We don't know yet. But based on the Mega Specials, in which Alain was told by Lysandre to prove himself, I'm guessing that attending Kalos League is another way to prove his abilities to Lysandre.
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SPOILERS! General Pokémon Anime Discussion
- Thread starter Jellicent
- Start date
It is explained in one of the Mega Evolution specials, not sure which though. Mairin's chespin fell into a coma and he blames himself for it, so now he's trying to help the completion of Lysandre's Mega Evolution energy system, which he thinks will be capable of healing Chespin. Makes sense he'd want to enter the league when you think about how many contestants are able to mega-evolve their pokemon; specially with the peculiarity of Ash-Greninja in the mix. This last part is just a speculation of mine, though.
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Actually, until Alain had his second meetup with Ash (XYZ Ep. 23), Alain didn't even consider the Kalos League as part of his goal to assist Lysandre and protect Mairin by becoming the strongest. Bonnie had asked Alain if he had the same goal as Ash (Kalos League and becoming a Pokémon Master). Alain gave a quick "No" for an response, as if the Pokémon League didn't have many things relevant to his mission.
It's kinda strange that the Pokémon League was never even brought up in the Mega Evolution specials, considering two of the Kalos Elite Four and the Hoenn League Champion were present. I guess Ash's love for battling and his strong bonds with his Pokémon made entering the Pokémon league an attractive option for Alain to find other formidable opponents and become the strongest.
It's kinda strange that the Pokémon League was never even brought up in the Mega Evolution specials, considering two of the Kalos Elite Four and the Hoenn League Champion were present. I guess Ash's love for battling and his strong bonds with his Pokémon made entering the Pokémon league an attractive option for Alain to find other formidable opponents and become the strongest.
Basically this. I think Ash inspired Alain a lot when they met, because while Alain's Charizard has been shown to be significantly stronger than many of Ash's Pokémon, it's constantly shown in the anime how Ash's spirit and passion for battling have inspired other people. Since up to now Alain's just been focused on researching Mega Evolution stuff and defeating every Mega Evolution Trainer he meets, I'd really like to see Alain's story end with him slowing down and learning that even if you're not the strongest, there is so much you can do with your Pokémon - maybe even by losing to Ash in the Kalos League, but I'm not sure how realistic that'd be considering that only Ash-Greninja has really shown itself to be able to stand up to Alain's team.
All we've seen of Alain's team is Charizard and his Metang, which faced off against a relatively fresh Noivern. Aside from ZardX vs. Gren, I think the remainder of his team would be about on par with Ash's.
As for the league, I see him winning it entirely only for him to eventually lose to Ash in the team flare arc that will surely follow. It prevents Ash from winning the league as usual while still validating the strength of Ash Greninja.
I'd be okay with that happening. I just hope Ash doesn't go down to some random new Trainer Ash met just a few episodes before, like what happened with... yeah, literally every League before this one. We don't need another Harrison/Tyson/Tobias/Virgil to come in and steal the show, I'd much rather see Alain win it. Hopefully it would be him and Ash in the finals, because I don't want Ash to lose to either Sawyer or Tierno.
Its confirmed he battles Sawyer in a 6v6 for semifinals and implied heavily that he then faces Alain in the finals.
Honestly Ash may win this given the battle record vs those 2 rivals, so nope no Trollbias in XY.
Yes, just freaking skip BW series, it was the lowest point in the Anime.
Go blind into XY, it gets good real fast.
While I'm not even going to start guessing where this all leads (though doubt Ash will win the League, I'll go for Norne's theory of Ash facing & beating Sawyer in the semi-finals followed by losing to Alain in the finals), it does bring up a question about how this league is set up. We know early in the league that Sawyer and Alain face each other so it seems like if you lose in the preliminaries you're not out. Now in Johto/Silver Conference they had something similar where one round was a best 2 out of 3. Could be the same thing here for preliminaries?
Though this is looking to come out better than Unova's Pokemon League, though that isn't saying much as Ash beats his main rival in a 1-vs-1 preliminary, loses to a incompetent character with a god mode Lucario in the semi-finals (who Ash met just before the League and had to help multiple times to even be able to participate in the League), and said incompetent character loses to another more interesting character in the finals (so they might as well has Ash just face that trainer, it would have also been nice setup for Gen VI as said trainer, Virgil, had an Eeveelution team (with a female Eevee that didn't know what it wanted to evolve into... and a month after the Japanese episode airing they revealed Sylveon)). I also think it was the shortest League getting only 5 episodes, one being filler where Axew gets lose, and they skip most of the battles except it was between two important characters. Only interesting battle was between Ash & Stephan.
