Review Kalos League Review

[LuxrayOfTheWild]

Another league has come and gone and what a terrible way to wrap it up. Now its time to review the Kalos League. I hope the review tag is okay to use for this thread.

Positives
-Ash vs. Sawyer was an outstanding battle between two rivals that knew each other like the back of their hands. The final battle was amazing.
-The first half of Ash vs. Alain had some great moments, from Pikachu defeating Tyranitar and Metagross, Hawlucha avenging Noivern, and the aerial battle between Talonflame and Unfeazant.
-Tierno vs. Sawyer was pretty fun to watch and I not only like how it showcased their character, but the strategies used as well.
-The animation was incredible. I haven't seen such well done animation in the series. The final moments between Ash-Greninja and Mega Sceptile were amazing.
-Team Rocket wasn't completely annoying this time and actually had some good moments, like when James cheered for Pikachu and got dirty looks from Jessie and Meowth. They didn't take much time away.
-Diantha opening the league was a nice touch as well. All Champions should do this.
-XY 129 was not a waste of time like the Axew lost filler in the Unova League. It built up Ash vs. Alain, Team Flare's arc, and introduced Lysandre and Marin.

Neutral
-I didn't like having to see Remo vs. Alain, though it didn't take too much time away from the battle between Ash and Sawyer.

Negatives
-After all signs telling us otherwise, Ash LOST once again to Alain in a battle he should have won, but nope! OP AF Charizard that should not have survived the mega Water Shuriken. Ash got runner up and improved, but he should have won. This just shows how truly OP Alain is.
-The Furfrou guy was utterly pointless when you think about it. He was meant to show how hard it is for some to make it into the league. Ash promised him he'd win, but nope. Also, Alain easily sweeping through the gyms kinda makes this a bit redundant if he easily swept through.
-About 90% of Ash vs. Tomo being rushed over.
-Ash vs. Astrid being rushed over. I honestly wanted to see his full battle with her, the rare female league rival who deserved better.
-The Top 32 and Top 16 being completely ignored. One round skipped is okay, but...Two rounds being skipped and only showing 10% of another two rounds?
-Trevor vs. Alain. I just didn't like how they not only took the time to show Alain sweep through Trevor, but I didn't like how Mega Charizard Y's debut was used only to show off Mega Charizard X.
-Noivern and Goodra never got a proper win. Both only wound up with a tie and a loss. Ash vs. Tomo and Ash vs. Astrid coud have given Noivern a win at least if they showed it.


Overall, I can only give this league a 5.75, or a 6 at best. Maybe its only slightly better than the Unova League but doesn't beat the Sinnoh or Hoenn League. It had good moments, but Ash losing to Alain and its rushed opener brought the score down dramatically. Could have been a 7.5 if Ash was allowed to win.

 

[Gengarzilla]

I agree completely with this rating. I'd also place it above Unova and below Hoenn.

After the SM announcement, I worried that they'd rush and butcher this league. Trevor vs Alain was on track to confirming this but that was thankfully the low point rather than the norm.

And yeah, Furfrou trainer was a bit pointless.

 

[SandyBoi]

I also agree, more or less with you two. It was above Unova League, yet not as good as Hoenn's.
Everything you've said pretty much sums up how I feel about the Kalos League.

 

[Jaye]

My main points of contention with this league were:

-- Poor pacing. The fact they glossed over the early rounds to get to the semi's and final as quickly as possible, only for pay-off to be entirely anti-climatic. All those other trainers with Mega Evos of their own may as well not have existed.

-- Lack of creativity in the battles. Ash's first battle is a OHKO, we don't see his second, his battle with Sawyer was decided on pure power and not strategy, and he didn't seem to do much out of the box against Alan. The best moment was when he used used a piece of wood to prevent Aegislash from turning into a shield. I enjoy Ash's battles when he pulls out crazy stuff like that, not when he's screaming at his weird Greninja to push harder and overpower things like he's a character from DBZ or something.

-- They wasted time having Ash battle that Furfrou guy instead of showing Trevor's battle with Alan. The Furfrou guy never shows up again. What was the point?

-- Ash-Greninja and Mega Charizard X. The only two Pokemon that matter, apparently. DP did this sort of thing right: Infernape was more important than any other Pokemon in that league, but Ash didn't rely on it until he fought Paul. Every other battle he used a diverse set of Pokemon. XYZ, on the other hand, had him use Greninja at every possible opportunity before and during the league, even after his over-use of it was shown to do more harm than good.

-- All that mystery surrounding his sixth Pokemon, only for it to be Goodra, who would go on and have a disappointing tournament. Noivern didn't fare much better.

-- The whole tournament felt like one long set-up for the Team Flare arc and didn't seem too take on its own importance.

