i completely understand where you're coming from. when ash won, there was this weird look on his face. confusion and surprise, maybe. but to me, it looked a bit hollow. kind of like, oh shit, i won, i guess. it seemed a bit hollow even to canon ash

Yes! I hope you continue this and he goes back to one of the other regions (personally prefer Kanto or Sinnoh) and he works through it more focused and seriously using this time to train with his pokemon. Honing both their attacks and strategies. He can go against the gym leaders' better pokemon teams, the ones reserved for experienced trainers.

will there be more for this?

Ash captured his new dragonite, but couldn’t help but feel disappointed.

Sure he conquered a league and, sure, he had essentially finished a title defense against his mentor and one of the region’s deities but he felt incomplete - the victory was hollow.

Why? Because his outfit was colorful. He didn’t have his edge that he never actually had. His Pokémon weren’t shiny, his supportive friends weren’t angsty (or horny) enough, and, to cap it all off, he was completely average sized! What a total and complete L!

Now to cap it all off, he was nice to a dragonair - helped it grow and learn and it wanted to be his Pokémon. That’s not how it was supposed to work! He was supposed to moan and groan about how other people caught dragonites. His dratini was supposed to be shiny and special and with scars all over its body to indicate the tough but fair attitude he took with training it. It was supposed to be a descendant of a lugia for goodness sake - not some average run of the mill dragonite that he captured the heart of!

This was not sploooooosh worthy. What a sad descent indeed.

Ash won was not bitter sweet or was it BS. Rowlet won because he not weak he has a everstone but if you want use game rules then that means that rowlet can keep leveling up meaning that his stats are higher then a regular rowlet just like how Pikachu is strong. Rowlet may have fallen asleep in the last clash but unlike charizard who being Disobedient rowlet woke up when ash told him to. So no it is a legitimate victory.

While I share the basic sentiments that it was a case of a Big Fish in Tiny Pond, I think you're overdoing it. You've dialed the angst up to 11 with added butt-load of melodrama.

I think Ash would be like "Welp, that was pretty underwhelming League, the previous ones were much more high-level, but then it's understandable. Well, at least I didn't utterly embarrass myself by not winning on what is essentially easy mode. At least that battle versus Profesor Kukui was good, considering we were both rusty. Time to continue my journey."

Cheer up, it seems like in the new Pokemon season they let Ash be somewhat badass, if Episode 7 indicates anything.

This is pretty bad. It’s only selling point is that it’s not the poorly written trash that comprises the majority of fanfiction writing.

It’s like a surface level angst ridden analysis at best. Honestly have you grown as an author or are you just an adolescent child just going through puberty? That would at least explain the over sexualization rife in your stories and the total lack of depth any of your characters have.

I’d say there’s a chance for growth but at this point with the number of stories you have (both started and left) it seems like you lack any sort of attention span beyond angst and porn fantasy of the day.

What a loss.

While many views this League from a relaxed point of view, if it's seen rational, objectively and compared to other leagues, the alola League burys not only the meaning and buildup from past Rival battles, but is in general a "Happy now?" candy for the BS they pulled in Xyz39

Lol this sucks.

Y’all need to chill.

It’s an anime. Ash won and did a title defense, great. Move on.

Personally I liked his fight with kukui and thought that the tournament style non 6v6 made a lot of sense with how the games work.

But fr tho, lmao this is actually some verlisify level toxicity.

Review below:
That's CAP. Source that anyone actually objected please.

bocaj297 wrote a pretty thoughtful review. The win wasn't actually that hollow - I thought it was narratively pretty obvious that the story beats would go this way. Lines up really well with having a story focused on family growth and the given story from the games/Adventures.

Not really sure why this review board is so toxic. Is this a staple of jordinio? Seems to be a common complaint that he has a thin skin but for his "fans" to also seems like a perfect combination for more toxicity. Reminds me of verlis just replace furry with classic fanfiction neckbeard edginess.

TLDR Y'all are too much lmao.

Glad to see someone not defending that pathetic, hollow "victory" of the alolan league. The reason why they gave him that win was because the outrage the fandom had when the Kalos League win was stolen from him. Even half the staff is of the anime objected to it. The alolan league itself was a joke: 3v3 Finals, anybody can join with no earned requirements, and horrible judgment calls.

