A. Ash beats Leon but loses to someone from Gen 9/gets rebooted.
B. Leon beats Ash but loses to someone from Gen 9 at the start of the new season.
These are the only options.
Dominic White
That makes absolutely zero sense and is exactly how we got the abortion known as Best Wishes.
Aaron Wood
They will never do a soft reboot again like BW. It appeals to no one. If they reboot the series, it will be a hard one like the movie timeline.
Benjamin Gomez
Glad to see someone agrees with the possibility of movie timeline getting a series. Honestly it’s either that or the protagonist is Goh.
Anthony Edwards
They already fucked themselves with Leon being THE STRONGEST EVER. They absolutely will not let him overshadow the Gen 9 Champion. Ash winning presents a similar problem, if Gen 9 continues from JN, he will have to be dedending his title, not bumming around Spain with literal who's. So he almost has to be rebooted in some fashion, or lose at the start of Gen 9 to a Champion from Spain.
Aaron Young
>If they reboot the series, it will be a hard one like the movie timeline It'll be either that or another break from convention like SM and PM, where he's a teacher or mentor in a school in PokeSpain while still going on some adventures.
William Brooks
Wouldn't they have to "close-off" this Ash, and these characters before doing a hard reset?
Alexander Miller
So Ash interact with Lillie? I suppose they're really playing it safe.
Btw if this pic is true Lillie's power level will rise to second or third so Serena goes back to the bottom again unless you count Lana and Mallow as main girls too.
Or he could just not be the main focus or be a hard reboot with nothing similar. Maybe we’ll follow the new protagonists with a partner Pikachu instead. There’s many ways to resolve this that are better than Ash losing to a fucking Sprigatito in the first episode.
Dominic Hall
To me it just makes the most sense from their perspective. They can't really drop Ash as a character because of Pikachu. But current Ash has kind of reached his endpoint as a character. They can reboot him and tell fresh new stories while also keeping things familiar. It is a copout, but it makes sense IMO.
Jayden Rogers
Cynthia is weaker than him anyways.
Carson Edwards
I love Cynthia
Andrew Foster
They are closing things off with Ash. Beating Leon is good send off for him. Go and Koharu will get their resolutions. The old companions have either gotten resolutions or received them with their returns.
Colton Richardson
He stomped Flint's ass without D and he always changes his moveset.
Hudson Mitchell
Leon could mention he met a strong trainer when he was younger that might by now might be even stronger then he is. And conveniently that trainer is in the new region.
They could also just mention this top 8 tournament isn't the only tournament, or whatever. Like: "Oh, yeah, there's super string trainers from other regions that didn't even attend this tournament, how about you go find them!"
See, it's that fucking simple. And this comes from someone that would pay to see ash fuck off for awhile, but that's only happening as a ratings hail mary. If the ratings go complete dogshit for multiple seasons, and the executives are convinced it's because the audience is tired of ash, then they'll replace him, and only then.
Grayson Wilson
Their stories are already complete.
Brandon Powell
I mean, will they make reference to Iris becoming a Dragon Master, Dawn becoming a Top Coordinator, Serena being the best performer before all that?
Sebastian Jenkins
>Serena Already happened with her tho unless you want some Amourshit, Iris will be the PWC and Gary got his too long time ago.
Also Brock, we know he's the closest to his goal thanks to the Arceus special.
Benjamin Allen
Probably not. It doesn't matter either since those companions main arcs are done.
Cameron Long
But then what are the stakes up until he FINDS that trainer? He’ll just curbstomp everyone in his path. If he loses it’s unrealistic. If he constantly wins there is no conflict.
Asher Thomas
Obviously he'll swap out his pokemon for new ones that'll need to be trained. And under-trained pokes mean they'll lose every now and then.
He'll drop off dragonite and gengar like all the rest, only to be seen in cameos every 50 episodes... you know how it is.
