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Which was your favorite league?

favorite regional league

  • Total voters
    35
Predictable choice but Sinnoh for me

1. Sinnoh - I mean Ash's full Sinnoh team was great. Infernape, Staraptor, Gliscor, Torterra, Buizel, Pikachu and Gible. Plus we saw Cyndaquil evolve into Quilava, we saw Heracross, Donphan, Noctowl, Sceptile, Swellow etc battle. The Paul battle was great, as were the other ones. Other than the Tobias battle, everything was great and even the horrible ending can't spoil what was a great league.

2, 3 and 4. Johto, Hoenn and Kalos are tied for me- all great, all flawed to some extent but all had some amazing battles and character deveolopment.

5. Kanto- some good battles early especially Ash's Krabby evolving into Kingler and taking three pokemon down. Pikachu vs Arcanine was nice too. Horrible ending in the battle vs Richie.

6. Unova- the less said the better.
 
I've always enjoyed Johto the most. followed by Hoenn. I personally find the Sinnoh League enjoyable but overrated. I enjoyed the Kalos League for what it was, but the amount of actual battles shown was jarring.

The Kanto League was pretty bad, but it's still miles better than the Unova League.
 
I voted for Sinnoh but I believe Johto was almost as good. I really like the format in the Johto leauge, especially with the screening process. It's really stretching the suspension of disbelief when there are exactly 64/128/etc trainers that have gotten all the required badges... And also there were two really great 6v6 matches. However the Sinnoh league gets the edge mostly because of the amount of emotion I felt during the important battles. The Ash vs Paul battle was amazing with all the buildup leading up to it from the very beginning of the DP series. And in the battle vs Tobias you could really see how much Ash has grown through. And the turning the hat backwards when the tension was peaking and Ash was getting desperate gave me actual goosebumps. So I don't really mind that Tobias was mostly an asspull. I also like that there were many recurring characters in the league. But if my memory serves me right they skipped one of Ash's battles which bothers me quite a bit.

At third place comes the Hoenn league. It's overall a solid league and it had some great battles, especially the one against the random girl with the Walrein. And now I'm going to contradict myself and say that I really like that there were a lot of random other trainers in the league in the earlier series. It made it feel like bigger events.

At fourth place I'd put the Kanto league. I actually liked the Kanto league for what it was, although TR was very annoying and taking far too much screen time. The battles weren't great but that's because they mostly used stock footage for the battle animations in s1. And all matches didn't end up with just one pokémon left for the winning trainer, which gets predictable and boring after a while. And also I don't mind the ending, I actually thought it was quite suiting. Ash was still a newbie trainer and hadn't properly trained his pokémon, which he had to pay for in the end.

Kalos'd be my number 5 pick, closely following the Kanto league. The (official) battles they showed were all really good, the problem was with the battles they didn't show. I had a problem with them skipping ONE battle in the Sinnoh league. But this one was just ridiculous. with the amount of filler the xy series had I think they could have extended the league arc with 2 episodes to let Ash beet some randoms, so that it feels like a big event where many trainers compete and not just Ash and his friends. Now instead it just felt rushed. And the random dude before Ash's first battle instead of showing the actual battle was like wtf were they thinking? But the battle with Trevor was great and the battle vs Alain was even better. And they made a really good job making us believe Ash could actually win, it felt like watching an actual sports event where it could go either way.

I didn't like the Unova league. Many people have already talked about why they didn't like it, and I don't feel like I have much to add there.
 
This was a hard question. I ended up choosing Sinnoh because of the emotional investment that I had in Ash vs Paul. This is one of the few ones that I watched it both in English and Japanese, and both versions had me shaking with excitement.

I barely watched the Hoenn saga as I was angry about Misty not being in that series. I couldn't count that in here. I've really done myself a disservice because I've watched a few episodes and loved them... So I plan to watch the entire series and maybe do a series on Tumblr or YouTube on my thoughts on the characters and series at a later time.

Johto and Kalos were a close second. Kalos beat out the latter because like someone else mentioned, it felt like a real sporting event - like the Super Bowl. I always feel like that's the feeling that the league should bring the audience.

Johto was amazing because it had my favorite pokemon team in the league together. The Charizard battles were fantastic.

Battle wise, the indigo league wasn't that great, but I have tons of nostalgia and that makes it still feel great for me.

Unova was horrible. It never felt like an event. It was rushed from beginning to end, and the writing and plots of those episodes fell short in every way possible. After that league and season, I questioned if Pokemon could ever bring back that magic feeling again.

I'm glad I was wrong.
 
I was between Sinnoh and Kalos, however I ultimately chose Kalos. I wrote this in a separate thread to explain my thinking

Sir Cookie said:
XY Ash by far. His strength is shown a lot better in this arc than in any other arc, mainly thanks to 1. a really solid Kalos team and 2. Ash-Greninja. Ash did have great battles in the form of Paul and (ignoring his legendaries) Tobias, but Ash had a much better battle against Sawyer and Alain.

Ash finally beating Paul was a great 3-episode battle, however it didn't change Paul's opinion on Ash, as in the Japanese dub, he already let go of the hate that he had on Ash back in a previous battle and already respected him more. Ash vs Sawyer, however, may seem like it didn't have too much effect, unless you remember that it's kinda like a battle between student and master, a less experienced trainer vs a really experienced trainer. Sawyer losing made him realize he still had room for improvement, unlike Paul, who just walks away with even more respect towards Ash (nothing much really).

