SPOILERS: Masters Eight Discussion/Speculation Thread

[Queen Cynthia]

I really don't see how Ash can win without it involving some form of DEM,we saw Leon breeze through Diantha's team with 3 pokemon still remaining and easily defeated Alain without GMAXing his Charizard.

Of course, you can count on that battle being a pure DEM fest. After all, it 's the clash between the two worst written characters in Journeys, with tthe first one, Leon, being portrayed in a totally unrealistic, exaggerated way and the second one, Ash, plot armoring his way through the PWC and the Masters Eight Tournament in particular, so I can't think of a worse scenario to be honest.
If Ash, who can be considered as being on roughly the same level as Diantha and Alain, is supposed to defeat Mr ."I'm a so great (...not)", then of course they have to come up with all kind of cheap tricks.
The biggest flaw of the PWC is its lack of consistency if you ask me.

 

[Alola]

Ash's Dragonite has been undefeated for most of Journeys. It's only at the brink of the Master Class when she got her first loss. She hasn't lost that many times, overall, and still has a chance of getting a KO in the battle with Leon.

She's actually lost more than she has won. She's been in a total of five official battles that were conclusively animated. She scored victories against Korrina and Iris, but lost to Raihan, Paul, and Cynthia.

If you want to gauge her performance by KOes, then she has knocked out three Pokémon (Mienshao, Lucario, & Haxorus), while losing her other (3) matches without getting a KO. Either way, her win record does not surpass her loss record.

That aside, I've watched the special preview trailer over a dozen times by now. I absolutely love several things about it and what we're going to be getting over the next batch of episodes.

• For the trailer, I really enjoyed that OST. It feels grandiose and melancholic at the same time - I hope that's a Yuki track that will be released down the road with the others, even if it's a short motif.
• Lucario and Sirfetch'd high-fiving each other would be more impactful if their initially established relationship wasn't forgotten several episodes after it aired (but I still liked it nonetheless).
• That aside, Leon is using all three of the Galarian Starters! You have no idea how excited I am to finally see Inteleon and Cinderace be animated in a high quality battle under an actual Trainer who likes to battle. Them being owned by Go was such a waste of potential, as I am sure a lot of us can agree on. But, thankfully the writers will give us some Galarian Starter representation before Journeys ends and I am so ecstatic. The shots they've shown already look promising; between Cinderace's excitable stance alongside its Libero (!) to Inteleon using using its own Counter Shield with what looks like Hydro Pump, it's going to be a good time to be a Galarian Starter fan.
  • Speaking of Libero, that's awesome that we have a Hidden Ability at play! We rarely get them and it's a shame they aren't animated more often (as well as Abilities in general). I can't recall the last time we've had a Hidden Ability be fundamentally used in battle since Olympia's Meowstic's Prankster, but if that battle was any indication, then Libero should be put to good effect. I'm looking forward to seeing how Ash handles such an opponent since we completely skipped over Protean.
• Speaking of Leon's team, It's a good representation of Galar in my opinion. He's got all three regional Starters, a Galarian regional variant's evolution, and the Galarian pseudo-legendary along with his own Starter. If you wouldn't know any better, you'd be forgiven for mistaking that as Ash's team reading the description on paper. I know that's probably intentional, but I still feel it was a point worth acknowledging.
  • I'm happy too because I was not looking forward to seeing another Haxorus be animated and we already got splendid Aegislash action back in the Kalos League with Sawyer.
• The animation so far looks good, as it should. That the dream team is working on this couldn't be more perfect.
• It's great to see Dawn is back to cheer on Ash (although I am baffled as to why Piplup doesn't have on his superior cheering outfit). I'm assuming we'll get more cameos in some way or another as has been mentioned, but that Dawn is the first one there/first to be shown speaks volumes in my opinion to her relationship with Ash. Even though I love Serena and she's my favorite, I feel like Dawn has pushed/worked with Ash the most out of all the current female companions, so it's fitting she'd be there for his biggest career moment yet (although, it's too bad we can't say the same for him in her other Contest/Grand Festival endeavors). That said though, I hope Serena shows up too.
  • Assuming Ash wins, in an ideal scenario, I think it would be cool if all his friends threw him a victory party at Oak's lab. That'd be quite the number of VAs returning though and my faith in such a feat is shaky given all the production issues that have come to light recently.
• So...is Go, really not going to watch in person? I cannot understand the logic behind that writing decision - to cast Go away for the Leon fight to do off-screen stuff for Project Mew. I can't say I'm fully surprised, because this is Journeys we are talking about. But even that is such an unprecedented move, though. I really hope that wasn't Go's goodbye episode because as controversial as he is, even he deserves better than that.

 

[FinnishPokéFan92]

I can't recall the last time we've had a Hidden Ability be fundamentally used in battle since Olympia's Meowstic's Prankster

Rinto's Gallade had Justified.

 

[Protonman]

Cannot agree more with the OP. This is all essentially why I decided I won't tune in for the Gen 9 series. If they believe having this undeservedly overpowered protagonist beating his obvious betters is anywhere near acceptable storytelling then I can no longer hold out any specks of hope in this show's quality going forward.

No, nothing Leon does to him now will fix this. The fatal damage is done. If Ash's loss in the Kalos League was "jumping the shark" then this is like jumping the entire damn pod.

What is the difference between Ash beating strong trainers now or any other time? Ash has been ready to battle strong trainers by the end of DP, and had BW not set things back for him, all of this would have been justified back then. If you honestly think Ash doesn't have justification to beat strong champions I don't know what to say.

