>>52731808I'm confident they weren't sure this would be the end of Ash until this year at the earliest and this summer at the latest. Still dumb. My 20-20 hindsight version of things
>Paul, Ritchie, Gladion, Sawyer, Alain, Harrison etc are all in the tournament and get fights amongst each other for maximum wank>Leon is the final obstacle, but Cynthia is built up way more as a threat/rival. Her fight has much more put into its presentation than what we got. This way there's way more doubt cast on whether or not Ash will beat Leon if Cynthia in the semi-finals seems like a decent note to end on. >Iris is featured way more. She's the one going up against Dragon trainers like Raihan, Drasna, and Drake in order to prove she's the Dragon Master. Her not getting a chance to formally fight Lance after all that is supposed to be a huge disappointment. So Ash has even more incentive to beat Cynthia >Reserves are used, but more akin to how Mr. Mime was used. Ash doesn't really fight with a full team of reserves, and instead has them mixed into his main Journeys team>Misty appears and is my gf 
