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Why doesn't Ash mention that he wants to complete the island trials?

Skyle_Vertex

New Member
Ash"s attitude when it comes to island trials in SM doesn't make sense to me. In every previous series, he'd be looking for his next gym battle or challenge and he doesn't do that in SM.

I don't think its an Ash thing to do, he is not the one to stay at one location.

Anyway, what do you guys think of this issue?
 

shoz999

Back when Tigers used to smoke.
That's an easy one. Pretty obvious actually from the anime crew's work on SM. They have no clue whether or not they want to go through with an entirely new design for the Pokemon League.
 

World Turtle

Well-Known Member
The cynical answer is that Ash and the anime as a whole has no soul to it any more, by this I mean its completely become a slave to its merchandise driven nature reduced to an endless cycle of rinse and repeat, sacrificing character and story for the sake of the $$$.

Ash is little more then a marketing tool at this point. He is whatever the writers need him to be even if it contradicts prior characterization or ignores continuity.
 
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Sceptile Leaf Blade

Nighttime Guardian
Except he does? The moment he's on Poni Island he immediately announces he wants to do the Grand Trial. The moment he meets Gladion and sees how strong he is he immediately wants to battle him and starts pressuring him into it. Same with Hapu. Almost immediately after meeting Olivia he announces he wants to do the Grand Trial.
 

Lord Starfish

Fond of owls
Except he does? The moment he's on Poni Island he immediately announces he wants to do the Grand Trial. The moment he meets Gladion and sees how strong he is he immediately wants to battle him and starts pressuring him into it. Same with Hapu. Almost immediately after meeting Olivia he announces he wants to do the Grand Trial.
True, but after beating Lychee he went for like 40 episodes straight barely even mentioning wanting to take the remaining two Grand Trials. He also didn't mention the Poni Island trials at all until, what, four episodes before he went back to the island?
 

Sceptile Leaf Blade

Nighttime Guardian
What do you expect? Him to sound like a whiny broken record every episode about how he wants to complete the trials? Alola is relatively small in the anime, they have ride pokémon and boats to get everywhere relatively quickly. They've got to pace it out and the pokémon school is one way of keeping him a bit grounded and do different things with him instead of the same old stuff they've been doing for nineteen seasons. If he whines every episode about how he wants to complete the trials it would just distract from the actual subjects of the episode, not to mention give the impression that he lacks agency because he usually wouldn't do a trial in that episode or make progress towards one. He likes doing trials but he also likes doing other stuff with the pokémon school, and if he'd whine all the time it'd look as if he is unhappy with his current situation and make him look silly and dumb for not pursuing trials continuously. It'd also get really annoying quickly. He's also annoying in the previous seasons with his "I don't care what you guys want to do in this city, my gym battle is the most important thing in the whole world!" attitude.

He also doesn't need to hurry as much in-universe. In past seasons there was a league at a certain point in time and if he didn't have eight badges by the time of the league he just wouldn't participate. In Alola he doesn't have that direct time limit.
 
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Sceptile Leaf Blade

Nighttime Guardian
Not sure, I think the writers want to leave that a bit in the middle. The plot knows it obviously. I think a part of him does, although Ula'Ula messes things up there. I think it'd have been better if they'd combined Ula'Ula trials with the field trip to the Hokulani observatory and with the pokémon sled jumping episode. Maybe they didn't really know what else the companions could do there while Ash was doing his trials, although that doesn't seem to hinder them on Poni or Akala.
 

Ignition

We are so back Zygardebros
Because SM is putting SOL and world building over battling (for better or for worse)
 

MidnightMelody

Hopeful for Gen 8
Because the series isn’t as good with plot as DP and XY. I mean I stopped expecting anything from it and it’s watchable but yeah
 

Lightning Bolt

Well-Known Member
Because the series isn’t as good with plot as DP and XY. I mean I stopped expecting anything from it and it’s watchable but yeah
funny because XY was literally the season with the laziest storyline of the entire anime. alain taking all eight badges in a week, greninja winning against a mega sceptile but losing to a mega charizard, and alain being considered Hero of Kalos even though he helped Lysandre in his genocidal plan.
 

FlygontheRavager

#1 Pokémon Anime Fan!
funny because XY was literally the season with the laziest storyline of the entire anime. alain taking all eight badges in a week, greninja winning against a mega sceptile but losing to a mega charizard, and alain being considered Hero of Kalos even though he helped Lysandre in his genocidal plan.

Let’s not make this another XYZ vs SM war, shall we?

(And for the record, pretty much every series of the anime has story elements that could be considered “lazy.”)
 

MidnightMelody

Hopeful for Gen 8
Let’s not make this another XYZ vs SM war, shall we?

(And for the record, pretty much every series of the anime has story elements that could be considered “lazy.”)
Thing is SM fans can’t taje criticism. I mean you are right though. Story in this anime has been weak since day 1 and really wish something was done. At this point the anime ending would become the best choice since I can’t see them ever being on par with Digimon or Yugioh in terms of story
 

Lightning Bolt

Well-Known Member
Let’s not make this another XYZ vs SM war, shall we?

(And for the record, pretty much every series of the anime has story elements that could be considered “lazy.”)
Thing is SM fans can’t taje criticism. I mean you are right though. Story in this anime has been weak since day 1 and really wish something was done. At this point the anime ending would become the best choice since I can’t see them ever being on par with Digimon or Yugioh in terms of story
Yes you're right tho. Pokémon has never had an absolutely incredible story. Sorry if I "can't taje criticism" either.

