Controversial opinions

[Enzo]

I never understood the hate for Sophocles. In fact, I find him pretty likable (Anime). Can someone explain to me why he was so hated?

I don't know about the rest of the fandom, but I personally didn't really liked him cuz he was the least enjoyable of all of the Alola Gang.

 

[MarshiyanMisutaa]

I'm not seeing much difference between badge quests and PWC. Satoshi's ranking is continuously rising up, just like how he defeat gyms. There might be some delays like the time he depressed and lose some points in his ranking, but it's not different from how he lose to some gym leaders and had to train about it for a few episodes. There is nothing more permanent about this compared to usual gym quests.

 

[Ghost Diplocaulus]

I'm not seeing much difference between badge quests and PWC. Satoshi's ranking is continuously rising up, just like how he defeat gyms. There might be some delays like the time he depressed and lose some points in his ranking, but it's not different from how he lose to some gym leaders and had to train about it for a few episodes. There is nothing more permanent about this compared to usual gym quests.

I think the issue people have with the PWC matches has less to do with the nature of the battles themselves and more to do with how little focus it receives, as there was an instance where Ash ascended by like 400 points in ranking completely offscreen, and his brief return to the normal ranking was never elaborated upon, lasted only a couple of episodes, and was completely resolved offscreen as well.

 

[LazySpy]

I think the issue people have with the PWC matches has less to do with the nature of the battles themselves and more to do with how little focus it receives, as there was an instance where Ash ascended by like 400 points in ranking completely offscreen, and his brief return to the normal ranking was never elaborated upon, lasted only a couple of episodes, and was completely resolved offscreen as well.

I'd actually say, maybe a bit of a hot take, but a lot of on screen PWC battles were actually quite bad due to a multitude of reasons.

 

[MarshiyanMisutaa]

I think his current "Leek master" storyline is getting pretty enough focus,

 

[Hidden Mew]

I never understood the hate for Sophocles. In fact, I find him pretty likable (Anime). Can someone explain to me why he was so hated?

I didn't really hate Sophocles exactly, but I just thought that he was one of the least interesting classmates in SM. Aside from Mallow, most every other character in the cast had more interesting focused episodes, more appealing personalities and/or more interesting dynamics with other characters. I didn't really care for his first few focused episodes, but the ones he got later on in SM were quite good, such as evolving his Charjabug and learning to use a Z-Move with Vikavolt. He's still probably one of my least favorite male companions, but I don't really hate him.

Useless Clemont ripoff. Also SM006.

Now this part of the hate towards Sophocles that I never understood. At no point did Sophocles ever come off like a Clemont ripoff. They both like Electric type Pokemon and making inventions, but that's about it. Those are really basic surface level similarities, so I don't see how that makes Sophocles a Clemont ripoff. Plus, Clemont was a lot more passionate about inventions, while I think that aspect of Sophocles was put more on the sidelines. Clemont was also more into becoming a great Electric type trainer. Not to mention their personalities are pretty significantly different. They just really aren't that similar to each other.

I'm not seeing much difference between badge quests and PWC. Satoshi's ranking is continuously rising up, just like how he defeat gyms. There might be some delays like the time he depressed and lose some points in his ranking, but it's not different from how he lose to some gym leaders and had to train about it for a few episodes. There is nothing more permanent about this compared to usual gym quests.

A big difference is that there was a clear beginning, middle and end with Gym quests due to the badges. Ash is climbing up the ranks of the PWC, but the number system feels really arbitrary. It's not really clear how winning battles boost that rank, why most of the battles are one-on-one unless he's battling against the Gym Leader or how the point system works in general. He just needs to keep winning and defeating trainers with really high scores would boost his own, but I don't think that works in large part because most of his opponents have been rather unimpressive to begin with. With Gyms, we had the badges as physical proof of Ash's progression through a region and he was frequently battling against noteworthy trainers to earn those badges. It's really hard to feel like Ash is making progress in the PWC or that he is one step closer to battling Leon because he defeated a random trainer with an Elekid in a minute. That's one of the reasons why PWC feels more like a downgrade than the next step for Ash. There are the different classes and Ash needs to get to the Master class to battle against Leon, but without a clear understanding of how that progression works or devoting more time to make these battles good, then it kind of falls flat. It definitely doesn't help that they're willing to have Ash work off-screen to increase his rank or come back from that losing streak either.

