Making the Unova League better

[Jaypom]

What do you guys think could have made the Unova League better? I've been re-watching the Best Wishes anime and I can certainly say this has to be the worst league written in the entire series.
I mean here we have Ash beat Trip in some odd way after barely doing any damage, Ash losing to a guy with five Pokemon, Ash not even getting the chance to battle a team of Eeveelutions which would have made for an interesting battle. The length being about 4.5 episodes of battling, with a pointless
"lost at the league" filler shoved in the middle for no reason.

 

[HiroHunter]

Not have Ash lose at the top 8 and have him beat Cameron.

 

[Matleo]

you know the battle with the water type gym leader and ash rival Cameron?
If it would be 3vs3 and if he would used his signature pokemon Carracosta.
also if Ash would battled him afterwards in the next episode for training not the gym badge only...

Ash could have gotten once more then 8 gym badges. This would be a good occasion.

- some gym battles could have been better. If all would be 3vs3 or double and 3vs3 final like in Hoen , then it would be perfect.
The pokemon, abilities and moves used during those battles could have been better, we got tournaments but pokemon like Galvantula, Golurk(should have been in ground gym) and Volcarona would be a great oponents in a Pokemon league battle.

- more oponents and battles in the league, the one that Ash oponent used 5 only pokemon and won was a little bit to unfinished and not good.

-Amount of moves , abilities and evolved pokemon on Ash party.
We got some fully evolved but imagine Oshawott using Soak or evolving atleast one stage and learning X-Scizors.
The team was not mature and developed enough after gen 4. The kids get older and new ones come in I understand that, but maybe a spin-off series and filers could be for them suited more?
Ash has a past and rather should show it and win with younge trainer or train them to.

- strategy: moves, abilities and types.

that was a little better handled in Kalos but like I said, more pokemon and more battles and more training episodes.
_____________________________________________________

gen III and IV and VI did have those fantastic Contests with battles that gave us a second character with a goal, that was much better
But like I wrote before, moves, abilities, battles and training, that devolped the trainer and their pokemon, their bond and relations with rivals.

 

[EscLucy]

Actually make Cameron a good opponent - not make him a bad one which makes viewers triggered.

 

[Hidden Mew]

I'll probably have a more detailed answer whenever I get to the Unova League in my rewatch of BW. Right now, I think I would have kept Ash vs. Trip as a first round match. I don't think it would have warranted anything more than a three-on-three match, but given how their rivalry was handled throughout the series, giving them a one-on-one match was much more fitting. I would have made Pikachu's victory against Serperior more believable though.

Getting rid of that Axew getting lose episode definitely would have been an improvement. Considering how they rushed through Unova to get to the League, including a filler episode was a terrible idea to begin with, let alone another case of Axew getting lost. I would have either used that episode to focus on one of Ash's battles or focus it on Bianca. I hated anime Bianca, but one of the aspects that bothered me about her was that she barely reacted over losing in the Unova League. They had made a big deal about her continuing her journey and training with her newly acquired Escavalier. Once she lost in the Unova League, she was upset over it initially, but then she went back to being her happy go-lucky self, wanting to get food and not minding at all that she was on the sidelines. Part of this is how they didn't adapt much of her storyline from the games, but it would have been nice if she had gotten some moment of self-reflection, realizing that she wasn't strong enough even after all of her work and trying to deal with the notion that she might not be good enough to get as strong as other trainers. Granted, I don't think that they were interested in doing anything like that with anime Bianca. She does come off as a more annoying, less funny, more incompetent female Barry, but I think a moment or episode showing how she dealt with losing in the Unova League could have been nice.

I'm not sure if I'd have Ash go further than the Top 8 just yet. I thought it was fitting for him to get to that rank when I first watched the series, but one of the things that has surprised me during my rewatch of BW is that Ash's skills actually seem pretty fine to me. Aside from his battles against Trip, which still reflect more poorly on Trip than Ash in my book, I don't see a massive regression for his skills yet. The worst so far was Sewaddle suddenly evolving during his third Gym battle and learning a new move to boot. That did feel cheap considering Sewaddle hadn't battled much since its capture episode and it took Turtwig a few episodes to master Energy Ball in DP. Knowing that the whole sudden evolution and learning a new move does become a trend with Ash's Unova Gym matches doesn't help either and I do remember some of the later battles in the series being really bad. Even so, I am starting to wonder if fans exaggerated his regression, if it just happened much later in the series than I remembered or if it's a bit of both.

