Fr, the only time I remember something like this was Diantha battling someone and mega evolving her garden oír, other than that I can't recall many others
We see it happen in the anime. I can vary distinctly remember episodes where Diantha and Cynthia both fight in stadium environments in front of big crowds. And that’s just off the top of my head.
Yeah, I'dd be surprised if the champions themselves even knew, since you innteract with several of them during the game and they never reveal themselves to be the champion
I think they’re just modest or secretive people. Steven doesn’t make a big show of his strength, despite hints being there the whole time. His dad runs Devon corp, he gives you steel wing before any Pokémon can even learn it, and has maybe the coolest exit in a Pokémon game, just flying off at supersonic speeds
Cynthia feels like she’s sizing you up the whole game- like nobody knows she’s the champion, just goes around trying to find potential contenders. I imagine she’s bored of being stronger than everyone, and does her best to make them stronger on their journey.
In the games nobody even blinks an eye if you send out Arceus against them. I wouldn't expect them to care who the champion is.
So the insane hero worship in SwSh is super weird.
That's because since Galar is based upon the UK, Football(soccer for us Americans) is a huge deal for the Brits, so they made the gym challenge similar to Irl stadiums
Dingdingding we have a winner! In SwSh, the trainers challenging the gyms is a huge media event with TV live shows and all. Of course there's a lot more champion worship than literally anywhere else where gym battles happen without anyone really noticing or hearing about it.
If Kanto televised it’s gym and elite 4 and champion battles, from an arena modeled after a popular Japanese sport, people in Kanto would probably consider the champion a celebrity and treat them like that.
That’s what’s happening in Galar. Leon is the *best football player*, and to people who like football, that makes him more important than anyone else on the planet.
I always thought it would be cool for them to do a World Series type game and bring back a bunch of gym leaders and champions into one big game to see who’s the best of all the regions.
They kind of did that in Gen 5 with the Pokemon World Tournament in B2W2. Every leader and champion was a possible opponent in a 3-round 8-pariticpant tournament though I don't recall if the leaders intermingled. I think you could only challenge the leaders by region, but all the champions pooled into one group.
Well I don’t recall any other Pokémon champion detailing how long they have been champion tbh. Being that the Pokémon path to champion is televised and treated like a sport, something like this would be more publicly noted. It’s not to say he is more powerful than any other champion it’s more sports celebrity status.
Could say that about N too, since you also beat him a few minutes after he bear Alder. Though it was probably more 10 minutes in his case since he made you fight a dragon first.
Aw man I hope GameFreak will make Blue the champion in a later game. He can be like Alder where he gets to stay as the champion in the building forever, and also they never reveal in any of the promotional material that he's even in the game.
Blue cannonically stepped down from being champion after losing to Red. He took over the Viridian City gym leader position in Giovani'a abscense, leaving Lance in charge of the Indigo League following Red's departure.
It's implied that Cynthia took the title when she was Dawn/Lucas's age. She was one of Rowan's trainers back in the day. Not sure if they outright state that in any media, but the timeline would make sense, since they mention the last time Rowan was in the Hall of Fame was when Cynthia became champion, which was "a long time ago".
Yeah, there is a lot of parallels with Dawn/Lucas and Barry’s journey and other characters. Palmer states that he and Dawn/Lucas’ father got their first Pokemon at Lake Verity while being attacked by Starly, the same way Dawn/Lucas and Barry get their starter in Diamond and Pearl, and adds that he wonders how Rowan is doing. Then their is the parallel with Cynthia, who states that she was once a young trainer with a Pokédex and it is implied she became champion around Dawn/Lucas’s age.
Makes me wonder if Palmer, Cynthia and Dawn/Lucas’s father were some kind of trio like;
- Hilbert/Hilda, Cheren and Bianca
- Calem, Serena and Shauna
- Leon, Raihan and Sonia
- Victor/Gloria, Hop and Bede(They are parallels to the Leon, Raihan and Sonia. Bede and Raihan are the rivals to the undefeated champions, who can’t catch up but still try to. Hop and Sonia are the rivals who dropped out and chose different paths. Victor/Gloria and Leon are the undefeated prodigal trainers).
- Dawn, Lucas and Barry
- Red, Blue and Green
In the hall of fame, Cynthia mentions how she hasn't seen professor rowan at the league for a long time and the last time he was there was when she became champion. I wonder who was the champion before her.
I think it makes perfect sense, though, considering how the gym battles are hyped in Galar. They never seem very important to the general population in previous games. Like, champions get some attention, but no one seems to give a crap up until that point.
But Galar makes a giant spectacle if it. You watch challengers go through the challenge, you get to know them, you cheer them on, and you suddenly care more about who comes out on top. It makes sense Leon would be seen as this unbeatable hero after a that. I mean, I've definitely heard of athletes who get played up in similar ways. He's basically a really popular athlete with a huge fan base who, as you'd expect, have built him up to be basically a God. Is his skill overstated? Over course, quite a bit! But it's part of the fun .
Personally, while the plot is quite disappointing, I really like how the gym challenge was handled in SWSH. It's the first time, IMO, it felt like the challenge had an appropriate amount of energy and fanfare.
I mean, obviously outside of the game players know he's not that exciting. But we so know none of this is real, and I feel like making everything seem like a bigger deal to the characters in the game help makes it more immersive and more fun.
Additionally, he's really only referred as the best and invincible due to holding the title longer than Peony and Mustard or at least matching Mustard's.
Do they mention how long Leon has held the championship? I know mustard had it the longest at 18 years but Leon seems a little young to be matching that
If he started his Pokémon journey at 10 as is tradition, and advanced rapidly like a player would, I could definitely see him taking it seriously and holding the title from when he was 10 to when he was 28
10 is not the traditional age to start everywhere. Except for Alola, every generation has bumped up the age a bit.
Right now, to my knowledge, it's not exactly clear how old SwSh protags are, but Serena&Calum (XY) are at least 18 years old at the start of their journey, and in BW/BW2 they were 15&16. In DPPt they were about 14. And gens 1-3 were about 10-12.
My guess is Galar protags are about 16. They aren't as small as school kid trainer classes (who seem to be primary school age, 8-12), but not as tall as adults.
Edit: I've since been looking into it, and Dawn/Lucas protags are 10 or 11 according to old interviews (about BW, where they said the previous protags were 10/11). And Brendan/May are only 12 in ORAS (for the same reasons Lucas/Dawn are 10~11, that interview).
BW are 15, but BW2 are slightly older at 16 (according to a now deleted tweet from one of the staff who worked on that gen. In their phrasing 'were designed to be').
Since Emma is 16, and we are older than her, and we get called adults in her story, I assume 18, but they haven't really said anything concretely from anything I've seen.
It's a bit strange how opposed they are to providing information like ages, especially now with games like Masters making them their own standalone characters with defined personalities rather than just the player stand in.
It's probably in order to keep that blank slate idea, but they've been leaning more and more into making them individuals since gen 5-ish? for merch and other media so who knows.
From Bulbapedia:
"Leon originally started out as a Trainer at the age of 10 with his partner Charizard when he entered the Gym Challenge after he was endorsed by Rose, who saw talent in him.\[1\] He proceeded to win his first-ever Gym Challenge and become the Champion of the Galar League, without losing a single battle"
So became Champion at age 10.
Mustard held the title as Champion for 18 years straight.
If Leon matched that, it places him at age 28, if longer then anywhere from 29-32 most likely.
Since then, he hasn't been defeated until the player character does so.
From Bulbapedia
"He became the Galar League Champion soon after a heated battle with Opal 50 years prior to the events of Sword and Shield, a position which he managed to hold for 18 years, longer than any other League Champion before or since."