 

[MarshiyanMisutaa]

A big difference is that there was a clear beginning, middle and end with Gym quests due to the badges

Not really. After winning the fourth Sinnoh badge, Satoshi wasn't in the middle of his Sinnoh gym quest, heck it took him one year to get his last badge. Time between gyms alwsys been arbitrary and depends on plot.

Ash is climbing up the ranks of the PWC, but the number system feels really arbitrary. It's not really clear how winning battles boost that rank

Higher ranker figures you beat, higher you get. Looks pretty simple to me.

most of his opponents have been rather unimpressive to begin with

I don't feel that way at all. We're only 60 episodes into this series yet, and he already had several battles with powerful adversaries and even find some rivals for himslf.

 

[Hidden Mew]

Not really. After winning the fourth Sinnoh badge, Satoshi wasn't in the middle of his Sinnoh gym quest, heck it took him one year to get his last badge. Time between gyms alwsys been arbitrary and depends on plot.

Technically he was in the middle of the Sinnoh Gym quest. Not in terms of the length of DP and I don't recall people focusing on the specific episode count of a series before to determine how far along Ash was in really any of his journeys, but he was at the halfway mark of Gym badges he needed. I'm positive he would mention he was halfway to a League after getting a fourth badge too. The length of time between Gyms in DP seems pretty irrelevant in this case to me.

Higher ranker figures you beat, higher you get. Looks pretty simple to me.

It isn't really complicated, but I think just keep winning too vague for something like this, at least for me, especially when most of the battles feel too short to be noteworthy or impressive.

I don't feel that way at all. We're only 60 episodes into this series yet, and he already had several battles with powerful adversaries and even find some rivals for himslf.

The only noteworthy opponents Ash has had up to this point have been a few Gym Leaders. The match against Korrina was really good and I like that she had improved from XY. Bea is clearly powerful and will probably serve as a rival, but all that match did was make me think of how much better it would be for Ash to face the Galar Gym challenge instead. I know that there is a trainer with a Gallade, but I haven't seen that episode yet, so I can't comment much on him. The vast majority of Ash's PWC matches have been against one-shot trainers for brief one-on-one battles. And those battles have been rather boring to me. If they have more episodes specifically devoted to Ash's PWC matches more frequently, make those battles longer than just two-on-two at most and give him another rival or two, especially when I'm not sure when he'll confront Bea again, then I think it would be potentially be a more interesting goal. As it is, I think the PWC is generally unimpressive and with a few exceptions, filled with boring battles.

 

[Epic Spheal]

It isn't really complicated, but I think just keep winning too vague for something like this, at least for me, especially when most of the battles feel too short to be noteworthy or impressive.

I think this is the issue of the PWC. This is supposed to be a tournament that shows who the strongest trainers in the world are, yet every battle has been so short.

Another thing is that with the PWC the whole "anybody can enter, even though they start at the bottom" is that it dilutes the impressiveness. Even if the Masters 8 is comprised of bona fide strong trainers, it doesn erase the fact that the majority of the entrants are random characters of the day with no real ties to Ash or the game canon. So not only are we getting short battles, we're getting short battles against trainers who I as viewer have no real vested interest in. Like I care about Korrina and Bea, but most of Ash's opponents are just...there. They really could've just been those generic trainers we sometimes saw Ash battle against at the beginning of an episode for all their actual relevance.

This ends up cheapening the whole experience and making PWC not seem as impressive as it should be. I've always wanted something like this in the anime, but I always imagined it as a far more exclusive tournament that's participants were solely game character and important anime-only trainers (Paul, Tobias, Alain, etc). Of course that would mean a shorter story (like battle frontier season) but I feel it would drastically improve the overall feel of the tournament and make the stakes feel real. Like the chance to have the battles filled with opponents Ash didn't beat before and new opponents like Elite 4 and Frontiers who never got an anime debut.

Like you said in the rest of the post, the PWC as it's been implement just makes me wish we had of gotten the Galar gym challenge instead for Ash.

 

[jbmasta]

A huge problem is that there’s only been a handful of episodes where PWC matches are the episode focus. There was the big meet up in Galar, which Korrina was at, and the Bea arc for example. Most matches have been almost afterthoughts, no more important than a random trainer Ash would battle in the opening song of a movie. They should be more of an event, a milestone for Ash to mark rather than completely random and at the whim of the writer.

