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Ash needed better Pokemon to win Kanto League, or even certain gym leaders...

DatsRight

Well-Known Member
Yeah you can kinda tell Shudo wasn't really invested in doing the trainer arc in earnest, because Ash didn't really have an agency in it, even in how he LOST. The other protagonists were even worse.

All the factors could have made sense in Shudo's original plan, where the Pokemon trainer profession was SUPPOSED to be a crapshoot run by elitist or desperate officials who wanted to snuff out the 'losers' or prevent their OWN job being made obsolete, with the Pokemon themselves more wild animals that weren't really meant to be tamed. But in the whitewashed form the final show wanted to be, they were basically left having to depict all of Ash's failings as his own, despite nearly everything around him skipping the formalities and unfairly rigging everything against him.

Sure Ash wasn't really a good trainer then and likely would have lost anyway, but he had the right to lose via his own actions, and not everyone going "Ohh, boo-hoo, Team Rocket kidnapped and worn out my Pokemon, my jerk Pokemon won't listen to me, sleep isn't a KO, BLAH-BLAH, LOSER TALK!" and the narrative actually TAKING THEIR SIDE.
 

Blaze Master X

The Fallen Hero
Ash had the Pokemon to win the Kanto league, but the writers decided to make the one Pokemon he saved from dying be a total jackass to him for no reason...and made sleep equal to getting KO'd.
Blame Team Rocket for that.
If it was not for TR, Ash's other Pokemon would not be so tired and he could win without a problem.
 

Captain Jigglypuff

Leader of Jigglypuff Army
Ash’s Gym Challenge run during Kanto was weird. I don’t think having stronger Pokémon would have made much of a difference given half of the Badges were literally handed to him for very arbitrary reasons. He got the Boulder just because Pikachu set off the fire safety system in the Gym and made it pour water on Onix, Cascade only because he foiled TRio, Rainbow for literally running into a burning building, and the Marsh just because Haunter, a Pokémon that never even really belonged to Ash, made Sabrina laugh. And even if Ash did have a battle and defeat the Gym Leader, the match was almost always ruined or interrupted by TRio somehow. Lt. Surge was the only Gym Leader whose match was never interrupted by any external forces. So he was bound to lose the League as he didn’t have as many significantly important wins as he should have as most of the time he was battling TRio who were pretty low in the TR network of agents.
 

DatsRight

Well-Known Member
Ash’s Gym Challenge run during Kanto was weird. I don’t think having stronger Pokémon would have made much of a difference given half of the Badges were literally handed to him for very arbitrary reasons. He got the Boulder just because Pikachu set off the fire safety system in the Gym and made it pour water on Onix, Cascade only because he foiled TRio, Rainbow for literally running into a burning building, and the Marsh just because Haunter, a Pokémon that never even really belonged to Ash, made Sabrina laugh. And even if Ash did have a battle and defeat the Gym Leader, the match was almost always ruined or interrupted by TRio somehow. Lt. Surge was the only Gym Leader whose match was never interrupted by any external forces. So he was bound to lose the League as he didn’t have as many significantly important wins as he should have as most of the time he was battling TRio who were pretty low in the TR network of agents.
Granted while they eased off TR interruptions for the gym battles, they never stopped using them as convenient interruptions for other big matches or challenges the protagonists were supposed to overcome. At least Ash suffered some sort of warranty over it in the end, but many other protagonists were treated as accomplished because they semi-approached quests that TR lowered the goalposts for.

Hell Misty was WORSE than Ash in terms of not backing up her bluster in the same series, though was treated as Ash's equal by the end of the OS, despite only dealing with a handful of matches that weren't TR or Deus ex Psyduck decided while Ash was legitimately getting better in OI and Johto.
 

Ignition

We are so back Zygardebros
Blame Team Rocket for that.
If it was not for TR, Ash's other Pokemon would not be so tired and he could win without a problem.
This is why I still think Kanto has the worst league loss by far. Not to mention Squirtle falling asleep somehow made it unable to battle and no one saying anything about the fact that he had to battle after dealing with Team Rocket
 

Captain Jigglypuff

Leader of Jigglypuff Army
This is why I still think Kanto has the worst league loss by far. Not to mention Squirtle falling asleep somehow made it unable to battle and no one saying anything about the fact that he had to battle after dealing with Team Rocket
That was Charizard that decided to take a nap and somehow caused Ash to lose that battle. I don’t remember what happened to Squirtle during the League.
 

