Ash vs Tobias, what went wrong?

[Leonhart]

It really does feel like that was the point, that they had Ash lose to such a blatant almost comically cheap plot device to make obvious to the viewers 'look we know you want him to win, but we can't do it! You know we can't if THIS is what we have to stoop to!'.

I think that's incidental for the most part, and not actually a lesson that they were trying to teach the audience. It just seems too clever for this series, and I don't believe that Masashi Sogo and his colleagues were trying to give us a deeper meaning behind Takuto's creation. If there's any lesson to be learned from Satoshi's loss, I think it's that there's always someone stronger than him out there, but that applied even before Takuto was introduced.

 

[AxelJade]

I'm just drunkenly stumbling in and ignoring the rest of the thread to answer the actual question being asked of this thread because I watched the entire Sinnoh League this morning. What went wrong is that we don't know Tobias's story. It's as simple as that. We don't know how he met Darkrai and Latios. We don't know how he managed to convince them to stay inside PokéBalls. We don't know if they're somehow his first Pokémon. We don't know if he has exclusively Legendary Pokémon, or if he has some non-Legendary partners in reserve. Judging from how he says that a full-power Draco Meteor from Ash's Gible would have one-shot any of his non-Darkrai Pokémon, I'm guessing he's got to have some non-Legendary Dragons in reserve, but we don't know.

Ritchie is immediately established as a mirror image of Ash, and gets to bond with him by rescuing Pokémon from Team Rocket. Harrison has Blaziken, a powerful new Pokémon from Hoenn, and Ash helps him catch a Sneasel. Tyson gets some time to hang with Ash in-between matches and explains his Meowth's backstory over time. Alan got four Mega Evolution Specials, a couple of interactions with Ash, and still had an unresolved character arc that needed to be completed. Even Cameron got an episode dedicated to battling Marlon for his 8th badge to establish that he's not a pushover, despite his scatterbrained and idiotic nature. That's what helps make every other battle that knocks Ash out of Pokémon Leagues sting less. There was some kind of set-up for who these characters are. We understand who they are and can connect with them, so we're able to more readily accept it when they shatter Ash's hopes and dreams. The only faux pas made with Alan is that the anime very intentionally overhyped the battle and got fans on board with the idea of Ash winning so that more people would watch the League. And the faux pas with Cameron was playing up the idiot part too hard, thus making it implausible for him to believably beat Ash.

Tobias doesn't get any of that. Barry passes him in the hallway in-between matches and says "this crazy strong Trainer swept his opponent with a Darkrai". Conway says "not only has he won all of his matches with just a Darkrai. He won all of his Gym battles using just Darkrai too". Then we don't hear about Tobias again until Ash is paired off with him, and we jump right into Ash and Tobias battling after that. There's no story there! It's just a mysterious and strong guy coming out of nowhere! What we needed was an extra episode where Tobias explains how he managed to befriend Darkrai, maybe establish that it's the same Darkrai Ash and the gang saw earlier in the series so there's more of a connection there. Then, Tobias's battle with Ash needed to be a two-parter to explain how he got Latios as well when he sent it out.

The battle can be the exact same, but there's at least a story there now to connect us to Tobias so we're more receptive to him winning over Ash. ...But they didn't do any of that, so we got one of the worst "rival-out-of-nowhere" characters ever instead.

 

[STICKTOPIA]

I would have liked the battle better if it wasn’t a league battle. When I gible and torkoal in the preview, I knew how much of a disaster it was going to be. They shouldn’t have put an opponent that will make obvious that ash has no chance of winning.

 

[AxelJade]

I would have liked the battle better if it wasn’t a league battle. When I gible and torkoal in the preview, I knew how much of a disaster it was going to be. They shouldn’t have put an opponent that will make obvious that ash has no chance of winning.

Counterpoint: Unless Ash's time as the main character was going to end in Sinnoh, Ash always had no chance of winning. You don't just jump from Top 8 of the Hoenn League to winning the Sinnoh League.

If you're going to make Ash lose, just be honest about it. And that's what they did with Tobias.

