>>57187080I feel like the Masters 8 in JN was an extremely sloppy way of making Ash a champion because he never really went through the proper process of beating a GYM based league and fighting the E4s + champion of a region.
I can see WHY the writers did that (to avoid making Ash overly attached to a specific region because a whole league course would take way way too long to cover and Kanto was the only region where they'd allow Ash to replace the champion but it was already covered in the first season) it's still kinda lame though.
I think Shudo would have written a better finale for Ash
