>>57882124Them teasing the concept of the Champion League in DP, just to have Ash job to Tobias and never seriously mention it again was the mistake. Especially with the tonal shift in BW, you can tell that everyone on the staff, sans Yuyama, was ready to end Ash's story in DP. OS-DP had enough of a continuous connection, and the companion cast hadn't ballooned too much (thanks to Brock's recurring role), meaning you could've even had Misty and May (since Kaori didn't retire for health reasons until 2012) both return for the Champion League arc to show support in the stadium audience with Dawn, Professor Oak, Delia, and Tracey. The MPM epilogue series to JN proved that ShoPro would be willing to continue the previous season months into the next gen for the purpose of ending the journey, so they could've gotten away with it. Have Ash win the Sinnoh League, then beat each member of the E4, and then finally battle Cynthia to a narrow win. Pokémon animation hadn't gotten too crazy by 2010-11, so they wouldn't have been too strained to deliver it. Then after giving Ash his championship, he could return to Pallet Town, tease the Pokémon Master shit, and then set off on an unspecified journey (kinda like the ending to JN), and roll credits. Then follow it up with a new BW anime focusing on Hilbert and Hilda and co., and so the tragedy of Ash's BW reboot could've been avoided.
