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World Championships in the anime

The concept of the World Championships in itself, and the 1000 trainer ranking ladder that comes with it, is more than enough to keep the series going for the next few generations provided it's not rushed. And I didn't even include any of the in-between episodes, fillers, slice of life stuff, training focus etc.

I don't know if I can see them keeping to the World Championship concept for that long. That would potentially make Ash defeating other highly skilled trainers and Champions more believable, but considering that his goal is to defeat Leon, I'm not sure if they'll keep the goal beyond this generation. They aren't exclusively focused on promoting Sword/Shield this time around, but they are featuring some of the new Pokemon within the main cast and Ash wants to beat Leon, so that is still at least a bit of a factor. I guess it's too early to tell either way, but I'm just not sure if they'll keep Ash's attempts to enter the World Championships, and by extension PM itself, last for that long.
 
When I was staring at the ceiling last night a thought occurred to me.

Traditionally there's the whole "eight gyms to enter the league" rule. The World Championship works differently, of course.
However the first match we're seeing for the qualification bracket is a psuedo gym battle in Kanto. What if we're going to get one for each region to replicate the traditional format?

I know that's probably not what many of us want to happen, but still...
Edit: I do sort of like the symbolism behind such an idea even if it feels a bit weird. One reason I was disappointed by the reserves never appearing in XY is seeing Ash use a team with 1 Pokémon from every region in a full battle would have been really fun.
 
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If today's episode is anything to go by, any defeat doesn't automatically mean you're out of the championships, you just go down in rank

Really hope future battles in the championships featuring Atsuhiro Tomioka as the writer with Yūji Asada, Masaaki Iwane and Izumi Shimura handling animation
 
If today's episode is anything to go by, any defeat doesn't automatically mean you're out of the championships, you just go down in rank

Really hope future battles in the championships featuring Atsuhiro Tomioka as the writer with Yūji Asada, Masaaki Iwane and Izumi Shimura handling animation
I like that this actually gives us the possibility of Ash losing to some top gun sometime. It’s bound to happen at some point.
 
If today's episode is anything to go by, any defeat doesn't automatically mean you're out of the championships, you just go down in rank

Really hope future battles in the championships featuring Atsuhiro Tomioka as the writer with Yūji Asada, Masaaki Iwane and Izumi Shimura handling animation

It is also important to mention that Ash won't just switch rank with another trainer after he defeats this.

Pisces was around rank 2100, but Ash rank is 3763 after defeating her (Ash ranking before defeating her was likely over 10000).
 
I don't know if I can see them keeping to the World Championship concept for that long. That would potentially make Ash defeating other highly skilled trainers and Champions more believable, but considering that his goal is to defeat Leon, I'm not sure if they'll keep the goal beyond this generation. They aren't exclusively focused on promoting Sword/Shield this time around, but they are featuring some of the new Pokemon within the main cast and Ash wants to beat Leon, so that is still at least a bit of a factor. I guess it's too early to tell either way, but I'm just not sure if they'll keep Ash's attempts to enter the World Championships, and by extension PM itself, last for that long.
I really can't see them returning to a normal badge quest after this, this is a shonen anime after all and stakes typically don't lower like that. PWC is clearly the end game, now it's only a matter of stretching it out as far as they can. Either the current series will be uber long and will span a few more generations, or the PWC will be the focus of every series that follows. These are the strongest trainers in the world so there's really nowhere to go after this. Now if they want to dial it back, they'll either have to replace Ash with Gou (which I don't want or really expect) or finally do a reboot.

Also, whenever Ash inevitably defeats Leon in this series, he will most likely lose to an even stronger trainer immediately after and therefor have a new rival/goal.
 
I don't really care what they intend to do after this series right now, but Ash doing another badge quest after all this sounds terrible.

What I know is that I'd like to see Ash challenge Janine, Sabrina (with her Alakazam and Gengar duo), 2-3 top gym leaders from Galar, many Elite Four members (including Lance), Giovanni (as part of the Top 8) and obviously Leon. I also think he needs a competent rival and that it should be a girl for once, seeing as all the male tropes have pretty much been used.
 
I don't really care what they intend to do after this series right now, but Ash doing another badge quest after all this sounds terrible.

What I know is that I'd like to see Ash challenge Janine, Sabrina (with her Alakazam and Gengar duo), 2-3 top gym leaders from Galar, many Elite Four members (including Lance), Giovanni (as part of the Top 8) and obviously Leon. I also think he needs a competent rival and that it should be a girl for once, seeing as all the male tropes have pretty much been used.
Marnie suits the bill of a girl rival perfectly especially when you consider her connections to the Spikemuth Gym. I personally would prefer tough rivals from the past, especially Paul and Alain, to return. Hop should also be introduced soon instead of giving him the Hau treatment.
 
I really can't see them returning to a normal badge quest after this, this is a shonen anime after all and stakes typically don't lower like that. PWC is clearly the end game, now it's only a matter of stretching it out as far as they can. Either the current series will be uber long and will span a few more generations, or the PWC will be the focus of every series that follows. These are the strongest trainers in the world so there's really nowhere to go after this. Now if they want to dial it back, they'll either have to replace Ash with Gou (which I don't want or really expect) or finally do a reboot.

Also, whenever Ash inevitably defeats Leon in this series, he will most likely lose to an even stronger trainer immediately after and therefor have a new rival/goal.