That being said, I'd still change how he lost to Cameron even if I was still fine with Ash getting to the Top 8. Cameron himself was annoyingly stupid. He really should have had a full team instead of five Pokemon and relying so much on Riolu after his other Pokemon had been knocked out. It really didn't make Ash look good, especially when Cameron lost to Virgil. I don't know if I'd have Ash lose to a team of Eeveelutions. That could have been interesting, but it might have been annoying for fans if Ash lost the match of an Eevee or one of the less popular Eeveelutions too.

 

[Huikyeong]

Not give Ash so many rivals would be the biggest thing to do to make the league better. I don't mind him losing to Cameron but I do mind that he has so many rivals, he didn't even get to battle them all. What was the point of Virgil if Ash didn't get to battle him?

That and make his battle with Trip a 6 on 6. I mean seriously, Trip is his main rival but he wasn't treated with proper respect there.

 

[Nicolas721]

It's hard to do when they gave us so few reasons to care about the characters, but I'll try...

-Reuniclus filler No fillers at all.
-Burbundy enters and gets to the second round, where she has a battle with Bianca. Most of it is shown, and Bianca wins. Burgundy understands that she has potential and she decides to start a new badge quest.
-Cameron doesn't battle Ash, he loses in Top 8 or Top 16. He acts as a mini-Sawyer and promises to do better next time and to be more focused.
-Ash vs Stephan is fine.
-Ash vs Trip happens in Top 8 and it's at least a 4vs4.
-Ash vs Virgil happens in Top 4 and is a full battle, Virgil wins using Sylveon.
-The final is interrupted by Team Plasma, starting off their arc. Virgil becomes more involved in Episode N and develops a friendship with Ash there.

 

[Hidden Mew]

I am kind of surprised people would want a longer battle between Ash and Trip. Sure, Trip was Ash's main rival during BW, but their rivalry never really seemed too noteworthy to me. There wasn't the same kind of buildup to a League confrontation like we got with Paul or even Gary. Trip lost multiple times on-screen, so I think that weakened what impact it could have had if Ash did defeat him in a full battle. Gary and Paul lost on-screen before facing Ash too, but it was usually against powerful opponents and there was much more weight to those rivalries compared to what he had with Trip. If they wanted to give Ash and Trip a full battle, then they would have needed to change a lot about Trip and his rivalry with Ash throughout the whole series.

 

[EscLucy]

What was the point of Virgil if Ash didn't get to battle him?

TOTALLY TOTALLY AGREE! The Unova League was very rushed and not thought out. In my opinion, BW was terrible and they decided that at the climax of the series, they would make it worse. Honestly, for me after finishing the whole thing, it was a let down especially the cheap copy of the Orange Islands.

 

[SinnohEevee]

Hard to make the Unova League better when the whole series was bad from the start. What Best Wishes needs is to get retconned out of continuity.

 

[Likeitornot.]

The Unova League wasn't my least favourite, but it wasn't my favourite either and it did have its fair share of flaws. Some do occur before the League was set up, as Leagues represent a culmination of the narrative for that series that has happened beforehand but I decided to list the league-related things that I would change:

