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Controversial opinions

Well, it clearly possessed enough humanlike intelligence to be able to come up with and carry out the plan that it did, and also to be able to do things like play the piano. And yes, I know that doesn't necessarily translate to a sense of morality, but I feel like it had to have at least some awareness of what it was doing.
Exactly, pokemon are intelligent to know what's right and wrong
 
Devoting roughly half of the PWC to one on one battles against one shot characters was a terrible ida. Ash defeating a random trainer's Meganium, Tauros or Elekid p closer to Leon or that the PWC is a refing new goal that puts the at this is a tournament full of random encounters under the disguise of being something more important.
The battles at the beginning of the series were clearly so a bunch of regular trainers can battle each other quick and rise up the ranks. Ash's more important battles were treated similar to Gym battles and we had just as many of them as normal Gyms a series. I'm not sure why this would be an issue, if 1000+ people or whatever are battling it's to weed out the weaker trainers.

They made it clear who the important matches were.
 
Honestly I think it's because a good villain is usually some type of reflection on the hero. That's why guzma, while debuting late which annoys the heck out of me, worked really well.
I mean in the flashback scene he basically said he was tired of Kukui appreciating Alola's nature and something along these lines, and that's how he became a villain. That's just a very poor execution of making a villain, in my opinion.
 
The battles at the beginning of the series were clearly so a bunch of regular trainers can battle each other quick and rise up the ranks. Ash's more important battles were treated similar to Gym battles and we had just as many of them as normal Gyms a series. I'm not sure why this would be an issue, if 1000+ people or whatever are battling it's to weed out the weaker trainers.

They made it clear who the important matches were.
It's an issue because it made the PWC much less impressive or important when battles could be done off screen and were against one shot characters. Combined that with the one-on-one format and how most of his battles in both the Normal and Great Classes were not the main focus of an episode and that just makes the PWC way less impressive and dull. Not to mention more frustrating when people were hyping it up despite all of the filler opponents Ash was battling against at the time.

Yeah, they made it clear which matches were important, but that should have been standard as opposed to just select matches. Ash only battled against three established trainers in the first two classes. I do remember people saying that they'd have Ash battle against more established trainers from the Hyper Class and onward during this time and to the show's credit, they did. However, I think waiting until halfway through the tournament to make Ash battle consistently against established trainers was a bad idea. It made the first half of the tournament feel rather unremarkable or noteworthy. If they really wanted to make the PWC look cool and impressive, then they should have gone all in from the start. Instead of waiting until the Hyper Class, they should have Ash battle against established trainers from across the world right off the bat. Just because there are a lot of regular trainers in the PWC doesn't mean that Ash had to face that many of them. Making use of the world tour gimmick and the huge number of video game characters across the franchise's history by having him battle against old and new characters from Gym Leaders or even old rivals would have gone a long way to making the PWC feel like a big deal. I'm not sure if that would have fixed it completely for me, especially when the one-on-one battle format was terrible too, but I think making it feel like a big deal with bigger opponents right away instead of random nobodies for most of the first half would have helped at least.
 
I would have had him battle at least one or two more Gym leaders in Super Class, but I don't think the 1 on 1's were an issue. They were clearly designed to let you know Ash was progressing which is why as you said, they weren't the main plot of the episode. When the writers did have an important battle for Ash, obviously the entire episode was about it.

When everyone starts out at the bottom it makes sense to weed out the chaff so to speak. For all we know all those one off characters had competed in multiple leagues like Ash did. Meanwhile the show proved a lot of Gym leaders and Elite 4 like Erika, Chuck, Drake and Wikstrom are not even competing in the PWC, which explains why a lot of Elite 4 may be absent.
 
Yeah, it's obvious Ash belonged in the Hyper Class from the start of the series, and it feels like a lot of time was wasted on him speed-running up the ladder. I think the PWC would have worked much better with a smaller initial pool of trainers (say 100). It could have worked like the Galar League, where you were required to have a sponsor to participate in it, rather than being open to literally anyone. Leon could have sponsored Ash based on his Alola League win, or just because he made a good impression when they first met. Then we could have gotten high stakes battles from the start of the series, and Ash could have climbed the ranks in a much more believable fashion.
 
