeating Tapu Koko would be a better example if this wasn't the first time Ash defeated a Legendary Pokemon. Even with outmatching the Guardian of Alola Z-Move, I don't think it's the most powerful Pokemon Ash has defeated thus far. That isn't to say that defeating Tapu Koko wasn't a noteworthy accomplishment. I just don't think that proves that Ash is in the same tier as Champions like Steven or Cynthia, especially when the anime still doesn't treat him as such.

Ash being regional champion is the main reason he defeated another Regional Champion Iris otherwise he can't hold a candle against E4 at this point of any series, Iris probably same level as Kukui without Tapu Koko, him being regional champion is the reason Ash is now taking on world challenge, except BW every series Ash character has grown and get stronger so becoming world champion is the only way writers can further improve Ash character, if he challenge another league and for some reason lost in league or against any E4 or Champion than it would be downgrade like Unova league, he has to win the regional championship but that would be like Hoenn League no Improvement or downgrade, that's the reason he can't go and take gym challenge.

That's assuming that he'll be facing off against Elite 4 members. That is a reasonable assumption, but based on what they've teased for the Hyper Class, it seems like at least a few of Ash's opponents are going to be Gym Leaders. As for defeating Iris, I don't think that necessarily means that he's a regional champion too. Iris is still the youngest and thus the most inexperienced Champion. Other Champions are adults and have years of experience, while Iris would still be ten within the anime at least. Plus, I'm not sure if they really treated Iris' defeat as a big deal. Ash defeating a regional Champion sounds like a big deal in theory, but it was done within one episode and it was for the Great Class.

Like I said before, Ash is not a regional Champion and more importantly, that is not at least the in-universe reason why he's in the PWC. They do not mention the Alola League or treat this as the next step for Ash's goal. The notion that this is the only way the writers can further improve Ash's character is entirely a subjective opinion, not something stated within the show or with the production crew as far as I know. Fans make a bigger deal of the Alola League and quite possibly the PWC than the show does. If the Alola League was the reason Ash decided to do the PWC, you'd think it would have actually been brought up instead. I've already explained how the Galar Gym Challenge would not be a step down and could have easily be done, especially when the goal of defeating Leon would still be there. The notion that Ash has to win the PWC is kind of ridiculous to me. Even with all of the buildup for Ash vs. Leon, I can't see Ash actually winning since I still can't see them replacing Ash.

Ash Vs Visqueze had great strategy and animation, what else to hate about? That probably best animated Ash's battle in JN.

I just explained why I didn't care for it. A boring stand-in for Lt. Surge, battling more Kanto Pokemon that have been featured plenty of times before and I felt like they were trying a bit too hard to make Visqueze a stronger opponent to make up for the fact that he wasn't Lt. Surge. Yeah, it's visually great and I don't think that the battle itself was bad from what I remember of it, so I don't think I hated it either. It just really didn't make the PWC more appealing to me when they ignored new characters and Pokemon in favor of creating a one-shot character with Kanto Pokemon. At least actually battling Lt. Surge again could have been interesting, even if it would still be more Kanto pandering.

Your complaint about PWC is directly related to episodic nature of JN, Ash Vs Iris and Korrina had many OHKO because of this problem, they don't have much time to allocate in battle as those characters need screentime outside battle, while look at Farfetch'd/Sirfetch'd Vs Gurdurr and Gallade, they're 1vs1 battle but very long instead of OHKO, as those 2 trainers don't need any other screentime beside battle and it was only 1vs1, Ash can challenge Galar gym leaders like he doing with Bea in PWC.

I don't know if I'm making myself clear because I said that the episodic nature of Journeys doesn't help with the PWC, so I didn't say or imply that they weren't connected to each other. I just think that the PWC also needs more structure and focus, which would still require them to rebuild it from the ground up in order to make in more effective in my opinion.