 

[Leonhart]

I would have liked the battle better if it wasn’t a league battle. When I gible and torkoal in the preview, I knew how much of a disaster it was going to be. They shouldn’t have put an opponent that will make obvious that ash has no chance of winning.

I'm actually glad that they didn't beat around the bush when it came to Satoshi losing, unlike with the Kalos League finale that could've gone either way. Satoshi losing to Takuto was obvious even without knowing which Pokemon he was going to use since we knew at least a month ahead of time that DP189 was the last Shinou League episode, and there was no way that Satoshi could've beaten Takuto and someone else in the finals all in one episode.

 

[TheWanderingMist]

Nothing's wrong with it. Sure, Ash probably shouldn't've used Gible, but it's a good battle. Heck, Ash even managed to get Tobias to start thinking maybe he could get through the rest of his team with just Pikachu.

 

[Applecorp]

Leganderies shouldn’t be owned by trainers imo

I actually agree with this although for different reasons probably. I don't mind that Tobias had them but I've always thought that such rare Pokemon should remain in the wild instead of becoming glorified living trophies.

 

[AxelJade]

I just had an idea. Though I readily admit that I'm probably just overthinking it.

In Black and White (and later XY), the next games lined up, you are required to capture the mascot Legendary of your game as part of the story. Making it faint or running away just resets things so that you have to battle them again until you catch them. The only way to avoid catching them is to either have no PokéBalls or have all full PC boxes. At which point, even after the battle is over and the story progresses, the Legendary will just respawn for another encounter in the post-game.

But in the anime, Legendary Pokémon were never seen as catchable before Tobias. Giovanni had to manipulate Mewtwo into thinking they were partners. The Birds and Lugia were only catchable with weird sci-fi tech that's different from PokéBalls. The one time the Beasts were in a situation where they could be battled and caught, Suicune used Roar to end the battle. Kyogre and Groudon were just wild Pokémon with incidental allies. And Rayquaza was just in a dream.

Since we already know that the Black and White anime had to cut a story important two-parter that would have introduced Team Plasma 1.0, and they had to rework the whole story afterwards, what if that's what Tobias was meant to be? What if Tobias was meant to say exist simply to show that Legendary Pokémon can be caught by normal Trainers in the anime? That way, Ash would be allowed to catch Zekrom (even if he most likely would have released it later) in a more faithful version of the BW story, and it would have been easier to swallow because "if Tobias can do it, Ash can do it too!"

To be fair, that still wouldn't fix the problem with Tobias. Giving him caught Legendary Pokémon without telling the story of how he caught them because "mysterious stranger with Legendary Pokémon" provided a quick and easy way to knock Ash out of the Sinnoh League isn't excusable. But at least if he were meant to open the door for others catching Legends, he'd be serving some other purpose.

 

[Captain Jigglypuff]

I just don’t understand why Tobias just suddenly appeared out of nowhere with anyone even alluding to his existence. Seeing someone owning a Latinos and Darkrai and even battling one of them isn’t something that a normal trainer would encounter in the anime. This is especially true if you were a Gym Leader. They could have done what the anime did for the other two Pallet Town trainers that were never seen which is have a Gym Leader or even a CotD say that they battled some trainer that was super strong and lost to them. You don’t need to say what Pokémon they had as that adds to the mystery and allows the viewer to be surprised as to what they have.

 

[DankOverlord]

What went wrong was the lack of buildup and that Tobias was blatantly written at the last possible second to kick Ash out of the league. Only good thing is that Ash walked away chipping 2 members of a team who had previously been able to sweep everything else without even needing a second Mon out.

 

[Captain Jigglypuff]

What went wrong was the lack of buildup and that Tobias was blatantly written at the last possible second to kick Ash out of the league. Only good thing is that Ash walked away chipping 2 members of a team who had previously been able to sweep everything else without even needing a second Mon out.

My point exactly. Any other region and there’d be small hints via background characters randomly saying how some extremely strong trainer has been winning Badges rather quickly. Tobias could have also been the reason why Volkner lost his enthusiasm for battles because he lost to Tobias in a humiliating way for any Gym Leader. Build up is important for characters like Tobias.