Yeah, it's obvious Ash belonged in the Hyper Class from the start of the series, and it feels like a lot of time was wasted on him speed-running up the ladder. I think the PWC would have worked much better with a smaller initial pool of trainers (say 100). It could have worked like the Galar League, where you were required to have a sponsor to participate in it, rather than being open to literally anyone. Leon could have sponsored Ash based on his Alola League win, or just because he made a good impression when they first met. Then we could have gotten high stakes battles from the start of the series, and Ash could have climbed the ranks in a much more believable fashion.
Yeah this could have worked too. For all we know if the PWC continues they'll probably do something similar. If Ash loses to Leon he will still be in the Masters 8 indefinitely so it makes sense.
 
I would have had him battle at least one or two more Gym leaders in Super Class, but I don't think the 1 on 1's were an issue. They were clearly designed to let you know Ash was progressing which is why as you said, they weren't the main plot of the episode. When the writers did have an important battle for Ash, obviously the entire episode was about it.
If so much of the tournament was designed for Ash to battle filler opponents, to the point where some of them happened off-screen, in order to explain why he was climbing up the ranks, that's really not good. That's a big reason why Ash getting to the Master Class feels less impressive to me in a way. It's hard to make getting to the top feel impressive when a good chuck of his opponents were just one shot characters in one on one battles. Like I said before, the important battles should have been standard from the start as opposed to saved for just occasional episodes. It did not give a good first impression on this brand new shiny goal that people were hyping up from the moment it was introduced, at least for me.

When everyone starts out at the bottom it makes sense to weed out the chaff so to speak. For all we know all those one off characters had competed in multiple leagues like Ash did. Meanwhile the show proved a lot of Gym leaders and Elite 4 like Erika, Chuck, Drake and Wikstrom are not even competing in the PWC, which explains why a lot of Elite 4 may be absent.
They still didn't need to devote so much of the first half of the tournament to the weaker trainers. The idea that all of the one off characters had completed in multiple leagues is pretty weak. If you have to make the audience assume or speculate on the strength of Ash's opponents, then it really doesn't make the PWC look any better. Not to mention that wouldn't make those battles better even if that was the case. One-on-one battles can be good, but it's hard to make the victory feel impressive. That's a big reason why I didn't care much for the Club Tournaments back in BW too. I wouldn't expect everyone around the world to be in the PWC, but not having more of the Elite 4 or Gym Leaders across the world involved seemed like a wasted opportunity. They really could have easily introduced at least a couple of more Gym Leaders in the first two classes just so that Ash would be battling against someone who the audience knows is supposed to be strong as opposed to more random one-shot characters.

Yeah, it's obvious Ash belonged in the Hyper Class from the start of the series, and it feels like a lot of time was wasted on him speed-running up the ladder. I think the PWC would have worked much better with a smaller initial pool of trainers (say 100). It could have worked like the Galar League, where you were required to have a sponsor to participate in it, rather than being open to literally anyone. Leon could have sponsored Ash based on his Alola League win, or just because he made a good impression when they first met. Then we could have gotten high stakes battles from the start of the series, and Ash could have climbed the ranks in a much more believable fashion.
I think that would have helped quite a bit. Admittedly, Leon wanting to give everyone a chance to climb up the ranks to battle him does make sense, but making it more of an exclusive kind of tournament limited to a smaller number of trainers would have allowed them to jump right into more noteworthy opponents right off the bat and would have made getting to the top feel like a bigger deal. I still wish that they could have used the PWC to battle both new and old characters. As much as I would have preferred for Ash to do the Galar Gym Challenge, if they used the PWC to have him battle the new Gym Leaders in a different way and in whatever order they wanted, I would have been fine with that. Ash would still have a different goal, but the new characters and their Pokemon wouldn't be ignored, so ideally that would have made everyone happy. That's another reason why the first half of the tournament bothers me so much. Instead of battling against new characters with new Pokemon, Ash goes up against one shot characters with older Pokemon. It just felt like such a waste.
 
The problem is they force him into this losing streak and they never bother to show him training to overcome it AND bouncing back. It was all done off screen. I still think that was one of Journeys worst episodes.
I'll never get tired of talking about how bad this losing streak was. I think they decided to add in so the PWC seems "deeper", or "more difficult" than it actually was, and wasn't done well at all.

I mean, it gave us JN036, one of the biggest dogshit disgraces in modern age Pokémon when it comes to writing.
 
I'll never get tired of talking about how bad this losing streak was. I think they decided to add in so the PWC seems "deeper", or "more difficult" than it actually was, and wasn't done well at all.

