>beats Ash 3 times >feels inferior to him somehow >feels

>>31493519
maybe because Ash is several years younger, yet was a good enough trainer to very nearly defeat him, a (probably) young adult, so that would mean that if Ash stayed on that path, in a few years time he'd be a threat to even the elite four and champion, which Alain has only defeated one of.

>>31493519
Maybe because the writers want us to like ash?

>>31493519
Some people have low self-esteem like that. He'll probably grow out of it if we ever see him again.

>>31494313
Or maybe because the writing is shit.

>>31494345
Well yeah you know i think the only reason alan exists is because the writers had to make a character that in a normal pokemon anime would be similar too.
A hardass.
Ash is the exact opposite of a hardass.

>>31493519
It's called bad writing.
The ashnime is chock full of it.

The important thing is what people think about him. And they think of him as the League Winner and Hero of Kalos.


He's good.

>>31493519
Ash had everything Alan didn't. He made so many so wrong choices that he was at point where he stopped feeling happiness. When someone like this sees Ash, someone traveling with his friends, having fun, following his dream and being happy with everything he does, feeling inferior is the normal reaction.
You seem to think raw strenth means everything. No, it doesn't. It means you can fight. Big fucking deal. There are thing more important than raw strength. Alan had power, but that's it. He got to be the very best, but that was the result of him making all the wrong decisions and slowly losing everything else.

Learn to be a fucking human before criticizing others on their behavior.

>>31494345
>>31494520
And fuck you. Alan was one of the best ashnime characters.

>>31493519
His TVtropes page sums his character up perfectly.

"Deconstruction: Alain's entire storyline essentially takes apart the goal of To Be a Master piece by piece. His total focus on becoming the strongest causes him to neglect the people important in his life and be an Unwitting Pawn for Team Flare. He believes that beating every strong trainer would make him stronger yet finds himself helpless when actual danger arrives. He stops enjoying his wins and never considers what to do after he became the strongest, his reasons behind it constantly changing to justify his path. And despite always winning battles, Alain finds himself feeling inferior to Ash Ketchum, who encompasses the happiness and wisdom that he never got under Lysandre's guidance."

He knows that he has a pokemon with plot armor and he wouldn't win once without his Charizard saving his ass.

>>31494645
>>31494701
/thread

>>31493519
Ash didn't go all-out with his best possible team and relied on his Kalos shitmons.

>>31494822
It's his best regional team by a longshot.

>>31494838
And he's a loser when he sticks to regional teams. Battle Frontier Ash is best Ash, an actual winner.

>>31494862
>wins after 3 fucking tries

A real winner lmao

>>31494822
Why, exactly, do you think his older Pokemon are somehow stronger?

>>31495008
I can understand that. One thing DP did that XY didn't was having a LOT of short story arcs where Ash sits down with his Pokemon and trains them, coming up with new moves and helping them overcome their weaknesses in battle, so they felt stronger to the audience by the end of the season. XY only really did that with Greninja, with other Pokemon being lucky to get one-off episodes where they learn a new move.

>>31493519
Ash losing to Alan was a last minute change. Other than the end of the episode itself, it's pretty much never acknowledged by the plot.

>>31495156
Oh yes, it sure was a last minute decision. Ash would've won the league and the show would've ended otherwise. They made the Mega Evolution Specials for no real reason other than to create someone who Ash will beat and forget about forever.

>>31495156
>Ash losing to Alan was a last minute change
I'm no animator, but I thought things like a 'last minute changes' is practically impossible since a single episode has a lot of phases to go through before it can be aired?

Unless you were saying that they chose to go with the 'Ash lost' route before they start animating, but then it's not exactly a last minute change.

>>31496530
Last minute changes are a thing, but not something this big. It's just bullshit ashfags tell themselves to sleep better. That Ash was actually strong, but just lost because of a last minute change.

>>31496503
>Ash would've won the league and the show would've ended
>t. faggot who hasn't actually watched the anime
Winning the league doesn't mean you're the champion, it just allows you to challenge the E4 and champion like in the games. It's simple as fuck to have Ash lose to an E4 member and have him go to another region afterwards. Alan was a rival who was being set up to get surpassed, but ended up winning against all reason because some executive learned their battle was in the finals and freaked out.
>>31496530
Only a few minutes of one episode dealt with it, and they didn't contain any elaborate animation. As soon as the episode with the battle ended, everything played out exactly the same as it would if Ash had won.

