>>34674251Drake was one of the worst fucking trainers Ash ever fought though. His Ditto lost to Pikachu, who was weak as shit back then. His Gengar tied with a baby Lapras with very little battle experience. His Electabuzz lost to Charizard, and his Venusaur lost to Tauros, which had little battle experience.
Dragonite was the only decent Pokemon on Drake's team.
>>34674029Harrison was established from the get-go as a trainer from the Hoenn region. He had his Hoenn starter and a Kecleon with him, but he also used Pokemon he caught in Johto.
>>34674034That Meowth was just like Pikachu and it was around Pikachu's level in strength. The issue, of course, is that Pikachu had to fight Metagross before this so it wasn't at its prime. If Pikachu fought Meowth at its full health, it would have definitely won.
>>34674157Of course it's bullshit. It's to show that Ash, who won most of his badges by helping the gym leader rather than winning a battle, had no place winning the league.
Ash relying on an overpowered yet disobedient Charizard was a rookie mistake that cost him.
Ritchie by all accounts was a much better trainer than Ash; he never lost once in all 4 preliminary round battles, and his Pokemon were mostly copies of the ones Ash had. Charizard was the outlier but it was also Ash's greatest weakness at the same time.
>>34674410Frontier Brains were established in the anime as being even stronger than Gym Leaders. Ash had to use many of his older Pokemon to take them down. Brandon especially was a tough cookie.
>>34674597It's such a shame that Charizard only became that strong by battling in the world's most powerful wild Charizard preserve, and Ash barely did anything for it.
It's almost as bad as Iris blazing through a tournament by using an already powerful Dragonite that she just caught.
>>34675097Japan likes status quos and they hate change. We'll never get another protagonist for this anime.
>>34674470Darkrai is a Mythical Pokemon.