July 22nd: PM2019 118 - Satoshi Heads Into Battle! VS Daigo!!

[Almighty Zard]

i hope Alan says something to Ash before the fight starts other wise that’s just sad.

unless he magically appears in the hallway, it would likely be after the fight.

I am hoping that he reacts to seeing Ash with a Keystone though.

 

[HatersGonnaHate]

Subjective opinion since to each their own, to me it's what you want in a battle, do you want it to be flashy? do you want it to be a slug fest?

It varies depending on what each person wants individually, which is why we all have different opinions on things.


Considering how long it's been since most of them have been used i'm honestly wondering if most of them can still even hold their own at this point, and would it really have changed the quality factor of Ash's fights?

Cause who's to say using them instantly fixes what we've had given to us?

For me his JN team ain’t it. I don’t need to see this group in 3 more battles.

 

[Almighty Zard]

For me his JN team ain’t it. I don’t need to see this group in 3 more battles.

that's fair because it's your opinion

 

[Megapixel]

Not sure if this counts a spoiler or not since it’s not giving out specific details but, the leakers saying that this episode is worse than the last and this recent episode was superior makes you wonder.

They weren’t really specific where but is it

Pacing (ie how quickly it ends?)?

Animation?

Excitement?

Hype?

everything is subjective until the episode comes out.

 

[AJ97]

It feels undeserved cause we barely saw any of these Pokémon training and getting stronger except for Lucario, and even him had a pretty lackluster arc compared to Ash's previous aces. All of Ash's Pokémon are super strong and have stronger feats than pretty much any of his previous mons, which feels undeserving considering all of his previous teams had much more training than the current one.

1) The scope of competition matters. In the previous series, Ash was doing a basic Gym Challenge. I think you would agree that the PWC Is on a much grander scale with far more impressive opponents. Even back in the anime, there is a lot of offscreen Pokemon getting stronger shenanigans. It's only safe to assume current Ash is much more skillful and experienced, plus, the scope of his training is much more significant given the nature of the competition.

2) In the previous regions, in most cases, we had Ash always catching weaker Pokemon and raising them slowly to a much higher level. This isn't the case in Journeys. Except for Riolu and Sirfetch'd, rest of Ash's team already started off at a much higher level than Ash's typical captures. So it makes sense that training would take them to greater feats compared to before. Basically, assume ash captures and trains Level 5 pokemon in the previous Regions and trains them to Lvl 50-60s by the end of the series.. However in Journey's, Ash captured a bunch of level 60s pokemon right at the start and trained them to Lvl 80-90s.

Dracovish defeated the pseudo legendary of a regional champion in his first battle, and then defeated Drasna's ace. All of this was done with barely any training.

The pseudo legendary part holds no meaning in the anime. That said, I fully agree regarding Dracovish's scaling in the Iris fight. Btw, Drasna's ace was Altaria (Which Sirefetch'd defeated. Not Dracovish).

Pokemon scaling has never really been logically consistent to begin with. Take even AG for example. When Ash had a Froakie, Alain already had a MCX and was Challenging Elite four members (Siebold) And was strong enough to somewhat hold his own at that point. The very same Alain spent far more time and effort training just Charizard and had some incredibly feats before the TOP. However, Greninja despite having a fraction of that training, was strong enough to push Charizard (Plus, people were actually expecting Greninja to even win that fight if you recall).

All that said, the anime has generally been consistent with the gap between Regional Champions and Ash. However, Iris cannot be written as a typical Regional Champion, considering how she scaled back in BW. She was written as Regional Champion because of the games and additionally, the writers clearly didn't want her to seem superior to Ash at that point as it would've made no sense. Hence, came the rubbish writing of having her lose to Ash's Pokemon that are generally far more inexperienced.

All that said, the anime has always been inconsistent in terms of progression and a Pokemon's strength has always scaled with plot. The only difference is, in previous series Ash wasn't scaled this high. However, here he has, so it makes sense for his team to be scaled proportionally.