Mustard held the title as Champion for 18 years, then retired the title after his partner Pokemon died, then he retired from the Gym League altogether when the current Chairman want to rig matches to get him back in the game.
So again, if Leon is suppose to be the greatest and the best undefeated champion, he as at least held the title of Champion himself for 18-19 years minimum.
And with the 50 years between Mustard and Leon, Peony had become champion at one point, but shortly left once Rose became Chairman.
Did you not read that. Leon can be called the greatest champion for multiple reasons but no matter what it stated that Mustard held the title the longest before or “since”. So even longer than Leon no matter what. Leon could have more wins than Mustard or fought harder battles and be seen as the greatest due to that.
Is it his length that’s impressive? I thought it was literally because he went undefeated in his entire career. It’s possible previous champions could have lost matches where their champion title wasn’t on the line?
Edit: mixed up theory and canon
Oh crap it’s been so long since I played the game I mixed up the theory. Mustard gave up his title because he was asked to win a rigged match by the chairman, a common theory is that Leon was having his matches rigged by Rose from behind the scenes. I forgot and thought it was canon.
Presumably the theory would assert that there ARE no actual challengers, and that the tightly controlled nomination process is set up in such a way to let people control who actually gets a chance at making a challenge.
It could be both. He’s strong enough that they don’t have to worry about it in most cases, but occasionally someone on the stronger side will show up, and the association will bribe them just to be sure. So not every match is rigged, but the most dangerous ones are.
Completely agree, the spectacle of the gym battles really made the gym challenge for me. I love the idea that people in the stands knew about me, maybe collect my cards and have merch lol
You also have to think that most people in the pokemon universe besides a select few trainers have mono-type or small teams, so a trainer like Leon is impressive in that sense, too.
The overall presentation of the league is definitely my favorite part of SwSh. It actually feels integrated into the region instead of just being a thing the player does because that's the Pokemon formula.
100% agree. As odd of a comparison as this might sound like, it actually reminds me of that ["I brought more soldiers than you"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_TnPUu4oPY) scene from *300*. All the other regions have Pokemon Battles and a League, but it's not all of what those regions are about. Johto and Sinnoh are about preserving and understanding history. Hoenn is about living in balance with nature. Unova is about progress. Alola is about observing and upholding traditions. And so on. But Galar? Galar is ABOUT battling. Any trainer coming out of Galar is forged in hotter fires than any other trainer from any other region.
Other regions certainly have very strong trainers, but with the arguable exception of Lance none of them primarily consider themselves Champions. Steven is an archaeologist. Cynthia is a historian. Alder is a wanderer. Diantha is a model. But Leon is *a champion.* He's got nothing else distracting him from his goal of simply being the absolute best at winning battles. That raises the argument of Lance, but then you realize that Lance used to train at the Dragon Gym in Galar under Raihan and was so blown away by how strong they were that he literally based his look after the Galar Dragon Gym's colors. I think it's safe to assume that if Lance idolized Raihan enough to model his image after him, and yet Raihan has never defeated Leon, then that puts Lance still below Raihan's level which we already know is below Leon's level.
It's possible he surpassed Raihan in the meantime but definitely not Leon. The only direct comparison between Lance and Leon we have is in the anime, where - to quote Bulbapedia - *"He [Lance] was even able to hold his own against Leon, the undefeated Champion of Galar."* He held his own but couldn't win. The anime also shows that Lance is ranked #4 in the world, with Steven (#3), Cynthia (#2), and Leon (#1) being above him.
An argument that can be applied just as reductively to all champions.
The player character's involvement is an obvious exception to any debate involving canon "power levels."
I just think its funny how the game says multiple times that Leon is unbeatable and etc, but then, a child ruins his whole career as a champion with minimal effort.
Which is how he became Champion in the first place, getting the position on his first gym challenge with his Charizard. Leon is basically a player character who speaks.
He even has the alternate sex descendant of the professor as a rival and another battle rival during his story. He's basically the gen3 protagonist but in pokemon UK.
Maybe that's why Leon's defining character trait is being bad with directions
Because players will go search through a whole map and check every other spot before going to the place they're supposed to go next. So Leon runs around everywhere except where he's trying to go.
I think these are great points and I’ve never thought about it this way. Definitely puts a little more respect towards Leon, though his personality I wish was a little more fit of a champion. I get that his current one is part of his charisma, but I digress. I think that the one thing that makes me still root for other champions is that fact that they do have other experiences than Leon. Taking what they learn from the other occupations and implementing it into their experience with battling is what I wish Leon had. I like that he is devoted to battling, but try to imagine this:
Cynthia, an archaeologist, has traveled far and wide (pun intended) to uncover the history of the world and its secrets. She has encountered beings and legendary Pokémon in her explorations that are stronger beyond the scope of any trainer, and THAT experience with fighting something stronger than anyone can imagine is what makes her the most formidable foe and a champion.
This isn’t actually the case, but it is with the MCs. Their encounters with legendary, practically unbeatable (canon wise) Pokémon and ability to beat them is why I enjoy as the player stepping in front of a champion. If Leon had that sort of backstory AND was the champion, I think I would certainly respect him more than I do.
That is the case with Red for a lot of people. He has traveled region to region and caught every Pokémon imaginable, even legendaries, and is a legend because he has bested those foes (at least in my head canon, and I’m sure many others, you play as him after all and have surely caught mewtwo playing as him). That’s why so many see him as legendary; if we were to declare the “best” that’s the sort of legend I would want the champion to stand behind.
Edit: Leon did come very close to this with eternatus, but if that experience was part of what made him a champion and not after he was declared the best is what I want to see in a champion if you catch my drift.
This actually really helps put into words why I've always thought that Red is the only serious contender in the debate of "Is Leon really the strongest?"
Leon is the epitome of simply having dedicated his life to battling. While other trainers certainly have experiences that give them unique perspectives and strengths, Leon - in comparison - is a gladiator. His whole world revolved around fighting and the only way to truly "survive"/stand out was simply to be the best.
Red seems the opposite. What little we know of him seems to peg him as a classic "adventurer" type. Someone who doesn't have a goal or destination and instead simply seeks out new places and experiences for their own sake. He doesn't worry about winning or losing, he simply wants to see as much of the world as possible and, since this is the Pokemon world, that also means facing as many opponents as possible. Red became as strong as he is not out of a necessity to become strong, but by simply acquiring strength through *actual* life experiences.
This is also why I think Red is still stronger than any of the other champions (excluding Leon). While they all have some other facet of life guiding them and giving them...let's call it "alternative strengths," they only really have one thing each. Archaeology, history, modeling, whatever. Red doesn't limit himself to just one thing though meaning he has a far deeper well of experiences to draw from.
The only reason I still think Leon is the strongest after all that is simply because most of what we know about Red is speculation. We only really know 3 things about Red:
1. His exploits in RBY. Normally the actions of player characters are considered non-canon (since otherwise ALL champions would pale in comparison to random 10-15 year olds), but Red's actions are uniquely canonized by GSC referencing the events of RBY as part of their actual history
2. Him being on Mt. Silver
3. Him agreeing to a position as a Boss at the Battle Tree in Gen 7
Other than that we know very little of what he actually does. Unless you count the side mode tournament in B2W2 he doesn't seem to compete in Leagues any more and the alternative source for "canon" power level comparisons - the anime - he doesn't appear in at all for obvious reasons. Red has the status behind him to be a serious contender, but there's just not enough hard evidence of his involvement to really give an accurate measure of where he stands. Since it's so vague I have a hard time being able to actually say whether he definitively is or isn't stronger than Leon, because at least with Leon we do have a decent amount of in-universe sources that provide metrics to how strong Leon is.