 

[Leonhart]

Seeing someone owning a Latinos and Darkrai and even battling one of them isn’t something that a normal trainer would encounter in the anime. This is especially true if you were a Gym Leader.

I think it's entirely justifiable considering that most Gym battles aren't witnessed by other trainers: unlike Satoshi who travels with his own group of friends, most other trainers travel alone. So it makes sense that few people saw Takuto battle, therefore few knew that he owned a Darkrai and a Latios.

Also, I don't quite understand the comments about him appearing "out of nowhere" when he was shown in shadow an entire six episodes before he fought Satoshi. For reference, Tetsuya from the Houen League debuted about seven episodes before he defeated Satoshi, which isn't much better.

 

[Ignition]

I think it's entirely justifiable considering that most Gym battles aren't witnessed by other trainers: unlike Satoshi who travels with his own group of friends, most other trainers travel alone. So it makes sense that few people saw Takuto battle, therefore few knew that he owned a Darkrai and a Latios.

Also, I don't quite understand the comments about him appearing "out of nowhere" when he was shown in shadow an entire six episodes before he fought Satoshi. For reference, Tetsuya from the Houen League debuted about seven episodes before he defeated Satoshi, which isn't much better.

I honestly don’t mind but it’s a reasonable complaint. For a Trainer who has Legendary Pokémon, he does just appear out of nowhere. It’s the same for all the other “dream crushers” but him having rare Pokémon no one else has makes it worse. Plus the other characters make themselves known to the audience prior to the League starting. I don’t get how someone using only a Darkrai to go through every Gym Leader isn’t a talking point to anyone in universe until the League.

 

[Captain Jigglypuff]

I don’t get how someone using only a Darkrai to go through every Gym Leader isn’t a talking point to anyone in universe until the League.

Exactly. It isn’t unusual for a Gym Leader make a simple remark about a past challenger in the anime. Tobias defeating Volkner long before Ash met him could have set up a mini arc where Volkner lost all enthusiasm for battling after losing to an unknown Tobias and Flint asks Ash to help reignite that desire to have great battles again. It’d make Ash wonder who this mysterious trainer is. Even having Paul telling Ash he had heard rumors of a super strong trainer and wanting to battle them while telling Ash he isn’t deserving to battle such a trainer because Paul still considers Ash to be a weak trainer. It’s not much but doing this could have set up the League finals much better.

 

[AxelJade]

Y'all are talking about how Tobias being mentioned in the background and built up before he finally battled Ash. Maybe it's just me, but I don't buy that. That's like saying people should have been talking about a strong kid with a Pikachu while not recognizing Ash throughout Kanto to foreshadow Ritchie. Or that Johto should have had people talking about a Trainer from the Hoenn region once we got closer to the Johto League to foreshadow Harrison.

And I know that the difference is that the other two are normal guys while Tobias had a Legendary Pokémon and swept entire teams with it, which sounds like it should be a huge deal that someone would talk about at some point. But no. I don't think foreshadowing is the issue. After all, Ritchie and Harrison and even Tyson weren't foreshadowed before their Leagues, and they're still fondly remembered. No, I honestly think that it just comes down to the writers not even thinking about making Tobias until they were already at the Sinnoh League, and that they were too locked into finishing Gen 4 to make room for Gen 5 to give us an "Ash connects with and learns about Tobias" episode. I guarantee that if Ash got an episode to talk to Tobias and learn about him, even if it was just one episode full of badly written ideas and concepts, Tobias would be accepted just fine.

 

[Zoruagible]

Leganderies shouldn’t be owned by trainers imo

Certain legendaries shouldn't be caught
Brandon it made sense he had the Regi since he searches ruins, which is where they live.

Darkrai and Latios are fine too, I'd just have loved getting some background information as to how Tobias met or encountered them. Make it less obvious that he was a plot device created at the last second

The Hoenn legendary box art trio, the DP deities, the XY trio, Mewtwo and Mew fall into the NO category due to how powerful they are. In the games yeah it's fine, but in an actual world? Heck no! There's a reason the people hunting them are bad guys, nobody should have that power!
Ho-oh is fine but only Ash should get that one, especially as it's seemingly the only Ho-oh in existence

 

[AxelJade]

Certain legendaries shouldn't be caught
Brandon it made sense he had the Regi since he searches ruins, which is where they live.