Now I do understand his current team being this powerful is hard to swallow, but it's more that the writers had his previous teams lose to weaker opponents for no reason.

 

[Silktree]

There's actually no reason why Ash couldn't defeat Leon except for the tiny detail that the latter is supposed to be the world's strongest trainer. As such:

Weakness | Pokemon Journeys (2019) Anime OST/Soundtrack Volume 2

The second volume of soundtrack from the Pokemon Journeys Anime (Pocket Monsters 2019) by Yuki Hayashi is now available!For more in-person Pokemon video game...

www.youtube.com

 

[FinnishPokéFan92]

There's actually no reason why Ash couldn't defeat Leon except for the tiny detail that the latter is supposed to be the world's strongest trainer. As such:

Weakness | Pokemon Journeys (2019) Anime OST/Soundtrack Volume 2

The second volume of soundtrack from the Pokemon Journeys Anime (Pocket Monsters 2019) by Yuki Hayashi is now available!For more in-person Pokemon video game...

www.youtube.com

That soundtrack could be used as a moment of despair, followed by Ash making a comeback. And, as has been pointed out, Ash has never really permanently lost against game-original characters, and Leon's whole character arc is about eventually losing to the main character. Leon even previously established that losing to Eternatus made him excited with the realization there are still opponents stronger than him out there, as that means he still has room to improve. That same reason can be why losing to Ash wouldn't bother him.

 

[Silktree]

There was a time when Ash regularly lost to Elite Four members, you know. It's only in this series that the thought of him losing seems unfathomable to some. I draw the line at being crowned the world's strongest trainer and only going downhill from that point on. Be careful what you wish for.

That track is far too melancholic to be used in a battle. Is there any precedent for such a thing? Ash doesn't have time to lose his cool during a battle. How would the track be used for more than 20 seconds without a loss being involved?

 

[PkmnTrainerV]

There's actually no reason why Ash couldn't defeat Leon except for the tiny detail that the latter is supposed to be the world's strongest trainer. As such:

Weakness | Pokemon Journeys (2019) Anime OST/Soundtrack Volume 2

The second volume of soundtrack from the Pokemon Journeys Anime (Pocket Monsters 2019) by Yuki Hayashi is now available!For more in-person Pokemon video game...

www.youtube.com

Didn’t Ash lose to Cynthia just because you spammed this everywhere? There’s no way Ash's arc ends in despair. Even when he loses, it is presented as a hopeful thing, a YouTube link is not a valid dismissal. (Hell, dismissing people at all is rude af).

 

[BigDocFan]

Will all the past faces potentially showing up during the Ash vs Leon match, I'm curious to see if Gengar's former trainer might appear watching his former Gengar beat one of Leon's Pokemon

 

[LuxrayOfTheWild]

Didn’t Ash lose to Cynthia just because you spammed this everywhere? There’s no way Ash's arc ends in despair. Even when he loses, it is presented as a hopeful thing, a YouTube link is not a valid dismissal. (Hell, dismissing people at all is rude af).

Yeah, I'm with you. I've grown tired of this track being spammed here.

In fact, I've grown tired of this song being used to rudely dismiss people who think Ash can win. Or just coming here to dismiss anyone hoping for an SV series. That's literally all they've been posting here on the anime board lately. Either spamming this song or spamming "SV series won't happen."

 

[Daren]

One week to go until the Masters Eight finale. Everyone who has a theory on the winner should lock in your bets now.

 

[FinnishPokéFan92]

Masters Eight Tournament has now officially concluded! And what a conclusion it was!

Spoiler

 

[BigDocFan]

Currently reading some of the comments made by the dub team

 

[Hidden Mew]

It is kind of interesting that even the official Pokemon twitter account acknowledged the outcome. They were a bit more coy about the Alola League by comparison from what I remember, but here they straight up announced Ash winning the PWC.

 

[Daren]

With major news sites announcing Ash's win last time I imagine they figured playing coy was pointless because it would likely go wild on the internet again--and did, since the BBC is apparently reporting it.

 

[PrettySylveon]

My brother texted me about Ash defeating Leon and I jumped for Joy

 

[Peppermint Phoenix]

I wish he used reserves still. I don't buy the "it would take the spotlight away from his JN team" thing. Having them win a tournament of this magnitude themselves gave them WAAAAAAAAAAAAY too much spotlight compared to all his old Pokémon. If Ash used all his JN team just once each and used pikachu for both the Semi finals and the finals that would only give Ash 8 reserves slots. Being used just once for what is quite possibly the last tournament of the entire series is an INSANE amount of spotlight.

 

[JinksChow]

It is kind of interesting that even the official Pokemon twitter account acknowledged the outcome. They were a bit more coy about the Alola League by comparison from what I remember, but here they straight up announced Ash winning the PWC.

Not just on Twitter, but the Official Pokémon YouTube Channel also made a post congratulating Ash on winning the PWC.

 

[Galar Adventurer]

• For the trailer, I really enjoyed that OST. It feels grandiose and melancholic at the same time - I hope that's a Yuki track that will be released down the road with the others, even if it's a short motif.

The trailer BGM is track #39 With Full Strength from the Pocket Monsters Original Soundtrack Volume 1 album.

 

[Imtnt]

So m8 is to be remembered in a better light after focusing on Ash 3 high ranked battles. Even though other battles were not good enough. The last episode is a good one to deliver the stuff were lacked before.