• Outside of Ash, some of the competitors didn't have as many meaningful relationships with another - they did have good interactions but nothing that could be constituted as a relationship. One of the big problems that the Unova League had to handle was the sheer number of competitors Ash had (four in total) which could have been eased by having some of these competitors have meaningful relationships with each other, so they could have a match together that is just as engaging. For instance, in Sinnoh, Paul vs Barry was an engaging match due to the narrative set up by the series but in this league, Bel v Kotetsu simply wasn't; they didn't have any sort of relationship to fall back on.
• I, unlike many others, would not have changed the fact that Ash lost to Kotetsu when he did. What I probably would have done is fleshed out Kotetsu more - not change his personality, as you can be quite all-over-the-place and yet competent (I find Kotetsu's character very easy to relate to, we're both just quite alike which I think could surprise some people) and I think that's largely the narrative that the writers wanted to work with for him (for instance, his trademark band-snapping was to indicate tactical thought and spontaneous insight). I also think that narrative of being outside the boundaries of what is conventionally accepted as strategic has been seen in the protagonist, Ash with his match against Conway. I would have liked to, after the match maybe, or hinted at before, more on how he caught Hydreigon, how he trained that Pokemon since dragon-types are hard to train and the pokemon trusted him as well as followed his call. Also, I think it would make Hydreigon's overall presence less sloppy (maybe not having him as a "surprise" would also, but I suppose the writers did want to astonish the audience).
• Also: the time when Kotetsu snapped his band and yet his strategy made no sense... this was so uncharacteristic given what we had been conveyed prior to this and I didn't see any benefit in that scene as the writers were trying to portray Kotetsu as the one to defeat Ash.
• Shooti v Ash - to be honest this is one of the things that highlighted a problem with the series as a whole, their relationship. The writers established Shooti's apathy in the rivalry to the point it just felt like it didn't matter to him, or Ash really so to be honest, I wouldn't have had a six versus six match at all. I'm not here for pretending their rivalry was any more meaningful than it actually was, and I'm kind of glad the writers weren't either. However, the problem was that Shooti was written initially to capture the traditional main rival but it seemed halfway through, the writers had changed their minds somewhat and instead, Ash's second rival became more predominant. It's an interesting shift but it just wasn't executed at all well. I think with Shooti's narrative (his admiration and disillusionment with Alder) couldn't or just didn't make use of Ash as a proper catalyst to this unlike Ash being a good catalyst to Paul's disillusionment with his older brother which allowed Paul to engage with Ash and similarly, Ash to engage with Paul due to his opposing viewpoint. Maybe Shooti should have not been the primary rival or else, they should have found a way for the two to engage in each other's storylines.
• More emphasis on Bel's storyline during the League would have been appreciated - she had really worked to get where she was, to earn the badges so I wish there was more focus on this aspect. It's a real pity, since I didn't find her final match as engaging as it should have been considering how hard she has worked and I didn't think the writers really gave her enough credit for this or tried to focus on her after she loses like they did with Sawyer.
• The filler episode was actually quite interesting, good insight into the lives during the competition but just not great timing; maybe it would have been best at the beginning of the League or just after the first round but greatly reduced in terms of length to accommodate matches.

It has been a while since I actually watched the Unova League, and bare in mind there's actually a couple of things I quite liked however there was definite flaws.

 

[Nicolas721]

I am kind of surprised people would want a longer battle between Ash and Trip. Sure, Trip was Ash's main rival during BW, but their rivalry never really seemed too noteworthy to me. There wasn't the same kind of buildup to a League confrontation like we got with Paul or even Gary. Trip lost multiple times on-screen, so I think that weakened what impact it could have had if Ash did defeat him in a full battle. Gary and Paul lost on-screen before facing Ash too, but it was usually against powerful opponents and there was much more weight to those rivalries compared to what he had with Trip. If they wanted to give Ash and Trip a full battle, then they would have needed to change a lot about Trip and his rivalry with Ash throughout the whole series.

As I said, none of the rivals really deserved a full battle, so First Guy Wins.

 

[PkmnTrainerV]

Even though I think Ash ending up at Top 8 is fitting for the series, the way Ash lost seems like an insult.

* Ash and Pikachu defeat Lucario, preferably using the counter shield strategy.
* After the close battle have Ash think about how close he was to losing and thinking about training more for the future leagues.
* Have Pignite evolve into Emboar sometime before the league and replace the Axew filler with it trying to master heat crash.
* Ash loses to Virgil's Sylveon in the end.