The good things:

-- Pikachu finally got the chance to show off how strong it is by scoring some big wins.

-- Hawlucha's cape, which sadly went missing after the first time. I feel he's by far and away the best Pokemon of this series in terms of characterisation.

-- Ash/Sawyer was a very good battle and one I'll rewatch in the future.

 

[Gengarzilla]

-- Ash-Greninja and Mega Charizard X. The only two Pokemon that matter, apparently. DP did this sort of thing right: Infernape was more important than any other Pokemon in that league, but Ash didn't rely on it until he fought Paul. Every other battle he used a diverse set of Pokemon. XYZ, on the other hand, had him use Greninja at every possible opportunity before and during the league, even after his over-use of it was shown to do more harm than good.

Heck, DP even gave us a 3-0 league battle between two rival characters, Barry vs Paul. It was pretty good

For XY, we were given a 3-0 league battle between two rival characters, Trevor vs Alain. It totally blew.

Just... What happened there?

 

[GurahkWeavile]

They just cannot break their beloved status quo one bit. This was their last chance to truly redeem Ash and they fucking blew it. Fuck this

 

[SSDZ]

Ranking the leagues from best to worst...
Sinnoh (don't get me wrong, tobias is and always will be BS but goddamn) > Hoenn (to the writers this league is how you do proper pacing and good battles with new or unimportant characters) > Johto (solid but nothing special) > gap wider than the power levels of Mega Charizard X and Mega Charizard Y > Kalos (animation alone) > Kanto (KINGLER!!!) > Unova


that being said, main problem with Kalos league was pacing. I'm assuming the writers have a deadline for ending the anime so stuff got cut out such as Ash facing more trainers (and getting Noivern some damn wins) so the league really suffered from that

Now the final battle itself was pretty damn good because Greninja was finally on Charizard's level but that ending...it should have been a tie at minimum because Charizard got beaten down by so many attacks but w/e

The Team Flare arc will make up for this, this entire XYZ arc has led up to this and I can definitely see a scenario where Ash has to battle Alain again but he loses because all that inner turmoil he has boils over and he chokes

Writers definitely messed this one up though, it would have been better if Team Flare interrupted the battle than that ending lol

 

[ii kanji]

The animation was top notch and the Shouta/Satoshi battle was a class act.

 

[Garren]

I'd say it probably falls between the Hoenn and Kanto League for me, both Sinnoh and Johto surpassing it.

Biggest issue was the lack of character-building moments, I honestly liked "Gather My Passion" for actually slowing things down a bit, the removal of stuff like talking to Oak, acknowledging the reserve Pokemon, even if Ash doesn't use them like in Hoenn, and not getting to see Ash fight any lower level Trainers fully, because sometimes we need to see that before jumping into the rival battles.

I also thought the first couple episodes were kind of ugly and appealing, Alain vs. Trevor and Shota vs. Tierno were pretty weak all-in-all. The Ash vs. Shota fight certainly made up for that, I think like usual the fight before the final one is always the most important (Ash vs. Gary, Ash vs. Morrison, Ash vs. Paul) due to being the most relevant, but I'm glad the final person Ash fought for once wasn't introduced during the Pokemon League and actually had a discernible personality and goal even if there's some contention on how good a character Alain is.

It does seem to be perhaps the writers didn't think Sun and Moon was coming so soon so they ended up rushing a bit, like how back in the Battle Frontier the first part was so slow and then suddenly they picked up speed---everything in XY&Z felt wrapped up really quick with Ash quickly earning his Badges, Serena's Showcases ending, and now the League feeling rushed even though it had a decent amount of episodes dedicated to it, about the same as usual if I'm right.

 

[Master Cyrus]

Alan ftw!

I'd rank them

Sinnoh
Johto=Kalos
Hoenn
Unova
Kanto

 

[KrisiChiki]

I more or less agree with the OP. It had some good stuff, some bad stuff but in the end it ranks below Sinnoh and Hoenn. Above Johto, Kanto and Unova... but to be honest I never watched Unova's League and I don't remember too much of the other two.

 

[Mew2]

For me, and some of you will hate this assessment of the League, but it was a not very good League with the sole redeeming factor being that Ash lost. It's the redeeming factor because this entire saga has been too self-contained with little to no continuity with the other past sagas. So far, there has been no appearance by the previous female traveling companion. Worse, though, was the fact that we didn't see Delia, Misty, May, Dawn, Iris, Brock, Cilan, Tracey, or Professor Oak watching this battle. And that is before the fact that when Ash brought Goodra in, he told Goodra that he had other Pokémon, but he wanted him instead. While many will see that as the strength of Ash's bond with Goodra, it can also be seen as a slap in the face to the rest of his Pokémon back at Oak's ranch or who are in training but ready to come when the phone rings. In essence, Ash left all of his friends behind, in a way abandoning them, when he came to Kalos. For as many faults as Alain had, and still has, he did everything for his friend, Mairin. That was his driving motivation when all was said and done. That's why I'm actually glad that Ash lost. He did not bring his strongest Pokémon to the battle, many of who he had a really strong bond with (especially Charizard and Infernape) and he paid for it. And also, in a show that has friendship as being important, maybe Ash's loss has a deeper meaning about not forgetting one's friends, even those that are far away at the moment, though I doubt the writers are thinking along those lines. Hopefully, though, I will be pleasantly surprised at the end of Kalos and the beginning of Sun/Moon.