Gengar, Sirfetch'd and Dragonite all follow a similar pattern to Dracovish, though in a less egregious manner. They got strong way too fast if compared to Ash's previous mons. Gengar had 7 battles, Dragonite had 5 and Sirfetch'd had 5, as well. Just for comparison sake, both Dragonite and Sirfetch'd were in less battles than Palpitoad, Boldore, Gible, Glalie, Scraggy, Naganadel, Melmetal and Kingler.

All of this is frankly irrelevant as I stated earlier.

In conclusion, while I agree that Journey's pacing and powerscaling does have some massive inconsistencies compared to previous series, that doesn't change the fact that his current team is the most deserving (Outside of AG), when it comes to taking out a Regional Champion. Why? Because of feats. I still see people expecting Infernape to come back and take out Cynthia's Garchomp. Points like this just seem so biased when Ash's current team objectively has much better feats.

 

[KibaLG8]

3 weeks.

Care to elaborate?

 

[AJ97]

Steven is dropping to 8th if he loses right? I think Alain and Iris retain their rankings since they lost to #1 and #2, and Diantha just goes up 1 rank taking Lance’s #4. But Steven is losing to someone much lower than him, so Ash will take his #3 rank.

This doesn't make sense. We don't see Ash take Volkner's rank despite the latter being much higher than him during the Ultra Class Fight.
Additionally, based on Flint's battle with Leon, we see that lower-ranked opponents can still drop in rank despite losing to someone much higher than them

 

[DannyDiglett]

Despite they weren't rivals during the entire AG series, do you think Morrison and Tyson with Puss Meowth in Boots from the Ever Grande Conference/Hoenn League will make a cameo in this episode? Every former rival has made an appearance so far. I mean, even Jackson/Vincent from the Silver Conference/Johto League did.

 

[AJ97]

Despite they weren't rivals during the entire AG series, do you think Morrison and Tyson with Puss Meowth in Boots from the Ever Grande Conference/Hoenn League will make a cameo in this episode? Every former rival has made an appearance so far. I mean, even Jackson/Vincent from the Silver Conference/Johto League did.

Yes, they will.
Considering the Chronicles Cast and Richie appearing, and the recent B&W cameos, this is very likely happening.

Outside of these 2, I think we can also expect Wallace & Drake.

 

[Zoruagible]

Despite they weren't rivals during the entire AG series, do you think Morrison and Tyson with Puss Meowth in Boots from the Ever Grande Conference/Hoenn League will make a cameo in this episode? Every former rival has made an appearance so far. I mean, even Jackson/Vincent from the Silver Conference/Johto League did.

There's a very good chance, Jimmy and Marina only appeared in the Legend of Thunder special and Vincent was in like two main episodes?

Cameron and Virgil got skipped but that's simply because of how many supporting cast members BW had, Hoenn has like barely any. Drew and Harley, that's about it lol

 

[Sham]

Despite they weren't rivals during the entire AG series, do you think Morrison and Tyson with Puss Meowth in Boots from the Ever Grande Conference/Hoenn League will make a cameo in this episode? Every former rival has made an appearance so far. I mean, even Jackson/Vincent from the Silver Conference/Johto League did.

In reality Drew and Harley probably have a better chance of appearing

 

[HatersGonnaHate]

This doesn't make sense. We don't see Ash take Volkner's rank despite the latter being much higher than him during the Ultra Class Fight.
Additionally, based on Flint's battle with Leon, we see that lower-ranked opponents can still drop in rank despite losing to someone much higher than them

It’s not confirmed but it does make sense. it is implied you swap spots in the single digits like what happened with Ash and Raihan.

The final 4 would be Leon, Ash, Cynthia, and Diantha. Leon retains #1 since he beat Alain, Cynthia retains #2 since she beat Iris, Diantha takes Lance’s #4, and Ash would take Steven’s #3. It makes complete sense that the final 4 would be ranked in the top 4 now. Steven is the only one who loses to someone significantly lower than his rank so dropping to 8th which is Ash’s rank makes sense.