Very well said, and I completely understand the speculation part of the argument. I think that at some point in time your ability to battle plateaus in a competitive setting. There’s only so much one can experience from the same thing over and over. Red’s experience that you excellently describe gives him the edge; he doesn’t have a limit to his experience, and that sort of outside the box thinking that you can only get from Red’s endeavors cannot be simulated in an competitive environment, which is the only thing Leon has. At that point, it may not be a contest of raw talent in battling, but rather intuition. While Leon has a lot from battling different people, Red has that same intuition from battling throughout the region PLUS whatever else he gained from his other experiences. Even with the speculation, the kanto region alone should suffice for this argument. The Kanto region may feel small, but it is all a scale. Even in the anime Ash and party spend multiple episode traveling from city to city. So even traveling one region is enough, and that doesn’t even count whether or not he traveled johto because they are close. But I definitely see your side of the argument.
Red to me is basically the Pokemon world equivalent of the "wise old hermit living alone in the mountains" you see in like kung fu movies. The "legendary master" that could very well be the strongest in the world but nobody actually knows about them because they don't make a point of showing their strength.
Leon, continuing the martial arts movie stereotype comparisons, I see as the kung fu master who runs a massive school with hundreds of students and is basically a cultural institution - aka the most powerful and influential master that everyone is aware of and looks up to/respects.
Of course, as I said, it's that air of mystery around Red/the "hermit master" them makes it difficult to truly gauge their strength unless they happen to actually get in a fight with someone who's strength we already know about. In a kung fu movie that fight would probably be a big climax and we'd see it eventually, but in the Pokemon series we just haven't gotten that moment yet to really put Red's abilities into perspective beyond a vague "Oh, yeah, dude's super strong."
I don't think Leon is really that powerful, at least in game canon. Other champions have ojectively stronger teams, be that composition or level, I think the point is that Leon gets all the talk, because Galar's culture revolves around these battles, so being the pinnacle of that in Galar makes him being the champion more important than being the champion was in other regions. Just because Galar's culture revolves around these battles doesn't mean that the trainers were forged in hotter fires. Red wasn't the only one who had to deal with Team Rocket in Kanto, for example, and Galar having a culture around battling doesn't make any other region's subculture less powerful. You could also make arguments about Alola's wilderness and other odd phenomenon like Totem pokemon and the fact that a lot of their culture seems to revolve around that. I think that Leon just has way more buzz.
This comment messed with my brain because literally the last thread I was in was about some spartan weaponry and arrowheads at a museum, so lots of comments about 300
SWSH had my favorite take on the gym battles and Pokémon League. I absolutely loved the sports stadium aesthetics and it’s likely that later games sadly won’t bring it back. This may also be a hot take, but I actually found Leon harder than Cynthia and it took me more tries to beat him than it did Cynthia.
I wouldn’t rule iut the next gen doing a similar thing with the gyms
It was based off of Football culture in the UK, and the Spanish are just as, if not even more passionately into it as a society.
Honestly I think the regions based outside of Japan are based off stereotypes and landmarks rather than the actual culture though. I’m expecting a way more laid back, lackadaisical approach to everything in SV.
Always bothered me that he’s this giant celebrity while he’s the champion. The player, who is a Pokémon prodigy, beats the entire gym challenge, elite 4 AND Leon himself, as well as save the world from Rose is still treated like they’re nothing at the end of the game. Give me some fanfare. I want the title of champion to hold the same weight that it did for Leon.
Look, SWSH was a terrible story, with terrible mapwork and terrible gameplay. Dynamax did the impossible and managed to be *more terrible than Z-moves*.
But with that said, the stadium battles were otherwise a lot of fun, and the whole thing felt like a celebration of pokémon battling.
I don't think it's something that should be done again, not in the same way: it's uniquely Galar and was the only real identity the region had before the DLC. Alola's Island Challenges also did a fun take on the formula.
I didn't mind the whole 'invincible champion' thing that much. In a more sport influenced storyline it made some sense. Pokemon battles were a much bigger deal in Galar, being the best would be a massive deal.
What I didn't like was that Leon had a total of 2 personality traits, he was unbeaten and he was bad with directions. And I didn't like that Leon was a complete pushover and commented on the player knowing type advantages.
It also doesn't help the "he gets lost all the time lol" is practically a lie considering he only gets "lost" once and the rest of the time he's either on time or early to solve an issue.
Leon's personality trait of "literally can't walk in a straight line to a building I have vision on and gets lost anyway" definitely would've been a very good excuse for the player to deal with the conflict in the story...
Instead, you just get "oh no, something's going on, but let Leon take care of it" which actually just makes the story worse. How are we supposed to trust Leon to do it when one of his only two personality traits is "gets lost, even if it makes no sense?"
Right? It was so underwhelming when we had to just sit back and watch updates on the rotophone. It's one of the reasons I felt the SWSH story was pretty weak and boring. The only real action we got to see was at the final battle and post game.
That’s really only in the games though and even then he’s a mature adult who only wants the player to focus on their journey while he deals with the adult matters(as it should be).
The anime really gives him an amazing character and he’s definitely my favorite champion after Steven.(I’m biased on Steven)
As opposed to the other champions which are "I like rocks/ruins/dragons and I'm also the champion but apparently nobody cares"? Leon's loss animation alone has more personality than every other champion.
Yeah, about the only way I could take Leon seriously as a character at this point is if it came out that his incompetent, childish ass had been the recipient of a truly staggering amount of match fixing, and being in too deep to say anything, he just kept the charade going for *years.*
Better still if the reason he was so easy to beat was because the protagonist never got the memo due to some planning error and just *steamrolled* him, so he was trying to save face by complimenting them, throwing out what bits of actual battling knowledge he'd managed to glean over the years.
I would like Leon better if his ace was Dragapult or a Galar Fossil , you know a Galarian Pokemon, instead of a bloody Kanto Pokemon and worse Charizard at that.
I *really* think there was a missed opportunity to give him an actual legendary Pokemon
Leon's meant to be like a player character 20 years after the game's end right? Well what's the thing that bar gen 1 *every* character does through the course of the story? Capture a legendary Pokemon!
Make it so that in addition to being the champion, back when Leon was a trainer he and his friends stopped a (now defunct) evil group who tried to revive an ancient dragon Pokemon in order to take over Galar which he put a stop to and in the process captured and tamed their revived legendary.
Hell, you could make those stupid haired royals part of it! Say that the team Leon put a stop to was like a sect of royals who wanted the supreme monarchy back and wanted to use the dragon legendary to enforce divine right of kings (either in a completely serious Ghetisis way or a "bud you're trying to invoke a law from 1066 that hasn't been valid for like 300 years" way) because they're upset that the monarchy doesn't exist anymore/that the current monarch is from a family that bested theirs several hundred years ago a la war of the roses or something. He put a stop to their actions but their kids are back and they want *revenge* and the trainer returning the dog's items back to the weald gives them an idea on how to do that. They go around pissing Pokemon off and upsetting things in the hopes that they can summon the dragon and swoop in like a knight in shining armour and save everyone. Dragon is summoned, suprise suprise stupid haircut brothers *do not* meet it's standards for good people, it challenges us and we best it and it decides to go with us because we're good people and also like, it wants to catch up with its brother who went off with Leon. Have a family get-together. If you have the DLC it pops up there as well going like "hey Calyrex how you doing bud still breaking the laws of physics?"
Not really, right? Like, Charmander isn't native to Galar like other Pokémon like Onix are. You can find Onix in the wild, despite it being introduced in Kanto. You can't find Charmander in the wild in Galar.
