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Finals IV: Partner (1221)

BlueDragonfangirl

Well-Known Member
I don't think the Project Mew team had an opportunity to watch the match.
They we’re last seen walking to their destination for project Mew, dam it I wanted him to watch and say I’m proud of you with tears in his eyes.
 

Mr.Munchlax

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

Almighty Zard

He has returned.
Journeys felt like bad fanfiction for a reason. It's ridicilious for him who is, based on what the story told us, still ten to improve so much over the span of a couple months to suddenly become world champion.

So I must ask If he was using his reserves would you still feel he didn't have the right to fight the caliber of people he did?

What's done is done at this point, maybe they shouldn't have had him win the alola league, because to me that was opening pandora's box.
 

BlobbiBoi

Well-Known Member
It's ridicilious for him who is, based on what the story told us, still ten to improve so much over the span of a couple months to suddenly become world champion.

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?
 

Raikaria

You will obey!
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.
 

Sham

The Guardian of Ruin and Birth
So I must ask If he was using his reserves would you still feel he didn't have the right to fight the caliber of people he did?

What's done is done at this point, maybe they shouldn't have had him win the alola league, because to me that was opening pandora's box.
Yes, if not at least use his Alola team which is the team that got him to "Champion tier" in the first place. This conversation has been dragged out forever but people aren't that keen of Ash using new(ish) Pokemon and yet somehow they're able to defeat opponents that he was never implied to be on their level before this series. It comes off as very hand wavy and messy just because they've decided he should stop becoming a loser out of the blue this series and use this as a make up.

It's so weird because I've always somewhat coped with that episode that in a way it was just a one time thing and he defeated an old companion but who would've thought it was establishing the narrative that somehow Ash is Champion tier.

And it made absolutely no sense and they haven't helped established this anymore than they did since then. We aren't privy to any new training tactics, what's he been doing differently than the last series, why is this team somehow more powerful or anything else showing progress that Ash has used his past experiences to improve this team to that level. Nothing
 

SerGoldenhandtheJust

Deluded Dreamer
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
 

AJ97

Well-Known Member
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.
 

BlueDragonfangirl

Well-Known Member
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

Well-Known Member
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

I just ran, I ran all Night and Day ~
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
 

Sham

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

BlueDragonfangirl

Well-Known Member
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.
 
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