>>31496635
So Ash beats Alan, who has defeated E4, gone toe-to-toe with Champion and overpowered fucking Zygarde, but he will lose again the Champion.
Great fucking logic. And no, you don't HAVE to challenge the E4. Just winning the league is achievement enough.

>>31496635
>ended up winning against all reason because some executive learned their battle was in the finals and freaked out.

Yeah, that's exactly what happened. Those guys are such idiots. I mean, it's not like Ash had always lost against Alan and we only assumed he would win because he lost the last time. The executives were the idiots.

>>31493519
>journey with your bro for years
>gain power of mega evolutions
>this 10 year old shows up
>had his greninja for about 2 months
>suddenly has this mysterious power
>only activated through a spiritual connection
>rumored to be stronger then mega evolution
Alain was probably jealous

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>>31494701
>TVtropes

>>31496698
What's the matter with TVTropes outside of being a goddamn black hole?

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>>31495156
>last minute change
I have to somewhat agree to this
It really does feel off. I mean I know he loses every league, but this one just feels strange

>>31498245
It's just that people expected Ash to win, since he had lost all the times he fought Alain before. Kind of backwards logic, but that's how these things normally go. Him never winning just forced people to accept a new thing they're not used to.

>>31496698
>hating on TVTropes
reddit and tumblr isn't enough for you?

>>31498282
Hating reddit and tumblr is justified. TVTropes isn't.

>>31498381
>hating reddit and tumblr is justified
>TVTropes isn't
i think i am missing something here

>>31498383
Dickwads on tvtropes dont force shit down your throat as much as reddit and tumblr.

>is and always will be stronger than Ash
>one of the strongest trainers we have seem
>thinks he isn't as good because he wasn't as happy as he was

It's complete retardation

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>>31498818
its just a random line to make everyone who wasted their time rooting for Ash not feel lie mongs played by the writers. Same level of shit that forces Ash to deal with Alan's mistakes by giving up Greninja.

>>31498818
What, so having completely human emotion is retarded?

>>31498818
>implying that's not exactly how life works

>>31493519
>have a gary stu constantly beat the main character with his gary stumon
>"BUT HE ADMIRES ASH SO IT'S OK"

>>31499056
>a gary stu with his gary stumon
That's Ash, anon.

>>31498270
You could tell that all of these anime watchers and newfags. They would've remembered that losing streaks mean shit when the final match is the tournament finals.

t. Dawn

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>>31499056
>gary stu
Congratulations on being the first retard who uses a word you probably don't even know the meaning of!
Here's a (You), don't spend it all in one place.

>>31499066
>>31499108
>THE STRONGEST TRAINER EVER
>BUT HE'S KINDA SAD AND TRAGIC
>BUT HE ALSO CAN'T LOSE BECAUSE THE WRITERS DON'T WANT HIM TO
>AND HE HAS CHARIZARD X THE MOST POWERFUL POKEMON EVER
>not a gary stu

>>31499135
Three of those points are just that he's strong. The last remaining one is that he doesn't have the best life possible.
Try harder.

>>31499135
Yup, you don't know what makes a 'gary stu'.

Didn't I tell you not to spend it in one place? Sheesh.

>>31499135
Are you having a stroke or what?

>>31499192
>>31499215
They literally re-wrote the plot just to make sure he wouldn't lose. Or maybe it's just that he has a Charizard and they know the 12-year-olds would cry if a Charizard ever lost.

They establish that it's because Ash has friends, is happy in what he does, and still semi-successful despite not training as hard as Alain. Alain, meanwhile, is miserable all the time because he's been isolated from everyone he cares about and had to devote himself to training and doing what Lysandre wanted.

That being said, it's clearly written in because they wanted to force a relationship between them, so Alain could be his rival. Alain's character suffered from the same thing every XY character did: they were slavishly devoted to worshipping Ash.

>>31499242
>Re-wrote so he wouldn't lose
Not losing was kind of his thing from the beginning. Did they also re-wrote the plot so he wouldn't lose against Hoenn Champion, Mega Fug, Primal Groudon and Kyogre, E4 Malva, Zygarde and Ash-Greninja, which he beat twice?

Also, since when does not losing make you a Gary Stu? You really don't know what you're talking abuot.

I would understand admiring Ash because of his happiness and compassion, but the fact he acts like he never beat him when he beat him 3 times is just, no.

Your a better battler than him Alain, it's a proven thing

>>31498548
TVTropes is still pretty asinine. They encourage using cute buzzwords instead of talking like a normal person, try to force things into these categories even if they don't fit, have arbitrary and flawed rules that makes the site a laughing stock of administration.