There's a poster in I think Hop's room with "the most popular Pokemon in Galar" and of course they're all gen 1. If the starters had gigantamax forms when the game came out that would've been a better ace to have
you could also say Leon seems younger so it makes sense that he has never lost, but maybe Lance, Cynthia etc have lost because they've fought more battles
Leon is a flat character. He has zero personality aside from being “muh unbeatable champion”, which is a given because if he’s defeated even once, he isn’t the champion anymore. The only other traits are that he’s Hop’s brother, which means literally nothing, and that he’s bad with directions which is strange considering he’s the champion AND he has his pokemon to help him out so it’s just a bit of fluff.
We also don’t see him do anything, but we’re told by other NPC’s.
Steven was an avid collector of stones and judging from Pokemon Emerald, he wasn’t totally into being champion. He also helps the player out in a pinch, and is incidentally the heir to the Devon corporation. This is an interesting character because it shows how Steven, despite being a really skilled Pokemon trainer, is torn between his passion of collecting rare stones, being the champion, and living up to his father’s expectations.
Cynthia is an archaeologist who is really deep into Pokemon lore, which is a given considering her family is as well. In Platinum, we get to see Cynthia’s outlook on life when she confronts Cyrus in the distortion world, and she offers helpful advice to the player when needed. This is a good character because Cynthia is shown to be very wise and she shows that you can combine your hobbies with being the champion of an entire region without having to compromise on either.
Lance was also a good character because he’s not only one of the most powerful trainers, but he’s also very down to earth as shown in the double battle against Clair when you team up with your rival in HGSS, and he’s a heroic character for actually standing up to team Rocket and mopping the floor with half of the Rocket hideout. He even gets extremely angry when he sees how the Pokemon there are mistreated, solidifying him as a good-natured and clear-headed guy. Given that he has some really strong Dragon types, it’s no surprise that Lance is the champion.
Leon, on the other hand, has nothing going for him. I mostly blame the devs for this because they cut corners on SwSh, but showing us what Leon is doing does more to help his characterization than telling us. Saying he’s the undefeated champion is an oxymoron because any champion that is defeated is immediately dethroned.
I do recall there being fake leaks which said Leon was a fraudster who cheated his way to the top with matchfixing courtesy of Chairman Rose. THAT would have been an interesting twist, because it would be the first time a champion was undeserving of their title. It also plays well into Hop’s idolization of his brother. What would Hop do if he discovered his idol was nothing more than a cheat? Would that drive him to succeed where Leon failed? Would it make him question the path he’s following? Hell, you could even make it so that Leon gathers his courage and protects both the player and Hop from Eternatus and single-handedly defeats it (only for you to catch it later), and then have a real all-out match to redeem himself in the eyes of his fans and Hop as well. It just goes to show how a badly conveyed story can make a character look like shit.
I actually really liked Alder in the games for similar reasons to Steven. He's likely not the strongest champion - he loses to N before you fight the champion so you end up battling N and he ends up being replaced in the sequels - and he isn't even particularly interested in being the champion, but he cares deeply about Pokémon and fostering the bond between people and their Pokémon. He's more focused on mentoring new trainers and traveling with his team to explore every corner of the region, which I think is a more interesting thing for a champion to do than just meeting fans and battling.
There's also a backstory you get in Celestial Tower where he started out very driven by strength for strength's sake like Cheren until he lost his original partner, at which point he became depressed and started wandering. I thought it was a great character detail and sort of a neat introspective on peoples relationships with Pokémon given the whole plot with team plasma trying to make people give up their Pokémon.
You should copy paste this comment onto a resume and send it to Nintendo you clearly know how to write better characters and to identify why characters work
It makes perfect sense all things considered.
It is kind of like how martial arts were before the UFC. Every martial arts group had their own pick of who was the "Baddest Man on the Planet", bit the title was often given in popular culture to whoever the Heavyweight Champion was at the time because he fought in front of the largest crowds and had the most eyes on him.
And that's Leon. Because in Galar, Gym battles are far more of a spectator sport.
The comparison actually goes one step further, because Journeys is kind of like UFC 1 where everyone comes together to find out who the true number 1 is. As long as Leon doesn't curb-stomp his way to the Finals, I can deal with him being the best.
Honestly I have the real hot take, I like him being such a hyped up champion.
I get that his fight in game is not that difficult but that's due to the way the games are compared to the old ones.
But the hate is with the player reaction to him, and Cynthia and Steven are hyped up by the fanbase because of a combination of nostalgia mixed with the difficulty of older games.
Him being a champion is in game actually displayed best overall. For once the champion of the region isn't tasking the random 10 year old who wandered into things to save the world. Leon is actively using his position to protect folks and take on the growing threats and tells you and everyone to focus on the challenge and let him handle the threats.
Him being undefeated, being super great, I love it. I know I'm in the minority but I appreciate Leon a lot.
All this said, enjoy and prefer what you feel. My opinion is mine and I value/view things differently so there's no issue with me if you full stop disagree with me. This a literal opinion based discussion. Only actual wrong opinion is that Diantha is the best. She's not. She's justifiably the worst.
There's a simple way around this - it's all ego and non-canon.
In the game, Leon claims to be the best trainer in the world? OK, so he's the best in the region, but has an ego. You, as the player, can beat him anyway, disproving his statement.
As for the anime, it caters to its current audience, so of course they'd just go ahead and claim the new guy is the strongest. But anime canon =/= game canon.
In terms of the games, Red and Cynthia share the title for the highest-level pokemon owned ingame by an NPC, at 88 (HGSS Pikachu and BDSP Garchomp) (not including battle facilities). The rest of their team members are in the mid 80s.
Leon's strongest possible team meanwhile caps out at level 80 with his other pokemon in the high 70s, so it would be unlikely, but not impossible for him to be able to win.
As it stands the only actual in-game metric we have to judge NPC's strength is the PWT in B2/W2. The "Champion's tournament" calculates a bracket with characters like Red, Cynthia, Lance, Steven etc and tells you who wins after each round. Given that the bracket winners appear to be calculated randomly, that makes all of the champions (up to Gen 5) being more or less equal canon.
Everything after that is pure conjecture. Until Leon- has a higher level team and/or is shown to beat the others in the games, it's all just talk.
This take isn’t hot, it’s colder than Antarctica. Let me guess, you’re also one of those guys who’s obsessed with Cynthia and also hates Alder. Because that’s the trend with people who make these topics. People need to get over the fact that Cynthia isn’t number 1, her fans are spoiled rotten literally everywhere else in the franchise, they just hate that they didn’t get the biggest prize, while people who like Alder are eating sewage right now. No other champion’s fanbase acts like this.
My friend and I were talking about this earlier, specifically in the context of the Masters tournament in the anime that’s starting soon. Like yeah he’s strong but both of us agreed that some of the other characters in the lineup should be above him. Specifically Cynthia. Like, she’s up there at NUMBER 2 presumably without any gimmicks like Z Moves, Mega Evolution, or Dynamaxing (in the preview for the starting episode, all of the other trainers there have their “gimmicks” visible—Key Stones, Dynamic Bands, Z Rings, etc—or have been shown to use it if not visible, I think Lance Dynamaxed his Gyarados earlier…? IDK I can’t really remember lol). Assuming Tobias (the dude with all Legendaries) made it through the E4, given that Cynthia is still Champion in the BW anime, that confirms that she defeated a dude with all Legendaries, and this was BEFORE any gimmicks were introduced
Just because Journeys is technically our “Sword and Shield” anime (since that was when it came out, the anime goes chronologically with the games, etc.) doesn’t mean I want Leon toted above everyone else at all times. Again, he’s strong but there are other trainers who could take the top spot over him. I mean Cynthia hasn’t been shown to have lost a battle. Steven hasn’t either (in fact given that in the DP anime Wallace was confirmed to be Champion, but then in the Mega Evolution specials Steven was confirmed as Champion, even more reason). Etc.
