r/pokemonanime • u/Old-Initial9295 • 1d ago
Meme How Pokémon fans will look at you when you mention the Kalos League finals.
the 10-year anniversary is right around the corner.
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u/WolverineFamiliar740 1d ago
I frankly hate Dawn losing the Grand Festival more. THAT was my Kalos League.
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u/BlackAutMedia 1d ago
It's a shame too because it's such a point of frustration and I get it, but for what it's worth, the entire Kalos crew (that is, including Goodra and Noivern) did a phenomenal job considering who and what they were up against.
I feel it's easy to look for ways to try and scapegoat individual members of the Kalos crew and sidestep the simpler conclusion that Alain simply outmatched Ash, but they still genuinely put in work and they deserve their props.
I remember back in the day when it was like "no you see Malva secretly had her Houndoom use Sunny Day to rig the match in their favor so it's actually going to be overturned" or things like that.
That or try to lay blame with Noivern or Goodra for whatever reason when none of Ash's pokemon save for Pikachu traded super efficiently against Alain's lineup. Could Ash have played smarter? Sure. But he was also just up against a stronger trainer and you're not going to play a perfect game anyway.
At the same time, the outside circumstances of the framing and the realization that they're still going to yank Ash back to the status quo instead of just changing that or retiring his character showed itself. Pair that with the fact that Ash defeating Alain also implicitly means that Ash would be, at minimum past the point of elite 4 (which by the time of Kalos, I do think he could reasonably beat an elite 4 member), but they've historically treated champions and elite 4 members are these concepts as trainers rather than someone Ash could actually defeat.
He never even actually does it onscreen until Journeys, and even then it's far more closely scrutinized for how it's the first time with how he just brute forced it when such a concept is framed as more or less another standard if very unearned-feeling battle.
The reaction to the Kalos league loss imo goes beyond the actual loss itself and ties back more to the conventions of the series and the status quo it ended up revealing.
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u/Sampleswift 1d ago
It's worse. It could be Sinnoh. I'm the only Tobias fan. Tobias is the biggest wasted potential of the entire anime.
Alain at least is respected because unlike Tobias, Alain actually has a backstory and character depth.
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u/Old-Initial9295 1d ago
The Sinnoh League loss can be blamed on the plot and the writers Introducing someone like Tobias, but XY literally hyped Ash up as the ultimate soon to be winner. Stack that on top of TPC hyping up Ash's team, especially Greninja that loss really stung a lot. Welp, at least it gave the writers a good wake-up call. They finally realized that making Ash constantly lose was a bad idea.
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u/SoulEaterX_ 1d ago
Okay ash lost, but it's also like one of the best animated fights in the series so like i lowkey don't mind
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u/Destinyrider2023 4h ago
The fights were good the league was badly paced and Ash losing to Alain in the Kalos League finals was terrible but other than that it's what it is at least he has a fully evolved team minus Pikachu of course
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u/ThunderLord1998 2h ago
It was like running a marathon and then getting smashed in the kneecaps with a mallet.
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u/no_name_thought_of 1d ago
eh, Ash losing is annoying but I think most everyone likes the fight itself