Pokémon - The Hoenn League (06,07,08)

[Serebii]

Pokémon - The Hoenn League (06,07,08)

The Hoenn League!

On his way to Hoenn, Pikachu becomes ill, which causes Ash to meet up with May, a new Pokémon Trainer who eventually decided to partake in Pokémon Contests. Soon joined by May's Brother, Max & a return from Brock, Ash & May travel around Hoenn in the hope of winning the 8 Badges & 5 Ribbons required to enter the Hoenn League & Grand Festival. May, with her partners of Combusken, Skitty, Beautifly, Bulbasaur & Munchlax, faces her first set of trials with multiple Pokémon contests and the Grand Festival eventually coming in the Top 8 of the Grand Festival. Ash, With his new Partners of Grovyle, Swellow, Torkoal, Corphish & Glalie, Ash faces one of the greatest challenges with his Gym Battles and his 4th Pokémon League Tournement, eventually coming in the top 8.

Visit The Episode Guide

Discuss

 

[ChaosMage]

Fandiddlydoodlyastic saga. Evolutions finally accepted into the series, new characters and contests, well-handled gym leaders and minor characters, amazing pokemon with great development, the breakdown of nearly every formula in the series and so much more. Too bad the league, GF, Togepi episodes, Aqua/Magma saga and whatnot were so rushed, wasting their potential.

But still, the best complete saga yet.

 

[Infinite Master Sceptile]

Awesome, until it petered out during the Hoenn League. Ash's captures came out of nowhere, and were unique and suprising. Every formula was shattered. I could care less about Magma and Aqua. May is an interesting addition to the cast. Though her Pokemon are somewhat boring (until Torchic evolves), the way they are used makes it entertaining. Though she can be dull at times. I was pleased that Brock returned.

 

[Geki]

THE BEST EVER SAGA!!!! I loved this saga so damn much.. Live long Hoenn!!!

 

[Cloud Strife]

Good (not great, I hate how overrated this thing is) at the begining, but blew hard at the end, since the Kyoge Groudon saga, this just was not worth it.

 

[The Great Butler]

With the Hoenn League drawing to a close, I guess it's an appropriate time for me to offer my feelings on the saga as a whole.

Sadly, I'm rather glum about it overall.

It started when Misty left at the end of Johto. I'm sure you Anti-Pokéshippers out there will stop at that line and scream "YOU JUST HATE HOENN BECAUSE MISTY WASN'T IN IT! GET OVER IT!!!"

But don't, becuase I'm going to offer what are hopefully at least semi-rational arguments to my point.

With Misty gone, Ash's character became warped and twisted. Now he seems to bounce between being a brilliant, champion-caliber trainer and the goofy, oblivious kid he used to be. Witness the episode "A Vanity Affair" for one. That whole episode had him in full swagger, being the braggart of early Kanto. The mistakes he made battling Drake were so painful--anyone with as much training as Ash would've never went with Grovyle against Altaria even with the tactic of using the sails. Yet when battling both Tate & Liza and Juan, he was grounded and thinking his tactics through. This constant warping is why Misty was so important---besides being an excellent foil for him, she was the one who kept him two feet on the ground. As soon as she was gone, he instantly grew up so to speak--then the bouncing back and fourth began. It's almost like he's two characters now.

May....May, May, May. I want to like her, I really do. But as soon as she came aboard, she simply proved to be the female version of early Kanto Ash. Her character really does nothing for me, sorry.

Max, however, is a decent addition--but only with May there as well. They're great foils for each other (witness Jirachi Wish Maker) but their interaction is rather two-dimensional (bossy older sister, super-smart kid, et al.)

Unfortunately, these changes have also forced Brock back to the simple, useless role of Jenny/Joy stalker and little more. The only significant thing I can remember him really doing in all Hoenn was ID'ing Brody twice.

And the episodes themselves. Oh dear, the episodes. Hoenn had so much potential but it was squandered. The Kyogre/Groudon battle, the mini-arcs involving various competitors along the way (save for Morrison) and the Hoenn League and Grand Festival themselves--all wasted opportunity. Not to mention the possibility of a Rayquaza arc squandered. The League and Grand Festival were tired old exercises left over from Kanto---main character makes it quite far in, then loses---except we must have it TWICE now---and neither one was much good anyway.

