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Controversial opinions

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.
That reminds me, the fact that Misty appeared in Alola makes it kind of a big shame that she didn't catch one of the two Water/Bug-types introduced that very generation: her phobia of bugs clashing with her love of Water-types could've made for an interesting story, and maybe Dewpider or Wimpod could've helped her overcome her phobia or something. This is especially egregious due to Brock being allowed to catch a Comfey, so why didn't Misty get something too?
 
That reminds me, the fact that Misty appeared in Alola makes it kind of a big shame that she didn't catch one of the two Water/Bug-types introduced that very generation: her phobia of bugs clashing with her love of Water-types could've made for an interesting story, and maybe Dewpider or Wimpod could've helped her overcome her phobia or something. This is especially egregious due to Brock being allowed to catch a Comfey, so why didn't Misty get something too?
I’m still mad that we never saw Misty react to Surskit back in Advance.
 
That reminds me, the fact that Misty appeared in Alola makes it kind of a big shame that she didn't catch one of the two Water/Bug-types introduced that very generation: her phobia of bugs clashing with her love of Water-types could've made for an interesting story, and maybe Dewpider or Wimpod could've helped her overcome her phobia or something. This is especially egregious due to Brock being allowed to catch a Comfey, so why didn't Misty get something too?
You saying that reminded me of something similar: in the games, Gardenia says while she loves Grass types, the Ghost type gives her the creeps. She even says she doesn't know what she'd do if there was ever a Grass/Ghost Pokemon. Well now there's seven Grass/Ghost types, so it'd be interesting to see how she would react to them in-game (unfortunately none of them are native/obtainable in BDSP, so we couldn't see it there.)
 
You saying that reminded me of something similar: in the games, Gardenia says while she loves Grass types, the Ghost type gives her the creeps. She even says she doesn't know what she'd do if there was ever a Grass/Ghost Pokemon. Well now there's seven Grass/Ghost types, so it'd be interesting to see how she would react to them in-game (unfortunately none of them are native/obtainable in BDSP, so we couldn't see it there.)
Six, actually. But yeah, it'd be interesting. Thing is, Gardenia's chances of appearing in the anime again are very miniscule, so I don't think we'll see that dichotomy explored here. The games are another story, though.
 
Six, actually. But yeah, it'd be interesting. Thing is, Gardenia's chances of appearing in the anime again are very miniscule, so I don't think we'll see that dichotomy explored here. The games are another story, though.
True. The only chance she has is to be a surprise cameo in the stands for the Masters 8, but even then her chances are pretty low compared to characters like Serena or Cilan.
 
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.
The issue is more on the show sucks at natural progression in general. You pokemon who never battle beating opponents who should wipe the floor with them

Goh is just one of their most worst examples of it
 
The issue is more on the show sucks at natural progression in general. You pokemon who never battle beating opponents who should wipe the floor with them

Goh is just one of their most worst examples of it
I can understand that, but that still isn't the same thing as putting Goh on a pedestal or on equal footing with Ash. Maybe there are worst examples in episodes that I haven't seen yet. I just finished the whole Grookey and Eevee's first errand episode, but Goh's skills with his Pokemon never really bothered me.
 
Six, actually. But yeah, it'd be interesting. Thing is, Gardenia's chances of appearing in the anime again are very miniscule, so I don't think we'll see that dichotomy explored here. The games are another story, though.
Which is exactly what the writers did in Pokemon Masters EX:

Random Conversation
"Hey. Do you know the Pokémon Pumpkaboo and Phantump?"
"As you know, I really love Grass-type Pokémon, but..."
"These two, they're not just Grass type. They're also Ghost type!"
"I want to take care of them and cuddle them too, so I can get over my fear."

If spoken to again
"See, I think they're cute. I really do."
"But their movements and whatnot are a bit different from normal Grass types, and they scare me a little."
"Still, as a Grass-type Pokémon Trainer, I can't just stay scared! Someday I'll be able to cuddle them!"
 
I wonder if Iris went from winning the Unova league to just defeating Alder now. Probably skipping the Unova Elite 4. Since we're seeing champion battles with the Elite 4 skipped I guess it could have happened.

We know Iris eventually beat Claire and Drayden off-screen based on what they said, so to go from beating them to Alder seems likely.
 
I wonder if Iris went from winning the Unova league to just defeating Alder now. Probably skipping the Unova Elite 4. Since we're seeing champion battles with the Elite 4 skipped I guess it could have happened.

We know Iris eventually beat Claire and Drayden off-screen based on what they said, so to go from beating them to Alder seems likely.
Going from defeating Gym Leaders to defeating a Champion would still be a pretty huge leap, especially when I never thought that Iris was that strong to begin with. Despite BW trying to hype her up as this special gifted trainer, her skills never seemed anything more that average to me, which just makes her becoming the Unova Champion off screen a much tougher sell to me.
 