 

[Eitarou]

The entire point of the PWC is that Ash has to constantly face random people in order to move up in the ranks. They aren't Gym battles and shouldn't get as much focus like them each time Ash battles someone or it risks getting really repetitive really quickly.

 

[KyseL]

The entire point of the PWC is that Ash has to constantly face random people in order to move up in the ranks. They aren't Gym battles and shouldn't get as much focus like them each time Ash battles someone or it risks getting really repetitive really quickly.

Also things will likely change when he gets to the higher ranks.

 

[Bulbabrain]

Journeys should probably be split into two series that cross over, similar to Alain in xy
We need more spin-off series in general.
Coinasers rule except when spelling them.
Goh catching Pokémon isn’t the worst thing in the world.
It’s fine if Ash’s Pokémon don’t evolve.

 

[Hidden Mew]

The entire point of the PWC is that Ash has to constantly face random people in order to move up in the ranks. They aren't Gym battles and shouldn't get as much focus like them each time Ash battles someone or it risks getting really repetitive really quickly.

I think that's a really terrible way to handle the PWC though, especially when having a bunch of one-on-on battles with random people has already made the goal feel boring and repetitive to me. Honestly, giving each battle the kind of focus that Gym battles got would probably make it more interesting. The only noteworthy battles he has had in the PWC thus far in my opinion has been against Gym Leaders and that was in large part because the battles were the main focus of an episode instead of being a two minute footnote. It doesn't make the PWC particularly impressive if Ash is just beating a bunch of a random people either.

Also things will likely change when he gets to the higher ranks.

I don't really have much faith in that. If they aren't willing to put more focus in the PWC now, then I don't think that will suddenly change that much when he gets to the higher ranks. They could go all out with having Ash face more challenging opponents now instead of battling primarily one-shot characters or having Ash make up for a losing streak off-screen. Even if they are saving that for the higher ranks, that wouldn't really make up for the terrible start for the PWC or even necessarily make the goal more compelling for me at least. It would still probably come off as an unfocused mess of a goal.

 

[Emmy]

When it comes to how simple changes could have made the PWC much better I defer simply to my post in the "Rewrite the Anime" thread:

Change up the PWC. Rather than being an open contest to everyone and their mother, I would have inserted the whole Endorsement thing from Sw/Sh that way you limit the numbers of characters to (mainly) Gym Leaders, Champions and some other notable figures, whilst also keeping continuity by acknowledging Ash's achievements in Alola lead to his invitation. Battles would also be more diverse in the Preliminaries, having stuff like Team Battles, Rotation Battles, Survival Battles etc to shake things up a bit before we whittle the participants down to the Top 16 where things get tense with one on one full team battles.

 

[PkmnTrainerV]

The entire point of the PWC is that Ash has to constantly face random people in order to move up in the ranks. They aren't Gym battles and shouldn't get as much focus like them each time Ash battles someone or it risks getting really repetitive really quickly.

It’s already ended up being repetitive. At least the gym battles were guaranteed to be more of a spectacle as Ash moved along. These PWC battles are not till the masters eight.

 

[prog rocker]

When it comes to how simple changes could have made the PWC much better I defer simply to my post in the "Rewrite the Anime" thread:

Now that I think about it, how would Rotation Battles even work in the anime? Not trying to shoot your idea down, it's just a question that just came to my mind.

 

[Emmy]

Now that I think about it, how would Rotation Battles even work in the anime? Not trying to shoot your idea down, it's just a question that just came to my mind.

I always imagined it would be like a boxing match whereby it's divided into into rounds but instead of going to your corner briefly when the bell dings you instead are compelled to switch to a different Pokémon.

Or something like that anyways.

 

[Ghost Diplocaulus]

Ash's Rowlet is just a Pokemon version of Cameron. Think about it: both of them are bumbling, incompetent morons whose idiocy is constantly rewarded despite the fact that when literally everyone else does something dumb they instantly suffer the consequences; both of them won important fights via overpowered Deus Ex Machina, and both stole glory from someone who deserved it far more (Cameron from Ash, Rowlet from Lycanroc). About the only difference is that Rowlet is also a lazy bum who never trains yet is somehow still just as powerful as his teammates who actually put in work on improving.

 

[PkmnTrainerV]

Rowlet from Lycanroc

Replace Lycanroc with Torracat. It’s arc suffered a lot and it was literally the only Pokemon to never participate in a grand trial. Excluding Meltan and Poipole for obvious reasons.