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World Championships in the anime

Well, yeah? I mean you can't expect Ash to be active in every episode. Even previous sagas didn't have Ash take the lead role in every episode, so this is sort of a weird prediction to make imo. The best compromise would be that Ash might do some training in Go focused episodes so that he isn't just sitting on the side lines, but I don't even see that as compulsory.
Except this time his requirement isn't just getting 8 static badges before the League Conference begins, but to get to the Top 8 / Master Class of the PWC. The very PWC in which more than 10000 trainers are actively participating and where every trainer's rank is constantly changing depending on their performance and win/loss (unlike League challengers where the number of badges you have not mattering to other people). Ash won't ever stay the same rank because other trainers will take over his spot if he doesn't do much participation and even when he manages to get to Top 8, he would need to ensure he stays there till the next Master Class tournament (which gives us an interesting concept of Ash participating in title/rank defense battles, something we haven't seen before).
 
As cool as the idea of Ash having rematches with other Kanto Gym Leaders sound, I really hope that they'll have him battle against the Galar Gym Leaders too. Getting a chance to have proper battles with other Gym Leaders or meeting characters that didn't get a proper appearance sounds cool, but I just don't want to come at the expense of the new characters, especially when I really like the vast majority of the Galar Gym Leaders.

I also wonder if they'll have some matches done off-screen just for the purpose of increasing Ash's rank. Part of this is because I still can't see them devoting multiple series to this World Championship goal though.
 
I also wonder if they'll have some matches done off-screen just for the purpose of increasing Ash's rank. Part of this is because I still can't see them devoting multiple series to this World Championship goal though.
I was about to write about this. I think he'll likely have off-screen and partly off-screen battles through the series, like his version of Gou's fast captures.
 
"Strongly implying" and "actual happens" are different things.

Heck, the Show has implied/foreshadowed/set up things that never came to be several times, so they could very well no do it here as well...

I'm less cynical, although I am somewhat worried they'll only do Kanto-nuity.


+/- I'm afraid Ash's reserves will be completely ignored, seeing them again would be incredible.

If Ash uses reserves I think it'll be late in the series as usual, unless he rotates heavily.

I'm 90% sure we'll get Charizard at some point, I just hope he's not the only one.
 
I'm less cynical, although I am somewhat worried they'll only do Kanto-nuity.
This is what I'm wondering. Kanto tends to get special treatment so I think it's possible we'll get callbacks to it but nothing from Johto onward.
(Also you deserve credit for the term Kanto-nuity)

If Ash uses reserves I think it'll be late in the series as usual, unless he rotates heavily.
I'm a bit worried we'll get something like the Tobias battle where some come back after a decade of absence just to get fed into a meatgrinder (they massacred my poor boy Swellow there).

I'm 90% sure we'll get Charizard at some point, I just hope he's not the only one.
I think we'll see all three of the Kanto starters just because of the poster showing them with Charizard+the others in their first stage.
 
I hope Ash will use his reserves during the World Championship battles but before the tail end of the series (and hopefully they do an Oak's lab episode where we see most of his mons).

Also I'd like the gaps between battles in the PWC to not be that long, maybe every 6-10 episodes?
 
This is what I'm wondering. Kanto tends to get special treatment so I think it's possible we'll get callbacks to it but nothing from Johto onward.
(Also you deserve credit for the term Kanto-nuity)

I think Alola is likely too since it's the most recent and the staff is mostly the same as Sun & Moon. I'm more worried about what came between (c'mon Sinnoh remakes!).
 
I think Alola is likely too since it's the most recent and the staff is mostly the same as Sun & Moon. I'm more worried about what came between (c'mon Sinnoh remakes!).
Right, that is true--I suppose the sharp line between the end of XY and the start of SuMo clouded my consideration (compared to the transition in previous series'). I guess we might have an idea when we finally get an Alola episode announced.
 
Has Gou even showed that much interest in battling? I was under the impression that he's still primarily catching new Pokemon nearly every episode. If that is the case, then I don't think he'll take part in the World Championship, let alone actually defeat Leon instead of Ash.
 
Has Gou even showed that much interest in battling? I was under the impression that he's still primarily catching new Pokemon nearly every episode. If that is the case, then I don't think he'll take part in the World Championship, let alone actually defeat Leon instead of Ash.
He enjoys watching other people battle, but it doesn't seem like he's interested in actually participating in trainer battles himself.
 
He enjoys watching other people battle, but it doesn't seem like he's interested in actually participating in trainer battles himself.
I hope Raboot will make him catch more Pokemon through battling since it's clearly interested in battles.
 