I mean, it gave us JN036, one of the biggest dogshit disgraces in modern age Pokémon when it comes to writing.
One of the worst episodes in the entire Pokemon anime, no doubt.
Go: Ash, let me remind you of how you really are by perfectly copying a move that I’ve never seen before and in spite of me not even being a battler.

Seriously, what were the writers thinking? If they wanted someone to break Ash out of his funk any of Ash’s trainer companions would have been a better choice. Even worse, they could have used Alola for that very purpose given that they went there the next episode.
 
I actually liked that episode. I thought it was one of the few times Ash and Goh actually were Research Fellows, in that they were researching Pokemon together, and I liked how Goh was able to get Ash out of his funk. I thought it was a good way to show the bond between Ash and Goh, as well as Goh being able to support Ash. Admittedly, I haven't seen the episode for awhile, but I definitely didn't have such an intense negative reaction to it. This is probably one of the benefits of taking awhile to catch up on the dub since the backlash towards episodes or decisions aren't as fresh in my mind.

That being said, I still think that Ash climbing back through the ranks off screen was easily the worst thing about his losing streak. It really weakens the impact of both the losing streak and the PWC itself if matches can be done off-screen.
 
What was JN36, the one Go captures Flygon? I thought you guys were talking about the jealous Pikachu episode. I don't remember anything wrong about the Flygon capture ep.
 
Go: Ash, let me remind you of how you really are by perfectly copying a move that I’ve never seen before and in spite of me not even being a battler.

Seriously, what were the writers thinking? If they wanted someone to break Ash out of his funk any of Ash’s trainer companions would have been a better choice. Even worse, they could have used Alola for that very purpose given that they went there the next episode.
The thing I hate the most is not just that it went out of its way to make Ash look bad while making Goh look amazing, but this episode showed a key issue with Goh. His growth has never felt believable. He never does any training with his Pokemon and he's been in like 2 battles before this episode, but he was shown in this battle to be on Ash's skill level, copying his strategies he's never seen before with ease. He progressed far too quickly.
 
The thing I hate the most is not just that it went out of its way to make Ash look bad while making Goh look amazing, but this episode showed a key issue with Goh. His growth has never felt believable. He never does any training with his Pokemon and he's been in like 2 battles before this episode, but he was shown in this battle to be on Ash's skill level, copying his strategies he's never seen before with ease. He progressed far too quickly.
I'm not ashamed to say that was the episode that made me start to actively dislike Goh.

It's just a little taste test to showcase how they try as hard as they can to sell Goh as this sort of "amazing trainer" and how desesperate they are to also sell him as "Ash's equal".
 
I never really got the impression that they were trying to sell Goh as an amazing trainer in that episode or hroughout Journeys for that matter. He's shown as a kind trainer who cares about Pokemon, but he isn't really put on a huge pedestal or treated as a super special gifted trainer. I never got that impression at least from how Goh is treated in the series. I wouldn't say that they made him equal to Ash, if only because most of his Pokemon aren't shown as particularly strong and he isn't that into battling either.
 
It is true that besides Cinderace which is his starter and recently Inteleon, most of Go's pokemon go down in battle really fast. In the recently aired ep Go's Flygon lost immediately to the Regi's. In the Articuno episode every one of Go's pokemon got taken down fast besides Cinderace lasting a bit.

Cinderace being of decent strength is fine but his other capture do lose fast. They never pretended his other pokemon were strong at all.
 
People probably wouldn't want Misty coming back again since she did so twice back in the S/M series, but I wish she could've been a rival-or at least be a participant-in the PWC. Unless its just a dub thing but isn't goal to be an Elite Four member? I at least remember an episode back in the Orange Island where she admired Prima/Lorelei, so maybe i'm just remembering things wrong. Either way, I don't see why someone as competitive as her would be missing out on the chance to battle some of the strongest trainers in the world. That and the world traveling could greatly help her expand her team, cause right now she only really has Kanto and Johto Pokemon, along with I think a Luvdisc. Doesn't help that her only competent Pokemon seems to be her Gyarados, so yeah, girl could really use a team upgrade.
 
Misty never wanted to be an Elite 4 member, she never said that in the dub either. Just that she wanted to be the world's best water pokemon master.

Which is kinda impossible, since we see characters like Wallace and Lorelei which are clearly stronger after trainers than she is. Obviously Misty got stronger over time but I'd still place nearly all the others besides maybe Crasher Wake above her.
 
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