Thoughts on Ash having finally won a Pokemon League.

[Captain Jigglypuff]

I’m happy that he won, I’ve said this a lotta times that him winning the Alola League isn’t as bad it looks because it was a “lousy” tournament with very low standards even though I enjoyed watching it..

A trainer of Ash’s caliber should be winning the Alola League even with his current team, otherwise it would’ve looked bad if he lost to Hau, Guzma and even Gladion because we’ve seen him do well in harder leagues than this one against tougher opponents!

Regardless of him winning the league, I am certain that Ash will still be the protagonist of the Pokémon anime next season.. The guy still has a long way to go and a lot of work to do, he’s even said that winning the league is just a step in the right direction..

Remember guys, winning the Alola League doesn’t make you a Pokémon master and now that the “curse” is finally out of the way, we might be able to see Ash grow and develop his character tremendously

Don’t you think it would’ve been huge news by now if Ash was getting cut off the show? Pokémon cares about their bottom line, Ash and Pikachu are their cash cows and synonymous with the show.. It’s probably too late to cut them

The fact that they haven’t said anything gives me hope, his voice actor seems to be confident that his journey is still gonna continue even after becoming the champion!

Ash didn’t quit after the Orange Islands League.

 

[Deleted member 384931]

How many news sites used wrong info like stating he is 11 or now he is a Pokémon master

 

[WildHennaCharizard]

To be honest I'm surprised. I thought for sure the writers were going to do the same old thing where he lose at the end. That being said it's cool he won.

 

[Sham]

Are you kidding, didn't ash actually tweeted worldwide, but CNN made one mistake they said ash just became a pokemon master which he haven't yet.

What?

 

[LilligantLewis]

Ah, yes, reddit, a bastion of objectivity.

Can't wait for the flashbacks to the very first, say, Sinnoh and Kalos Leagues just being like 8 people kicking around in a random field and deciding to hold a tournament and call the winner the Champion of the region.

The League is objectively a League in universe, whether you like it or not, and that's all that matters.

Ever heard the phrase, putting lipstick on a pig?

I’ve never once actually ignored any of this. I actually say as much in several of my posts in other threads. I’ve always considered a lot of those bullet points to be artificial, but I’ve also always acknowledged it to be there. Dig up some of my previous posts if you want to.

You know what’s also objective? That this tournament didn’t have barrier entries, it didn’t have 6v6s, etc...

That runs diametrically opposed to the in-universe narrative of the past regions and leagues. One of those points, the third one is the strongest argument in favor of this tournament and it’s the reason why I’ve said this league is of separate value and stature because of that. In terms of Alola’s narrative it is, in terms of the overall narrative it’s an entirely different thing

Nothing will change that either

@TheWanderingMist has a really good point here about "8 people kicking around in a random field"

Older titles are always different. An actually good real life example that I've recently seen debated comes to mind. Not sure how many people here follow tennis, so I'll quickly explain something in one or two sentences here just to give you the context, without wasting too much of your time.

Context:
The four biggest tournaments each year (Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon, U.S. Open) are called majors and are the only modern tournaments with 128 participants (7 rounds). Serena Williams has won 23 majors, while the all-time record is Margaret Court who won 24.

Recent controversy:
After coming back from maternity leave, Serena has lost 4 straight major finals, and some Serena fans have started to claim that "she already has the record" because if you look at several of Margaret Court's earliest titles decades and decades ago, there weren't 128 players, some of them had as few as 48 players with weird formats like first-round byes, etc.

The facts:
All of Margaret Court's 24 majors are real titles. Tournaments evolve over time and obviously the earliest iterations won't look anything like the modern iteration because the tournament was still a fletchling tournament in its earliest stages, still growing into what it became today. That doesn't delete those earliest titles from existence. If we did, then would we have to delete all titles every single time there's a rule change?

The point:
Ash has won the first Alola League, which probably looks nothing like what the Alola League will look like 100 years, if not even 20 years, from now. Yet, it is still a league that he has won. That can't be debated.

(p.s. on the tennis thing, I am a huge tennis fan so if you want to discuss the stuff I just mentioned, or other stuff, write on my wall or PM me rather than continuing it here)

Pokemon Adventures RGB literally just has two battles "on-screen" of it's Pokemon League and most readers I've known think it's ten times better than the majority of the leagues that the anime has. When talking about the quality and importance of a league in the anime, the number of episodes really doesn't matter that much.

actually it made no sense considering that Red only defeated ONE of Blue's Pokémon.

