So, recently heard about the results from the japanese episodes of pokemon. Ash Ketchum lost the Unova league. Really?!?!!?!?!?!?!? NO surprise. So predictable. Why can't Nintendo give him a win? Do they not think we want to see our pokemon hero win the big tournament? I mean, are they afraid that if he wins, he might get a change in character and become a snob or something? Because I don.t see it that way. He could easily have juts beat the Unova league, keep the same character he always had where he was a really optimistic, go-getting kid because that's Ash, then hear about the newest area (game) and want to go over there and beat that area's league too, just to prove that he is a pokemon master. Ha! Pokemon master my hindquarters.

I mean really, who wants to see their hero loose in a clutch like that? Yugi Mutou had his share of loses, but it was not a lot because he was the hero and a lot was riding on what the game was staked on. I'll give him that because his card games usually end up saving the world one way or another, so maybe he's not the best analog. The best analog might just be Sendou Aichi from the Cardfight Vanguard series. Aichi is a wimp starting out, but as he cardfights more, he becomes a strong fighter, but still soft spoken, and he actually does have some loses, especially in big tournaments, but he eventually does win a big tournament. Now, I know the reason he loses those big tournaments was just to set up rivalries, but really, he at least was able to win. As for Ash, it just feels like he never learned anything throughout his pokemon journey. His training style never changed, doing the bizarre choices of sometimes putting in pokemon that has a weakness to his opponent's pokemon, just the same Ash from a long way back. There's just no character growth anymore.

Its really a major flaw in that anime franchise that I sometimes get really mad at. By now, we all know that by the time Ash reaches that league, he will lose in the clutch, and usually against the rival he was set up with. The one he always meets and ends up losing to multiple times, manages to beat once, then loses to at the league, that rival. And sometimes I feel that it doesn't make any sense. The new games always have a new sprite for the protagonists, somebody who is not Ash Ketchum. Why does this persist? The only connection Ash has to these games is that he travels to them and even meets these new protagonists as all new characters. If they wanted Ash to be the main character, then Ash should have been the sprite in all the games, right? Are they afraid that if Ash gets replaced be a new trainer, that we would lose our bond with this plucky young trainer from Kanto, all because we got an all new guy or gal as the main character? But the seasons are so long anyway that we get to know this new character and form a bond with him/her. That's what yugioh did, 4 seasons of the same character, then BAM! New anime, new main character. And you know what? I dig these new guys. They have the same heart as the original Yugo Mutou, but are different in some ways that makes them feel unique and relatable. Judai Yuki was a lowly Sleifer Red trying to reach the top of his class, who has an outgoing, optimistic attitude, and finds card games fun when most people in that universe treat it too seriously. Yusei Fudou wants to prove that people from satellite, like himself, are not trash and even grows up to be a scientist. Yuma Tsukumo started out as a complete idiot, especially in the card game of the universe, but with outside help and a lot of luck, he's able to beat some of the toughest mofos around, and even then he still ends up losing to his rival in the big tournament, but it still felt like a major victory, especially for an idiot character like himself. Ash Ketchum will always be the same Ash Ketchum. The kid who wants to be a pokemon master, and will die never achieving that goal.

.......maybe next season then.

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