August 26th: PM2019 122 - The Semifinals I: Sweep

[Kazuniya]

People like Alain because he was a center character of the Mega Evolution specials and the Team Flare arc. He is a developed and established character who has a history with Ash - a fact the JN writing staff apparently forgot.

Leon is..why the f*ck should I care about Leon? Unbeatable Champion who is there to demonstrate how powerful he is by sweeping his opponents? BORING.

 

[Eevee903]

People like Alain because he was a center character of the Mega Evolution specials and the Team Flare arc. He is a developed and established character who has a history with Ash - a fact the JN writing staff apparently forgot.

Leon is..why the f*ck should I care about Leon? Unbeatable Champion who is there to demonstrate how powerful he is by sweeping his opponents? BORING.

Leon is kind of a Gary Stue.

 

[Yuugis Black Magician]

People like Alain because he was a center character of the Mega Evolution specials and the Team Flare arc. He is a developed and established character who has a history with Ash - a fact the JN writing staff apparently forgot.

Leon is..why the f*ck should I care about Leon? Unbeatable Champion who is there to demonstrate how powerful he is by sweeping his opponents? BORING.

Tomioka Atsuhiro literally wrote all four Mega Evolution specials and most of the episodes with Alan in them and was also in charge of series composition for XY, he hasn't forgotten anything, there was simply no space to include the two characters interacting.

 

[Kazuniya]

Leon is kind of a Gary Stue.

The fact people are even comparing Alain and Leon is embarassing. Leon is so far from being on Alain's level from the writing perspective that it is only natural people like Alain better.

Alain being used as fodder to demonstrate Leon's already established greatness is one of the (many) dumbest things to happen in this series.

 

[sutellakiara]

Mmm I think this is a bit of a reach. Regardless of what “level” they were both on, both Leon and Alain were propped up as these near unstoppable trainers, having an ace that’s not from their home region, and the course of the story ended up revolving around them. With Leon we see his humble beginnings, and how he developed into the character that he now is. We got to see a look into his training regimen, his mindset, and how his downtime is spent. With Alain we didn’t really get much of that. Hell we’ve never even actually seen Alain train a day in his life. Alain kind of just was always insanely strong and we were just expected to believe it. Of course we knew how things started for him, and saw his meeting with Lysandre, but beyond that, there was nothing. Why did Alain want to be the strongest? What did he want to protect Manon from? How did he reach the heights that got him so strong in the first place? What was would he do after becoming the strongest? And where in the world did the rest of his team come from lol?

It’s a bit of an anomaly. You can’t go anywhere without someone bringing up how Leon is overpowered or wins because of plot armor but those same arguments aren’t as commonly brought up when talking about Alain unless it’s specifically about the Kalos League. I don’t know, it may just be a simple double standard. Or like you said, people prefer Alain cuz muh edgelord.

It matters because Alan was just another strong trainers among many, he was not the end of it all of them all. He didn't make the world revolve around him.
Alan could rise, Alan could fall, Alan had a life outside battling.
Leon's "insanely strong just because" too. He's literally a "player character but as an adult".
And seriously? You're gonna criticize Alan for his out of nowhere team when to this day we don't even know half of Leon's team? C'mon.

 

[Master Pikachu 11]

Leon is kind of a Gary Stue.

He is the literal definition of a Gary Stue

 

[Pepito Chillito]

Cynthia would have been the most fitting candidate for the unbeatable champion curbstomper tbh.

 

[Eevee903]

Cynthia would have been the most fitting candidate for the unbeatable champion curbstomper tbh.

I know dude, would have been an interesting match

He is the literal definition of a Gary Stue

Yeah...

 

[sutellakiara]

He is the literal definition of a Gary Stue

Pretty much.
This one write-up expressed it better than I've ever been able to do myself.

 

[Yuugis Black Magician]

Then why in god’s name even bring him back. I can’t think of a single good thing his appearence gave beyond a Manon cameo. All we got was the worst M8 battle, bad characterization, barely any interaction with Ash, and pointless Ash Greninja retcons, wish he never came back

They had a slot to fill and they like the character. It's as simple as that. Nothing is perfect—the staff is clearly just rolling with the punches—and they made a decision and stuck with it.

 

[AuraChannelerChris]

Oh, please, let's not pretend Alain is a well-developed character. All his issues started because some shady lion-maned man beat him at a forest and promised all these great things of grandeur as long as he distanced himself away from Sycamore to "protect him" or some crap, and that somehow made Alain so unapproachable to any other normal person that he had to get someone as pushy as Mairin to get through him(?). Alain's just an idiot who's incredibly easy to manipulate.

 

[nuzamaki90]

It matters because Alan was just another strong trainers among many, he was not the end of it all of them all. He didn't make the world revolve around him.
Alan could rise, Alan could fall, Alan had a life outside battling.
Leon's "insanely strong just because" too. He's literally a "player character but as an adult".
And seriously? You're gonna criticize Alan for his out of nowhere team when to this day we don't even know half of Leon's team? C'mon.

Given the fact that he ended up winning the Kalos League after blitzing through the 8 Gyms in a couple days, I’m sure that’s what the writers were going for but at a smaller scale. The entire Team Flare plot hinged on Alain’s collection of the Mega energy, his fight with Manon caused the group break up which led to Chespin getting used as a Zygarde battery, and betraying Ash led to Ash getting captured and the entire conflict atop Lumiose Tower. Alain literally caused everything bad that happened, and the climax of the show was 5 episodes of everyone fixing his mistakes, a sharp 180 from the rest of the show being mostly about Ash winning the Kalos League and battling Diantha. Greninja’s entire story arc was about it finding a trainer that can bring out its true potential so it could become the strongest, Ash-Greninja being an amalgamation of that, and it ended up having a jagged resolution because the writers chose to rather focus on Alain’s dream of being the strongest instead. The show quite literally revolved around Alain at that point. You would’ve thought he was the protagonist.

