I disagree with most of your comments.Cynthia and Leon are pretty much equals in terms of strength when it comes to the games and so far in the anime, they are both described as being two of the best trainers in the world and they have yet to have an on screen loss against a challenger. Ash winning the Alola League is impressive but you have to remember that it was the very first League held in the region and it was mainly the locals of Alola that had competed and the region isn’t that large in terms of population. Iris becoming the Unovan Champion makes sense as Alder wasn’t exactly the best Champion in both the games and anime and was virtually an older version of Brock with red hair. I mean the man literally fell asleep during a battle in the anime! So Iris was able to grow stronger as a trainer and take out Alder who would be easy for her to take out since Druddigon and Vanilluxe are the only Pokémon that have a type advantage against her Pokémon but she has moves that are super effective against them.
1) Claiming Alder was not impressive in the anime "just cause of his personality" is too much of a stretch. We see Caitlin hold her own against Cynthia and Alder would objectively be better than her.Agreed with this. Alder was not exactly that impressive in the games either. Ash’s win in Alola opened up a floodgate where his friends could have big achievements as well. They probably figured since he became Alola Champion there isn’t anything stopping them from making her Champ as well. They were more or less the same level in BW anyway. Wish they explained it more though
The fact that Cynthis is ranked 2nd while Leon is ranked 1st; with the latter being referred to as the Undefeated Strongest Trainer in the World, already establishes Leon is better than Cynthia and very likely has beaten her in the past. (We see Flint battle Leon in the Master Class and Cynthia was up there even before him based on Volkner's comments. No reason why she hasn't challenged him for the title in the past.)No? Leon beating Cynthia would cause more backslash, I think thats the reason why they evaded it
You seem way too invested in this but the Alola League made him Champion tier which is why he’s where he’s at right now. They always want to make the Ash small guy hence why Iris somehow beat him in the Masters 8 despite being behind.1) Claiming Alder was not impressive in the anime "just cause of his personality" is too much of a stretch. We see Caitlin hold her own against Cynthia and Alder would objectively be better than her.
2) Ash's win in Alola was no different than his Orange Islands win. Alola was not an established Regional League and did not have a Champions League with battles against the Elite four + Regional Champions. Ash winning the Alola league did not bring him to Regional Champion tier. If you recall, Leon basically treated Ash like a rookie with high potential.
3) Iris was written as the Regional Champion because of the games. Outside of that, there was no reason for her to be scaled as Regional Champion when the MC was always shown to be vastly inferior to them region after region.
Tell that to Cynthia fans (me)The fact that Cynthis is ranked 2nd while Leon is ranked 1st; with the latter being referred to as the Undefeated Strongest Trainer in the World, already establishes Leon is better than Cynthia and very likely has beaten her in the past. (We see Flint battle Leon in the Master Class and Cynthia was up there even before him based on Volkner's comments. No reason why she hasn't challenged him for the title in the past.)
That said, I do agree that there would be a lot of backlash if Leon effortlessly took out Cynthia, the way he did Alain.
Leon's dominance over Alain indicates how powerful Leon really is. As of now, from a plot perspective, there just isn't enough narrative to support Ash being a worthy enough challenger to Leon if they battle.
You seem way too invested in this but the Alola League made him Champion tier which is why he’s where he’s at right now.
After seeing Ash losing in the Kalos league but him winning in the Alola League I honestly don't care at this point. I'm still wondering when he's going to become that "Pokémon Master" that he's always dreamed of because we heard it so many times.
This. You really needed to be there to see the gravity of that day.This reads like flame war bait, but I’ll humor it.
No, it won’t.
I’ll go back on my word when I see over 500 users in 1 subforum just flaming one episode like we did at the end of the Kalos league. Nothing can top that.
I honestly felt this was due to a change in writing style around Satoshi allowing him to actually progress versus some type “power up” they just are allowing E4&Champions to be defeatable these days. That being said I can buy Iris while absent during XY-SM grew and progressed off-screen. Kasumi managed to get Mega Evolution and make a goal out of making her gym the best in the world, then we have Takeshi who is finally a doctor with authority who uses Mega Evolution too alongside Lucky being Happiness now.The main issue is that Iris becoming Champion and her growth to reach that point was mostly offscreen because as good a trainer as she was, she definitely wasn't close to that level when we left her at the end of the Unova series, especially compared to Cynthia, the strongest Champion until Leon arrived on the scene and one who's feats we've seen first-hand and someone who Iris idolised and considered above her.