And when Ash beats Cynthia, he will take her #2 and she’ll drop to #3. Diantha will stay at #4 since she was already lower than Leon.

 

[AJ97]

It’s not confirmed but it does make sense. it is implied you swap spots in the single digits like what happened with Ash and Raihan.

The final 4 would be Leon, Ash, Cynthia, and Diantha. Leon retains #1 since he beat Alain, Cynthia retains #2 since she beat Iris, Diantha takes Lance’s #4, and Ash would take Steven’s #3. It makes complete sense that the final 4 would be ranked in the top 4 now. Steven is the only one who loses to someone significantly lower than his rank so dropping to 8th which is Ash’s rank makes sense.

And when Ash beats Cynthia, he will take her #2 and she’ll drop to #3. Diantha will stay at #4 since she was already lower than Leon.

The concept of "Rank Swaps" is entirely your headcanon. The PWC ranking system has never indicated anything connecting to this.

The Raihan battle is an entirely different concept. The reason there is a "Rank Swap here" is because of the importance/magnitude of the Master Class and the Number of People present in the Master Class. It wouldn't make sense for Hyper Class contestants to directly jump up a class like the previous ranks.

The Primary Goal of the PWC is to be the Monarch and everyone in the Master Class gets a fair shot at the title. So it would make sense to raise the barrier to entry here.

Hence, at this level, the topmost ranked trainer of the previous class (Ultra Class) battles with the lowest ranked trainer of the Master Class, and a rank swap happens.

 

[GLTSRY]

The Raihan battle is an entirely different concept. The reason there is a "Rank Swap here" is because of the mportance/magnitude of the Master Class and Number of People present in the Master Class, it wouldn't make sense for Hyper Class contestants to directly jump up a class like the previous ranks.

Exactly. They even referred to this match as a Masters 8 promotion battle. It’s pretty obvious that the normal PWC ranking rules don’t apply here.

 

[AuraChannelerChris]

Care to elaborate?

It's been roughly 3 weeks since Ash set off from Pallet Town.

 

[HatersGonnaHate]

The concept of "Rank Swaps" is entirely your headcanon. The PWC ranking system has never indicated anything connecting to this.

The Raihan battle is an entirely different concept. The reason there is a "Rank Swap here" is because of the importance/magnitude of the Master Class and the Number of People present in the Master Class. It wouldn't make sense for Hyper Class contestants to directly jump up a class like the previous ranks.

The Primary Goal of the PWC is to be the Monarch and everyone in the Master Class gets a fair shot at the title. So it would make sense to raise the barrier to entry here.

Hence, at this level, the topmost ranked trainer of the previous class (Ultra Class) battles with the lowest ranked trainer of the Master Class, and a rank swap happens.

“Is entirely my headcanon except for the one time it did happen” ok got it Sherlock Holmes

You bringing up headcanons is laughable when all you do is present yours as factual. Try being less obnoxious for once.

 

[ash&charizardfan]

In reality Drew and Harley probably have a better chance of appearing

What about frontier brains watching like brandon and anabel, they are part of AG crew as well.

 

[Bortgreen]

I wish they could do whatever they did for the Amazon specials and bring back old music for once
The Hoenn Victory music in the Z-Move would be incredibly hype

 

[Observer]

I came across this on Reddit and looking back at this episode is kinda funny.

https://www.reddit.com/r/pokemonanime/comments/w27d0f

 

[cricketlaxwolvesbandy]

I came across this on Reddit and looking back at this episode is kinda funny.

https://www.reddit.com/r/pokemonanime/comments/w27d0f

God I miss the old art style and the old Ash. Hearing Taylor’s voice makes me nostalgic too. Despite AG being mediocre I loved season 6.
Cue Ash only meeting Steven once in AG