 

[ash&charizardfan]

@TheWanderingMist has a really good point here about "8 people kicking around in a random field"

Older titles are always different. An actually good real life example that I've recently seen debated comes to mind. Not sure how many people here follow tennis, so I'll quickly explain something in one or two sentences here just to give you the context, without wasting too much of your time.

Context:
The four biggest tournaments each year (Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon, U.S. Open) are called majors and are the only modern tournaments with 128 participants (7 rounds). Serena Williams has won 23 majors, while the all-time record is Margaret Court who won 24.

Recent controversy:
After coming back from maternity leave, Serena has lost 4 straight major finals, and some Serena fans have started to claim that "she already has the record" because if you look at several of Margaret Court's earliest titles decades and decades ago, there weren't 128 players, some of them had as few as 48 players with weird formats like first-round byes, etc.

The facts:
All of Margaret Court's 24 majors are real titles. Tournaments evolve over time and obviously the earliest iterations won't look anything like the modern iteration because the tournament was still a fletchling tournament in its earliest stages, still growing into what it became today. That doesn't delete those earliest titles from existence. If we did, then would we have to delete all titles every single time there's a rule change?

The point:
Ash has won the first Alola League, which probably looks nothing like what the Alola League will look like 100 years, if not even 20 years, from now. Yet, it is still a league that he has won. That can't be debated.

(p.s. on the tennis thing, I am a huge tennis fan so if you want to discuss the stuff I just mentioned, or other stuff, write on my wall or PM me rather than continuing it here)



actually it made no sense considering that Red only defeated ONE of Blue's Pokémon.

Yeah valid point in future 20 years from now no one will care how many players did margaret court had to face to in her majors she has the record and that's all that matters.

Though one thing though, serena williams won all her major titles in open era especially in gruelling seasons where you have other master tournaments and mid level tournaments, if i have to pick the GOAT of women's tennis it has to be serena willims despite all her injuries and her pregnancy she is still a top player for 20+ years. As for maragaret court she is nowhere near other all time greats like martina navratilova, steffi graf or chris evert or even monica seles. She practically won everything before open era.

 

[LilligantLewis]

Yeah valid point in future 20 years from now no one will care how many players did margaret court had to face to in her majors she has the record and that's all that matters.

Though one thing though, serena williams won all her major titles in open era especially in gruelling seasons where you have other master tournaments and mid level tournaments, if i have to pick the GOAT of women's tennis it has to be serena willims despite all her injuries and her pregnancy she is still a top player for 20+ years. As for maragaret court she is nowhere near other all time greats like martina navratilova, steffi graf or chris evert or even monica seles. She practically won everything before open era.

Oh i fully agree with everything you just said and think that Serena is the GOAT as well, but I don't think she has the "record" if that makes sense. Court still has the record and that can't be taken away from her. Also if you want to continue this let's do it on someone's wall or PM so we don't get off topic

 

[Power Up]

They would think fans are nitpicking, I imagine, as all fanbases are wont to do. R/anime represents a miniscule minority of people that have seen and engaged with this. The dissenters within that represent an even smaller minority.

(I also didn't mean 'headline' like in a newspaper, more that it was the top story and most important part of this.)

All you are pointing out here are reasons the league dissatisfied some fans. You have not done anything to change the fact that this is an official Pokemon league as recognised both in the show and outside of it by writers, creators and Pokemon's official Twitter account. As I said, it's a totally defensible position to argue that this league had problems and wasn't as good as the others. I get that. But it's never a defensible position to overplay that hand so much that you deny reality and deny absolute, outright facts.

There's no "hardline narrative". It's not your show to just go around deciding what is or isn't a Pokemon league. I will now also push the "hardline narrative" that Pikachu is a grass type and fire type moves are strong against water Pokemon. Because apparently there are no absolute facts, no, only "hardline narrarives".

Again, let's please agree on the facts if we are going to have a discussion. Simple yes or no question with no caveats - was this an official Pokemon league? Yes or no? This conversation simply cannot continue as long as reality continues to be denied. I won't engage with it further.


Lastly, if you believe what I'm saying is bait why on earth did you deliberately choose to take it? Don't assassinate my character and accuse me of trying to bait you, to troll and antagonize you, especially if you quite clearly don't believe it (because if you really thought it was "bait" then you surely wouldn't have responded and fallen for the "bait". Either I successfully trolled you or you're making it up, no middle ground).

Actually, I’ve seen people inform these people of what actually went on in this league and yeah, they’re pretty miffed and annoyed that this is how he won. Ignorance is a bliss.

But those problems didn’t exist in previous leagues. This makes this league a different type of league wholly different from the past ones. This is also objective fact, that this league is not like the others. Hence, this makes this league win different.

