But why now, during the League?
To screw over Ash even more.
He didn't get to train at all hardly from the 8th gym to the Unova League, mostly everything was focused on other stuff, except the Junior Cup.
Then when he finally gets some focus for his Pokémon and him, and potentially his rivals.
They have to pop in an episode revolving around Axew.
I only will excuse this, if this turns out to be the longest league yet, of about 10 episodes, and this episode is just to make it so it's not about the league. But if Axew doesn't evolve, it'll still be a completely pointless, irrelevant, and not needed in this episode. I don't care what else happens in this episode. This subplot, or main plot story was not necessary.
It's like they don't have Team Rocket to ruin the battles by making them horribly rushed, so they pull this out their rear end, so some battles will get screwed over.
Can we please HAVE 1 freaking league, where the writers and animators attempt to make it actually decent in screen time for battles. So far Hoenn is the best in that regard, with Ash having 3 full battles. Sinnoh didn't do as good because of Paul vs Barry and Team Rocket screwing over Ash vs Nando. Though Ash vs Paul (league) was the best full battle of all the league, at least they tried in that battle.
And did Dman say he wanted to see a "Papiltoad Runs Away" episode during the league? Thats double standards
Wrong. It would only be double standards if there was a Grand Festival as long as a league, and they took a break and I wanted it to focus on Ash's Pokémon, instead of the Coordinator's Pokémon. That would be double standards, not this situation. Besides, Palpitoad running away because he lost in a practice battle would be FAR more relevant to the league, than Axew chases a balloon.
This league is about Ash, and....his rivals, it shouldn't focus on Cilan or Iris at all unless one of their Pokémon evolves, or maybe they catch something.