 

[Huikyeong]

I am kind of surprised people would want a longer battle between Ash and Trip. Sure, Trip was Ash's main rival during BW, but their rivalry never really seemed too noteworthy to me. There wasn't the same kind of buildup to a League confrontation like we got with Paul or even Gary. Trip lost multiple times on-screen, so I think that weakened what impact it could have had if Ash did defeat him in a full battle. Gary and Paul lost on-screen before facing Ash too, but it was usually against powerful opponents and there was much more weight to those rivalries compared to what he had with Trip. If they wanted to give Ash and Trip a full battle, then they would have needed to change a lot about Trip and his rivalry with Ash throughout the whole series.

It kinda goes back to my last point about Ash having too many rivals. I don't mind him having multiple rivals but it got to the point where we kinda lost his main rival and that is a big no no. The main rival should take center over the other rivals. And it's not just that Ash had too many rivals, it's also that they were all crammed in to where we didn't really see them as individuals. That and everyone and their brothers had a rival as well.

Because of that Trip didn't really had much of a chance to shine in my opinion. For such a smart and strong trainer, he wasn't treated with much respect. That and having that full battle with Ash would have mad him realise more that brute strength wasn't everything. Another is that he had so many good Pokemon but they only chose to focus mostly on Serprior. I'd like to see the rest of his team fully evolved on a full battle!

 

[Matleo]

Yes , Trip and his Serperior and team deserved a full 6vs6 battle and not a one battle take out, but maybe the writers got time change due to gen 6 , but that wasnt the right way to handle it.

Its not thatTrip lost, but the way he did, it was too fast and not good at showing more of gen V pokemon and their potential.

I hoped that guy with the Larvesta would be Ash rival and have a Volcarona at the league.
But i was let down.

Its like with some of the rivals in Kalos that were to fast taken down. Good that Sawyer and Alain were handled properly.

Its always like there would some battles be missing.
Gen III and IV were a little better when it comes to this.

 

[Hidden Mew]

It kinda goes back to my last point about Ash having too many rivals. I don't mind him having multiple rivals but it got to the point where we kinda lost his main rival and that is a big no no. The main rival should take center over the other rivals. And it's not just that Ash had too many rivals, it's also that they were all crammed in to where we didn't really see them as individuals. That and everyone and their brothers had a rival as well.

Because of that Trip didn't really had much of a chance to shine in my opinion. For such a smart and strong trainer, he wasn't treated with much respect. That and having that full battle with Ash would have mad him realise more that brute strength wasn't everything. Another is that he had so many good Pokemon but they only chose to focus mostly on Serprior. I'd like to see the rest of his team fully evolved on a full battle!

I'm not sure if it was a matter of Ash having too many rivals. The only rivals he had throughout his Unova journey aside from Trip were Stephan and arguably Bianca, even though she wasn't really treated as such. There were Cameron and Virgil, but they fit the usual League rival roles, so I wouldn't factor them into this considering they only showed up once Ash was close to the Unova League. I think that there was an issue of the series having too many rivals in general if we included Georgia and Burgundy, even though they also mostly became used for comedy relief as the series progressed and almost none of them got any sense of closure, but I don't think Ash had too many rivals himself.

Trip probably did get lost in the shuffle at least partly due to how he didn't have a running gag like the other rivals did. BW had a lot of running gags with its new characters, possibly to make up for Team Rocket not being the comedy relief for most of the series, but I'm not sure if there was much they could have done to make him interesting even with fewer rivals or if he had a running gag. I still think that they made a huge mistake with making a brand new trainer so ridiculously powerful that he could defeat Ash with ease. That didn't make their rivalry particularly noteworthy or interesting right from the start and his later appearances didn't really help either. They kept treating like Trip was the more experienced trainer instead of Ash, which was really weird.

 

[EscLucy]

I think that the main problem was when all of Ash's companions took part in a battling event because then the producers scripted in all of the rivals and then sometimes the rival than corresponds to the companion might not get matched up so then it becomes a stupid exercise. I disagree with you HM, I think that too many rivals meant that there couldn't be a 6v6 Ash vs Trip which is what everyone wanted to see because Trip acted like a d**k and Virgil became pointless. Also, Cameron vs Ash was a let-down so therefore the Unova League, in general, was a letdown. It was very rushed and was an anti-climax. It was a rubbish way to end a rubbish series imo.