Captain Jigglypuff

Leader of Jigglypuff Army
It was put to sleep and was ruled unable to battle
It’s been so long since I watched any of the Indigo League episodes so my recollection is pretty fuzzy. So when was it that Charizard took a nap and made Ash lose because of it sleeping?
 

Antiyonder

Overlord
Ash’s Gym Challenge run during Kanto was weird. I don’t think having stronger Pokémon would have made much of a difference given half of the Badges were literally handed to him for very arbitrary reasons. He got the Boulder just because Pikachu set off the fire safety system in the Gym and made it pour water on Onix, Cascade only because he foiled TRio, Rainbow for literally running into a burning building, and the Marsh just because Haunter, a Pokémon that never even really belonged to Ash, made Sabrina laugh. And even if Ash did have a battle and defeat the Gym Leader, the match was almost always ruined or interrupted by TRio somehow. Lt. Surge was the only Gym Leader whose match was never interrupted by any external forces.

And honestly I feel that the lack of finishing up the Cascade Gym battle was for no other reason than contribute to the tension between Ash and Misty. Cause yeah trying to knock Ash's skills so to speak would make her look petty if she right after claimed to still be better.

Plus the occasional jabs at Ash for getting them out of pity wouldn't work so well.

Is that possibly why they took that approach with the Rainbow Badge? He had an adequate team and Erika had no game breaking Pokémon on her.
 

RafaSceptile

Well-Known Member
Is that possibly why they took that approach with the Rainbow Badge? He had an adequate team and Erika had no game breaking Pokémon on her.
Without a game breaking Pokémon (Due to the lackluster roster of Gen 1 Pokémon) Erika had the advantage 2-1 (Tangela and Gloom vs Pikachu), and considering Pikachu's inexperience and disadvantage, Ash could lose.
 

Antiyonder

Overlord
Without a game breaking Pokémon (Due to the lackluster roster of Gen 1 Pokémon) Erika had the advantage 2-1 (Tangela and Gloom vs Pikachu), and considering Pikachu's inexperience and disadvantage, Ash could lose.

I mean having Ash consider Pidgeotto after Charmander's defeat if only cause gust could blow away Gloom's stench. Granted that Pokémon was downplayed, but even then I meant that she didn't have a Pokémon with the same kind of hype as say Onix or Kadabra.

Tangela though, depends on if being recalled worked against her.
 

Codebox

Well-Known Member
To me the biggest issue with Ash during the Indigo League (Kanto) was how his team against Richie was designed. It feels like they made him pick the choices he did just to make him lose. He had a Tauros, Kingler and a Muk three fully evolved Pokemon. Kingler won him an entire round on its own. For me the MUs should've been

Pikachu = Butterfree
Kingler = Charmander
Tauros = Pikachu
 

Sceptile Leaf Blade

Nighttime Guardian
The writers wanted Ash to lose there, so no, he didn't have a chance. Team Rocket just provided them with an option to write it like that. Had they chosen not to use Team Rocket they probably would have just made Ritchie stronger. Characters and their pokémon are just as strong as the plot and writers demand them to be. That's why an untrained Muk and Krabby are Ash's strongest and most effective pokémon in the entire Kanto league.
 

pickapika

Well-Known Member
The writers wanted Ash to lose there, so no, he didn't have a chance. Team Rocket just provided them with an option to write it like that. Had they chosen not to use Team Rocket they probably would have just made Ritchie stronger. Characters and their pokémon are just as strong as the plot and writers demand them to be. That's why an untrained Muk and Krabby are Ash's strongest and most effective pokémon in the entire Kanto league.
I was assuming we were trying to keeping things in-universe for this exercise
 
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Sceptile Leaf Blade

Nighttime Guardian
If you were looking in-universe Ash had no business even getting as far as he did and he shouldn't have even reached the league as he didn't beat most gym leaders, and once at the league had no business winning several matches with this random untrained Krabby. Using in-universe logic to predict anything is foolish, plot demands and other out-of-universe considerations drive the plot and outcome. Let's not even try to pretend that most of the events in Kanto make even the slightest bit of sense in-universe. They happen because the plot needs them to happen.
 

beanDude

Reviewer
Nah, I like the way the anime does Pokemon teams. Trainers don't just go around constantly adding Pokemon to their lineup like one would do playing the games. Each addition to a team is a big deal that isn't easily replaceable. How good or bad a Pokemon performs in battle is more about them as individuals than their species, both their natural abilities and their training.

After all, Ash's toughest opponent on the Grass Field isn't the opponent's Scyther, its their Bellsprout.
 
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