 

[Almonds]

It wasn't too bad. I'm disappointed that Ash lost, but I don't hate Alain for winning, either. It felt as if the league ended rather too quickly, perhaps because they needed to speed through events due to Sun and Moon being released in November, and with the Team Flare arc needing their own episodes. It would have been nice if there had been more episodes dedicated to the league so each of the major participants could have gotten more individual focus. We haven't seen much of Remy and Astrid, despite them having important roles in the Mega Evolution specials. It felt like they were just participating in the league to fill up the low number of league rivals for Ash. Both of them deserved to have at least an episode dedicated to themselves, maybe mentioning Alain or acknowledging Ash and hinting at the movie events. The same goes to Trevor, who ended up being fodder. DP was able to offer a splendid course of rounds with a variety of rivals on screen (minus Tobias), all who have had plenty of build-up. We don't know why Astrid was participating, and Remy just reflected on his training. Trevor, again, we didn't know he collected gym badges at all. Alain wasn't shown to have interest in the league, but they somehow made his participation justified because he wanted to meet Ash, and of course, he wanted to win for Manon. I can't say much about Tierno because he rarely appeared (usually when Shauna appeared). Sawyer was pretty much the only person who had a decent backstory with a decent motivation for the league, aside from Ash.

Tl;dr, the lack of decent league rivals and the inevitable rush to end the Kalos season before November resulted in this disappointment.

Best battle: Ash vs Sawyer
Worst battle: Alain vs Trevor
Characters that needed more screentime: Astrid and Remy

 

[Shadao]

I've mentioned this before, but it felt like an Evangelion 2.0 scenario where everything went off rails at the end. I have a suspicion we are not done with the League. Nor is Ash going to forget about Alain, especially after learning the truth.

 

[EmpoleonProd]

Such bs, Ash should've won, and then lost to the E4 or Diantha. What a waste of decent character development. Now he'll lose to a level 5 Litten like it ain't shit in Alola and we'll be back to square 1 like Unova.

 

[Arceus the Dragon]

Too much overreaction. It is others fault for getting their hopes up to high. There was always a chance of him losing but clearly people ignored it. Alain won fare and square. We should be glad that Ash made it to top 2 at least since it was the first time he ever reach that high. This is the second best league in my opinion. I am glad that Alain won and I would give the Kalos league an 8/10 for effort. Ash losing is not the end of the world and it is nothing new.

 

[CrystaI]

I was and I am still being indifferent to the entire run of the Kalos League arc since its very beginning and even after it had ended. Due to its setup, I had long anticipated there is something wrong about it, and it seems like I was right.

1) The Kalos League arc just happened too suddenly without any build-up before that. Other than a simple mentioned of Ash finally collected 8 badges thus he can now enter the League, there was no training or any preparation before that. Just an episode prior to XY125, Ash and his friend were still relaxing themselves in a festival, absolutely no build-up of tension for the upcoming big event.
2) The Kalos League was setup within Lumiose City instead of somewhere east-westward far from Lumiose City as it was inside the game, additionally the stadium was still under construction right before the competition, gave a bit of warning sign inside my head, as like the stadium itself is a figurative metaphor showing something more is still "under construction".
3) The preliminary rounds were skipped, and the quarter finals were skimmed through in the shortest possible time using only one episode is another warning sign telling me the Kalos League is something unimportant.
4) Other than Ash, Alain and Sawyer, there were barely any major focus on any other league trainers. It just signified me in a way that battles with other trainers are unimportant, where that, is just not how one write a tournament story, provided that if you look at Pokemon League in the same manner like tournaments in many other sport anime.
5) From time to time, we saw Mairin and Lysandre behind the scenes. Especially the latter where from audience POV we knew clearly he is up to something very big, his very existence already shifting the focus from league battle more to the TF scheme behind the scene.
6) In fact, the very existence of Alain where he is working under Lysandre, and the fact that he is on a (self-imposed) mission in looking for methods to save Mairin's Chespin, already implied that league battles are merely a stepping stone used to achieve something bigger, something more important than Ash's infantile dream of becoming Pokemon Master.
7) Also we can't forget Squishy (Puni-chan) the Zygarde Core, such an important key pokemon character still being carried in Ash's friend's pocket during the entire Kalos League arc. Even before the beginning of Kalos League, we the audience already knew that it is being pursued by TF. When Squishy's story had not yet been resolved, it is just impossible for the audience that knew everything to wholeheartedly enjoy the Kalos League without worrying about something else.

