Ash's Pokémon League position

[Hidden Mew]

5 loses were enough but the 6th? Well, I don't see how it is inspiring. I think they never made Ash the person that children can see as a role model.

Ash isn't a role model per say, but I do think that the idea of trying your best and to keep moving forward even with defeats for each League is supposed to be an inspiring message to kids.

The leagues are only worthwhile if the main rivalries are. Ash defeating Gary and Paul was satisfying, but that's about it unless you just care about the action.

The Kalos League could have never been truly interesting with the way the rivals were handled. Hopefully the Sun and Moon series will treat Gladion as a real rival even if he has nothing to do with the island trials.

That's a really good point. While I think that the Hoenn League was pretty good in spite of not having a main rival for Ash to face, the way XY handled its rival characters really affected the Kalos League. If anything, not having a main rival for the series actually backfired on them immensely since they had to force Alain in there and send time hyping him up him up. There wasn't really any other rival character that could have posed a challenge to Ash and they weren't interested in making a League only rival like they have before.

 

[Arceus the Dragon]

Ash is not required to win leagues. It is not mandatory to the story. Yes, he could have won in Kalos but getting to top 2 is still an achievement. It is not like he got placed even lower than Unova like top 10. Whether the writers choose to let him win is yet to be decided. They do allow Ash to win smaller competitions in the anime.

 

[Hidden Mew]

I wouldn't consider the Battle Frontier to be a smaller competition per say. If you're talking about it's smaller in regards to how many people participate in it, that would make sense and it does seem like a more exclusive competition compared to regular Leagues. Although, I still say that winning the Battle Frontier was a bigger deal than a regional League simply due to the bigger prize. Ash could have been a new Frontier Brain upon winning. That's a bigger deal than a trophy and the chance to face the Elite 4, or at least sounds more impressive on paper to me. Granted, it is hard to use it as a defense when the Battle Frontier happened so long ago, but it is still a big accomplishment that shouldn't be dismissed due to not being a regional League.

 

[ii kanji]

it does seem like a more exclusive competition compared to regular Leagues.

Wasn't that because you already had to be a league victor in order to participate?

 

[Hidden Mew]

Wasn't that because you already had to be a league victor in order to participate?

I forget if they provided a specific requirement to participate in the Battle Frontier. I was thinking of how only Scott allowed certain strong trainers to challenge the Battle Frontier, instead of it being open to just anyone like the Leagues are, so that would make the competition pool much smaller. I don't think we saw anyone else challenging the Battle Frontier when Ash was, but that was probably due to a combination of how rushed the arc was and how there wouldn't be much point to introduce a rival for that competition given that they wouldn't be facing off against each other like in a League tournament.

 

[Arceus the Dragon]

I wouldn't consider the Battle Frontier to be a smaller competition per say. If you're talking about it's smaller in regards to how many people participate in it, that would make sense and it does seem like a more exclusive competition compared to regular Leagues. Although, I still say that winning the Battle Frontier was a bigger deal than a regional League simply due to the bigger prize. Ash could have been a new Frontier Brain upon winning. That's a bigger deal than a trophy and the chance to face the Elite 4, or at least sounds more impressive on paper to me. Granted, it is hard to use it as a defense when the Battle Frontier happened so long ago, but it is still a big accomplishment that shouldn't be dismissed due to not being a regional League.

I wasn't talking about Battle Frontier. I was talking about stuff like races or tournaments. The win at the BF was impressive and Orange Islands League was good too.

 

[Satoshi Da Ze]

He raised in position. How is that not progress?

Also notice how the region champions are usually older than he is, or most of his rivals.

Honestly, not trying to put words in other people's mouths but the two reasons that seem to be brought up are:

1. They assume because in the games and other canons like Pokemon Origin the league is ridiculously trivial then the anime's should be as much, and Satoshi not winning therefore means he's a bad trainer.

2. It's been too long and it's believed the anime wouldn't necessarily have to end if he became a champion. After all being a "master" doesn't mean beating a league or catching all 721+ species of pokemon in the anime's universe at all. It's a very vague goal that is practically impossible to reach.

All in all in the anime's setting the leagues are supposed to be a very big deal unlike in the games. Even things like contests aren't that easy.