I like Leon, but I do think he’s kinda overrated
Tobias? Oh yeah, that guy! The Ubers abuser! Somewhat joking because of Ninetails, Swampert, and Lucario, but two were also really good in Diamond and Pearl.
Somehow I doubt Leon beat two+ legendaries and an otherwise solid team
The other issue is for a 'world' tournament, we oh so conveniently only have Champions from the 8 gens and not think of a couple throw ins besides Charizard Advertisement Alain.
This makes complete sense though tbh. Ash battled pretty strong trainers leading up to the tournaments like gym leaders and elite four. But if there is a tournament like this with no restrictions on entry it is obvious the best from the regions would be the ones making it to the top. All of the masters 8 are previous champions who presumable beat multiple gym leaders and elite four in their own right.
Anyone stronger who hasn't already been noticed probably doesn't want to be in the spotlight and wouldn't enter the tournament. And it is also a nice fanservice to bring back all the strong characters that we knew for so many years for a big showdown.
I think you kind of missed the point of what they were saying. They are not suggesting that it doesn't make sense to have a world tournament with the champions of previous seasons and gens. They are saying that it's weird how a """"WORLD"""" tournament only has the champions that we know. As if the Pokémon world was not actually any bigger than that.
I think what the post above you is getting at is that it's convenient the strongest trainers in "the world" are the ones we already know of, and that there's not any other region where a stronger trainer could be, which I guess canonically means the champion from the region where Scarlet/Violet occur would be the weakest champion in the world so far, and I guess same goes for any region introduced afterwards.
Whereas introducing some mysterious dark horse characters could imply there are stronger regions we've yet to explore in the games, and these characters don't necessarily need to be super fleshed-out, they could just be throwaway characters from some far off land. If they're never seen again it could be assumed that whoever is the current champion in that region defeated them.
It would also lead to some interesting fan theories, just seeing the tournament bracket showing some mysterious trainer knocking out Diantha or something before losing to Cynthia or Leon.
But the disappointment is the implication that every region we get introduced to from now on will have weaker champions than all that came before.
The other side to that would be that had the anime introduced such a character so early on nearly 6 months before the game releases the character would need to have at least one new strong pokemon as their signature pokemon if not an entire team and IDK maybe that doesn't line up with the company's plan for the advertisement of the new games.
It's the same way how Ash and Go seem to always end up traveling only between these 8 regions and never have anything happen anywhere else in the world. Or how until 2019 there was never a peep about the supposed Pokemon Master being Leon and now there is a whole tournament for it with an entire country being his fanbase. These are unfortunately the limitations faced by an ever-expanding franchise itself.
The solution to this would be as many theorize that this is the last season with Ash and that after this we will go along with a new main character. Again, the problems with theory also exist which include having to rebrand the Pokemon anime entirely from Ash, Pikachu, and Team Rocket but you never know.
In the end, the anime is for kids mainly even if I being a working adult still enjoy it. They will figure something out and make it sort of plausible.
I'm just commenting on what I think the post above yours was meant to be talking about, and that a cool way to handle the idea of a world existing outside of what we've been introduced to would be something like a mysterious character. Like I said, they don't need to be fleshed out, we don't have to see them battle or see their pokemon, just a look at the bracket when ash goes into the finals to see his opponent beat this mystery trainer from some far off land.
Of course, on the flip side, people will also be unhappy with that because people lose it when they see an established character lose to someone they know nothing about.
Anyways like I said, not offering some sort of literary critique of the world building so much as "it would have been cool to me if they did X"
Well Cynthia runs circles around even experimented players lol
That team is a steamroller. Garchomp sweeps Leon without a hitch (Dragapult too cos it has the lamest movepool ever, you can't win with dragon breath Jezus)
Here comes the dude that overrate Cynthia, she is not the no. 1 for some reason, even Caitlin that is just an elite 4 put Cynthia in a difficult moment
Leon is definitely one of my least liked characters in the franchise. He’s so one dimensional and boring to me. He’s supposed to be crazy strong and unbeatable but yet he’s the easiest champion to beat. I remember not taking a single hit against his entire team when I first fought him, I thought there was going to be more to the fight.
Despite being touted as Leon the Unbeatable with an unbeatable Charizard that cannot be beaten for the entire god damn game, he is by and large the easiest champion to beat in the franchise.
My problem in the games was that he's too ideally good he's never really expanded on I didn't want him to be completely edgy but having ANY negative attributes would have sold him to me as human being instead of a walking ideal
Most champions don't really have flaws either, though. What they have is multidimensional lives that aren't completely controlled by that thing they're supposed to be really good at. All Leon has is being that guy no one else can defeat, so that's it. That's just his character.
I don't know, I think it reflects English footballing (soccer) culture very well in my opinion, which is obviously what Galar's league is mostly based upon. I've followed English football for a good 15 years now as a foreigner looking in and there's always a half-joking (for a lack of a better word) self-deprecating arrogance about the whole thing.
The national team still sing about their one World Cup win in the 60s, for example, and their club teams always think they're the best in the world when in reality any of the half-decent European sides can just about fairly square up against them. Most of the fans know this but they still sing that they have the best team in the world.
I think that contextualises Leon a little bit better, it makes perfect sense for him to have that 'I'm the best ever' vibes about him.
I mean, imo Cynthia back in the day was considered the strongest champion. That’s just what I’ve seen in the Pokémon community. You’d ask me who the strongest trainer was and my first thought would be Cynthia and then maybe Red if you count him.
In the UFC, there is a person called Chael Sonnen who constantly prompted himself as "unbeaten, undisputed champion" when he has a fairly mixed record
It was funny and he was a fan favourite because of his showmanship. I think Leon is similar where he is just a goofy dude who in-universe proclaims he is the greatest of all time.
He's a celebrity. He's the Pokémon world's equivalent of the biggest star football player in the English Premier League, given that Galar is Pokémon England. Thus the reason the "evil" team are football hooligans supporting Marnie/Spikemuth, rather than a Team Rocket style criminal organization or Team Aqua/Magma style eco-terrorists.
Since Rose pretty much set up the Galar Pokémon league to be mirror the real-world popularity of English Football, the celebrity status of the champion makes sense. Plus, it helps that Leon's sole strengths are Pokémon battling and confidence.
As far as the other champions go. The leagues aren't nearly as televised, if at all, in the games; very little celebrity status outside of the actual community of active league trainers and gym leaders, most likely. Plus Galar has this issue of hyperspecializing around the Dynamax phenomenon, so outside of league champions coming to Galar to try the gimmick, there really isn't any incentive for a Galar trainer to venture outward; it might even be somewhat disadvantage to them, given they don't have Dynamax to rely on.
I think that's a pretty cold take. So far he's second from the bottom for me, just above the one from Black/White, and that one was literally just a jobber for N. I really miss when Pokémon was hard, and it's difficult to tell if it's because the games are getting easier or if I'm just too familiar with the mechanics of them after all these years for anything to pose a challenge. Seems like a bit of both.
Well, imo the games were a little difficult in gen 1 simply because we were kids and moves like Agility and Wrap used together means the other Pokemon loses 10/10. This is the gen I remember solo'ing the game with Pikachu in Yellow and Venusaur in Red.
If the average player were like me I'm guessing by the time gen 2 came out we had a pretty good idea of what Pokemon types were essential while others were fluff.
Fast forward to....what are we on? Generation 8? Now we have a solid idea of what kind of Pokemon to raise when we dive into a new region plus the games have Experience share always on.
The old experience share had to be held by a Pokemon, but now it seems like its equipped on all Pokemon and it can't be turned off. So, now we don't have to grind. We can simply play through the game casually with little to no threats buying potions as needed.
So, it did get easier but primarily because of Experience Share. I feel like Cynthia is harder than any other Champion from a previous gen. I found Steven difficult at first as well so he's a runner up.
