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Over the Top! (079)

AuraChannelerChris

"What the hell...?"
(It's Sunday, so people are on and about.)
 

U.N. Owen

In Brightest Day, In Blackest Night ...
I always find it funny that no matter the fandom people will always bring out these power scaling calculations the moment they don’t like how a battle went down, but if they do like how the battle went down, they’ll ignore the math.

It’s almost as if scaling power in a storyline is an idea made by the fans rather than accepting that whoever wins in a story is whoever the staff wants to win and that stories are not driven by ”physics” but rather by narrative progression and how it relates to catharsis.
 
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Pokemon Fan

Knuckle Trainer
Guys, some of you are putting way too much focus on time spent training. That has NEVER been the main factor in a pokemon or trainer's strength in either the games or anime.

In the games:
1. Leon becomes Champion at 10 years of age, over the course of a Gym Challenge that lasts at most a few months and proceeds to spend like a decade not losing any battles at all. Over the course of your character's Gym Challenge, he also takes the unchosen Starter (basically a baby) and raises it to be roughly equal in power to the rest of his Champion team.
2. With some rare candies or high level opponents you can bring a Pokemon from level 1 baby to level 100 in a few minutes. This is likely gameplay and story segregation, but even in the context of the story your player character still reaches Champion level in much less than a year.
3. Over the course of a few days Kieran manages to evolve his whole team and raise them to substantial levels.
4. On the other hand, we have trainers in-game who state they have been training for decades and yet their pokemon are unevolved, level 20, etc. We have others who note they can never get past the second or third gym leader no matter how long they work for. Basically their pokemon's strength and levels are treated as capped because their trainer simply lacks the ability to get them any higher.

In one of the earliest episodes of the anime we had trainer pokemon power summarized as them being "only as strong as the trainers who raise them," which basically lets the writers justify all kinds of things. If the trainer is good enough, they can and will train up a pokemon to champion level in a short amount of time. That and it being a unique Lucario is all that Ash's Lucario needed to justify its power in that context. We can't even call it purely luck that Ash got it given it was apparently waiting to hatch until it encountered the right person.

What I can say is that Journeys has not done enough to establish Liko and company as being trainers of such talent. They've been treated as somewhat average people put into extraordinary circumstances. THAT to me is a bigger issue than them winning or how long it took.
 
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Almighty Zard

He has returned.
I always find it funny that no matter the fandom people will always bring out these power scaling calculations the moment they don’t like how a battle went down, but if they do like how the battle went down, they’ll ignore the math.

It’s almost as if scaling power in a storyline is an idea made by the fans rather than accepting that whoever wins in a story is whoever the staff wants to win and that stories are not driven by ”physics” but rather by narrative progression and how it relates to catharsis.

not like pokemon is the only anime that's had this happen, Dragon Ball Super had it going too.

but that's pretty much on point how you've put it.
 

Blue Saturday

Violet Prince❤️
Why does Satoshi and the Ashanime always have to be a factor in these discussions? The PWC gets brought up far too often. No piece of writing should invalidate another, and honestly, it's exhausting to see Satoshi still being a point of focus when Pokémon Horizons is already halfway through. Why not appreciate the female protagonist for who she is—strengths, flaws, and all—instead of constantly circling back to the character we finally moved on from after 20 years? It’s time to let the new story stand on its own.
 

Soniman

Break the Limit
Frankly I just find the idea of age somehow being a factor in this series frankly hilarious. Who gives a crap of Geeta had her Pokémon longer? Do you know what franchise this is? Ten year old kids beating more experienced adults is exceedingly common place I have no idea why we’re holding this over Liko’s head, that should straight up be a non factor.
 

Almighty Zard

He has returned.
Why does Satoshi and the Ashanime always have to be a factor in these discussions? The PWC gets brought up far too often. No piece of writing should invalidate another, and honestly, it's exhausting to see Satoshi still being a point of focus when Pokémon Horizons is already halfway through. Why not appreciate the female protagonist for who she is—strengths, flaws, and all—instead of constantly circling back to the character we finally moved on from after 20 years? It’s time to let the new story stand on its own.

because a couple of people brought up power scaling which has been used in alot of anime discussions and it turned into a war.

Frankly I just find the idea of age somehow being a factor in this series frankly hilarious. Who gives a crap of Geeta had her Pokémon longer? Do you know what franchise this is? Ten year old kids beating more experienced adults is exceedingly common place I have no idea why we’re holding this over Liko’s head, that should straight up be a non factor.

That's not wrong, and I agree how long someone has had a pokemon alone shouldn't dictate it's power, but I guess in a way it boils down to suspension of disbelief.

Geeta is supposed to be a champion, a trainer that should be extremely powerful to beat, even more so than the gym leaders the kids faced and only Roy was victorious against, but even he lost to them once before getting those wins.

So seeing someone with that title and power, lose to these kids when they don't have much experience or win streaks under their belts as well is going to be head tilting to some, because Geeta should've still been able to beat them no matter what combo's they threw at her, and despite the numbers advantage, but they made her lose to the three in the end.

Accepting the outcome without questioning it might be ok to some, but there will be others who want to question it because they feel it not right for some reason, but it's not like pokemon is alone in this, there are several other anime's like dragon ball that have the same problem.

that said, causing a full blown war where you've got people who will not budge on their convictions and beliefs isn't the best way to resolve things.
 

STICKTOPIA

Well-Known Member
One thing I love about this battle is all the details and strategy. That's why it's even more satisfying how impressed Geeta was by the kids because of the teamwork and their working together. Like we had abilities, move side effects, call back to previous battles, and it also shows that Geeta was smart to tell Liko to challenge the league in the future because she recognized her talent and attention to detail.

Who knows what the future holds but I wish Liko would challenge the gyms and pokemon league someday, I think she can do great things with all the knowledge she's gained :).
I’m very sure that Liko will follow Getta’s advice. The time is still early with a lot to happen.
 

SerGoldenhandtheJust

Deluded Dreamer
Frankly I just find the idea of age somehow being a factor in this series frankly hilarious. Who gives a crap of Geeta had her Pokémon longer? Do you know what franchise this is? Ten year old kids beating more experienced adults is exceedingly common place I have no idea why we’re holding this over Liko’s head, that should straight up be a non factor.
That was literally only brought up because of the irrelevant argument that involved Ash for some reason and how can he beat Cynthia who is much older

It was literally to show a double standard, not an actual critic
 

AuraChannelerChris

"What the hell...?"
Kinda irks me a bit when quirky villains get/use something the main protagonists can get but choose not to, which reminds me of that weird time when TRio used Mega Evolution against Ash and the others in the weird Magearna movie. Serena you could have at least bothered with Mega Evolution back then.
 
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