Nice false dichotomy. I’ll answer it anyway, was this a official Pokémon league? Yes. Is it like the other leagues? No. In relation to past leagues, the Alola League is an entirely different type of league, separate from the leagues of old. Meaning this win has different value, and I think the value is much lesser.

I don’t even know what you’re talking about in this last paragraph

Also stop screaming about context. Context doesn't change facts. 2+2 is not suddenly 5 if you ask it on the moon.

Please don’t strawman me. Obviously there are facts, but you do realize a lot of facts need context right? Context brings light to what those facts actually mean.

@TheWanderingMist has a really good point here about "8 people kicking around in a random field"

Older titles are always different. An actually good real life example that I've recently seen debated comes to mind. Not sure how many people here follow tennis, so I'll quickly explain something in one or two sentences here just to give you the context, without wasting too much of your time.

Context:
The four biggest tournaments each year (Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon, U.S. Open) are called majors and are the only modern tournaments with 128 participants (7 rounds). Serena Williams has won 23 majors, while the all-time record is Margaret Court who won 24.

Recent controversy:
After coming back from maternity leave, Serena has lost 4 straight major finals, and some Serena fans have started to claim that "she already has the record" because if you look at several of Margaret Court's earliest titles decades and decades ago, there weren't 128 players, some of them had as few as 48 players with weird formats like first-round byes, etc.

The facts:
All of Margaret Court's 24 majors are real titles. Tournaments evolve over time and obviously the earliest iterations won't look anything like the modern iteration because the tournament was still a fletchling tournament in its earliest stages, still growing into what it became today. That doesn't delete those earliest titles from existence. If we did, then would we have to delete all titles every single time there's a rule change?

The point:
Ash has won the first Alola League, which probably looks nothing like what the Alola League will look like 100 years, if not even 20 years, from now. Yet, it is still a league that he has won. That can't be debated.

(p.s. on the tennis thing, I am a huge tennis fan so if you want to discuss the stuff I just mentioned, or other stuff, write on my wall or PM me rather than continuing it here)



actually it made no sense considering that Red only defeated ONE of Blue's Pokémon.

Yes, I’m a tennis nerd. And you literally admitted in your first line that older titles are different. Borg winning his French Opens and Wimbledons in that era is entirely different from when people do it now, because the eras are entirely different. Different surfaces, different equipment...

It’s why the term Open Era has been coined. Court won 11 of her titles in the Open Era. Yeah, she still has 24 slam wins, but a lot of those wins do have the asterisk because of the context in which they were won. She has the title of most slam wins, but with context, those wins can easily be argued on merit. Those titles won’t ever be deleted, but they can be looked at with the context of that era vs say the context of this era

The difference between tennis and Pokémon is that we know that history, WanderingMist is making assumptions that aren’t backed up the actual events of the show. The past Pokémon leagues could have been set up after gyms were set up. We don’t know. It isn’t shown in the show.

 

[MidnightMelody]

To be fair Pokemon Master was never really talked about in the show. It was always a loose term so you can't blame news outlets for using the term. Plus some may have just used it out of context meaning as a champion he's a master not knowing it is a term in the fandom.

 

[Captain Jigglypuff]

To be fair, the term Pokémon master’s definition was always rather vague and up for interpretation. Is it someone who manages to catch every single Pokémon including Legendaries and Mythicals? Someone that wins a Pokémon League? Someone who has mastered the training methods of a single type of Pokémon? There has never been an official answer as to what makes someone a Pokémon master.

 

[TheWanderingMist]

To be fair, the term Pokémon master’s definition was always rather vague and up for interpretation. Is it someone who manages to catch every single Pokémon including Legendaries and Mythicals? Someone that wins a Pokémon League? Someone who has mastered the training methods of a single type of Pokémon? There has never been an official answer as to what makes someone a Pokémon master.

I always just assumed Pokemon Master meant being good at anything with Pokemon, from battles, to Contests, to Showcases, to breeding, etc.

 

[Captain Jigglypuff]

I always just assumed Pokemon Master meant being good at anything with Pokemon, from battles, to Contests, to Showcases, to breeding, etc.

Exactly! There are just way too many ways to define the term that literally no one knows what it actually means nowadays. During Gen 1, the idea that catching all 151 Pokémon made you a master and it slightly changed during a Johto by making it 251 Pokémon. Then Gen 3 happened and it was slightly adjusted to all of the Pokémon and it wasn’t until Sinnoh before the definition became rather confusing and vague and it hasn’t been very clear since then.