Honestly I think the best league was Sinnoh (Johto a close second). A lot of battles, awesome rival battle, and even though Ash lose to a trainer who using Legendaries let's not overlook the fact Ash beat two Legendary Pokemon whereas the rest of the League couldn't beat Tobias's Darkrai. Plus Ash called on his reserves which he should do so for every Pokemon League, it's nice to see him use his team for that region for Gym Battles and during the League but no trainer in the League is holding back so Ash needs to bring his A-game and any Pokemon he has available to him (and don't say he didn't have access to his reserves, they could have BSed a reason like the teleporting machines at the Unova League are strong enough for far away region Poke Ball teleportation or just have Juniper act as a middle person between Ash & Oak).
Course doesn't look like we're going to see the reserves again (otherwise Ash would be the one with Mega Charizard Y) and with Sun & Moon coming out the League might also be short, though in the trailer we did see Ash at least battling other trainers.
BW was the best series until 8th gym ... After that, it's a disaster But episodes between Castelia & just before 8th gym were the best. No TR, good fillers, a lot of rivals, a lot of mini tournaments, interesting battles
Worst animation in the series with the stock footage making DP look like Avatar, only Cilan manages to get a chuckle out of me, less developed team with only 3 FE and several mons with barely any limelight and sad win records, abandoned arc for Team plasma fucked up the pacing and destroyed anything TR could have done, main rival spammed Serperior ad nauseum up to his unceremonious defeat, Bianca got axed hard despite being ingame the second best rival after Barry and then becoming fooder for Cameron... FUCKING CAMERON! Axew went full piplup, oshawott tried to be piplup but it went horribly wrong...
Dude that thing was a mess, I'm trying to use rosy googles but I just can't man, stock footage was so bad they even replaced volt tackle for the infamous Orb of lazy animation aka electro ball.
I'll give you that they made Roxxie look good while serving as foreshadowing of how shit Ash team was at barely winning a 3v6 fight with the aid of static...I fucking love Roxxie but I have to say that it was a big hint to how bad Ash was handled as a trainer in BW.
I still have feelings how the anime made Skyla a complete 180 in personality compared to the games. Hard to really recall the mess that was BW because XY did a fantastic job at making me forget that old saga by being so... good. Aside from the fact they seem to have forgotten about the Malamar subplot, which I adored because they defy the notion of no mon being inheriantly bad, the saga can be simply described as consistently good. Right now, got around to Wulfric and loved how they added a lot to him that got minimal focus in the games, although Olympia trumps him in terms of character expansion by speaking full sentences and keeping a prescence in XYZ because of her abilities. The league is actually looking really hype worthy compared to what would normally be dread or a lack of surprise.
Excuse me for my mild gushing, just really enjoying things the crew has been doing with the series.
Excuse me for my mild gushing, just really enjoying things the crew has been doing with the series.
I will admit that, from what I've seen, a lot of BW's filler episodes were pretty interesting. The Litwick Ghost mansion episode was my personal favorite. I also really loved the writers giving TR a much more notable role as antagonist in the story (too bad that was thrown away). Most of the gym / rival battles sucked really hard in my opinion however, especially compared to DP. I also really was disappointed with ash's team, which didn't have any cool or interesting Pokemon aside from scraggy and maybe Krookodile. His character was also heavily downgraded in BW, with him being much more clumsy and childish compared to previous seasons. Companions also felt much weaker than in previous seasons, with Iris being extremely annoying and unlikeable and Cilan being almost exactly like Brock, except worse. Best Wishes had many other issues and left a bad taste in my mouth, so much so that I barely watched any of the XY series.
BW had a lot of potential, but it fell short in several ways. The relationships between the Pokemon themselves were interesting, and I liked the friendship between Ash and Iris, but all of these could have had much more depth to them. Iris actually was the only of the three main characters to really endure trials and bond with her Pokemon, and she was likewise the only of the three to actually have some kind of character development arc. That's what makes XY so good, the human characters bond with each and every one of their Pokemon and they all go through some measure of growth. In BW, there was a lack of depth, especially in Ash and Cilan's characters.
Special "Super sized Golden Shuriken" from Greninja shown in Movie preview.
Wow. Just wtf is that?
Maybe it links to the "5th move slot" of Synchro evolution.
All you said is true, but as I said, it became worst starting with 8th gym ...
And BTW Serperior was not spammed ... Remember Timbur line always losing at each stage of his evolution ...
WOW that shuriken : it looks like a "limit" in Final Fantasy Series :D
Ash has his best shot yet at getting to the Final imo. He has a badass team and it comes close to the awesomeness of his main Sinnoh Team. Please let him bring back a bunch of his other mons this time... I love when they bring old mons back and how they interact with the new ones! Ash put on his thinking brain for the match with Tobias and brought freaking Sleep Talk Heracross! Out of nowhere and it was badass as fuck. Sceptile also shone in that battle too, showing its incredible speed and dexterity. If Ash would get a mega, I'd rather it was Sceptile over Zard, But Zard Y would also be fitting to fight Alain's Zard X.