So, with all these setups, IMO it just implied that the Kalos League is merely a distraction for hiding the "real climax". You think Kalos League is important? Sorry it is just a MacGuffin a red herring.

And, when the "ultimate challenge" had just became story-plot-wise secondarily important, one can just imagine how much weight can it really add in value towards Ash's trainer career. Because of that, I had long anticipated that winning the Kalos League is in fact unimportant to Ash Ketchum, that's why I was absolutely indifferent towards the final result. Whether he win or lose at the end of the day, it just doesn't add any important value to his character profile.

Therefore, it also doesn't have any more entertainment value in continue following this show, when one had an understanding that Ash Ketchum the protagonist the primarily most important character, whatever he do it is just secondarily important to the entire story, on the other hand other characters were being more useful and shine brighter than him story-plot-wise.


Though, I'm still a bit interested in seeing what kind of usefulness he will put up in the upcoming TF arc. Although I really don't have much expectation.

 

[Esserise]

So, with all these setups, IMO it just implied that the Kalos League is merely a distraction for hiding the "real climax". You think Kalos League is important? Sorry it is just a MacGuffin a red herring.

This is a very good analysis.

I mean, I know that I am only just now starting to follow the anime for the first time in who-knows-how-many years, but I have been keeping an eye on this particular situation for the past few days and have been reading up on things, and I feel as though, even if I had been following the series up until now, I would suspect that something fishy was up. At least based off of what I have read, about how this League was rushed through. I think that if Ash were really going to win a League, then it would be a more methodical process. Like, they would take their time going through the League battles, and it would be *the* climax of the story. The way that I picture it, there wouldn't be so many montages, and there certainly wouldn't be a whole arc climax set immediately *after* the League. And this whole Team Flare business looks, to me at least, like the actual thing that they have been building toward. And the decision to have Ash lose this battle makes a lot of sense to me from that perspective. I definitely think it will be Ash's heroics and determination that puts a stop to Team Flare, and Alain will have to reckon with his own complicity in the destruction. That doesn't really work as well if Alain isn't on the pedestal of victory here, and if Ash isn't the runner-up whose more wholsome ideals got snubbed. Alain needs a height to fall from, not to be kicked while he's down, and I also think it would be redundant and less interesting to have Ash win in the tournament only to get stomped by the first of the Elite Four or something.

Anyway, I reiterate that this was an interesting enough approach to me to actually convince me to pick up the anime again. And while I can absolutely understand why the people who have been around much, much longer than me would be upset about this, I also think the picture that I am looking at deserves more credit than it is getting. People keep saying that they refuse to alter the status quo, and sure, there may be something too that. Maybe the writers really don't want to let Ash win a League, for whatever reason. I wouldn't know. But my observations of this lead me to believe that they *are* trying to do something interesting with Ash here - firstly by having him actually reach the finals (which is further than he has ever gone before), and secondly, to my knowledge the culmination of the villain plot has never been the endgame before. In another thread I compared it to the ultimate example of status quo-breaking in the game series; that being BW, which used the Championship battle against Alder as a fake-out, only revealing the true climax (N and Team Plasma) at the very last minute. Granted that I haven't been following the show until now so maybe I'm way off-base, but even from a not-specific-to-Pokémon perspective of storytelling, that's just what my gut tells me when I look at this scenario.

Now, maybe Alain will relinquish his title, or maybe he won't. I don't think it would really matter though. I think Ash will be the one who saved the city (maybe they'll give him the Honor of Kalos?), and frankly, being able to say, "I stopped terrorist from destroying Kalos *and* basically went home with the silver medal in the League," is still something to be very proud of. Maybe being a true Pokémon Master isn't all about the titles that you win but is also just as much about the ideals you represent and about the actions you take toward Pokémon and other people. Alain may be able to say that he won the tournament, but Ash would be the one worth looking up to.

tl;dr - i'm a newbie outsider but i am optimistic because i suspect that this loss was carefully planned and could still lead to something unconventional and satisfying

 

[Silktree]

What they should be focusing on now is Alain's redemption if they actually care about any popularity he might still have. Ash helping save the day is nothing new or interesting.

 

[LuxrayOfTheWild]

Alain needs redemption and he needs to be shown that he's not as perfect as his win streak suggests. I'm hoping that they do find a good way to redeem him after ruining the Kalos League for many fans and practically bringing about an apocalypse.