Pokémon and The Victories That Were Supposed to Be

I was a Pokemon fan for a portion of my youth, just like many others. There are at this point seven different regions in the Pokemon universe the main character, Ash Ketchum, has explored Then, after the series made some choices that tortured me and insulted my enjoyment of the franchise, I quit watching the TV show.

To put it simply, Ash still has yet to accomplish a dream of his he’s been working towards for at this point more than 20 years, and he’s been close to winning six times. The fourth time was the first defeat I saw, and it lacked logic and intellect. The TV show set up an adventure of struggle, self-doubt and anger, and Ash went through a lot of trauma going how far he went.

Dawn, the secondary protagonist, perhaps went through even more trauma. She’s a Pokemon contest coordinator. What contests are is attempts to show off you and your Pokemon with pretty moves and unconventional, surprising displays, all the while still battling the other team. All of this is to deduct points over the five minute time limit.

How leagues work is you have to have won eight special badges by beating Pokemon trainers called gym leaders. You have to travel across the region to be able to battle these gym leaders. Once all eight badges have been earned, you battle other trainers who have also won these badges, and every league consists of 64 trainers and the one to win six battles wins.

In contests you have to win five of them to participate in the Grand Festival. Each prize for winning is a symbolic ribbon, and in every contest, you are up against a wide number of other coordinators competing for each and every one of these ribbons. For starters, you sign up for a contest, give a performance with you and your Pokemon’s moves, then the judges pick on average eight coordinators who make it past the first round. Sometimes it’s 16. Then, like the league, the coordinators are sorted into pairs to battle. In the Grand Festival it was the same thing, except there were 32 coordinators and the winner earns the title of Top Coordinator.

If you would like to watch my in-depth discussion about why Ash and Dawn should have won first place in these contests, please watch my video. I hope you have a fun time with it.