Has Gou even showed that much interest in battling? I was under the impression that he's still primarily catching new Pokemon nearly every episode. If that is the case, then I don't think he'll take part in the World Championship, let alone actually defeat Leon instead of Ash.
He enjoys watching other people battle, but it doesn't seem like he's interested in actually participating in trainer battles himself.

It's strange because in episodes SS007 and SS017, he has explicit epiphanies about Pokemon Battling and its merits, but fails to act on such realizations in the subsequent episode(s). For all we know, he could just be another Serena and only come to take battling seriously after 40 episodes or so.
 
Has Gou even showed that much interest in battling? I was under the impression that he's still primarily catching new Pokemon nearly every episode. If that is the case, then I don't think he'll take part in the World Championship, let alone actually defeat Leon instead of Ash.
If his starter Pokemon has an interest in battling he may eventually decide to battle more as a result. And what better opportunity for that then the World Championship.
 
If his starter Pokemon has an interest in battling he may eventually decide to battle more as a result. And what better opportunity for that then the World Championship.

I don't think that would be a good place for a rookie trainer to start getting into battling though. Even though the rankings don't seem to take previous accomplishments into account, he'd still be facing off against strong trainers all across the world. Gou has a lot of Pokemon, but that doesn't make him qualified to battle against much more powerful trainers even if he does start becoming more interested in battling. Trying to tackle regular Gyms instead would make more sense for a rookie trainer than jumping head first into the World Championship.
 
Didn't stop Dawn from entering the Pokémon World Tournament Junior Cup despite being a Pokémon Coordinator. And as evident from his rather recent fight with Kiawe, he still enjoys a good battle regardless of his profession; so much so, that he even acquired Mega Evolution.

Well, Pokémon Coordinators do have a lot more in common with Pokémon Trainers than doctors do. They both train their Pokémon to become stronger battlers and learn better moves (with one of the rounds in contests being all about Pokémon battles, with the only difference being that instead of trying to KO the opponent, you're trying to outshine them), while Pokémon Doctors study how to treat Pokémon in need of medical assistance. So Dawn entering the PWT (or a knock-off, in this case) does make sense, as participating in battles is a good way to help your Pokémon train and improve themselves. On the other hand, having a Pokémon Doctor, whose job has nothing to do with battle, enter a tournament to determine the strongest battler in the world... yeah, that... wouldn't make much sense.

As for him enjoying battles, I'm not denying it, nor is that the issue here. The issue is that he's supposed to not have much time on his hands, since he's too busy studying (which is the whole reason why he gave up journeying with Ash). Him taking a small break once in a while to help his friends and spend time with them (like he did during the whole Kanto-Alola two-parters) is more realistic than him dropping his dream so he could participate in a tournament where, supposedly, you have to constantly be active and battle other trainers so as to get to the top. I guess they could still have him battle Ash for some other reason if they really wanted to, though I can't think of that many good scenarios in which that would happen (the only one I could think of would be him helping Ash train for his battle/rematch (depending on how the match turns out) with Forrest, but there are probably others than just don't come to mind). But if they do put him in the PWC, just for the sake of having him battle Ash again, then that would seriously diminish his departure.
 
If his starter Pokemon has an interest in battling he may eventually decide to battle more as a result. And what better opportunity for that then the World Championship.
Yeah sure, let's totally forget that every battle Gou's been in has ended up him being quite incompetent and letting his Pokemon be one-shotted, never mind the fact that a newbie would get their ass handed to them in an elite competition like the World Championships even if it's open to all. He never even spends time with any of his Pokemon or trains them and unlike the Raid battle, Ash won't be there to carry him throughout this time. Where did people even come up with the concept of Gou participating in the PWC, never mind the redundancy of doing so?
 
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If his starter Pokemon has an interest in battling he may eventually decide to battle more as a result. And what better opportunity for that then the World Championship.
This is a competition to determine the world's best. A newbie should have no chance of winning or even making it in--if Gou is able to qualify it would diminish Ash's two decade journey to this point.
 
He could definitely make it in, as there are zero prerequisites. Ash chose to battle a higher-ranked trainer, but Go wouldn't have to do that.

I am not saying it should happen, but it would be no different than Dawn battling Maylene for Buizel's sake (if anything, it would have lower stakes, as the opponent could be a newbie). If Ash encouraged Go to participate in the Battle Frontier tournament, he would definitely want him to give a ranked battle a try. I think it's more likely that Go will participate in that new Vermilion gym that probably exists for a reason, even though it hasn't been mentioned in months.
 
Please note: The thread is from 4 years ago.
Please take the age of this thread into consideration in writing your reply. Depending on what exactly you wanted to say, you may want to consider if it would be better to post a new thread instead.
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