Plus the Tropers are often up their own asses and obsessed with their shows. Like a group of two people could take over a YMMV page and dictate what the whole "fandom" thinks because they were there first, and they keep on top of any edits that contradict them.

I don't mind you liking TVTropes. THat's your thing, you do you. I'm not the guy who first responded to you. But the site's still pretty shit.

Not gonna lie though, it had some good points. Best thing that ever came from that site was Troper Tales. It was absolutely hilarious.

>>31499268
>That being said, it's clearly written in because they wanted to force a relationship between them, so Alain could be his rival.

Yeah, I kinda feel the same way. You have people in this thread talking about how Alain was jealous of Ash being happy, but when did that EVER come up? Alain's interest in Ash is piqued because he's impressed Greninja being able to Mega Evolve without a stone.

Which would be fine, except Alain being frustrated about some kind of lack of bond with his Charizard wasn't his character arc, he gets along with him just fine. He was mad about not being able to protect his leprechaun despite his strength. Fighting some random kid who's strong but obviously way below his skill level doesn't sync up with that.

They had all these cliches from shounen anime characters but there didn't seem to be any real cohesiveness to it.

>>31494164
>Ash
>making progress
They pressed the reset button weeks ago already. Ash is gonna get stomped the fuck out in the Alola league. We won't see a Kalos tier League in a long time.

>>31499370
He quite literally said he could not beat Ash

Even though he did several times without losing once, it's wrong and everyone knows it

Everyone calling Alain a Gary Stu: keep in mind that Ash was the one who had little to no challenge through most of XYZ, got a special snowflake magic form that's only for his Greninja because their bond was so strong and Greninja is ~special~ (even though they didn't really bond all that much before), and all the relationships around him are defined by how much the people admire him. This is including Alain.

At least Alain was shown to be treating people wrong. He was used and manipulated as a pawn for a long time, and he devoted himself to a cause that made him miserable, all because he was under the belief that he was helping people. When he finds out what he did, he's absolutely crushed, and it takes Ash giving him a peptalk to snap out of it.

Alain is a fantastic battler, but a very flawed and sad person.

>>31499370
> how Alain was jealous of Ash being happy
The jealousy thing is something just in this thread. It wasn't in the series. He just felt inferior. Which did come up.

And it wasn't that he was jealous of Ash's bond with Greninja. That was just something he found interesting. It was just overall Ash's life that was the opposite of his. He was never frustrated about the lack of bond with his Charizard, because he has really good one.

>>31499277
>since when does not losing make you a Gary Stu?
Being a totally invincible character that is incapable of losing is a pretty common trait of one. I guess if he were to solo Mewtwo + Mega Fug + Lugia + Arceus + Kyurem at the same time he still wouldn't be one, right?

>>31499370
>>31499411
Alain also said that battling Ash was when he was actually happy. He could forget about his current troubles and trauma and let loose.

>>31499463
why does he feel inferior tho

He did more for Kalos and beat his ass several times

>>31499474
Yes. Being the strongest is being strongest. Gary Stu would be someone who breaks narrative of the story to get special treatment. Getting strong isn't special treatment.
I guess this is what liking Ash does to you. You start to think people MUST lose and be weak, otherwise they're all Gary Stus.

>>31499498
alain did lose to siebold and the primals and fug

>>31499481
How does that make sense when he battled tons and tons of other trainers who are as strong, if not stronger than Ash? What made Ash specifically so special? The show didn't really give a good reason, they just needed them to fight so we could have a cool battle.

Which is fine, but I don't want to see people acting like they're somehow good characters because of it.

>>31499492
Because Ash IS a Gary Stu who has literally everything except a league trophy.
See >>31494645 >>31494701
They explain it pretty simply.

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i trusted you to win this time Ash... this disappointment I feel in my heart will never go away now

>>31499498
Problem is that he takes it too far. Even Ash isn't invincible, but Alain is. But it's apparent that you re just a huge Alain fan and could watch him beat every champion at the same and be unscratched and still say he isn't a gary stu. Hell, let's write him into the games and have him be an unbeatable trainer with a level 200 Charizard while we're at it.

>>31499505
He didn't really lose any of those, though he didn't 'win' either.

>>31499505
He lost against Seibold, but he managed to hold out against Fug and Primals. He stood no chance and would've lost, and he was weaker, but technically, his Charizard didn't faint in any of those fights.