 

[Xenon Blue]

I'm not fond on the journey Ash took to finally win an official league, but it's whatever. League itself was lackluster and filled with subpar battles, with the final battle being nothing special. My vision of a good way for Ash to win a league will never happen probably, as I actually love battles that are tactic-driven and drags on instead of flashy, in your face power battle. Even then, something like Ash vs Alain would have been a satisfactory ending for me (assume that Ash actually got some vs Conway level battles shown on screen before Sawyer, perhaps with reserves), as at least with that it's a 6v6, features great animation, has tactical moments here and there, and the league itself felt more high-stake and intense.

 

[AuraChannelerChris]

To be fair, the term Pokémon master’s definition was always rather vague and up for interpretation. Is it someone who manages to catch every single Pokémon including Legendaries and Mythicals? Someone that wins a Pokémon League? Someone who has mastered the training methods of a single type of Pokémon? There has never been an official answer as to what makes someone a Pokémon master.

Nanu said Ash lacks the potential to be a Dark-type user, which only made Ash sigh in defeat without arguing he will try to be one, so we can rule that out...alongside the leagues.

Ash also doesn't make an effort to catch over 6 or so Pokemon in a region, so catching many Pokemon isn't a part of it.

He also doesn't even consider doing contests or whatever those showcases are on the side.

And defeating Champions (or the newly-conceived League Champions) are not a particular priority for him, strangely enough.

...

...

...

Are we sure this kid doesn't have (redacted) for brains.

 

[TTNH03]

To be fair Pokemon Master was never really talked about in the show. It was always a loose term so you can't blame news outlets for using the term. Plus some may have just used it out of context meaning as a champion he's a master not knowing it is a term in the fandom.

Actually, they did mention what a Pokemon Master means.

I just watched the last episode of the Sinnoh Saga and Ash says:
"Someday, somehow, I'm going to win the Champion League and become Champion Master."
--Pikachu speaks--
"You're right and of course that means I'll finally become a Pokemon Master."

So basically it means beating the Elite 4 and the current Champion of the region. Also, this is based on Ash's interpretation on what a Pokemon Master is so it's not a general term.
My guess is if the next series is based on Ash going back to all regions then it'll probably be his journey on becoming the Champion Master AKA a Pokemon Master.

 

[MidnightMelody]

Actually, they did mention what a Pokemon Master means.

I just watched the last episode of the Sinnoh Saga and Ash says:
"Someday, somehow, I'm going to win the Champion League and become Champion Master."
--Pikachu speaks--
"You're right and of course that means I'll finally become a Pokemon Master."

So basically it means beating the Elite 4 and the current Champion of the region. Also, this is based on Ash's interpretation on what a Pokemon Master is so it's not a general term.
My guess is if the next series is based on Ash going back to all regions then it'll probably be his journey on becoming the Champion Master AKA a Pokemon Master.

That kinda is debunked for regions like Alola that don't have one. With his logic he already would be one just by winning alola since they don't have one in the anime canon at least not yet.

 

[TTNH03]

That kinda is debunked for regions like Alola that don't have one. With his logic he already would be one just by winning alola since they don't have one in the anime canon at least not yet.

True, but don't forget that it's Ash. He wouldn't be happy with just becoming Champion in one region, he'll want to take on all of them. That and the writers could add that in as a reason to go back to the other regions. It wouldn't make sense for Ash to earn badges and win the Pokemon League again since he's already done it.

Plus it's shown throughout the series that Ash is determined to beat the current Champions like Cynthia, Alder and Diantha. It was implied throughout other episodes that he wants to have a re/match with them too so it could bring closure to that.

We'll see what happens, I guess.

 

[Captain Jigglypuff]

Actually, they did mention what a Pokemon Master means.

I just watched the last episode of the Sinnoh Saga and Ash says:
"Someday, somehow, I'm going to win the Champion League and become Champion Master."
--Pikachu speaks--
"You're right and of course that means I'll finally become a Pokemon Master."

So basically it means beating the Elite 4 and the current Champion of the region. Also, this is based on Ash's interpretation on what a Pokemon Master is so it's not a general term.
My guess is if the next series is based on Ash going back to all regions then it'll probably be his journey on becoming the Champion Master AKA a Pokemon Master.

Well yeah, that was said but it isn’t exactly a canon answer. That movie is part of the reboot movie canon and this separate from the anime.

 

[TTNH03]

Well yeah, that was said but it isn’t exactly a canon answer. That movie is part of the reboot movie canon and this separate from the anime.

It's not a part of the movie. Ash actually says it in the anime. Like I said, it was in the last episode of the Sinnoh series before he goes to Unova.

 

[Redstar45]

It's not a part of the movie. Ash actually says it in the anime. Like I said, it was in the last episode of the Sinnoh series before he goes to Unova.

It was in sub too