Finals IV: Partner (1221)

[SerGoldenhandtheJust]

It's nice to dream but Goh is nowhere near Galar rn

Surprise! Mew teleports that Dynamax Reggiggas in the Crown tundra area and with it tons of galar particles appear allowing Dynamax
I shall cope with that

 

[AJ97]

I genuinely don't know how anyone expected these to not be issues in a series where the main character quite literally cannot advance at a consistent pace and keep his 'power level' and yet somehow absolutely advances at the same time to meet the plot in other series.

He's stopped world-ending plots and fought legendaries and gotten mixed up in so much **** and people have been begging for battles like these for years - were they just meant to never deliver?

Ultimately I guess my question is; how long was Ash realistically expected to continue to somehow never get closer to any of his goals?

I think the issue is if you collectively watch all the series together; the level of progression is just too slow from Johto.

At the end of Johto Ash was a fairly good trainer after defeating Gary. His improvement across Hoenn, BF & Sinnoh wasn't as emphasized (Compared to Og -> End of Johto Ash). I mean sure, you could argue he's a much better trainer in Sinnoh. However, he was still shown to be significantly outclassed by E4 members and Regional Champions who represented the peak level that Ash was in pursuit off.

Unova obviously took a terrible step and Kalos was a great opportunity to actually let Ash touch that level. However, they sort of butchered it with the Kalos League loss. Would've been better if they had Ash lose to a Kalos league elite four member here instead.

Yes Ik Ash won his first league in Alola; but lets be real. From a battling feats specific context; Alola felt more like a break and a huge drop in terms of stakes compared to Kalos.

Then in Journey's; they decided to dial up the switch by 300 and have Ash jump multiple levels which he could never do any of the previous years.

Like you said, they really wrote themselves to a corner based on decisions made across all the previous series. I guess a way they could've resolved this; is by slowing Ash's progression through the Ultra Class and have him face some serious contenders like Elite Four members; before reaching the Master Class.

 

[Morax]

Yes Ik Ash won his first league in Unova

 

[AJ97]

Was a typo I fixed lol

 

[BlueDragonfangirl]

I just saw Rose & Oleana's cameo in the episode, & I also that noticed that Todd makes a cameo along with them!!

Todd? How kind of the Journey’s staff to include such a character, wonder if they watched all the episodes again to see who to include? Did you see Annabelle by chance? Oh Hell with it, I’ll watch it on YouTube.

 

[BlobbiBoi]

I guess a way they could've resolved this; is by slowing Ash's progression through the Ultra Class and have him face some serious contenders like Elite Four members; before reaching the Master Class.

I think this is my main problem.

Even Elite 4 members have also been shown as way out of Ash's league (Hi, Flint!) to a degree that never made sense and because Ash literally cannot advance yet HAS to advance at the same time. Ash, the character who has stopped world-ending plots and fought Legendary Pokemon more times than I can bother to remember, cannot touch anyone above a Gym Leader.

Like the one time he was allowed to fight a Champion in a sparring match where his Pokemon couldn't touch hers for 2/3rds of the battle the fandom didn't let her live it down.

I don't know why Ash having a new team matters in this case as a result; if Ash was allowed to be as effective of a trainer as his progression implies on a macro level he should have no trouble taking any Pokemon and making them good. That's what he generally does, and its cool to see.

I do agree that OS > Johto was the most obvious bit of progression; after that Ash wasn't really allowed to progress further.

 

[Mythical-Moonlight]

Surprise! Mew teleports that Dynamax Reggiggas in the Crown tundra area and with it tons of galar particles appear allowing Dynamax
I shall cope with that

I still don't understand why they didn't do that in the Torrent episode?

I can't help but get the underlying suspicion that it might've been too OP for Ash's Gengar

 

[SerGoldenhandtheJust]

I still don't understand why they didn't do that in the Torrent episode?

I can't help but get the underlying suspicion that it might've been too OP for Ash's Gengar

Because you can only Dynamax once per battle unless Eternatus appears and you get more galar particles to recharge your band

 

[Sham]

You guys five Champions... six if you wanna be petty and include Diantha in there but yeah. Who would've thought

 

[BlueDragonfangirl]

Well; Ash is now the best trainer in the world.