I honestly keep forgetting that Regice, Regirock, and Registers are Legendary Pokémon.

 

[Torpoleon]

I agree with what a lot of other people are saying, that there was no build up. Also, I do agree that some of the Pokemon Ash used were questionable (even though I can understand the rationale for why they were picked). Torkoal almost took down Registeel, which is probably why Ash picked it, but his Charizard beat an Articuno (which knew a super effective move), so there was a better fire type option. I believe Tobias said Gible's Draco Meteor could've beaten Darkrai, so that's probably why it was picked (also, Ash used at least 1 member of his Sinnoh team for each match). Swellow went toe-toe with a Deoxys at the same time that Sceptile did, so that's probably why they were picked. Heracross and Pikachu were obvious.

It could've been done better, but Ash was such a competent battler that the most reasonable thing they could come up with would be for him to lose to a guy with legendaries. Had Ash used Charizard & Snorlax in place of say Gible & Torkoal, he probably could've beaten 1 or 2 more of Tobias' Pokemon.

Obviously, Cynthia still beat him in the end since she still has her Champion title (I assume Tobias already challenged her). I could see it being a somewhat close fight, considering how Flint's Infernape managed to beat 2 of her Pokemon before putting up a good fight against her Garchomp. Would be nice if Tobias gets mentioned by Cynthia in Journeys. Maybe it could be mentioned that she almost lost, but pulled through (and maybe losing to her causes Tobias to stop wanting to battle, explaining his absence thus far in Journeys).

 

[DatsRight]

Certain legendaries shouldn't be caught
Brandon it made sense he had the Regi since he searches ruins, which is where they live.

Darkrai and Latios are fine too, I'd just have loved getting some background information as to how Tobias met or encountered them. Make it less obvious that he was a plot device created at the last second

The Hoenn legendary box art trio, the DP deities, the XY trio, Mewtwo and Mew fall into the NO category due to how powerful they are. In the games yeah it's fine, but in an actual world? Heck no! There's a reason the people hunting them are bad guys, nobody should have that power!
Ho-oh is fine but only Ash should get that one, especially as it's seemingly the only Ho-oh in existence

Yeah I feel like some of the mythicals/legendaries are a bit too OP, and tend to be treated more as greater scope forces of nature in the anime anyway, something that shouldn't really be messed around with.

Other more down to earth Pokemon are okay for story potential however. Ash having Melmetal and Mallow having Shaymin didn't really hurt the story on paper since they were standard quirky Pokemon but with a distinct power and lore about them. Pokemon that are still characters.

I think the bigger problem was that as mentioned, Tobias came out of nowhere, thus his legendaries got treated more like commodities and 'cool factor' trophies, though as mentioned, I do wonder if that was maybe the whole point so as to make obvious to the audience that their hands were tied on the matter. Surely if they had to pull something THAT cheap for Ash to lose then it meant they didn't have a choice over the result.

 

[Leonhart]

I believe Tobias said Gible's Draco Meteor could've beaten Darkrai, so that's probably why it was picked

I'm assuming that's a dub line: in the Japanese version, Takuto praised Fukamaru's Draco Meteor by saying that "had it been anything but Darkrai, there's no doubt it would've been defeated by Draco Meteor", implying that any Pokemon other than Darkrai would've lost if the attack had actually hit its target. But his line probably shouldn't be taken at face value in any case, because it's hard to believe that Darkrai's the only Pokemon that could've survived that attack from a base stage Pokemon like Fukamaru.

I really think that the fandom overestimates Fukamaru, especially in that match. It managed to land a Rock Smash on Darkrai, but Darkrai didn't seem to take much damage from it. The fact that Takuto praised Draco Meteor and not Rock Smash despite the latter being a super effective hit [as we were reminded by the announcer], implies that Rock Smash was of no concern to Takuto's Darkrai despite it hitting its target unlike Draco Meteor. And that's really all that Fukamaru amounted to in that match.