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>>31493519
XY was self insert: the series.
>Ash gets a team of strong mons
>only loses a gym battle 2 times
>Female Main character wants to fuck him
>Rivals and Clemont want to be like him
>Ash gets a special Greninja transformation

>>31499509
see >>31499268

Alain was tainted by the regular anime's shoddy writing.

>>31499535
For the last fucking time, being the strongest isn't the same as being a Gary Stu. Weak character can be Gary Stu too.
In the game example you gave, he would be a Gary Stu, because he's getting extremely special treatment.

Do a fucking google search of the term. I'm not replying any more.

>you re just a huge Alain fan and could watch him beat every champion
Yes, I could. I love him so much I fap to him every day. I'm fapping to the OP's image right now.

3/4 of this thread is unable to read between the lines and are unable to comprehend characters, storylines, and the such if they are not explicitly told to them in an info-dump.

You are literally unable to understand an anime for children. Sasuga /vp/

I wish Alain could have a series about becoming happy and being as strong as he is

It's the opposite of Ash being happy but not being as strong as he wants to be

>>31499613
So the show that goes out of its way to spell every little thing out for its 6-year-old target audience all of a sudden deserves benefit of the doubt for reading between the lines? To support interpretation of the characters via things outside of dialogue, you need to point to actual things put into the show outside the dialogue (facial expressions and such). Otherwise, you're just symbol hunting and/or projecting your own personal interpretations on something that's not actually there.

That's ignoring that a lot of the posts in this thread that take the trouble to find these supposed subtleties end up creating images of the characters which are nonsensical or contradictory. That's not what we call good writing.

>>31499613
>3/4 of this thread is unable to read between the lines
It's actually worse than that. They explicitly state many times that Alan has gotten so bored with everything that he literally only feels happy when he fights Ash. That he feels inferior to Ash because Ash has everything he don't. They outright say it, yet the retards can't understand that. These faggots think that's bullshit, because Alan beat Ash in a Pokemon Battle.

>>31499614
If this thread is any indication, no one would watch that.

>>31499613
Literally this.
You should be happy that it was Alan and not some random bs like Tobias.

All I want from the anime is those smug Elite Four/Champion bastards to be put in their place with an actual defeat at the hands of someone better than them.

Especially for Cynthia.

>>31499367
>people so full of themselves that they add 'This Troper' or their signature to their thoughts on anything but the main page
>people over dramatizing something with BOLD and ITALIC letters

>>31499737
The best parts in the anime are when the E4 or Champion comes along to sweep some random who.

>>31499737
I like seeing E4 sweep through teams, but I will admit I want to see Cynthia get destroyed. I was extremely disappointed when Paul couldn't even beat a single of her Pokemon.

>>31499694
>because Ash has everything he don't
This is the contention here, when the fuck was this stated or even implied? This doesn't even make sense, because Ash isn't the only happy trainer with friends on the planet.

To assume that this is why Alan is interested in Ash specifically would mean that Ash would need to have something special about him. The only reason Alan even met Ash was because of Ash-Greninja, and Alan only got all heated up when he fought Greninja the second time ("can you feel their strength" etc).

But since Ash is below Alan's skill bracket, it has to mean its something other than simple raw power that piqued Alan's interest (that would need to be the case to be consistent with Alan being bored). In this case, the first reaction Alan had was surprise that Greninja could Mega without a stone.

But since Alan never had any issues getting along with Charizard, that's obviously not the angle they went for. Instead, Alan's tipping point was his inability to protect Manon and her Chespin, which is incompatible with him battling Ash because battling someone below his skill bracket isn't going to help him in that regard at all.

The writers wanted to have their cake and eat it too, so people like you would choose whichever justification you wanted after the fact. Ash is somehow strong enough to get Alan's interest, even though Alan's fought lots of stronger trainers. Ash being happy is somehow something Alan can be jealous of even though plenty of strong, happy trainers with friends are running around Kalos.

tl;dr version is this >>31499268
>it's clearly written in because they wanted to force a relationship between them, so Alain could be his rival

>>31499956
Ash isn't the only happy trainer, but he only got to know Ash. Because Ash-Greninja piqued his interest. Call that shitty writing or whatever you want, I'm not going to defend that, but it makes sense. Other than with Ash, he had very little interaction with Trainers. Same would apply to Ash, but he stuck around with him longer for a variety of reasons.

>>31499858

>Paul

He knew he couldn't win. His only goal was to take down at LEAST one. Only then would he have considered that battle his victory. But he underestimated Garchomp.