Going from defeating Gym Leaders to defeating a Champion would still be a pretty huge leap, especially when I never thought that Iris was that strong to begin with. Despite BW trying to hype her up as this special gifted trainer, her skills never seemed anything more that average to me, which just makes her becoming the Unova Champion off screen a much tougher sell to me.
Well we know she improved since during BW she lost to Drayden and Claire on-screen, and since then we know she beat them. Winning the Unova league itself is fine since the competition probably wasn't too strong and Iris was definitely more powerful now than when Ash was there.

She obviously did also beat Alder even though the anime didn't reference him, so I guess she got strong enough to beat him. Champions are no longer portrayed as God-tier trainers
 
Well we know she improved since during BW she lost to Drayden and Claire on-screen, and since then we know she beat them. Winning the Unova league itself is fine since the competition probably wasn't too strong and Iris was definitely more powerful now than when Ash was there.
That's a pretty big assumption about the Unova League. We can't be certain of how strong or weak the competition was if she did take part in it. Like I said, I never thought that Iris was anywhere near as strong as BW was trying to claim, so that doesn't work. There's a difference between improving off-screen and just making huge unbelievable leaps of improvements off screen. I'd say that Iris becoming Champion is the later. If you have to make the audience make multiple assumptions on how it happened, such as your claim that the Unova League competition wasn't too strong, then it really falls flat for me.

She obviously did also beat Alder even though the anime didn't reference him, so I guess she got strong enough to beat him. Champions are no longer portrayed as God-tier trainers
I'm not really a fan of that change to be honest, if only because it feels too jarring with how Champions have been depicted for long. The only reason anime Iris became Champion is because she is the current Unova Champion in the games. Since they wanted to have all eight generations represented in the Master Class, they kind of had to use Iris, regardless of how I'd argue that this doesn't really fit with her anime characterization or that there isn't a good foundation for this off-screen development to feel earned or believable.
 
Iris is stronger now than she was in BW so her beating Drayden/Claire on winning a league is not an issue at all. Ash would have destroyed the Unova league if the writers didn't write him poorly back then and Iris was about on his level. I do agree we should have gotten some flashback of Iris/Alder though.
 
Honestly, I think making E4 and champions so ridiculously strong in the show was inevitably going to cause issues if they decided to actually let Ash battle them in a serious manner, and unfortunately after "Ash wins a league" was treated like it would call a curse upon the world for so long they ended up only letting it happen after the post-game were gutted, leaving not a lot of space for opponents between "winning a league" and "Elite Four tier".
 
Honestly, I think making E4 and champions so ridiculously strong in the show was inevitably going to cause issues if they decided to actually let Ash battle them in a serious manner, and unfortunately after "Ash wins a league" was treated like it would call a curse upon the world for so long they ended up only letting it happen after the post-game were gutted, leaving not a lot of space for opponents between "winning a league" and "Elite Four tier".
Indeed. I have a similar problem with how Legendaries are often shown to be way more powerful than necessary.
 
Honestly, I’m not convinced having the Champions in the PWC was the right move in the end, as it lead to the exceedingly predictable lineup of 7 of the M8 being the Regional Champions with Alain being the only interesting wild card. It also raises the question of why aren’t any of the future game Champions here, plus given our discussions over the past few days it seems a sizeable amount of viewers don’t believe that Ash’s power level can be believably scaled back going forward now that he’s reached this level.

I remember the old days of video game popularity contests and how certain characters that would win a certain amount of times would be given a Hall of Fame status that would remove them from the roster to allow a more diverse competition. Maybe the Champions should have had something similar to where they weren’t allowed to compete. “But what about Ash?” I hear you say, well you could have easily have tied that into Journey’s plot by having Chairman Rose use his influence to muscle Ash into the PWC in the hopes of using him as a pawn should Leon not cooperate during the Darkest Day plotline. Speaking of Leon, it wouldn’t be hard to replace him with someone else since Ash had no prior emotional connection to him and the whole climbing the PWC just to battle Leon again just hasn’t played out well in my opinion.

Just my two cents on some of the issues I’ve been having with the PWC.
 
Honestly, I think making E4 and champions so ridiculously strong in the show was inevitably going to cause issues if they decided to actually let Ash battle them in a serious manner, and unfortunately after "Ash wins a league" was treated like it would call a curse upon the world for so long they ended up only letting it happen after the post-game were gutted, leaving not a lot of space for opponents between "winning a league" and "Elite Four tier".
It really only made sense to do that in the OS when Ash was a rookie and they had no idea how long the show would go on.