Ash could still potentially battle Galar Gym Leaders in the PWC. That would be ideal since Galar could get some much needed attention and Ash can still have a different goal for this series, so that would appeal to most fans. My issue is that I'm less certain that he'll get to battle all of them at this rate. He'll certainly battle against Bea in the Hyper Class given that their last match ended in a draw. I assume that he'll battle against Raihan down the road too. But I'm not as confident that they'll have him battle against all of the other Galar Gym Leaders at this rate. If he does get to battle all eight Gym leaders, or even more if they include all of the version exclusive Gym Leaders, during the course of the PWC and those battles are good, then I'll probably be pretty happy. I'm just less optimistic about that being the case when they are more interested in showcasing older characters through the PWC than using it to showcase the new Galar Gym Leaders. Showcasing older characters is not a bad thing. That was one of the aspects that people initially hoped for with the PWC. Like with Journeys itself, I just wish that there was a better balance between showing the older and new characters.

Like you guys I also don't like how PWC is being handled but they can't go back, we can only hope for the improvement which probably happening as Dawn return is two parter not single Episode.

That might be reading too much into Dawn's return. I would rather that they improve PWC, but I don't think giving Dawn, a popular character with a really popular/marketable starter Pokemon in Piplup, two episodes instead of one necessarily means that they are going to give more time and proper focus to the PWC. They seem largely unrelated. I'll believe that they'll improve the PWC when I see it.

 

[Mr. MoonStone]

I completely understand why some may find gym challenges to be redundant, but I still don't get the other counter-arguments. Ash's Alola victory could absolutely be used as the introduction to his participation in the Galar League, a tournament that is portrayed in the games as highly competitive and selective. His win could be used to justify his sponsorship and introduce him to other similarly-skilled rivals and opponents. Hell, if OLM wanted to, they could capitalize on the tournament-aspect of the league and require him to face a certain number of qualifying challengers before he faces off with a gym leader. There are a million and one ways to handle it.

 

[Jewel the Quaxly]

If he somehow either lost Galar league or didn't become champion than this would be no different than Unova league where Ash did worst than Sinnoh, if he lost in PWC master 8 tournament than nothing will effect his character as the bar was world level.

The PWC only had 1000 trainers, though? And just like Alola, you don't need qualifications to enter the PWC??? And of course there's no way his character will be affected if he lost in the Master 8 tournament because so far we haven't been given a reason to be emotionally invested. Compare this to the Sinnoh league, where not only was Ash trying to further his goals, he was also in a battle of ideals against Paul-there was growth for his character and an actual reason to be emotionally invested in this match. Or how the Ash vs Sawyer match ended in a bittersweet victory-the Kalos league fell flat in making us invested in Ash, but they made up with it for Sawyer and Alain respectively. Hell, many Alola league matches all had emotional baggage and gave us REASONS to be invested in them-especially Ash vs Kukui.

If anything, the PWC feels a lot more like Unova because of the severe lack of emotional investment. Compare the PWC to literally everything Ash has done before and you'll notice a very clear difference. There's no real reason for Ash to want to battle Leon so badly other than the fact that Leon is strong and Ash wants to challenge himself. But how is this affecting him? Unlike Sawyer or Alain who directly managed to affect Ash's character-the former making Ash salty about losing and the latter making Ash push himself and not work with Greninja to beat him, Leon is hardly affecting Ash in any way, shape, or form, as I recall. Kanto to Sinnoh was all part of a character arc-the emotional investment here was clear, but once said character arc ended with Ash having to fight legendary pokemon in order to be taken down, you knew that he's at his peak. Unova lost the emotional investment, then Kalos brought it back-surprisingly not with Ash, but rather with the people and pokemon around him. Alola focused on the tournament aspect more so than the other series' and we saw multiple fights in the league, most of which were highlighting the emotions of all the characters-we had a reason to be invested.

But here? Nada. I genuinely can't think of a reason why the PWC should matter.

 

[cjd1207]

The PWC only had 1000 trainers, though? And just like Alola, you don't need qualifications to enter the PWC??? And of course there's no way his character will be affected if he lost in the Master 8 tournament because so far we haven't been given a reason to be emotionally invested. Compare this to the Sinnoh league, where not only was Ash trying to further his goals, he was also in a battle of ideals against Paul-there was growth for his character and an actual reason to be emotionally invested in this match. Or how the Ash vs Sawyer match ended in a bittersweet victory-the Kalos league fell flat in making us invested in Ash, but they made up with it for Sawyer and Alain respectively. Hell, many Alola league matches all had emotional baggage and gave us REASONS to be invested in them-especially Ash vs Kukui.

