Thoughts on the Masters 8/PWC as a whole?

[Dragneelo]

I just realised my previous post talked about Masters 8 only and not the PWC
So let's talk about the PWC as a whole now

I think it was an amazing concept, had a lot of great moments, but had shoddy execution in many places.
I think the BIGGEST sore point of PWC is the Great Class. Too many skips in that class and too rushed when it could have been spaced out more and given much necessary screentime to JN mons that desparately needed. Basically it was treated like Normal class only but with stronger opponents when it should have featured many more battles and JN mons screentime
For the Normal class it works, battling a few trainers and quickly getting to Great Class. Ash vs Visquez and Ash vs Korrina were top tier battles as well

Now the Hyper Class i feel was a major improvement. The changes and presentation was much better, and Ash vs Volkner, Raihan and Marnie were great battles. Ash vs Drasna sucked though and Ash vs Bea round 3 wasn't as satisfying or well done as it could have.

And Master Class I've already talked about above.
Overall, while the PWC could have been much better and should have been structured more properly, and could have easily featured reserves, I think it was still decently done.

Ranking of battles:
1) Ash vs Leon
2) Ash vs Cynthia
3) Ash vs Volkner
4) Ash vs Raihan
5) Ash vs Visquez
6) Ash vs Marnie
7) Ash vs Korrina
8) Ash vs Steven/Iris vs Cynthia
9) Leon vs Lance
10) Lance vs Diantha
11) Ash vs Bea round 2
12) Ash vs Bea round 1
13) Ash vs Rinto
14) Ash vs Bea round 3
15) Ash vs Gurdurr guy
16) Ash vs Meganium guy
17) Ash vs Drasna
18) Leon vs Alain
19) Ash vs Tauros guy
20) Leon vs Diantha

Ash vs Steven should be 4-5. It was way better than whatever the crap Raihan did

 

[Ragnarok4]

I just realised my previous post talked about Masters 8 only and not the PWC
So let's talk about the PWC as a whole now

I think it was an amazing concept, had a lot of great moments, but had shoddy execution in many places.
I think the BIGGEST sore point of PWC is the Great Class. Too many skips in that class and too rushed when it could have been spaced out more and given much necessary screentime to JN mons that desparately needed. Basically it was treated like Normal class only but with stronger opponents when it should have featured many more battles and JN mons screentime
For the Normal class it works, battling a few trainers and quickly getting to Great Class. Ash vs Visquez and Ash vs Korrina were top tier battles as well

Now the Hyper Class i feel was a major improvement. The changes and presentation was much better, and Ash vs Volkner, Raihan and Marnie were great battles. Ash vs Drasna sucked though and Ash vs Bea round 3 wasn't as satisfying or well done as it could have.

And Master Class I've already talked about above.
Overall, while the PWC could have been much better and should have been structured more properly, and could have easily featured reserves, I think it was still decently done.

Ranking of battles:
1) Ash vs Leon
2) Ash vs Cynthia
3) Ash vs Volkner
4) Ash vs Raihan
5) Ash vs Visquez
6) Ash vs Marnie
7) Ash vs Korrina
8) Ash vs Steven/Iris vs Cynthia
9) Leon vs Lance
10) Lance vs Diantha
11) Ash vs Bea round 2
12) Ash vs Bea round 1
13) Ash vs Rinto
14) Ash vs Bea round 3
15) Ash vs Gurdurr guy
16) Ash vs Meganium guy
17) Ash vs Drasna
18) Leon vs Alain
19) Ash vs Tauros guy
20) Leon vs Diantha

For me, Top 5

1) ash vs L
2) ash vs C
3) ash vs bea
4) lance vs diantha
5) ash vs steven

 

[SerGoldenhandtheJust]

Ash vs Steven should be 4-5. It was way better than whatever the crap Raihan did

Ash vs Steven was good for me, I just liked the above better
Hmm, maybe I did put raihan too high, the battles before Lucario vs Duraldon were so good but the finisher was a bit of a stinker
I plan to rewatch all JN's battles and all the 6v6 battles in the anime soon enough, so I'll rank it more properly then

 

[masdog]

Overall, I think the M8, and the PWC as a whole, were a nice change of pace for the anime. They broke out of the traditional formula and allowed the anime to explore the entire known Pokemon world. The PWC and Goh's story arcs allowed us to revisit the last 25 years of the anime, and it was a great way to continue Ash's post-XY/SM journey by putting him on a bigger, more challenging stage.