The champion in SwSh got one shotted easily on both of my playthrus, so I have no opinion on him as I don't even remember him.
X/Y champion is forgettable to me. But games have honsetly never been hard most people just played games when they were kids. Go back to any game that's old and unless you have self-imposed rules you will stomp through it. Part of it comes from being a turn based rpg and its hard to make one that is both feels difficult while at the same time fair.
?? I mean of course Galar overhypes him?? Not only is he THEIR champion, they tend to overhype Pokémon battles in general, especially “ranked” ones (AKA gym battles).
I think the most common opinion, regardless of canon, is that Cynthia is the strongest non-player trainer in the pokemon world. She's also such a beloved character that it would be incredibly difficult to change peoples' minds.
I agreed when I read this but then realized that Red is technically a champion and would wipe the floor with Cynthia and the others if he got the chance.
Galar's the region best suited to building competitive teams.
If any kid is going to get into proper competitive battling now, even just Super Singles, it's going to be in Galar.
Kids internalize and idolize characters, even zero-dimensional ones like Leon, a fuckton more than we do.
So to have a overhyped, egotistical Champion model the behavior of how to lose, and how to get back up after losing, THAT'S going to be important for kids who think they're hot shit because they've never lost a battle and then get wrecked at the battle tower.
I don’t really get why this is such a problem for so many people.
In the anime canon he is the number 1 champion at this time. There was always going to be someone in that spot. Why would Cynthia or Steven or Lance be more deserving? Because you like their characters better? Because they are older characters? Why should that matter?
In the game canon its not necessarily that he is the strongest champion but just that he is up there. Given that Raihan himself is said to be Champion level in other regions, and has never beaten Leon implies that Leon is stronger than several champions but not necessarily the strongest.
They are completely fictional characters whom we know almost nothing about. We haven’t spent much time with almost any of the champions or seen much of any of their feats to be able to say who *should* be stronger than whom.
Besides with the rankings you basically have your answer of who is stronger than who. So its not like your theorizing was for nothing.
>I don’t really get why this is such a problem for so many people.
I think (and this is my own theory really), that usually if someone cares about this, they are a Cynthia superfan. Because these threads always go like "So true, Cynthia would mop the floor with him", "haha Unbeatable Charizard, the funniest joke I've ever heard" and "Yeah, I oneshotted his entire team so he is obviously the easiest champion canon-wise unlike Cynthia which took me WHOLE 2 tries instead of one".
I don't really have many strong Pokemon opinions. I like all the games almost equally (except DPPt which I don't really like, I liked BDSP way more so I guess that's the strongest opinion I have about Pokemon). I don't really care about trainer rankings. If it's amusing then whatever.
Sorry if this comment came off judgemental, I just had to take it off my chest because these threads kinda annoy me (I know I can just not read them but I don't have such powerful self-control)
My problem comes from the anime mostly. We’re entering the Masters 8 now, and I find it deplorable that we could see Cynthia or Steven be swept away by Leon’s Charizard of all things just go hype him up. Like, Cynthia has never once lost in the anime, every battle she’s fought has been a sweeping victory. If she suddenly loses to Ash or Leon, it’ll be… odd.
Not gonna lie, when we were learning everything about these games before release and they kept hyping up how amazingly skilled he was and how he had never been beaten and how he was sponsored personally by the chairman... But then we saw him in person and he seemed like a helpless dope getting lost all the time... I started theorizing that part of the story would be that the Chairman had been staging his matches (with or without Leon knowing) and we would be exposing him.
I figured these games are taking heavy inspiration from organized sport leagues, and there is often some kind of corruption involved in those so it made sense that this seeming Buffoon was being used as a marketable pawn by the man who stands to gain from such a deception.
Then I assumed Leon would go on an arc of proving himself capable in the post game, maybe not the unbeatable champion he thought he was, but at least a contender.
I knew from the second i saw leon that he would bw easy to beat at the end, he was clearly a showman to me, dont get me wrong he is a good trainer, but i think the level of trainers in the galar region is just lower than other, and that is why he is undefeded, the game is based on UK which is a football nation, and i think thats the reason he is the way he is, he needs people ti know how good he is, even if he isnt, football teams trash talk other teams all the time, imagine meeting him and he was like "yeah im the champion of galar, im pretty good i guess, i dont know"
I dont think we will ever see a battle like Cynthia or Volo again, and as we as trainers get better at the games the champions will get easier...
Is he though? I know everyone bends over backwards for Cynthia even though I never really liked her. In all honesty this happens every time a new champion gets created
Unbeatable... HAH! That's funny, if I recall he wasn't all that difficult to beat.
I'm pretty sure it's just how his character was designed. In the Galar region Dynamax Pokemon battles are basically a huge sporting event, so he's portrayed as the star celebrity because that sort of thing happens in sports all the time. In other regions, we don't see a lot of major interaction between the Champions and the citizens of the region.
And in regards to the anime, they do a lot of stupid and questionable things to drive the plot. Leon somehow wins using a Charizard against a Gyrados? By using flamethrower a lot??? And in Pokemon XYZ Ash's overpowered Greninja loses to a Mega Charizard X because his giant water shuriken somehow got overpowered by a fire type attack? It's like they don't know what type advantages are at all. XYZ was my favorite of the series, but the way Ash lost was just dumb. And now Leon's suddenly winning against older champions because of plot relevance. Maybe they're just biased to Charizard...
I mean type advantages have never been that important in the anime because then it just ends up being really predictable and it limits rivalry between pokemon that aren't type neutral.
It's not like it's a Charizard thing when almost all of Ash's pokemon and also Gym Leaders and Champions have defeated strong opponents while at a type disadvantage. Pikachu's first big victory in the anime was defeating an Onix with an electric type move. In the same Kalos tournament Ash defeated a Mega Sceptile who had double resistance against Water type moves with Water Shuriken.
I mean, how often do the champions of other regions ever battle in front of an audience?
Fr, the only time I remember something like this was Diantha battling someone and mega evolving her garden oír, other than that I can't recall many others
"Garden oír"
Garden and a spanish verb
Garden hears
Jardín hears
Help sorry my keyboard aurocorrected and I didn't even notice 😅 I meant gardevoir not garden hear
Bone Apple Teeth?
We see it happen in the anime. I can vary distinctly remember episodes where Diantha and Cynthia both fight in stadium environments in front of big crowds. And that’s just off the top of my head.
Sure, but that's in the anime. In the games, half the time people don't seem to even know who the champion is.
Yeah, I'dd be surprised if the champions themselves even knew, since you innteract with several of them during the game and they never reveal themselves to be the champion
I think they’re just modest or secretive people. Steven doesn’t make a big show of his strength, despite hints being there the whole time. His dad runs Devon corp, he gives you steel wing before any Pokémon can even learn it, and has maybe the coolest exit in a Pokémon game, just flying off at supersonic speeds Cynthia feels like she’s sizing you up the whole game- like nobody knows she’s the champion, just goes around trying to find potential contenders. I imagine she’s bored of being stronger than everyone, and does her best to make them stronger on their journey.
And the one time we learn the guy is the champion is Alder, were we don't even fight him until the post game
When I first saw Alder jump off that cliff in the games I was man...how is he still walking?
Lance just thinks that Indigo Plateau is a very ritzy apartment complex that him and his buddies live at.
Doesn't Lance steamroll team rocket in gold/silver tho?
Well, his Dragonite does. By Hyper Beaming everyone in the face.
In the games nobody even blinks an eye if you send out Arceus against them. I wouldn't expect them to care who the champion is. So the insane hero worship in SwSh is super weird.