>>31500091
I miss when the show made E4/Champions clearly superior to the kid main characters of the show, to the point you can bring out all your big guns and not even be able to take out one of their members.

That power creep in XY was ultimately pointless since Ash didn't get to have an honest-to-god battle with any of them anyway.

>>31499858
Good. Fuck Paul.

>>31500109
To be fair Diantha was not even trying anytime she fought with Ash. Z-Greninja blindsided her and when she was about to get serious Ash dropped dead from too much Iku Z.

>>31500124
Yeah but Alain is close to E4 level and Ash could go toe-to-toe with him even if he ended up being weaker.

That's still a massive contrast from when Ash's killer Infernape was getting one-shotted by Flint.

>>31500124
>To be fair Diantha was not even trying anytime she fought with Ash

Completely disagreed.

The ONLY moves her Gardevoir could have done were Shadowball and Moonblast. It couldn't use its main move, Psychic, due to typing. Moonblast was too slow at that point and Shadowball was getting effortlessly bitchslapped away.

Ash would have defeated her, at least her ace Pokemon.

>>31500162
There's strong trainers despite not having a fancy title. I don't see anything wrong with that. Alain is not your run of the mill trainer and the first in the history of the franchise to be shown on that level.

And despite all the memes, Ash is a good trainer, it's not that out there he can at least compete without getting BTFO instantly vs E4 members or Champions.

>>31500200
Different guy here, but I do feel like she was holding back because she purposefully chose her NVE move over Moonblast. The one time she used Moonblast it didn't even hit Greninja and it knocked him on his ass pretty bad.

Also IIRC when Ash fainted, Gardevoir was already back on its feet, so I don't think it was as badly hurt from the last Water Shuriken as some people think. I think that was just for dramatic effect.

>>31500200
Slow moves are still used, anon. Like the Rasenshuriken. The only way to stop Moonblast would be to defeat Gardevoir, and considering it was still standing after all the beating it took, I doubt that would be easy.

Either way, I wish they'd shown the full fight.

>>31500233
>I think that was just for dramatic effect.
More or less.

Something like "Holy shit Greninja managed to have a clean hit on the Champion's Ace Pokemon Ash Greninja is stronk as fuck if it managed to do that".

>>31500204
All I'm saying was that there was still a pretty clear power creep, because every other time Ash tried battling an E4 before XY he pretty much got nothing but one-shotted over and over.

Even if you assume Alain is overall weaker than an E4, the fact that Ash went on equal footing with him is a big jump from where he was before.

>>31500246
Also its not like the show's consistent on how slow/fast moves are anyway. Remember when Fletchinder got KO'd by Moonblast even after speeding up to Mach 5000 or whatever the shit?

>>31500253
That was one of, if not the, main reason people thought Ash would win the league.

>>31500339
The stars lined up like never before during XY. If Ash didn't win then he never willbecause something like this would never happen again.

People like to shitpost about it now that it happen but there's a reason the whole internet was shitting their pants over the chance of Ash winning for realsies this time. It was not people shilling it for free just because.

>>31500369
I'll laugh if Ash ends up winning the newly-formed Alola League, but only because the newly-formed league attracts mostly amateurs with unevolved shitmons and Ash takes out reserves from the Lab or something. And since Alola League is newly formed its not attached to Champion's League yet Ash's win is purely symbolic.

I do wonder though, since Ash is actually getting the gimmick feature this gen (Z Crystals), what is going to do before Gen 8? Just dump them all at home?

All this complaining about Gary Stus. Aren't most action anime protagonists some sort of Mary Sue with amazing super powers who always comes out on top in the end? Ash is one of the few protags I only ever see lose in the end.

>>31500542
Action anime heroes will lose some and win some, just like Ash, but usually tournament fighters don't end with the hero getting a humiliating defeat, yeah.

It's not a clever subversion when it only happens because you need the show to go on forever to make more money though.

>>31494345
What if it's because there are only two genders, Jimbo?

>>31500566
Losing doesn't make someone any less of a mary sue though. By that logic, even N wasn't a mary sue.

>>31496658
>you don't HAVE to challenge the E4. Just winning the league is achievement enough.
DP says otherwise. Also, the one who went toe to toe with the champion was Ash.

I wish one day Ash brings his best, most powerful team for a league, and then proceeds to lose at it, so that everyone can realize and understand that he will never, ever win one until his cartoon gets axed.

>>31494345
TWO GENDERS

>>31504080
But when Ash does this, its when Ash wins the league.

>>31504109
>l
roasted