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Ash, friends, and rivals...by BST

Emelie

Bookworm
Well, with stuff like "aim for the horn" and "thunder armor" BST probably isn't taken into consideration by the writers. :p

But I wouldn't mind if they tried to be more like the games. It would feel like Satoshi put more effort into training. Why can't we have a trainer who works hard to win the league without being portrayed as an abusive jerk? :rolleyes:

I think this is kind of the reason some people aren't excited by the SM league even if he has a good chance of winning. Compare to XY when it felt like Satoshi really wanted to win. Sure, he was mabye a little hard on himself but he overcame this issue which was good character development.

In SM both Satoshi and his Pokémon are just goofing around. Just look at the Hau battle and the comical moments with Rowlet. It doesn't feel like it matters too much to them if they win or not. Even if he might never win it should at least feel like it's important to Satoshi that he could potentially win the league and achieve his goal?
 

Sceptile Leaf Blade

Nighttime Guardian
I think it feels very important to him. He gets fiery eyes and goes crazy with Kiawe about who will win and everything. He just also values other things, like the bond with his pokémon.
The thing about training is that it's boring to watch. You can only do so many training montages before they become completely repetitive. Most people want to see tangible progress and characters, not pokémon repeating the same move in a training sequence over and over again. They show glimpses of Ash training with his pokémon all the time, like when he practised Fire Fang with Litten, or when he discovered Poipole knew Fury Attack.
 

Emelie

Bookworm
I think it feels very important to him. He gets fiery eyes and goes crazy with Kiawe about who will win and everything. He just also values other things, like the bond with his pokémon.
The thing about training is that it's boring to watch. You can only do so many training montages before they become completely repetitive. Most people want to see tangible progress and characters, not pokémon repeating the same move in a training sequence over and over again. They show glimpses of Ash training with his pokémon all the time, like when he practised Fire Fang with Litten, or when he discovered Poipole knew Fury Attack.

What I don't like about the league is that it just feels like yet another fun school trip for the class.

I like the tense moments from XY. I think they did a good job with portraying the characters' feelings like when Serena nervously looked around the room during her first showcase or when Satoshi walked away from the Furfrou guy with a determined look on his face. I was cheering for these characters and wanted to see them do their best.

The only emotional moment that got me during the SM league was when Hau started to cry which kind of made Satoshi look more like a jerk to be honest. How am I supposed to cheer for Satoshi after that?
 

Sceptile Leaf Blade

Nighttime Guardian
I honestly didn't care about Ash in XY, it felt so unimportant to the writers that they skipped most of his battles. Like, blink and he's suddenly in the semifinals. XY was also horribly unbalanced in Ash's team, like there was Greninja and 'fodder to stall for time waiting for Greninja', how were you supposed to be invested in the other match-ups knowing that Ash had a Greninja still waiting that could sweep everything his opponents had with ease except their most powerful pokémon they were also clearly saving for last? And I didn't feel any of the interactions really between Ash and his opponents, they kind of just revered him for some reason, but there didn't really seem much depth or reason for that beyond "he's got the cool Greninja" or "he's good at battling", it lacked personality and character to me. Don't think Ash was a jerk at all to Hau, Hau just lost and losing isn't fun. Cheer for Ash because Guzma is actually a jerk who eliminated best girl Lana and best boy Ilima without any kind of respect.
 

Emelie

Bookworm
I totally agree that the skipped battles in XY were super lame but I think the full battles that we got were great. It felt like everybody brought their best teams (except for Satoshi but he actually gave us a good explaination) and had a legit chance to win.

I'm not super excited about all these one on one battles in SM. The fact that some of the characters only have one or two Pokémon kind of spoils the outcome. It never felt like the female characters or the gag characters had a chance to win. I wouldn't say BST plays a huge role but even without that it's obvious that the last battle is going to be more than just one on one? (Hopefully? :confused:)

I liked how Satoshi had a fully evolved team for once in XY so I think it was a step backwards to have Rowlet defeat it's final form during a gag moment. Was it just a fluke or was Satoshi actually stronger?

I think Hau should have been given more screentime during the league instead of the gag battles like Team Rocket that didn't amount to anything. I also think they should have used more Pokémon or at least given Rowlet some logical power-up like an evolution or something. Rowlet's characterization also feels a little contradictory? First it was super pumped to fight its final form and had fire in its eyes but then it just fell asleep during the big moment!? o_O
 
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