Ash's team this time around really suits his battling style, and his knack for fast decently Powerful Pokemon. Infact as of the time of writing (as I do not believe Goodra has returned yet), Pikachu is the slowest Pokemon on Ash's team (in terms of ingame stats). I'd also like to see Snorlax reappear as one of his powerhouses and the league lets Ash show off some of the non-regional Pokemon to keep the other trainers off balance! I'd love to see him pull out Kingler or something and the opponent go "What the hell is that Pokemon?" to inverse the usual thing of Ash doing it.
Ash's team this time around really suits his battling style, and his knack for fast decently Powerful Pokemon. Infact as of the time of writing (as I do not believe Goodra has returned yet), Pikachu is the slowest Pokemon on Ash's team (in terms of ingame stats). I'd also like to see Snorlax reappear as one of his powerhouses and the league lets Ash show off some of the non-regional Pokemon to keep the other trainers off balance! I'd love to see him pull out Kingler or something and the opponent go "What the hell is that Pokemon?" to inverse the usual thing of Ash doing it.
I recently had a chance to sit down and watch the XY movies with some friends because I hadn't seen them yet. We decided to play a drinking game (using Coke instead of beer because we didn't want to get drunk + I don't like alcohol anyway) whenever we noticed any cliches, overused tropes, obvious CGI, or bad writing used.
We had to stop 20 minutes into the Diancie movie because we drank too much soda.
Anyways, the movies both sucked. Horrible CGI, annoying characters, lots of dead and wasted time, shitty action, and bad writing in general (Dialga and Palkia's presence should instantly negate the last-second problem presented in the Hoopa movie what the actual fuck). The only things I thought were good were the VA they got for Diancie and the cold openings.
We had to stop 20 minutes into the Diancie movie because we drank too much soda.
Anyways, the movies both sucked. Horrible CGI, annoying characters, lots of dead and wasted time, shitty action, and bad writing in general (Dialga and Palkia's presence should instantly negate the last-second problem presented in the Hoopa movie what the actual fuck). The only things I thought were good were the VA they got for Diancie and the cold openings.
Cliches and terrible stories galore, all in the name of money, sadly. Its a given that these movies are purely made to promote to and satisfy the larger fanbase in Japan, but the sad part is that a lot of the movies they make all tend to mesh together too much that it feels all samey. You have Legendaries show up, have a large fight, gotta find a way to save the day, and bam, you got your movie. They've been doing this since day 1 and its getting too old now. It seems people are beginning to catch on to these now, since the Hoopa movie flopped incredibly hard.
Their newest movie does seem that they're trying to move past the cliche legendary battles (instead a whole army of Megas), which I applaud them for. The other cliches and problems may still be there though, so my expectations are still next to nothing.
Ash-Greninja can haz even bigger wings(?)
Aired today in Japan.
Ash-Greninja can haz even bigger wings(?)
Aired today in Japan.
Why not. Next they can give it a water halo, or how about a water sword. Or maybe make it go Ash-Greninja 2 where the fin on its head stands straight up and tongue scarf is drifting upwards. Pull out all the anime power-up cliches.
Ash-Greninja can haz even bigger wings(?)
Aired today in Japan.
Ah, look! An adorable tadpole that has gone through metamorphosis and has turned into a beautiful butterfly...
...Wait, there is something wrong about that.
Anyway, I wonder what is that about. Maybe he is about to trigger the giant shuriken?
I'm just kinda interested to see a general consensus on this, so it's a little off-topic from current discussion for which I apologise. As someone who has seen the Kanto, Hoenn, Sinnoh and most of the Unova anime in the past five-ish years, some of my better memories from my early days of my relationship with this series are of the anime. So I want to hear from people who have had different experiences with it. Which series of the anime is everyone's favorite? If I had to choose personally, I'd have to say that the first three series of Pokémon Advanced are probably my favorites because it was the first time I really invested myself into the plot (I binged the Kanto anime, but I don't think I really engaged with it like I did with Advanced and Diamond & Pearl, and Brock was at his absolute best during this point of the anime--which is a big selling point for me 'cause Brock is far and away my favorite character in the entirity of the anime.
Also what aspects do people think the anime did better than the games did? I think the most obvious improvement over the games comes in the form of contests, and honestly watching them was one of the most engaging parts of both the Hoenn and Sinnoh anime for me and they formed a very central part of the show's plot, which is much better than the games which treat them as a side-attraction.
Also what aspects do people think the anime did better than the games did? I think the most obvious improvement over the games comes in the form of contests, and honestly watching them was one of the most engaging parts of both the Hoenn and Sinnoh anime for me and they formed a very central part of the show's plot, which is much better than the games which treat them as a side-attraction.