But there are also some valid criticisms that can be leveled against the PWC arc. It has some execution issues in that it feels like they spent too much time in the Normal and Super classes before breezing through the Ultra Class to the M8. I think that hurts the arc in some ways because, as some people pointed out in today's episode thread, Ash reaching a level where he could go toe-to-toe with other regional champions never felt believable because the show hadn't firmly established that progression. I think that's a fair criticism. And I wish they would have gotten to the Ultra Class earlier and had Ash struggle here with tougher gym leaders and E4 members instead of the way it was originally executed.

While I like Ash's JN team, it would have been nice to see some reserves rotated in, especially earlier in the series while Ash was building and training his Champion team. It would have been great to see his old and new Pokemon battling together and helping to train his new team, and it would be a great way to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the franchise.

I loved the M8 as a final tournament arc. While the execution was questionable in some places, this arc was a great capstone event for the last 25 years of the show. They made Leon out to be too strong, and while I don't mind having him absolutely body Alain, his team should have taken a few more blows against Diantha. I thought the other battles were pretty good, and I like the way it turned out.

 

[Mr. Reloaded]

As a whole it was fairly average, my main gripes being with the great and Ultra classes.

With the former, too much skipping around and wasting the opportunity to bring back characters Ash never properly beat (Sabrina was a massive missed opportunity) The Galar gym leaders were largely ignored. I still can't for the life make sense out of having Ash fight Iris out of all people in the great class.

The Ultra Class saw massive improvements with the choreography and visuals but ran into similar problems I had with the great class. Where were the Elite Four? You aren't gonna tell out of 6 regions that had them, only 2 were in the PWC? Nonsense. It would have made Ash's growth into proper champion tier more natural and believable. Ultra Class also had the speedrunning problem that the entire PWC suffered through, but it was much more noticeable there because of the significantly less amount of people in it. It became clear from the beginning of it that it wasn't gonna be this crazy long gauntlet vs elite four tier trainers and that saddened me.

The Masters 8 though? Save for what happened to Alain no real complaints here. It gave me Ash vs Cynthia I couldn't ask for anymore than that.

Ash vs Leon was peak, nuff said.

 

[ShuckFam]

Cynthia vs Iris should have been a clean 3-0 or maybe a 3-1 with a win for Haxorus.
Ash vs Steven was decent in parts but was ultimately rushed. Aggron got screwed over and so did Metagross tbh.
Ash vs Cynthia was the best battle of the tournament. Lots of strategy from Cynthia, who really toyed with Ash at times.
Ash vs Leon felt even all the way through, unlike vs Cynthia, where she seemed to have the edge for most of the battle. Still, this was a good battle overall, with the negatives being the Eternatus interference, Ash getting 4 gimmicks, and Cinderace getting one-shotted in g-max form. But overall, it was a good battle. I particularly liked Mr Rime and Inteleon.

I probably would have made the Steven match longer (more respect needed for the Hoenn champ imo), found a different way to get Cinderace out of the battle with Leon and made Pikachu overcome Charizard with one of Ash's hair-brained strategies instead of through Pikachu headbutting in his thunderbolt Ashura form.

 

[Bortgreen]

As some would expect, it got gradually better.
We went from a really infamous episode(the Leon vs Alain battle that blew up) to two good 6v6s + a finale where they simply went crazy with the animation and nostalgia
But I think the real problem there were the tons of breaks and recaps

 

[VoltTacklingPika]

A spectacular finish elevated it, but ultimately it lacked a certain something to bring everything together.