By the time we got to AG/DP Ash was able to hold his own against Elite 4 until they went crazy with Flint and Bertha at the end of DP.
 
Iris is stronger now than she was in BW so her beating Drayden/Claire on winning a league is not an issue at all. Ash would have destroyed the Unova league if the writers didn't write him poorly back then and Iris was about on his level. I do agree we should have gotten some flashback of Iris/Alder though.
Beating Drayden and Claire isn't a problem. Iris winning the Unova League and becoming the Unova Champion is the problem. She wasn't even interested in becoming a Gym Leader during BW, never showed any interest in battling Gym Leaders besides those two or taking part in the Unova League, but she somehow became the Unova League Champion off screen. That's just way too much of a huge leap in my opinion. Yeah, she's stronger than she was in BW, but since I never really thought Iris was a particularly good trainer to begin with, it's still a pretty tough sell to make. It doesn't feel believable or a fitting conclusion for her storyline. It felt like forcing Iris to match more with her video game counterpart since that is the only reason she became the Unova Champion in Journeys.
 
Iris had been off screen for 3 series, if other characters can improve off-screen, so could one who was essentially focused on battling. It probably helped now that she didn't get a cameo in XY because if she did she probably would not have been too different than she was in BW. But since they skipped over her, her long absence now makes it more acceptable she improved.

Winning a league is not a problem either, Ash could have easily won any previous league just with some slight variations to his team. The only question is Alder but given we only saw one pokemon of his in the anime and the only trainer he battled was Trip a literal rookie, there's not much to say.

Being focused on dragons also doesn't mean beating dragon Gym leaders and winning leagues doesn't help with that either it makes sense. We know all champions aren't as strong as each other either so we know Iris isn't on Steven, Cynthia, Leon's level so it's fitting.
 
Iris had been off screen for 3 series, if other characters can improve off-screen, so could one who was essentially focused on battling. It probably helped now that she didn't get a cameo in XY because if she did she probably would not have been too different than she was in BW. But since they skipped over her, her long absence now makes it more acceptable she improved.
My problem isn't that she improved off-screen. That's been the case for most of the former traveling companions and it can work. It's that she improved too much to be believable. And no, Iris being off-screen for three series doesn't make it more believable since time does not make sense in the anime. Misty was off-screen for multiple series until SM and her off-screen development felt a lot more believable by comparison. She wasn't a new Champion or anything like that. She had a Mega Pokemon and better skills in battle, which was fitting since she'd at least be battling trainers consistently as a Gym Leader. Iris going from losing to Claire in her special episode to being the Unova Champion in Journeys is just way too huge of a jump for me to find believable, made worse with how I thought Iris was poorly written from the start. It's like jumping from point A to point Z and expecting the audience to accept that they have to fill in the blanks themselves. It just does not work for me in the slightest.

Winning a league is not a problem either, Ash could have easily won any previous league just with some slight variations to his team. The only question is Alder but given we only saw one pokemon of his in the anime and the only trainer he battled was Trip a literal rookie, there's not much to say.
It is when Iris never expressed any interest in taking part in any Pokemon Leagues during BW and I didn't think that Iris was that good to begin with. Realistically, I suppose that they couldn't when having two main characters doing Gyms at the same time would make the pacing drag, but it still contributes as to why suddenly winning the Unova League, which is another thing the audience has to assume happened, feels too jarring. Saying that Ash could have won any previous League is kind of irrelevant, at least in regards to my issues with Iris. She never expressed any interest in taking part in the Unova League, so the idea that it would change off-screen just feels a bit too forced.

Being focused on dragons also doesn't mean beating dragon Gym leaders and winning leagues doesn't help with that either it makes sense. We know all champions aren't as strong as each other either so we know Iris isn't on Steven, Cynthia, Leon's level so it's fitting.
She would be interested in beating Dragon Gym Leaders, but going from that to winning Leagues still feels like a bit of a stretch. She isn't on the same level of other Champions and I would assume that Iris is the least experienced out of the Regional Champions, but I still think it's too unbelievable for her to become the Unova Champion. It was only done to make her match with her video game counterpart. If you have to rely on making a lot of assumptions to justified Iris becoming Unova Champion, which I'd argue fans have to, then it just falls flat for me.

To give Iris some credit, I honestly do think that her speech with Dragonite during her battle with Ash did a better job of actually showing her improvement than her Champion title did. It still paints her as the special gifted Dragon Master in-training, which I always hated in BW, but it was still a nice moment that showed that she did learn from her battles off-screen. I just still think that making her the Unova Champion is unbelievable and too forced to feel anything genuine, even if it was most likely a requirement given who made it into the Master Class.
 
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