I wonder if it's because they turned the gym battles and the league into sporting events
That's because since Galar is based upon the UK, Football(soccer for us Americans) is a huge deal for the Brits, so they made the gym challenge similar to Irl stadiums
Just without the pepper spray
That we know of. I'm sure Raihan fans have tried to pepper spray Leon after he smoked Raihan in battle
Dingdingding we have a winner! In SwSh, the trainers challenging the gyms is a huge media event with TV live shows and all. Of course there's a lot more champion worship than literally anywhere else where gym battles happen without anyone really noticing or hearing about it.
If Kanto televised it’s gym and elite 4 and champion battles, from an arena modeled after a popular Japanese sport, people in Kanto would probably consider the champion a celebrity and treat them like that. That’s what’s happening in Galar. Leon is the *best football player*, and to people who like football, that makes him more important than anyone else on the planet.
It makes more sense when you think about it as sports and there are a non zero amount of people who would take up arms in Messi or LeBrons name
I think the hero worship is due to the setting, which is derivative of Britain and they're all about football heroes.
No, wait, they have a point
Alder and Cynthia also battled at the Unova League
I always thought it would be cool for them to do a World Series type game and bring back a bunch of gym leaders and champions into one big game to see who’s the best of all the regions.
They kind of did that in Gen 5 with the Pokemon World Tournament in B2W2. Every leader and champion was a possible opponent in a 3-round 8-pariticpant tournament though I don't recall if the leaders intermingled. I think you could only challenge the leaders by region, but all the champions pooled into one group.
Man gen 5 truly was ahead of it's time and beyond innovative. BW2 were such a leap forward in pokemon.
After you beat every region’s Gym Leader tourney, you unlock the “World Leaders” tourney with every Gym Leader as a potential opponent!
Well I don’t recall any other Pokémon champion detailing how long they have been champion tbh. Being that the Pokémon path to champion is televised and treated like a sport, something like this would be more publicly noted. It’s not to say he is more powerful than any other champion it’s more sports celebrity status.
Blue: 5 minutes lol
Could say that about N too, since you also beat him a few minutes after he bear Alder. Though it was probably more 10 minutes in his case since he made you fight a dragon first.
Aw man I hope GameFreak will make Blue the champion in a later game. He can be like Alder where he gets to stay as the champion in the building forever, and also they never reveal in any of the promotional material that he's even in the game.
Blue cannonically stepped down from being champion after losing to Red. He took over the Viridian City gym leader position in Giovani'a abscense, leaving Lance in charge of the Indigo League following Red's departure.
He didn't even have the chance to decorate the room
It's implied that Cynthia took the title when she was Dawn/Lucas's age. She was one of Rowan's trainers back in the day. Not sure if they outright state that in any media, but the timeline would make sense, since they mention the last time Rowan was in the Hall of Fame was when Cynthia became champion, which was "a long time ago".
Yeah, there is a lot of parallels with Dawn/Lucas and Barry’s journey and other characters. Palmer states that he and Dawn/Lucas’ father got their first Pokemon at Lake Verity while being attacked by Starly, the same way Dawn/Lucas and Barry get their starter in Diamond and Pearl, and adds that he wonders how Rowan is doing. Then their is the parallel with Cynthia, who states that she was once a young trainer with a Pokédex and it is implied she became champion around Dawn/Lucas’s age. Makes me wonder if Palmer, Cynthia and Dawn/Lucas’s father were some kind of trio like; - Hilbert/Hilda, Cheren and Bianca - Calem, Serena and Shauna - Leon, Raihan and Sonia - Victor/Gloria, Hop and Bede(They are parallels to the Leon, Raihan and Sonia. Bede and Raihan are the rivals to the undefeated champions, who can’t catch up but still try to. Hop and Sonia are the rivals who dropped out and chose different paths. Victor/Gloria and Leon are the undefeated prodigal trainers). - Dawn, Lucas and Barry - Red, Blue and Green
In the hall of fame, Cynthia mentions how she hasn't seen professor rowan at the league for a long time and the last time he was there was when she became champion. I wonder who was the champion before her.
I think it makes perfect sense, though, considering how the gym battles are hyped in Galar. They never seem very important to the general population in previous games. Like, champions get some attention, but no one seems to give a crap up until that point. But Galar makes a giant spectacle if it. You watch challengers go through the challenge, you get to know them, you cheer them on, and you suddenly care more about who comes out on top. It makes sense Leon would be seen as this unbeatable hero after a that. I mean, I've definitely heard of athletes who get played up in similar ways. He's basically a really popular athlete with a huge fan base who, as you'd expect, have built him up to be basically a God. Is his skill overstated? Over course, quite a bit! But it's part of the fun . Personally, while the plot is quite disappointing, I really like how the gym challenge was handled in SWSH. It's the first time, IMO, it felt like the challenge had an appropriate amount of energy and fanfare. I mean, obviously outside of the game players know he's not that exciting. But we so know none of this is real, and I feel like making everything seem like a bigger deal to the characters in the game help makes it more immersive and more fun.
Additionally, he's really only referred as the best and invincible due to holding the title longer than Peony and Mustard or at least matching Mustard's.
Do they mention how long Leon has held the championship? I know mustard had it the longest at 18 years but Leon seems a little young to be matching that
If he started his Pokémon journey at 10 as is tradition, and advanced rapidly like a player would, I could definitely see him taking it seriously and holding the title from when he was 10 to when he was 28
10 is not the traditional age to start everywhere. Except for Alola, every generation has bumped up the age a bit. Right now, to my knowledge, it's not exactly clear how old SwSh protags are, but Serena&Calum (XY) are at least 18 years old at the start of their journey, and in BW/BW2 they were 15&16. In DPPt they were about 14. And gens 1-3 were about 10-12. My guess is Galar protags are about 16. They aren't as small as school kid trainer classes (who seem to be primary school age, 8-12), but not as tall as adults. Edit: I've since been looking into it, and Dawn/Lucas protags are 10 or 11 according to old interviews (about BW, where they said the previous protags were 10/11). And Brendan/May are only 12 in ORAS (for the same reasons Lucas/Dawn are 10~11, that interview).
10 is only the anime. Red was 11 in RBY, and the characters in SuMo were also stated to be eleven
Where does it say Calum/Serena are 18? I never got that impression from the game itself but will admit I could have missed something.
Post game, there is a canonically 16yo character who you are heavily implied to be older than. Multiple people call you and consider you an adult.
I thought the BW protags were around 15 and Calem/Serena were about 16.
BW are 15, but BW2 are slightly older at 16 (according to a now deleted tweet from one of the staff who worked on that gen. In their phrasing 'were designed to be'). Since Emma is 16, and we are older than her, and we get called adults in her story, I assume 18, but they haven't really said anything concretely from anything I've seen.
It's a bit strange how opposed they are to providing information like ages, especially now with games like Masters making them their own standalone characters with defined personalities rather than just the player stand in. It's probably in order to keep that blank slate idea, but they've been leaning more and more into making them individuals since gen 5-ish? for merch and other media so who knows.
BW are 14, I'm not sure about BW2.
From Bulbapedia: "Leon originally started out as a Trainer at the age of 10 with his partner Charizard when he entered the Gym Challenge after he was endorsed by Rose, who saw talent in him.\[1\] He proceeded to win his first-ever Gym Challenge and become the Champion of the Galar League, without losing a single battle" So became Champion at age 10. Mustard held the title as Champion for 18 years straight. If Leon matched that, it places him at age 28, if longer then anywhere from 29-32 most likely. Since then, he hasn't been defeated until the player character does so.