In all, I'm sadly going to have to be the one who flunks Hoenn on many counts.......at least the pair of Hoenn movies, the aforementioned Wish Maker and Destiny Deoxys, were very good.

 

[Kabuto]

It was pretty good.. But, after Combusken evolved, this saga fell into a pit almost as big as the wreck Johto even though Gym 8 and the Hoenn League were alright. Not to mention the introduction of awful contests. Luckily the Battle Frontier makes up for this.

 

[Ashy Boy]

The Hoenn saga started out as being lame with May being a novice in Pokemon and Max being too bratty but eventually it got better especially with the debut of Corphish.

 

[Sharpedo Boy]

I watched a episode today and Seviper sounds gay,thats what me and my older sister sayed anyway.

 

[dannyphantomhott]

Bah I still haven't seen that one episode of Team Magama captering Ash in AG And that's the one I really wanted to see <_<
Well lets see;

Animation: Very good, its seriously gotten better.

Story Wise: Very good, though they could drop the contests.

Characters;

Ash: Very mature now, one of the best Pokemon battlers. Is also able to many stunts =/
Has a very cool/new/mature/cute look now.

May: Lets see, I used to like her a lot but than the May fan boys overated her and got in my face and braged about her and said she's better than most characters on here. Now I can't stand her will see what happens with her in the next saga, kind of hope she leaves but she probaly most likely won't to do many reasons that I don't feel like naming.

Max: Awe yes the annoying pain in the butt kid, he's kind of grown on me a bit but if he left I could care less. No Pokemon=Boring.

Brock: No character development latley sadly, miss the old Kanto Brock but meh. Its nice to have a cook around I guess but for me I could take him or leave him like Max.

So over all I didn't really mind it.

 

[charizard trainer #1]

Kinda agree with dannyphantom about may. I actually thought it started very well and was so until about the 6th gym where i lost interest, completely. To me it got repetitive and annoying. I'll probably like battle frontier as its shorter but more productive in Ash's training (don't care about may).Overall, it was better than johto, for sure.

THE BEST MOMENT: corphish, easily. He is Ash's best pokemon in terms of personality (but chikarita isn't far behind)...

THE WORST MOMENT: Brock's redundant character. I was glad to see him at the beginning but he does even less then what he did in johto (if possible).

 

[Booncy]

Ah! the Hoenn League, where to begin!

The Advanced Generation IMO was a great way to breath some fresh air into this old and dull series. It had it's pro's and con's!

The pro's were: It brought a brand new main co-star into the series, along with a 4th member to the group. It introduced pokemon contests into the series, and a new alternate quest for pokemon trainers rather than just collecting badges. Ash showed how much he's matured over the years, and actually started TRAINING his pokemon to learn new moves for the gym battles. There were less fillers (which was automatically a vast improvement over Johto) & more episodes dedicated to the goals of the two main stars, and the battles in general during this saga were better overall!

The con's were: Misty left , the first season was incredibly dull (for me the series didn't start to get exciting until the Advanced Challenge season ), May proved to be a female clone of Ash and had an EXTREMELY dull personality (outside of her goal) in comparision to Misty, the AG group period didn't have the same chemistry amongst them like the original trio did, some of the plots of the fillers became a rehash of fillers we've already seen from the original series (for ex. A Hole Lotta Trouble = Forest Grumps OR The School Of Hard Knocks = Gonna Rule The School, etc.), the fillers weren't as exciting NOR memorable as the fillers from the original series, and the Groudon / Kyogre ep's & Hoenn League ('nuff said )!

Overall (although a nice attempt by the staff of this show), this season wasen't enough to return Pokemon back to it's former glory! If anything it just made it worse by not just ending off the series @ Johto. The Advanced Generation as a whole just proved and cemented the idea into the fans head's that this repetitive series WILL NEVER EVER END! Ironically I think because the creator of Pokemon refuses to end it, and keeps on continuing the series with new generations of pokemon it will continue to lose more of it's fandom! This show's original core audience already grew tired of it during mid-Johto. It's only a matter of time before almost ALL of the fans get sick and tired of it going on, and on, and on!

