Hoenn League Retrospective
Overall Score: 7/10
Best Battle: Ash versus Tyson
Best Episode: A Poached Ego
Worst Episode: Judgment Day!
Best Protagonist: Jessie
Worst Protagonist: Max
Best Side Character: Morrison
Worst Side Character: Tyson
Best Protagonist's Pokemon: Grovyle
Worst Protagonist's Pokemon: Torkoal
Best Side Pokemon: Meowth in Boots
The Hoenn League is solid. It has by far the highest quality filler of all of the arcs, though that's not really saying much, and it has less filler because it introduces pokemon contests to fill the space between gym battles, which was definitely an excellent decision by the writers. The gym battles left something to be desired, but the actually tournament was quite nice. The writers put a clear effort into making each minor character memorable by giving them a quirk or two, which I cut out of my write-ups but I did reflect it in the score. My key problem was Ash versus Tyson.
I did like the actual battle, that's not my problem. My problem is Tyson. I dislike the writers just reusing Harrison as blatantly as they did. Just introduce an older trainer with pokemon a tier above Ash's, have him derp around for awhile, and then knock Ash out of the tournament. It's kind of obnoxious. Tyson himself isn't interesting enough as a character to make that any less obnoxious than it is, and his flat characterization gets even more annoying. The actual battle, though, I will admit was quite good. Not anywhere as good as Ash/Drake or Ash/Gary, but it's still pretty good.
Like most Team Rocket-centric episodes, A Poached Ego is better than most of the hero-centric episodes, though it doesn't touch Go West, Young Meowth. Judgment Day! is horrible.
James was the best protagonist in season 6, but as time went on, I was surprised by Jessie, who proved to be a little more interesting and consistently a little funnier. It was like a graph, with James' funniness remaining high but static and Jessie's starting low but rising. I don't think I need to explain Max's low ranking.
I really like Morrison. I know a lot of people probably don't, but to be honest, I found him pretty refreshing. All of Ash's other rivals were either "Worthy Opponent" or Gary, so having one who's brash and loud is a nice change of pace, and unlike Richie, who won through luck, or Harrison and Tyson, who just seem a little more together than Ash, Morrison seems disorganized and immature.
Grovyle is pretty cool, Torkoal is not. Meowth in Boots is also, I think, pretty damn cool. I salute you, blatant ripoff of a popular movie franchise that got worse as it went along and inspired a spinoff that will no doubt be horrible.
May is a good replacement for Misty, and I will even say the better character. Misty never really had much going on; she wanted to be a water pokemon master, but rarely had the opportunity to actually anything with that, whereas May's contests are much more dynamic and because she's less experienced than Ash, she doesn't have a pseudo-mentor role that quickly becomes obsolete, unlike Misty, which is especially good because we don't need another "more experienced character" since we already have Brock.
All in all, I think this is the best arc yet, though primarily because the writers really had their **** more together than before.
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Started: July 6, 2005