If anything, the PWC feels a lot more like Unova because of the severe lack of emotional investment. Compare the PWC to literally everything Ash has done before and you'll notice a very clear difference. There's no real reason for Ash to want to battle Leon so badly other than the fact that Leon is strong and Ash wants to challenge himself. But how is this affecting him? Unlike Sawyer or Alain who directly managed to affect Ash's character-the former making Ash salty about losing and the latter making Ash push himself and not work with Greninja to beat him, Leon is hardly affecting Ash in any way, shape, or form, as I recall. Kanto to Sinnoh was all part of a character arc-the emotional investment here was clear, but once said character arc ended with Ash having to fight legendary pokemon in order to be taken down, you knew that he's at his peak. Unova lost the emotional investment, then Kalos brought it back-surprisingly not with Ash, but rather with the people and pokemon around him. Alola focused on the tournament aspect more so than the other series' and we saw multiple fights in the league, most of which were highlighting the emotions of all the characters-we had a reason to be invested.

But here? Nada. I genuinely can't think of a reason why the PWC should matter.

Actually the PWC had 10000 trainers plus trainer. But I think the problem is that during Ashes time in Super Class it never felt like the threats grew sans Iris and Bea it actually felt like a step back because there were more battles with unevolved Pokémon. The writers were basically training Riolu and Farfetch'd and you know you have a problem with growing threat when the first opponent of Super Class is the assistant of the substitute Gym Leader and his first Normal Class opponent. Also Ash did the Battle Frontier without any emotional investment beside doing it till the end or a rival and don't here many bad things about that part of the series.

 

[Daren]

People can't be disappointed in the Master 8 if there's no hype for it.

Seriously, right now the only reason I can think of to care is that becoming world champion would be a capstone for Ash, but even that's hurt by the high chance gen 9 will just reset him immediately.

 

[RetroPokeFan]

Seriously, right now the only reason I can think of to care is that becoming world champion would be a capstone for Ash, but even that's hurt by the high chance gen 9 will just reset him immediately.

Knowing this anime, if he were to become world champion come Gen 9 it would never be mentioned again... just like all the other regions.

 

[FluffleFi]

If they really wanted to shoot Ash up through the ranks in the PWC this badly, they could have easily used his title as champion. Word gets out that Alola's very first champion has entered the championship and now even high ranked trainers and looking to be the first to beat him. But that's just me.

 

[Emmy]

If they really wanted to shoot Ash up through the ranks in the PWC this badly, they could have easily used his title as champion. Word gets out that Alola's very first champion has entered the championship and now even high ranked trainers and looking to be the first to beat him. But that's just me.

Alternatively they could have not made a thousand ranks in the PWC and just have fewer but more important matches.

 

[prog rocker]

You know, now that I think about it, I... actually agree with the bad timing of dropping gyms? Judging by how the Galar League is described I guess it might have been the one league that Ash could have challenged after beating any other league.

 

[P_S_B]

Tbh I really just wanted to see more of Galar.

There's many interesting characters in Galar yet aside from Raihan and Bea they've all been shafted

Also personally just me but I prefer exploring new areas and Pokemon instead of the same ones we've already seen in other Generation's before

They should have had the home base be in Galar. That would have solved the lack of Galar promotion problem because they could have visited Galar game locations regularly instead of just going to some generic Vermillion City locale all the time.

 

[PkmnTrainerV]

When JN was announced my first thought was: "Great! A home base in Galar with Professor Magnolia" and then I found it was just Kanto all over again. It’s again, another missed opportunity and this would be fair to Galar as well. And [Random Galar Location] would be much more interesting than [Random Place In Vermillion That Cropped Up Out Of Nowhere] because we're seeing Galar for the first time.

 

[Pokemonfan5]

That is not a fact in the slightest. That is an opinion based mostly on subjective takes on the Alola League. Guzma and Gladion were some of the few strong trainers in the Alola League, which admittedly might not say much given their competition, but there's really nothing to say that they're more powerful than trainers with full teams like with Tyson.