All in all I rate this season as a whole a 6/10 !

 

[bubblybubbly-bubba]

The best bit of this series was the contests.They were great and introduced Drew and Harley some of my alltime favourite characters.I would of liked Max to get pokemon and Brock to have some character development but it wasn't meant to be...........

 

[pokemaster95]

I thought the gym battles were Great.But the lack of rivals for Ash was bad.Ash evoled all his pokemon exept for Corphish.May was a good character.Contest are awsome.This is the best season so far.But Sinnoh is crawling up to the best season spot.

 

[Luigi-the-Breloom]

It started when Misty left at the end of Johto. I'm sure you Anti-Pokéshippers out there will stop at that line and scream "YOU JUST HATE HOENN BECAUSE MISTY WASN'T IN IT! GET OVER IT!!!"

But don't, becuase I'm going to offer what are hopefully at least semi-rational arguments to my point.

With Misty gone, Ash's character became warped and twisted. Now he seems to bounce between being a brilliant, champion-caliber trainer and the goofy, oblivious kid he used to be. Witness the episode "A Vanity Affair" for one. That whole episode had him in full swagger, being the braggart of early Kanto. The mistakes he made battling Drake were so painful--anyone with as much training as Ash would've never went with Grovyle against Altaria even with the tactic of using the sails. Yet when battling both Tate & Liza and Juan, he was grounded and thinking his tactics through. This constant warping is why Misty was so important---besides being an excellent foil for him, she was the one who kept him two feet on the ground. As soon as she was gone, he instantly grew up so to speak--then the bouncing back and fourth began. It's almost like he's two characters now.

I'm sorry, but I really, really hate that reason because it offends my values, and if you weren't trying to be polite and rational, I'd mock it mercilessly. It reminds me of a kid living off his mother for 20 years and never going out to experience the world and becoming independent. Yes, Ash makes mistakes by himself, but how the heck are you supposed to grow up if you are constantly afraid of screwing up? At some point, Ash doesn't need anyone to keep his two feet on the ground because you only learn by making mistakes. If Misty constantly restrained him from making mistakes, how would Ash grow? Two Leagues later, he should not need some overbearing figure to tell him what to do. Basically, that's why I liked seeing Ash get his arse handed to him in Brave the Wave and Vanity Affair, because he could learn humility from experience, the best way to learn. So, yeah, I am perplexed at the point you are trying to drive across.

 

[CyberCubed]

If Misty constantly restrained him from making mistakes, how would Ash grow? Two Leagues later, he should not need some overbearing figure to tell him what to do. Basically, that's why I liked seeing Ash get his arse handed to him in Brave the Wave and Vanity Affair, because he could learn humility from experience, the best way to learn. So, yeah, I am perplexed at the point you are trying to drive across.

LOL, I'm surprised you're responding to his post after so many months, but don't bother trying to reason.

Some of us *get it* while others don't. We'll leave it at that.

 

[Luigi-the-Breloom]

I only responded because his reason touched a nerve with my political/social leanings. It reminds me of Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan, which calls for an absolute sovereign to keep humans from falling into a life "solitary, poor, brutish, nasty, and short."

 

[crawdauntpro]

I really enhjoyed this saga. The fresh start perpsective was great and the captures were inventive and the Gym battles and League format was very well thought out and totally different from the other Leagues. Still wish Ash could have gotten that Combusken that evolved from Torchic before it went to a trainer. It would have been a good Fighting type Pokemon against Dyson.
All in all; 9/10.

 

[BM14murph]

It was a good saga all in all

Introducing the contests and a new girl

The battle frontier was a nice addition - pity bout the whole 4kids thing though

 

[Slowking[George]]

The Hoenn League was good because of the contests and because of the introduction of May, Max as well as new pokemon, new moves and more extended battles, however I still think Johto was better. This might just be me though.