 

[Hidden Mew]

I think that the main problem was when all of Ash's companions took part in a battling event because then the producers scripted in all of the rivals and then sometimes the rival than corresponds to the companion might not get matched up so then it becomes a stupid exercise. I disagree with you HM, I think that too many rivals meant that there couldn't be a 6v6 Ash vs Trip which is what everyone wanted to see because Trip acted like a d**k and Virgil became pointless. Also, Cameron vs Ash was a let-down so therefore the Unova League, in general, was a letdown. It was very rushed and was an anti-climax. It was a rubbish way to end a rubbish series imo.

I don't think that Iris and Cilan taking part in the Club Battle tournament was necessarily a problem. On paper, it's a good idea, especially when there wasn't something like Contests for the other characters to compete in, and giving his friends their own rivals also could have worked if the rivalries went anywhere. It basically gave them something to do instead of being on the sidelines, even if I didn't like most of Iris's battles. Even battling against other rivals wasn't a bad idea since it provided some unique matchups. Granted, I think seeing Trip lose to other trainers did weaken the impact Ash's victory could have had, but I don't think that having the characters face off against different rivals is inherently a bad idea.

I can't say if everyone wanted to see a full battle between Ash and Trip, but I know for sure that I didn't want that at least. Their rivalry was boring, Trip himself was pretty bland compared to the other BW rivals and there was just nothing to make me care about Ash defeating Trip. Sure, Trip was a jerk towards Ash, but that's not enough to where I'd want to see Ash defeat Trip in a full battle. Their rivalry was just not an important aspect of the series to where that kind of final confrontation was justified. Unless Trip was featured in the episode, he was rarely brought up and had little presence in the series, which can't be said for Gary or Paul. I still think that getting rid of Trip within the first round of the Unova League was one of the few good choices they made for that arc. While the battle itself wasn't good from what I remember, I really don't think Trip deserved to have a full battle and I think he was the only supporting BW character to get some semblance of closure through that defeat.

The Unova League was a letdown, but that technically wasn't the end of the series. The end of BW was the Decolore Islands arc, which isn't much better. It always was telling how all of the other series thus far have ended with a League arc, but because of the rushed pacing, they had time to go through two more relatively short arcs to end BW on instead.

 

[EscLucy]

I don't think that Iris and Cilan taking part in the Club Battle tournament was necessarily a problem. On paper, it's a good idea, especially when there wasn't something like Contests for the other characters to compete in,

I don't think it is a bad thing either but the problem I have is when a 'rival overload' occurs and you don't get to see passionate battles between a few rivals. It is everyone mixed together and because the companion and rival might not get paired there is no point. Also, in every Clubsplosion type event, they just repeat it. They have most of the rivals plus 1/2 edgy people like the guy with the Throh. The Hearthome City Tag Battle Tournament was good because it was a few rivals with a double battle which made it interesting against new players we haven't seen even though it's a cameo role.

Their rivalry was boring

I agree that their rivalry was boring but there needed to be sufficient closure seeing as he was Ash's main rival. The Serperior vs Pikachu match felt rushed and too quick so it didn't end properly. Ash vs Paul was executed well because there was passion, excitement, cliffhangers etc and that is what the end of the series should be like, a climax at their last battle because we won't see them again (probably). So the producers should make it the best they can and the really screwed up the Unova League.

I hope this clarifies my arguments

 

[SammyW27]

Ya can shine a turd until is sparkles and shines, but it'll still be a turd.

Ain't no making this League better. It fits BW to a T. A crappy saga pretty much deserves a crappy League!

Though since I'm here:

- Make the League the climax of Isshu like with Johto and Sinnoh.
- Make Kotty a little less stupid. Oh, he could still be comically dumb, but not as loathsomely stupid.
- I guess make Virgil a little less random, but since other League rivals (and winners) come out of nowhere I'm not sure if they can be fixed. At the very least give him some more depth besides having all the Eeveelutions.
- No filler mid-league. Seeing the cast hang out outside of battle is nice, but we sure heck as don't need a whole episode for it. At the very least have Axew get lost before the League starts. (That was BW officially hitting rock bottom)

Though Ash vs Trip is fine as is. It was a terrible rivalry (and character), and deserves a terrible ending to match.