People have said that Kukui's strength is akin to a Champion and while I can understand that, I also think that's overselling him a bit. He was the most popular trainer in Alola as the Masked Royal, but we didn't see most of his team until their match. It was still a good battle that made Ash winning the Alola League more satisfying than it would have been otherwise, but he didn't quite seem like Champion tier to me. Defeating Tapu Koko would be a better example if this wasn't the first time Ash defeated a Legendary Pokemon. Even with outmatching the Guardian of Alola Z-Move, I don't think it's the most powerful Pokemon Ash has defeated thus far. That isn't to say that defeating Tapu Koko wasn't a noteworthy accomplishment. I just don't think that proves that Ash is in the same tier as Champions like Steven or Cynthia, especially when the anime still doesn't treat him as such.


That's assuming that he'll be facing off against Elite 4 members. That is a reasonable assumption, but based on what they've teased for the Hyper Class, it seems like at least a few of Ash's opponents are going to be Gym Leaders. As for defeating Iris, I don't think that necessarily means that he's a regional champion too. Iris is still the youngest and thus the most inexperienced Champion. Other Champions are adults and have years of experience, while Iris would still be ten within the anime at least. Plus, I'm not sure if they really treated Iris' defeat as a big deal. Ash defeating a regional Champion sounds like a big deal in theory, but it was done within one episode and it was for the Great Class.

Like I said before, Ash is not a regional Champion and more importantly, that is not at least the in-universe reason why he's in the PWC. They do not mention the Alola League or treat this as the next step for Ash's goal. The notion that this is the only way the writers can further improve Ash's character is entirely a subjective opinion, not something stated within the show or with the production crew as far as I know. Fans make a bigger deal of the Alola League and quite possibly the PWC than the show does. If the Alola League was the reason Ash decided to do the PWC, you'd think it would have actually been brought up instead. I've already explained how the Galar Gym Challenge would not be a step down and could have easily be done, especially when the goal of defeating Leon would still be there. The notion that Ash has to win the PWC is kind of ridiculous to me. Even with all of the buildup for Ash vs. Leon, I can't see Ash actually winning since I still can't see them replacing Ash.

I just explained why I didn't care for it. A boring stand-in for Lt. Surge, battling more Kanto Pokemon that have been featured plenty of times before and I felt like they were trying a bit too hard to make Visqueze a stronger opponent to make up for the fact that he wasn't Lt. Surge. Yeah, it's visually great and I don't think that the battle itself was bad from what I remember of it, so I don't think I hated it either. It just really didn't make the PWC more appealing to me when they ignored new characters and Pokemon in favor of creating a one-shot character with Kanto Pokemon. At least actually battling Lt. Surge again could have been interesting, even if it would still be more Kanto pandering.

I don't know if I'm making myself clear because I said that the episodic nature of Journeys doesn't help with the PWC, so I didn't say or imply that they weren't connected to each other. I just think that the PWC also needs more structure and focus, which would still require them to rebuild it from the ground up in order to make in more effective in my opinion.

Ash could still potentially battle Galar Gym Leaders in the PWC. That would be ideal since Galar could get some much needed attention and Ash can still have a different goal for this series, so that would appeal to most fans. My issue is that I'm less certain that he'll get to battle all of them at this rate. He'll certainly battle against Bea in the Hyper Class given that their last match ended in a draw. I assume that he'll battle against Raihan down the road too. But I'm not as confident that they'll have him battle against all of the other Galar Gym Leaders at this rate. If he does get to battle all eight Gym leaders, or even more if they include all of the version exclusive Gym Leaders, during the course of the PWC and those battles are good, then I'll probably be pretty happy. I'm just less optimistic about that being the case when they are more interested in showcasing older characters through the PWC than using it to showcase the new Galar Gym Leaders. Showcasing older characters is not a bad thing. That was one of the aspects that people initially hoped for with the PWC. Like with Journeys itself, I just wish that there was a better balance between showing the older and new characters.


That might be reading too much into Dawn's return. I would rather that they improve PWC, but I don't think giving Dawn, a popular character with a really popular/marketable starter Pokemon in Piplup, two episodes instead of one necessarily means that they are going to give more time and proper focus to the PWC. They seem largely unrelated. I'll believe that they'll improve the PWC when I see it.