Ash vs Leon was the driving force behind the entire plot and turned out to be a very basic rivalry involving two dudes who saw themselves in each other and wanted to have a great battle. Fun, but not the most compelling rivalry Ash has ever had.

Every battle in the PWC had to be framed as obstacles on the way to battling Leon, but the show never stopped and examined why it was so important for Ash or why Leon regarded Ash as such an interesting challenger. The battles along the way lacked narrative weight, with the one exception being Ash's mini-rivalry with Bea, but even that was built on a flimsy losing streak. Once Ash overcame Bea, it was a procession. Raihan challenged Ash by saying it wasn't enough to want to fight Leon; he had to want to beat him, too. Unfortunately, it came too late.

The Masters 8 was nice, but again lacked a narrative significance. It leaned heavily into the meta-narrative of Ash finally facing off against legitimate Champions and scaling heights he never had before, but Journeys itself does a supbar job of selling you on how big these battles really are. For Ash, it was just another tournament, no bigger or more important than any other. Most of his dialogue was claiming he was going to win and expressing how much fun he was having. He barely converses with any of the other competitors.

For all of Ash's accomplishments, he came across so incredibly flat throughout the tournament. The battles were enjoyable for the most part, but we had all these interesting characters in one place yet nobody had anything remarkable to say to one another. There was a flicker of something when Cynthia said she'd retire after the tournament, but it never ignited into anything. Hell, Ash never even knew this was a thing! And then it's gone, just like that.

There's something to be said about Ash's progression as well. He goes from Champion of a fledging league to best trainer in the world, overcoming Steven, Cynthia and Leon back-to-back-to-back, very quickly. What needed to happen was Ash struggling the higher up the rankings he went, but they did the exact opposite to that. Ash struggled early, but swept his way up the rankings and chewed through the top level trainers. It felt like they lowered the power level to meet Ash's, rather than elevate Ash's power level in a more believable fashion.

Cool idea, happy they reused older characters and gave some love to Iris, but I'm left feeling it could have been so much more than it was.

 

[AJ97]

Best Final Tournament across all series in my opinion.
1) Lance vs Diantha and Iris vs Cynthia is better than all other side character battles to date (Including Paul vs Barry, Sawyer vs Tierno, and all the Alola league battles)

2) Ash vs Steven is arguably Ash's best early-round battle in a Pokemon League. Ash vs Conway was pretty good but I still think Ash vs Steven is better. The only mistake was to have Aggron fall a little too easily. If they fixed that, this battle would've been great.

3) I think Ash vs Cynthia is better than all previous region Semi-Final/Final battles in terms of stakes, strategy, battle choreography, etc. The only real downside is the animations. However, the stakes here sort of compensate for it. I would argue Ash vs Cynthia is better than Ash vs Paul; however, is inferior to Ash vs Sawyer/Alain & Kukui (In terms of Animation). However, Ash vs Cynthia had much better buildup and stakes especially compared to vs Sawyer/Kukui; so I think it still wins out.

4) Ash vs Leon is arguably the best battle in the anime so far. It is one of the few battles where every single Pokemon on both sides played a significant/meaningful role in the battle in some way. Animations in the last episode are much superior to Ash vs Kukui and vs Alain/Sawyer.
_______

My only real complaint is the fact that they should've shown us Diantha vs Leon instead of the other nonsense filler that cut half the battle. Even if Leon was sweeping through Diantha's team; I would've preferred had they actually shown us how he managed to do it.

 

[Soniman]

People are hung up on how bad it started but imo of the best parts of the arc are the back half AND that back half was the most important match yes they absolutely needed to get right then , idk is it really that bad?