Considering that they've had Ash go back to a normal badge quest after defeating Legendary Pokemon and reached high ranks in previous Pokemon Leagues, I don't think it would be too much of a stretch for them to go back to that after introducing the World Championship. Maybe not extremely likely, but I don't know if they'd avoid it completely either in the future. I'm not sure if I could see PWC being the focus of every future series. That seems more possible than this series covering multiple generations, but I think that it's just too early to be complete sure about what they plan to do with this concept. I don't know if they'd need to replace Ash or do a reboot if they want to dial it back. Maybe I'm just too used to them just having Ash starting back at square one with a fresh team, but I don't think that having him in the World Championship means that they can't do anything else with this version of Ash in the future. Although, I agree that Ash losing to someone after he defeats Leon seems pretty likely, especially if that new trainer is from a new region.
 
I don't think they could return to the badge quest or a regional league after Pokemon World Championship (that involves 8 regions).

I think it is possible they will replace Ash after this. Although it is more likely the replacement will be a new character (not Go).
 
I think there's a few possibilities than can be done once Ash attains the World Championship title. Either do a time skip and go the Boruto route with the focus being on Ash's child and next generation of Pallet Town trainers, or do it DBZ style by bringing in extra-terrestrials and more powerful Pokemon/Trainers. Having him lose after attaining that WC title is a bad idea, at least for the immediate future from attaining the title.
True, they could just keep upping the ante beyond the point of disbelief for years to come. I think the only problem with that is the strongest trainers are supposed to gravitate towards the PWC, so it would be hard to justify Ash fighting many even more powerful trainers that aren't participating. If we're going down the DBZ route, I suppose the logical next step is for Ash to be declared the most powerful trainer as far as friendly competition goes, therefor all of his opponents from then on will need to be all-powerful, world-conquering evil organizations or villains. That all sounds more like fanfic than something they would actually do though, so I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

Edit: When I said he would lose after defeating Leon I meant he would actually face him in the semi-finals and win, only to lose in the finals to another trainer as a way of drawing out the PWC a few more years.
 
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Speaking about Ash's Future. What if the Gen 9 Games and Region itself is different from anything we have seen in the past? Like it's on another planet or something. It definitely would be hard ignoring a future Region and it's trainers in the PWC only for it to pop up three years later. The Anime surely does know the future of the Franchise and they must have got a thumbs-up from the Pokemon Executives.
 
I think setting up Leon as the strongest in the world (at least according to the preview summary for episode 12) then having Ash beat him only to lose to someone right after would feel a bit like a cop-out, myself, without a really good explanation. I also don't think they'd do it after Sun/Moon seemed to be intentionally defying that cliche at the end.

I feel like either this series is going to drag on multiple generations or there's going to be a big shake up next gen. It's way too early to make informed guesses, just speculation.

I wonder what the change in the anime's direction was caused by--a higher up retiring or moving somewhere else seems plausible.
 
Yeah, that's why I suggested the alternative with them going the Boruto route with doing a time skip and a next generation focus. Ash would obviously still be around and a new protagonist (most likely his own child) should fill in the protagonist role.

I doubt the idea of a trainer from a Gen 9 region beating Ash would work. This is the World Championships after all, there's no reason for people from unknown regions to not participate in it unless they're completely cut off from the rest of society (or they're under quarantine because of Pokerona virus :lapras:) and neither case sound appealing in the slightest.
Yeah, my assumption was that they would want to draw out the PWC for a few more generations, having Ash defeat Leon in the semi-finals but lose the Championship to a gen 9 representative. What I'd really like after Ash does win the PWC is a proper face-off between him and the Team Rocket organization in one final hurrah. Beyond that, a Boruto-style adventure would probably be the best and least messy way to continue the story.
 
I think it is possible they will replace Ash after this. Although it is more likely the replacement will be a new character (not Go).

People say this is in every series and they are always wrong, so no I'm not buying it. Ash isn't guaranteed to beat Leon even if he manages to battle him again at the end of this saga, but even on the off chance that he would win, the writers would just find a way to reset or regress him in the next saga. Y'all know deep down that this is true so I hope I won't be seeing any surprised Pikachu faces from you guys 2-3 years from now.

Also if the writers couldn't be arsed to have Ash battle Lt. Surge in Vermilion this week what makes y'all think Ash has a shot of actually battling Giovanni in Viridian?
 
Also if the writers couldn't be be arsed to have Ash battle Lt. Surge in Vermilion this week what makes y'all think Ash has a shot of actually battling Giovanni in Viridian?
As Ash rises in the rankings, he's bound to meet stronger trainers. Sure, the writers could continue pumping out more COTDs, but it's likely that Ash will eventually start battling pre-established characters who viewers already know are strong trainers (eg. in-game Gym Leaders, E4s, previous rivals). While Lt. Surge wasn't directly present in the events of today's episode, there were plenty of references to him, so explicit continuity isn't as taboo as we think it is. In fact, Ash actually mentioned that he wants to battle him again at the end of the episode, so that might happen later on once Ash is higher in the rankings (granted, Ash makes a lot of empty promises, but hey, it's something).

Personally, I don't think Giovanni participating in the PWC is likely, but it's definitely a legit possibility.
 
People say this is in every series and they are always wrong, so no I'm not buying it. Ash isn't guaranteed to beat Leon even if he manages to battle him again at the end of this saga, but even on the off chance that he would win, the writers would just find a way to reset or regress him in the next saga. Y'all know deep down that this is true so I hope I won't be seeing any surprised Pikachu faces from you guys 2-3 years from now.

You know, there is little reason to prevent Ash from defeating Leon, since defeating Leon (or not) won't affect much the result for the next season.

I mean, even if Ash doesn't beat Leon, he will still be Top 8 (at least) between 8 regions. It is difficult they can return to a regional league after that too.
 
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