You're forgetting something, Ash had way more experience and far more powerful pokemons against Gladion than he had against Tyson who he barely lost to, Pikachu against Gladion is obviously faaar more powerful than he was in Hoenn league, Melmetal is literally the mythical Pokemon whose attacks and defenses are sooo high, while Lycanroc is like BF Sceptile level, Gladion himself had LEGENDARY Silvally, Zoroark tie with Pikachu (with some help from Silvally) who is stronger than past series, Gladion's Lycanroc barely lost to Ash's Lycanroc, barely losing to far more powerful pokemons than those Tyson faced is more than enough, not to mention he was more powerful than Guzma who is far stronger than Kalos league trainer Illima.

We never seen almost all other champion or E4 Pokemons other than their ace, Gastrodon is the only other Pokemon Cynthia use which didn't shown much on screen, Steven Aggron beat TR that's it, Alan was close to champion tier but the only Pokemon we seen him using was charizard (metang for small time) we seen at least half of the Pokemons throughout SM which Kukui use against Ash, beating an in game Champion and beyond champion opponent isn't champion tier feat? Which legendary Pokemon Ash defeated before is champion ace level? Tapu Koko is whole different level than Kukui's Incineroar, Tapu Koko+Guardian of Alola is far more powerful than anything Ash defeated in his life, you can't deny that in both anime and games Tapu Koko is beyond champion opponent so he is easily comparable to other champions ace,

Steven isn't regional champion in XY/Z either than because he had EXACT same title as Ash had and was called the same, Ash becoming regional champion is literally the main reason he is in PWC, why this never brought up before? Because PWC Is world level challenge which is what Ash needed after completing regional challenge, Ash being Alola region champion is literally the reason he beat another regional champion, look at all of his battle against E4 or other Champion where he was no match for them until final season and here he beat one champion, except BW every series shown Ash progress and PWC is the only way Ash character can progress from SM.

Iris is youngest Champion like Iris true but she defeated previous champion Alder and other E4 too, age was never matter in anime because a 10 year old kid who start his/her journey very recently beat lots of adult gym leaders.

 

[Pokemonfan5]

The PWC only had 1000 trainers, though? And just like Alola, you don't need qualifications to enter the PWC??? And of course there's no way his character will be affected if he lost in the Master 8 tournament because so far we haven't been given a reason to be emotionally invested. Compare this to the Sinnoh league, where not only was Ash trying to further his goals, he was also in a battle of ideals against Paul-there was growth for his character and an actual reason to be emotionally invested in this match. Or how the Ash vs Sawyer match ended in a bittersweet victory-the Kalos league fell flat in making us invested in Ash, but they made up with it for Sawyer and Alain respectively. Hell, many Alola league matches all had emotional baggage and gave us REASONS to be invested in them-especially Ash vs Kukui.

If anything, the PWC feels a lot more like Unova because of the severe lack of emotional investment. Compare the PWC to literally everything Ash has done before and you'll notice a very clear difference. There's no real reason for Ash to want to battle Leon so badly other than the fact that Leon is strong and Ash wants to challenge himself. But how is this affecting him? Unlike Sawyer or Alain who directly managed to affect Ash's character-the former making Ash salty about losing and the latter making Ash push himself and not work with Greninja to beat him, Leon is hardly affecting Ash in any way, shape, or form, as I recall. Kanto to Sinnoh was all part of a character arc-the emotional investment here was clear, but once said character arc ended with Ash having to fight legendary pokemon in order to be taken down, you knew that he's at his peak. Unova lost the emotional investment, then Kalos brought it back-surprisingly not with Ash, but rather with the people and pokemon around him. Alola focused on the tournament aspect more so than the other series' and we saw multiple fights in the league, most of which were highlighting the emotions of all the characters-we had a reason to be invested.

But here? Nada. I genuinely can't think of a reason why the PWC should matter.

You don't need qualification but you need to beat lots of other trainers who is stronger than most gym leaders, like Iris the CHAMPION, Sinnoh strongest gym leader Volkner is coming to battle Ash as well, probably more E4 and Champion, that's bigger challenge than any league to regional championship.

Like I said Ash losing any league and regional championship is no different than losing Unova league, but losing in Master 8 won't be any problem because it's world level challenge.

I agree that PWC is handle badly right now and need better focus for fans to attached to it, I'm not against your complaint at all, but there is no other option after becoming Champion otherwise do what Hoenn league did, no progress and no regression just challenge another league and become champion.