Cynthia and Leon were good battles, and by episode count it was over half the arc, so idk I much rather have a arc finish strongly then end terribly. But then I also liked Cynthia/Iris. I only thought Alan vs Leon, Ash vs Steven, and Leon vs Diantha as big duds. Lance vs Diantha being in the middle, so yeah I honestly think it’s way overhated. Feels like people just held onto those terrible first impressions and never let go

 

[AJ97]

People are hung up in his bad it started but imo of the best parts of the arc are the back half AND that back half was the most important match yes they absolutely needed to get right then , idk is it really that bad?

Cynthia and Leon were good battles, and by episode count it was over half the arc, so idk I much rather have a arc finish strongly then end terribly. But then I also liked Cynthia/Iris. I only thought Alan vs Leon, Ash vs Steven, and Leon vs Diantha as big duds. Lance vs Diantha being in the middle, so yeah I honestly think it’s way overhated. Feels like people just held onto those terrible first impressions and never let go

Funny enough, I'd argue Cynthia vs Iris was the worst battle out of the bunch.
We see next to no strategy from Iris (Something which we actually look for in a Master Class match).

However, more importantly, we don't see any progression since her previous fight with Ash in the Great Class. Considering that there's literally a plot hole as to how she managed to even get to the Master Class before Ash; the least they could've done was to give her some kind of secret weapon to further support hew newly acquire champion status and also her ascension to the Master Class before Ash.

They should've given her G-Max Lapras or a Mega Latios/Latios, to use against Cynthia. Or they could've gone one step crazier and given her a Reshiram or Zekrom.

The Iris who fought Cynthia didn't seem any different than the one who fought and lost against Ash previously.

 

[ZarudeSandstorm]

It was bad. I would put only Kanto and Unova leagues below it.
What I would add? Easy, Paul and Ash using reserves. I would put that characters use all 3 gimmicks in full battles instead of just Ash using them. I would make Ash somehow got Mega Stones for Heracross, Glalie, Sceptile.

 

[Almighty Zard]

I personally enjoyed the shift change from a badge quest, I also enjoyed most of the battles, sure there are some flaws, but it's not like his past big battles haven't had flaws either.

I also agree that yes I would've liked to see Ash use his reserves starting in the Ultra Tier (since he did kind of tear through the first two rather easily) but it eventually became apparent they weren't going to, then again considering what happened in the sinnoh league, i'm not exactly sure the writers can be full trusted on that either.

I am happy he finally got a proper mega, something I wanted in XY instead of what we were given, because what we got back then all but killed what should've been an epic moment and had no payoff.

Overall i'm happy that Ash was finally allowed to battle at a level he should rightfully be at when he's not reset, though I do believe that the transition of him taking on e4/champions should've been slower paced, but we're not in control, also i'm honestly glad that even if we didn't see it most of his fighting this series was against actual trainers instead of Team Rocket for the majority of the time, it always felt stupid how that was how he got the majority of his exp in earlier saga's, as how can one truly grow by fighting the same two people and pokemon all the time.

 

[Ryker101]

Honestly I think M8 is relatively good compared to previous leagues. A lot of previous leagues messed up as well, in major ways. Unova’s was trash, Kanto’s wasn’t great either, Hoenn didn’t have much stakes behind it (since most ppl were cotds), Sinnoh forced in Tobias, Kalos was rushed af+a stupid loss, and Alola had Ash vs Hau, not to mention all the other stuff everyone loves to complain about

M8 has a fair amount of eps, 12 (or 13) is not bad at all. For quarter finals, Leon’s early matches sucked but everything else was either decent to great. Then Ash vs Cynthia and especially Leon were amazing, with the latter probs being the best battle (just based on the battle) of the whole show. Like Alola they finally didn’t pull any bs to make Ash lose, which retroactively makes the whole experience more satisfying because you know it’ll pay off in the end

If I ranked them
Alola > Sinnoh > M8 > Kalos > Hoenn > Johto > Kanto > Unova

Yeah I think Alola’s the best one but that’s another topic lol

 

[Xuxuba]

The latter part of Ash vs Leon was unforgettable and Ash vs Cynthia was good but the rest was rather underwhelming for an event of this importance. Dunno why they decided to have some of these matches like Ash vs. Steven (whom Ash barely interacted).

