>>58799257>>58799344>>58799354It's very obvious why they made Steven 3rd place and why they made him fight Ash: Steven's popular.
Do you also think Cynthia being 2nd was a coincidence?
Do you also think Lance fighting Diantha and then losing so they could have Diantha lose to Leon was a coincidence? No. Lance had already lost to Leon, doing that again would be pointless. They picked Diantha for a reason: Because no fucking one gives a shit about Diantha.
Do you think Alan got fed to Leon as a coincidence? No, it served a double purpose: Charizardino wank hypebait by teasing G-Max vs Mega Charizardinos and secondly so that if Leon beats Alan that means Ash is stronger than Alan since he beat Leon so shut the fuck up already and stop being mad about the Kalos League.
Steven and Cynthia are popular, arguably the most popular female and male Champions respectively. They are not gonna get fodderized by Leon and risk a shitstorm. Losing to Ash brings in no shame because he's the MC so he must win, specially so shitneys Ash whose plot armor is unending and loses 50IQ when in front of him. Like, just look how they massacred Cynthia's Garchomp moveset and had her do retarded shit like putting out Stealth Rock when Ash only had 2 Pokemon left and both of them resisted the sneaky stones.
The M8 is an absolute mess and disaster writing-wise, we all know the anime staff is fucking retarded, but even them are not THAT retarded and are capable of coming up with brackets for maximum marketing, maximum damage control, maximum avoidance of butthurt from the fanbase.
It's too bad they never apply this sort of effort to the things that truly matter. Only the surface level shit. Peak soulessness.