Back at the topic, I really don't understand why people get so annoyed with the idea of Ash not doing the Trials in a row. Ash doesn't need to think about gym battles / trials at every five seconds. This has become so annoying in the past seasons, tbh. I'm glad they changed that because it was getting boring and repetitive. Alola it's supposed to be like a vacation anyway. Ash do wants to clear all four Grand Trials, but he also wants to get some fun. If you want to see Ash going to a city, doing some random fillers and challenging the gym leader, this season isn't for you. (Except for the fillers lol)
 

AuraGuardian448

Aura Guardian
Ash"s attitude when it comes to island trials in SM doesn't make sense to me. In every previous series, he'd be looking for his next gym battle or challenge and he doesn't do that in SM.

I don't think its an Ash thing to do, he is not the one to stay at one location.

Anyway, what do you guys think of this issue?

This is false, he has done just this at least more than once to say the least.
 

AznKei

Dawn & Chloe by ddangbi
Back at the topic, I really don't understand why people get so annoyed with the idea of Ash not doing the Trials in a row. Ash doesn't need to think about gym battles / trials at every five seconds. This has become so annoying in the past seasons, tbh. I'm glad they changed that because it was getting boring and repetitive. Alola it's supposed to be like a vacation anyway. Ash do wants to clear all four Grand Trials, but he also wants to get some fun. If you want to see Ash going to a city, doing some random fillers and challenging the gym leader, this season isn't for you. (Except for the fillers lol)
You need to understand that there's fans that think that fights are what matter the most in this show. Without these, they're bound to criticize the series no matter the setting of the regions. It's disappointing that not everyone don't share the same taste but that's how it is.
 

UltimateNinja

Praying for the holy relics
Because the writer don't care for that. It's that simple.

Now for whatever reason, Ash not taking it that seriously more or less makes his whole Alola stay feel so barren that I could say it's just a vacation for Ash. And that's mostly the fault of SM trying to ride the SoL rails to a point the overall "plot" of Ash's progression feels non-existent. And since Ash is the only one in SM with a real goal that involves battles, it's breaking SM apart in terms of overall enjoyment.

Now people say: "But the series isn't all about battles!!!!" and while there may be some truth behind it, battles are still taking a big chunk in importance in the series. What does plot needs to decently unfold? Conflicts between characters/Pokemon etc. Now what are the writer using to create and finish conflicts in both the anime and games? In a series which people talk in form of their Pokemon clashing against each other, battles. It's taking a big part of the cake here in Pokemon. It may look differently in a SoL anime, but Pokemon isn't one, it's a Shonen anime with a focus on battling. But that's a talk for another day...

Now returning to the actual subject here: Ash not taking his "quest" in Alola seriously and those trials barely getting mentioned more or less give me the feeling that they don't know what the hell they want to do with them and Ash in generell. And since the other class mates don't have any decent goals, there's a lack of substance in SM. If Ash doesn't show that much interest in them, then I won't be either.
 
funny because XY was literally the season with the laziest storyline of the entire anime. alain taking all eight badges in a week, greninja winning against a mega sceptile but losing to a mega charizard, and alain being considered Hero of Kalos even though he helped Lysandre in his genocidal plan.

At least it had an actual plot/storyline lmao...

Yes you're right tho. Pokémon has never had an absolutely incredible story. Sorry if I "can't taje criticism" either.

Back at the topic, I really don't understand why people get so annoyed with the idea of Ash not doing the Trials in a row. Ash doesn't need to think about gym battles / trials at every five seconds. This has become so annoying in the past seasons, tbh. I'm glad they changed that because it was getting boring and repetitive. Alola it's supposed to be like a vacation anyway. Ash do wants to clear all four Grand Trials, but he also wants to get some fun. If you want to see Ash going to a city, doing some random fillers and challenging the gym leader, this season isn't for you. (Except for the fillers lol)

" Ash do wants to clear all four Grand Trials " lol, if you're going to criticize someone on their spelling, don't mess up your own...

Anyway, I don't understand how people can enjoy filler after filler either. For all of DatsRight's crap about how XY/XYZ was so " formulaic, " SM's fillers are just as formulaic and 10 times more boring considering they're so pointless.

I agree with UltimateNinja, SM is utterly pointless and is meant to be taken as a jobber/vacation season of anime.
 

Lightning Bolt

Well-Known Member
At least it had an actual plot/storyline lmao...



" Ash do wants to clear all four Grand Trials " lol, if you're going to criticize someone on their spelling, don't mess up your own...

Anyway, I don't understand how people can enjoy filler after filler either. For all of DatsRight's crap about how XY/XYZ was so " formulaic, " SM's fillers are just as formulaic and 10 times more boring considering they're so pointless.

I agree with UltimateNinja, SM is utterly pointless and is meant to be taken as a jobber/vacation season of anime.
I didn't criticize anyone for spelling and I do not even know where you saw me doing that, but English isn't my first language so don't expect me to speak like a pro because that's not how it works. Instead of laughing, you could for example help me and politely correct me because just laughing and accusing me of criticizing someone is quite stupid to do.

I disagree. In fact, most fillers in SM are very interesting and often add more depth to the character's backstories. XY also had some good fillers as well. And SM has a different notion when it comes to fillers. For example, an episode where the Ultra Guardians catch a UB, in the pattern of other seasons would be taken as a filler by not having a new capture or team change. But in SM they aren't considered fillers, because they are somehow relevant to the plot and connected to the Aether and Necrozma's Arcs.

"SM is meant to be taken as a jobber/vacation season of anime." That's...exactly what I said. Also, Criticizing SM for having "pointless fillers" isn't very smart, considering that the fillers aren't supposed to have a point in the first place.
 
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