The detractors here are such babies, jeez. And everything you wrote is true. All of this was just so unsatisfying - a hollow victory. Thanks for capturing those feelings.

Hey have any of you guys checked out LumioseTrainerZac on youtube he explains this league in a way that might change your mind about it after all it is still better than Unova remember that. I enjoyed his league review series alot. I'd say my fav to least fav league would be Sinnoh, Johto, Kalos, Orange,(because i love ash vs drake) Kanto, Alola(goes back and forth with Kanto depending on my mood usually affected by fanfics hehe.), Hoeen and finally Unova.

Also one thing if Ash's Kanto team was basically useless after dealing with team rocket and unable to compete I think your over estimating Ash's kanto team. Just as an example Kanto Ash(KA) vs Alola Ash (AA) 3 on 3. KA: Charizard, Squirtle and Pikachu like he used vs Ritchie against AA Torracat or Melmetal, Pikachu, and Lycanroc.
It starts with a clash of pikachu: AA pikachu plays with KA pikachu using quick attack and electro web to set up the field for later while dodging every attack KA pikachu uses. Then AA pikachu quick attack into iron tails KA pikachu into stadium wall unconscious. KA sends out Charizard who is immediately affected by the electro webs and is enraged Pikachu and Charizard do battle with Charizard tiring himself out having to stay off the ground from electro web after the intial one while dodging Pikachu's occasional thunderbolt, who is trying to interupt charizards burning field manuver, finally burning the field charizard goes to grab pikachu for a seismic toss.

AA ash returns pikachu and sends out Lycanroc to take the seismic toss before using counter this would deal tremoundous damage to both Lycanroc for taking the super effective hit and charizard for taking the full force of counter. Lycanroc would use a combination of accelerock and Stone edge to do severe damage to charizard. Charizard after using flamethrower and fire spin to little effect uses seismic toss once more with lycanroc countering with a bite to one of Charizard's wings doing enough damage that charizard can't fly for the rest of the battle. However Lycanroc is taken down by the second seismic toss. AA then sends out Torracat depending on what would happen next could change the course of the battle will KA switch for Squirtle or keep Charizard in.

For the sake of your comparison to Paul we will keep charizard in. Charizard starts off with flamethrower Torracat absorbs the falmethrower with his flame sac and uses flame charge repeatedly to deal some damage but more importantly gain more speed. With seismic toss not usable do to his damaged wing he goes for close range submissions but due to his exhuastion from previous battle plus torracat's increasing speed keeps failing. KA has charizard try flamethrower again but just like before torracat absorbs it then gets inclose with flame charge before using a point blank powered up fire blast to take down charizard. Torracat then evolves into Incineroar.

KA sends out Squirtle who through a combination of withdraw water gun and newly learned hydro pump(about 20 episodes early) takes down incineroar after taking tremoundous damage from Incineroars use of fire fang flame charge and revenge. AA pikachu then comes in and one shots Ka's squirtle with thunderbolt due to squirtles exhuastion. Alolan Ash wins.

This is without the use of Melmetal and Nagandel. Now at the time Charizard except for Magmar hasn't had an oppenent to push himself and was completely arrogant at the time. So while strong couldn't really bring his potential, at the time, to its greatest level. Pikachu and squirtle were just completely outclassed at the time with AA's pikachu's experience and variety of moves and torracat's tenacity, strength boost as well as evolution into Incenroar was something KA just couldn't overcome. The true MVP was Lycanroc however for turning charizard into a nonissue. Before you complain Pikachu and Bulbasaur were defeated by a bellsprout who only used slam and razor leaf. So KA's pikachu can't compare to AA's pikachu and is as a result curbstomped. KA's MVP should be Charizard as it showed its beast level but was unable to tap into its full potential because it didn't train(after all it barely flies before the charicific valley) as much as it should have along with its limited moves however I feel squirtle would be the MVP for taking down Incineroar through its complete trust in KA and learning hydro pump.

How about you guys what would you rate the leagues based on everything from story, pacing, visuals, audio, and battles?

I watched the Alola League, and all I felt at Ash finally winning a Regional League, was utter happiness. It was utterly amazing, his opponents truly pushed him, and grew with him on this journey. I think Ash himself, at least earlier iterations of himself like Kalos would be proud with the results and how truly meaningful winning the first ever Alola League was.