And if Alain had a life outside of battling, we never actually saw it. He was Sycamore’s assistant before his Mega journey but only ever saw them working together in that one flashback, and after that it was solely just battling and collecting mega energy. We know Leon likes to hang out with Pokémon on his downtime, especially if he gets lost, and we actually get to SEE that. We also know he takes time out to take care of Hop as well. Despite the fact that Alain had more screentime, Leon has a lot more to work with his character. And again, at least we got to see an instance of Leon training as opposed to just not ever with Alain.

And I think you’re mistaken because as of episode 115, we do know half of Leon’s team; Charizard, Dragapult, and Rillaboom.

 

[AuraChannelerChris]

Ahh, Mega Evolution Energy.

The thing we were constantly told about but we never saw itself.

 

[GarchompTheAssassin]

Then why in god’s name even bring him back. I can’t think of a single good thing his appearence gave beyond a Manon cameo. All we got was the worst M8 battle, bad characterization, barely any interaction with Ash, and pointless Ash Greninja retcons, wish he never came back

Yeah, when M8 was first revealed I was glad Alain was in instead of Tobias but now I feel they may as well have done the opposite... like everything that happened to Alain could've just happened to plot device man and it would've achieved the exact same thing without needing to mess around with an established character.

(Hell, they could've binned Tobias off right after he lost and we could've had a little more wiggle room when it came to champion interaction, instead of having to deal with Alain's drab commentary. I guess they just really wanted another Charizard fight.)

 

[Yuugis Black Magician]

Oh, please, let's not pretend Alain is a well-developed character. All his issues started because some shady lion-maned man beat him at a forest and promised all these great things of grandeur as long as he distanced himself away from Sycamore to "protect him" or some crap, and that somehow made Alain so unapproachable to any other normal person that he had to get someone as pushy as Mairin to get through him(?). Alain's just an idiot who's incredibly easy to manipulate.

He's fun and angsty, who cares about trying to match anyone else's expectations when he fulfils the role the staff and fans enjoy out of him? Writing isn't a competition.

 

[Kazuniya]

Oh, please, let's not pretend Alain is a well-developed character. All his issues started because some shady lion-maned man beat him at a forest and promised all these great things of grandeur as long as he distanced himself away from Sycamore to "protect him" or some crap, and that somehow made Alain so unapproachable to any other normal person that he had to get someone as pushy as Mairin to get through him(?). Alain's just an idiot who's incredibly easy to manipulate.

Which is still miles better than Leon.

 

[cricketlaxwolvesbandy]

Given the fact that he ended up winning the Kalos League after blitzing through the 8 Gyms in a couple days, I’m sure that’s what the writers were going for but at a smaller scale. The entire Team Flare plot hinged on Alain’s collection of the Mega energy, his fight with Manon caused the group break up which led to Chespin getting used as a Zygarde battery, and betraying Ash led to Ash getting captured and the entire conflict atop Lumiose Tower. Alain literally caused everything bad that happened, and the climax of the show was 5 episodes of everyone fixing his mistakes, a sharp 180 from the rest of the show being mostly about Ash winning the Kalos League and battling Diantha. Greninja’s entire story arc was about it finding a trainer that can bring out its true potential so it could become the strongest, Ash-Greninja being an amalgamation of that, and it ended up having a jagged resolution because the writers chose to rather focus on Alain’s dream of being the strongest instead. The show quite literally revolved around Alain at that point. You would’ve thought he was the protagonist.

And if Alain had a life outside of battling, we never actually saw it. He was Sycamore’s assistant before his Mega journey but only ever saw them working together in that one flashback, and after that it was solely just battling and collecting mega energy. We know Leon likes to hang out with Pokémon on his downtime, especially if he gets lost, and we actually get to SEE that. We also know he takes time out to take care of Hop as well. Despite the fact that Alain had more screentime, Leon has a lot more to work with his character. And again, at least we got to see an instance of Leon training as opposed to just not ever with Alain.

And I think you’re mistaken because as of episode 115, we do know half of Leon’s team; Charizard, Dragapult, and Rillaboom.

This was the problem with Ash loosing Kalos. XYZ was Ash’s story and Greninja’s story, not Alain and Charizard’s.
This is the problem that I have with the writing for XYZ

 

[AuraChannelerChris]

He's fun

Not...exactly a word to describe Alain.

Leon? Totally.

 

[Belowski]

He's fun and angsty, who cares about trying to match anyone else's expectations when he fulfils the role the staff and fans enjoy out of him? Writing isn't a competition.

Alain utterly failed at being the "Anakin Skywalker-type character" that Yajima said he was supposed to be

 

[Yuugis Black Magician]

Not...exactly a word to describe Alain.

Leon? Totally.

Sure it is. I love seeing him be angsty and crying in the rain. It's cute! He pushes those that love him away but it always ultimately falls back on his own failures to accept the love of those that care for him. In the end, he does and becomes stronger for it.

Alain utterly failed at being the "Anakin Skywalker-type character" that Yajima said he was supposed to be

So what? I enjoy Alan for being a cute disaster with a cool voice actor and storyline. It's also nice to see his cool demeanor melt around Manon and I really enjoyed his battles. Sure, his outfit is a pain to animate but he's still cool.

Also, that Boy's Love fan fics write themselves!