 

[Enzo]

Now that this subject popped up again:

I will die without knowing why on Earth they decided to make a homebase in Vermillion City of all places. There's no reason for it. And the funny thing is that any reason that you can give for making it there is also enough reason for it to be in Galar or even any other place for that matter. And frankly? Galar gets even more reasons than Kanto due to the ''research fellow'' and assisting the Professor being an important theme and plot point all through SWSH and for Galar being the newest region.

There's no excuse to not make the homebase in Galar. Why Vermillion? Why Kanto again? It also doesn't helps that they completely belly flopped the concept of travelling through all the regions and managed to somehow make it boring. So we either get stuck in Kanto again, or we travel somewhere and it feels like we haven't traveled at all.

Honestly? I was already very tired of Kanto, but the fact that they most likely created a random lab there just to shove even more of this region down our throats made me utterly sick of this region. I know that it won't change during JN's run, but I personally never wanna see Kanto again.

 

[Pokemonfan5]

Now that this subject popped up again:

I will die without knowing why on Earth they decided to make a homebase in Vermillion City of all places. There's no reason for it. And the funny thing is that any reason that you can give for making it there is also enough reason for it to be in Galar or even any other place for that matter. And frankly? Galar gets even more reasons than Kanto due to the ''research fellow'' and assisting the Professor being an important theme and plot point all through SWSH and for Galar being the newest region.

There's no excuse to not make the homebase in Galar. Why Vermillion? Why Kanto again? It also doesn't helps that they completely belly flopped the concept of travelling through all the regions and managed to somehow make it boring. So we either get stuck in Kanto again, or we travel somewhere and it feels like we haven't traveled at all.

Honestly? I was already very tired of Kanto, but the fact that they most likely created a random lab there just to shove even more of this region down our throats made me utterly sick of this region. I know that it won't change during JN's run, but I personally never wanna see Kanto again.

Same complaint, If Sakuragi institute was in Galar than we would've got to see more of a Galar region and some major characters from games, I seriously don't understand why they decided to put it on Vermilion city.

DD arc would've got some good build up, Ash can train with Dynamax/Gigantamax to get over Gigantamax pikachu weakness and so many other things which can give some good focus to Galar region.

 

[Emmy]

Same complaint, If Sakuragi institute was in Galar than we would've got to see more of a Galar region and some major characters from games, I seriously don't understand why they decided to put it on Vermilion city.

As much as it pains me to say it, we really didn't need the Sakuragi family (as much as I love them) since the Professor and Chloe are pretty redundant had they not shafted Magnolia and Sonia. It surprises me that even after what, 60 or more episodes Chloe has not met Sonia since it seems so natural to have the two girls interact and develop from one another since they're going through similar problems.

 

[PkmnTrainerV]

The Sword and Shield arc had such a good set up for Go becoming a researcher. I wish they’d do something with it.

 

[JinksChow]

As much as it pains me to say it, we really didn't need the Sakuragi family (as much as I love them) since the Professor and Chloe are pretty redundant had they not shafted Magnolia and Sonia. It surprises me that even after what, 60 or more episodes Chloe has not met Sonia since it seems so natural to have the two girls interact and develop from one another since they're going through similar problems.

Well, for that to happen, Sonia would have to actually appear in the anime, which she has not done so since the end of SwSh arc (in other words, since JN045).

Heck, I don't think we've seen a human character from the SwSh games appear in the anime since JN055, which is 5 months! (Unless you count the OP, but we all know that probably half the things shown in JN openings never actually happen in the anime, so what's the point of counting them amirite )

The way the anime has handled Gen VIII Pokemon, Human Characters, and Game Plot is criminal underrepresentation for the Galar Region, and while I don't have much attachment to the SwSh games, the anime is not exactly doing anything to change my mind on the Gen VIII games if they aren't even being showcased properly.

 

[RetroPokeFan]

Heck, I don't think we've seen a human character from the SwSh games appear in the anime since JN055, which is 5 months! (Unless you count the OP, but we all know that probably half the things shown in JN openings never actually happen in the anime, so what's the point of counting them amirite )

Leon's been out of action for a long while too. I thought this guy was meant to be ya know, Ash's main goal for this series but as of right now he seems to have about as much relevance as Trip did.