I assume this is the end for Ash; and we'll be swapping either to a new protag or Goh; depending on how Project Mew goes. Ash has acheived his goal. There is nowhere for his story to go from here. And it'll be really hard to belive anyone in Paldea could challenge him considering we didn't see a single Paldean trainer in the *World* Coronation Series.

That’d be like shooting themselves in the foot if they did that.

 

[BlobbiBoi]

Because you can only Dynamax once per battle unless Eternatus appears and you get more galar particles to recharge your band

This. The games state that the stones in the band recharge over a period of time after using Dynamax - usually far too long for the average battle.

 

[Bortgreen]

I commented that in the other thread but it also applies

This is the kind of situation it's fine to be taken by emotion
Journeys has big flaws, some things even in this battle could have been better done... But they did well enough for it to be a good and emotional moment for most anipoke fans
I do hope there's more celebration in december though

 

[Teravolt]

@Teravolt He was there for like 5 seconds and as stills, but he was there

cilan will never come home

 

[Sonic Boom]

OI.

MY BOY.

 

[SerGoldenhandtheJust]

OI.

MY BOY.

Bruh that's actually Todd Snap!!!
LFG!!!!!

 

[Ragnarok4]

While I do agree that Ash's jump to World Champion level can be a bit sudden, I see that more of a flaw with how the previous series showed the gaps as well, like that Flint episode

Ash needed to level up to their scale someday, and what better way to start then after he finally becomes champion of Alola
Skill wise, his growth has been pretty realistic. Top 16 - Orange island winner - Top 8 - Battle Frontier winner - Top 4 - Hitting a slump and Top 8 - Top 2 - Champion - World Champion

The ISSUE is with the fact it's a new team. Even that could have been avoided if we saw more organic interactions of the new team earlier in the series and more training segments and a mention how Ash is training harder than ever

So to summarise, Ash's skill as a trainer being world champion level makes sense, his new mons being as strong less so. But also, even if the execution was wonky, the decision to have Ash finally ascend to this status in this series was absolutely the right one. It was ABOUT time and remember,

It would ALWAYS felt uncanny to see Ash become this strong and defeat everyone simply because the rest of the series did a poor job by constantly showing him as handicapped and not as strong, with some ridiculous gaps such as again, the Flint episode
So the execution may be botched, but I'm glad we finally are at this stage. It's about time Ash's journey let him more upwards and he won

Don't search Flint episode in sinnoh

Worst mistake of my life

 

[BlobbiBoi]

tl;dr: Blame Ash's meteoric rise on the anime being allowed to do what it should have been doing for 20+ years rather than being forced into reset after reset to keep it fresh for each never generation of fans.

Its not bad writing, its a massive fault of how prior seasons had to handicap Ash as a very strong (but Not Too Strong) trainer.

Its the same reason why Leon, the only Champion with no side gig, got taken as a Tobias-tier character and not a genuine threat.

 

[Sham]

The way this is always gonna be timeless

 

[Yuugis Black Magician]

The Haruka x Serena and Shirona x Carne scenes were nice. More Sapphic scenes for all!

 

[AJ97]

I think this is my main problem.

Even Elite 4 members have also been shown as way out of Ash's league (Hi, Flint!) to a degree that never made sense and because Ash literally cannot advance yet HAS to advance at the same time. Ash, the character who has stopped world-ending plots and fought Legendary Pokemon more times than I can bother to remember.

I don't know why Ash having a new team matters in this case; if Ash was allowed to be as effective of a trainer as his progression implies on a macro level he should have no trouble taking any Pokemon and making them good. That's what he generally does.

I do agree that OS > Johto was the most obvious bit of progression; after that Ash wasn't really allowed to progress further.

I absolutely agree with regard to your point about why Ash having a new team shouldn't matter. Ash is clearly much more experienced and stronger now. Plus, the PWC is far more difficult and challenging compared to the traditional gym challenge giving his Pokemon more experience. Also; Ash started with some fairly experienced Pokemon already in the first place.

That said, considering that this particular tournament is supposed to be the culmination of all his experiences and also the fact that Ash is not the kind of Trainer who would simply stick to optimizing a specific set of Pokemon to win a tournament etc; I think not including reserves was a mistake from that perspective.