Ash had no cheap losses (like Tobias) in Kalos, since he and Alain both had strong Pokemon and an incredibly strong "ace" (Alain has Mega Charizard X and Ash has Ash-Greninja), not to mention this is the first time Ash made it to the finals and, in the process, defeating Sawyer's Mega Sceptile which had a type advantage over Greninja. For Tobias, he brought in a team of pretty OP legendaries, which obviously Ash couldn't handle that well (ignoring his Battle Frontier Battles), making his loss seem really cheap, especially since Tobias's character has not been explained or look into in depth. Alain has a goal in winning the league, which is to prove that he is a strong trainer to Lysandre (and, in the process, also unknowingly complying with Lysandre's ultimate plan). Even though Ash lost it's still justified as we know Alain has trained to be a really strong trainer, and actually deserves to win, unlike Tobias.
Click to expand...
 
Hard for me to choose. I actually like Johto in terms of format, Hoenn in terms of amount of battles, Sinnoh in terms of Ash’s varied teams, and Kalos for the final climax.

However, I ultimately choose the Sinnoh League, which is the closest to what fans wish for a League, which is having Ash as a top tier Trainer who uses competitive and creative strategies while switching his teams to handle different opponents with the more suitable team compositions and techniques. Sure, it has its flaws (like the unimpressive match against Nando), but overall it was a really good League.
 
I haven't watched the Sinnoh or Unova leagues yet, but I did watch the Kalos league (even though I didn't watch the rest of the series), so my opinion is based on the Kanto, Johto, Hoenn, and Kalos leagues.

My personal favourite is Johto. Not only did Ash make the Top 8, which was impressive, he finally had the battle of his life against Gary Oak. It was a very intense battle, and one of my top anime moments, and it marked a huge turning point for Gary's character. Also, the Charizard vs. Blaziken battle was amazing.

Kalos gets a special mention since Ash's skill as a trainer had noticeably improved immensely, enough for him to have made it to the final two.
 
I've got to give shoutouts to Kalos for having not only such an outstanding animation, but also amazingly choreographed battle sequences in themselves. Too bad 99% of the tournament happened off-screen.

That said, I don't actually know which is my favorite. (I could go with Sinnoh but to be fair I haven't watched Johto and Hoenn since they premiered on TV and thus barely remember a thing.)
 
I didn’t watch the Hoenn and Unova leagues so my ranking is majorly based on the rest of the leagues. Sinnoh was definitely the best one, since we saw tactics like Counter shield, and a lot of improvisation on Ash's part. I liked him bringing Heracross with sleep talk vs Darkrai, along with Infernape's Flare-Blitz-to-remove-entry-hazard thing.
XY comes a close second.
I have read the Bulbapedia summaries on the Unova league episodes, and it does seem lacklustre, but Kanto league takes the cake on the worst league for me, due to the strange rules. I'm pretty sure any decent competition would make sure that a participant was in a decent battling condition after returning from abduction or attack. Ash's defeat there came off as heavily unfair.
 
For me, it would have to be the Kalos League. Ash's overall performance in the League, the lingering Team Flare subplot, Lysandre, Alain, Mairin and Chespie, all contribute towards me liking the League and the associated episodes. Besides, the battles were carefully planned and beautifully executed, and bar Tierno's Raichu (yup still mad! (n)), the game mechanics were taken care of quite well (y), so I guess that helps as well!
 
Great mentions: Sinnoh, Hoenn, Kalos.

Even after how great Ash did in the Kalos league, it reminds me of how much I enjoyed the Orange League for the simple reason that he won lol. Most of his pokemon on his team were not evolved (except Charizard of course) and they beat Drake so yeah lol. I guess I'll put Kanto and Johto (the Indigo League is not compared well to his later leagues, but it does how his humble beginnings and the Johto League shows his growth).
 
Voted for Jouto not for being the best, but for being my favorite. Mostly due to nostalgia. If Kanto wasn't such a mess, maybe I'd have another opinion. I remember all the emotion back then, watching Satoshi struggle and winning battle after battle. The battle were great, and even though not much strategy was used, it felt believable. No lazy writing like Pikachu defeating Regice for eg.

As I said before, Kanto made me anger. Not only the way Satoshi was defeated, that lame battle with Hiroshi, Trio getting half the episode in a try to get Pikachu, etc... Some other matches were good though.

I don't like Houen that much either... While most matches are okay, the way Satoshi "cheated" his way in with Masamune, Pikachu losing to a Nyasu, or the lack of an interesting setting for the battles (unlike Jouto where they made the entire league really creative). Better than Kanto, at least.

Isshu is another story... Should I speak about a league containing a filler midway?

Sinnoh and Kalos are both awesome too, but for me they don't score that high since I was pretty old when both premiered, and in phases the show wasn't that important anymore... Not the same feeling as the Jouto one, I mean.
 
  1. Kanto: ice and rock field: wanted to see 3vs3 of Ash pokemon, final battle was lame taking that with charizard and Ritchies 6vs6 battle wasnt shown properly.
  2. Johto: good pokemon, good battles, felt to short becuse we didnt see all preeliminaries
  3. Hoenn: better then johto, but could have shown more.
  4. Sinnoh: Darkrai and Latios? nice, all were nicelly done but one more 6vs6 would have been good in my opinion.
  5. Unova: Yes Lucario was great in that battle, that was also a mess to not make one more 6vs6 with that large amount of pokemon, moves and abilities to show.
  6. Kalos: Very good, some more battle could have been shown. Nice was to see Slakings counter strategy, Clawitzer could have used heal pulse, wanted more aegislash vs others too like talonflame but meh... Wanted also a 6vs6 with that blastoise fellow or with mega charizard Y user against Ash as a bonus rescue round for them but what a waste. Charizard X vsY was to short, could have shown more strategy and switching.

Waiting for a Shedinja in a league or gym battles, to show the ability and potential of this pokemon.

Orange league was the best 6vs6 and a real redemption from the Kanto league, but those 4 quests, only 2 were rather good battles, the rest only was climbing and swiming that was too short.
 
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