To me what really kept me satisfied weren't really the fights themselves (tho some were good) nor the rivalry between Ash and the participants but rather the achievements and meaning behind them, as it has been 25 years that Ash started this journey, so obviously we should be feeling some type of way at this point.

 

[Akkipeddi]

Ash vs Leon has probably singlehandedly pushed the M8 from 4/10 to a 6/10. As for the PWC as a whole, too many forgettable battles that I genuinely can't even recall. So the PWC as a whole is probably a 5/10, again only being this high cause of Ash vs Leon.

 

[Sham]

Lmao Tomiyasu is like a frustrated fan who wanted to see Ash destroy everyone after years of losing, he actually eliminated 5 champions in Journeys

That part.


Tldr , it felt like the entire thing was based around Ash VS Leon and did a terrible job making us feel like we should care about anything else.

Everything and every person was treated as significantly less important and they made it blatantly obvious. It’s even worse when you throw regional Champjons in here who could’ve been replaced with random NPC and nothing about the narrative would’ve changed.





Besides the Master Class? Easily Ash vs Volkner. It was nice even beyond JN standards.

Master Class episodes?

I’ve changed my opinions on them. I actually enjoyed Alain vs Leon a lot. Actually analyzing how strong Rillaboom was and Alain being able to defeat it was pretty nice. The animation in that battle was also surprisingly way better than I remember. Not a fan how they immediately tried to rush that into the first introduction episode of the league. It came off as very choppy.


Diantha and Lance was my least favorite and it’s primarily because they completely made Lance lackluster to emphasize Diantha’s strategies. It would be nice if they were able to show how smart Diantha was without risking making Lance seem dumb in the process. It’s also very jarring how static-ish that battle was in general. I will give the writers props because that Shadow Sneak and Halloween was an excellent combination and Diantha really did get her followers.

Iris vs Cynthia was the best battle in semi finals. I will forever defend Cynthia coming off as a total bada*** with that lipgloss. They did justice to Haxorus and you almost feel like a proud parent watching that timid Axew stand its ground something something years later. Easily one of the best non Ash battles in the series but Uselessnite going down so easily, more than half of Haxorus’s animation being reused and no Cilan drags it down.


As far as the rest, Leon and Diantha should have lasted way longer and almost undid everything they did for her during the first round.

I don’t have much to say about the Steven battle but the fact it was extremely static and probably the most boring. Aagron just standing there waiting for Burn to take it out will never not be funny

Ash vs Cynthia was okay for the most part but didn’t like the ending and felt the final Dragon Claw vs Bullet Punch was extremely bare bone. That has to be one of the most anti climatic conclusions to a full better ever.

Ash vs Leon was surprisingly all around rounded. I don’t have too much complains about the entire battle and despite initial complaints about Leon’s team by people I thought they all really shined

 

[TheNewGuy]

So there were 7 battles. Ash/Leon and Ash/Cynthia were both in the show's all-time top 5. Leon/Diantha was dumb. Leon/Alain was also dumb but it was nice to see MCX get massacred. Ash/Steven wasn't great to start (too static) but got a lot better as the battle progressed and I really liked it by the end. Lance/Diantha was one of my favourite non-Ash battles ever, second only to Lana/Guzma I would say. Cynthia/Iris was just ok but I probably need to rewatch it.

It's hard to say it was better than e.g. Sinnoh when watching it week-to-week, because we were constantly disrupted by breaks and recaps. But if I was to lay out all the episodes and watch them consecutively and do the same with the others, it might be the best league. They nailed it with Ash's battles and we got a couple of good bonus battles thrown in there too.

 

[SerGoldenhandtheJust]

Fantastic troll post, almost got me there

Bro you can admit some stuff was trash, it's okay

 

[Almighty Zard]

Ash vs Drasna seriously reminded me of how alot of Ash's AG series battles were handled, i'll say that much.