This tournament is probably at its most enjoyable when all episodes are out and people can just binge them without having to skip filler or wait until the breaks are over. However, even at its best, the Masters Tournament is nothing more than wasted potential.
The champions don‘t interact with each other and even worse, due to Ash being in the stands he doesn’t interact with them either. The battles so far vary from atrocious to average, and honestly, it feels more like COTD‘s battling rather than the strongest trainers in the world. So far none of the battles beat out the Volkner battle, and even the Marnie and Raihan battles were more enjoyable in my opinion.
Right now the tournament is profiting from the hype that Ash is finally beating champions or that some old characters “return“ in a voiceless cameo for 2 seconds. But once the hype fizzles out, there is nothing that would put this tournament (at least the first 4 episodes) above most of the regional league tournaments.
If Ash vs Katie or Ash vs Cameron have more rewatch value than Ash vs Steven, than you know something is going horribly wrong.
Oh **** that is an outrageous statement, but I have to agree with you. Something in the style of the battle choreography has changed in Journeys. Pokemon wasn't about one to three hit kos before or even jobbing. That only mostly happend at leagues. The battles are FAR from enjoyable. They feel static, lifeless. Really like game battles with sometimes a little touch of anime magic. People are more invested in the silent cameos,than the battles.
Things that bother me:
-Delia not reacting when Ash was announced as number 8/when Ash won against Steven
-Team Rocket getting 4 scenes in one battle.
-All the back and forths between the audience and the battle takes the pace out of the latter.
-is dodging still a thing? Has happened maybe three times in the M8
-Diantha not doing the wink and dodge thing more than once.
-Lance basically having no counter strategy to Diantha bar raw strength and one Flash Cannon.
-Gengar not trying to be invisible to dodge Cradilly Power Whip.
-Pikachu just aimlessly firing Thunderbolt without much strategy. It reminds me of OS type of battling.