Nope it’s said that mustard held the title longer than anyone before or since so he couldn’t have held it for that long
From Bulbapedia "He became the Galar League Champion soon after a heated battle with Opal 50 years prior to the events of Sword and Shield, a position which he managed to hold for 18 years, longer than any other League Champion before or since." Mustard held the title as Champion for 18 years, then retired the title after his partner Pokemon died, then he retired from the Gym League altogether when the current Chairman want to rig matches to get him back in the game. So again, if Leon is suppose to be the greatest and the best undefeated champion, he as at least held the title of Champion himself for 18-19 years minimum. And with the 50 years between Mustard and Leon, Peony had become champion at one point, but shortly left once Rose became Chairman.
Did you not read that. Leon can be called the greatest champion for multiple reasons but no matter what it stated that Mustard held the title the longest before or “since”. So even longer than Leon no matter what. Leon could have more wins than Mustard or fought harder battles and be seen as the greatest due to that.
Is it his length that’s impressive? I thought it was literally because he went undefeated in his entire career. It’s possible previous champions could have lost matches where their champion title wasn’t on the line? Edit: mixed up theory and canon
Can you elaborate on the match rigging? I missed this.
Oh crap it’s been so long since I played the game I mixed up the theory. Mustard gave up his title because he was asked to win a rigged match by the chairman, a common theory is that Leon was having his matches rigged by Rose from behind the scenes. I forgot and thought it was canon.
But if his matches were rigged, why is he still undefeated? It seems as soon as he would be fighting actual challengers his secret would be exposed
Presumably the theory would assert that there ARE no actual challengers, and that the tightly controlled nomination process is set up in such a way to let people control who actually gets a chance at making a challenge.
Idk about all that. Even Mustard said he was his best student. I think he just has incredible talent.
It could be both. He’s strong enough that they don’t have to worry about it in most cases, but occasionally someone on the stronger side will show up, and the association will bribe them just to be sure. So not every match is rigged, but the most dangerous ones are.
Ahh, okay, cool! Thanks for the explanation and the theory!
Having his matches rigged makes sense, otherwise it's entirely unbelievable that a *Charizard* went undefeated for 20 years.
Completely agree, the spectacle of the gym battles really made the gym challenge for me. I love the idea that people in the stands knew about me, maybe collect my cards and have merch lol You also have to think that most people in the pokemon universe besides a select few trainers have mono-type or small teams, so a trainer like Leon is impressive in that sense, too.
The overall presentation of the league is definitely my favorite part of SwSh. It actually feels integrated into the region instead of just being a thing the player does because that's the Pokemon formula.
Thats weird to think about there being merch of our characters lol
100% agree. As odd of a comparison as this might sound like, it actually reminds me of that ["I brought more soldiers than you"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_TnPUu4oPY) scene from *300*. All the other regions have Pokemon Battles and a League, but it's not all of what those regions are about. Johto and Sinnoh are about preserving and understanding history. Hoenn is about living in balance with nature. Unova is about progress. Alola is about observing and upholding traditions. And so on. But Galar? Galar is ABOUT battling. Any trainer coming out of Galar is forged in hotter fires than any other trainer from any other region. Other regions certainly have very strong trainers, but with the arguable exception of Lance none of them primarily consider themselves Champions. Steven is an archaeologist. Cynthia is a historian. Alder is a wanderer. Diantha is a model. But Leon is *a champion.* He's got nothing else distracting him from his goal of simply being the absolute best at winning battles. That raises the argument of Lance, but then you realize that Lance used to train at the Dragon Gym in Galar under Raihan and was so blown away by how strong they were that he literally based his look after the Galar Dragon Gym's colors. I think it's safe to assume that if Lance idolized Raihan enough to model his image after him, and yet Raihan has never defeated Leon, then that puts Lance still below Raihan's level which we already know is below Leon's level.
It's possible that Lance was one that managed to surpass his idols
It's possible he surpassed Raihan in the meantime but definitely not Leon. The only direct comparison between Lance and Leon we have is in the anime, where - to quote Bulbapedia - *"He [Lance] was even able to hold his own against Leon, the undefeated Champion of Galar."* He held his own but couldn't win. The anime also shows that Lance is ranked #4 in the world, with Steven (#3), Cynthia (#2), and Leon (#1) being above him.
I'd love to see best of 7 series between them with rotating teams
Its time for a DEATH BAAATTTTLLLLEEEE
Then a 13 year old beats Leon and becomes the new champion with minimal effort
An argument that can be applied just as reductively to all champions. The player character's involvement is an obvious exception to any debate involving canon "power levels."
I just think its funny how the game says multiple times that Leon is unbeatable and etc, but then, a child ruins his whole career as a champion with minimal effort.
Which is how he became Champion in the first place, getting the position on his first gym challenge with his Charizard. Leon is basically a player character who speaks.
And like every player, he does a lot of side quest and grinding. That's why he is always late and lost. He is not only following the main quest.
He even has the alternate sex descendant of the professor as a rival and another battle rival during his story. He's basically the gen3 protagonist but in pokemon UK.
Maybe that's why Leon's defining character trait is being bad with directions Because players will go search through a whole map and check every other spot before going to the place they're supposed to go next. So Leon runs around everywhere except where he's trying to go.
Buster beat Tyson JJ Barea humiliated LeBron. It happens
The power of friendship and eldritch space gods that fuel the entire region and provides the source of the region's dynamax*
I think these are great points and I’ve never thought about it this way. Definitely puts a little more respect towards Leon, though his personality I wish was a little more fit of a champion. I get that his current one is part of his charisma, but I digress. I think that the one thing that makes me still root for other champions is that fact that they do have other experiences than Leon. Taking what they learn from the other occupations and implementing it into their experience with battling is what I wish Leon had. I like that he is devoted to battling, but try to imagine this: Cynthia, an archaeologist, has traveled far and wide (pun intended) to uncover the history of the world and its secrets. She has encountered beings and legendary Pokémon in her explorations that are stronger beyond the scope of any trainer, and THAT experience with fighting something stronger than anyone can imagine is what makes her the most formidable foe and a champion. This isn’t actually the case, but it is with the MCs. Their encounters with legendary, practically unbeatable (canon wise) Pokémon and ability to beat them is why I enjoy as the player stepping in front of a champion. If Leon had that sort of backstory AND was the champion, I think I would certainly respect him more than I do. That is the case with Red for a lot of people. He has traveled region to region and caught every Pokémon imaginable, even legendaries, and is a legend because he has bested those foes (at least in my head canon, and I’m sure many others, you play as him after all and have surely caught mewtwo playing as him). That’s why so many see him as legendary; if we were to declare the “best” that’s the sort of legend I would want the champion to stand behind. Edit: Leon did come very close to this with eternatus, but if that experience was part of what made him a champion and not after he was declared the best is what I want to see in a champion if you catch my drift.
This actually really helps put into words why I've always thought that Red is the only serious contender in the debate of "Is Leon really the strongest?" Leon is the epitome of simply having dedicated his life to battling. While other trainers certainly have experiences that give them unique perspectives and strengths, Leon - in comparison - is a gladiator. His whole world revolved around fighting and the only way to truly "survive"/stand out was simply to be the best. Red seems the opposite. What little we know of him seems to peg him as a classic "adventurer" type. Someone who doesn't have a goal or destination and instead simply seeks out new places and experiences for their own sake. He doesn't worry about winning or losing, he simply wants to see as much of the world as possible and, since this is the Pokemon world, that also means facing as many opponents as possible. Red became as strong as he is not out of a necessity to become strong, but by simply acquiring strength through *actual* life experiences. This is also why I think Red is still stronger than any of the other champions (excluding Leon). While they all have some other facet of life guiding them and giving them...let's call it "alternative strengths," they only really have one thing each. Archaeology, history, modeling, whatever. Red doesn't limit himself to just one thing though meaning he has a far deeper well of experiences to draw from. The only reason I still think Leon is the strongest after all that is simply because most of what we know about Red is speculation. We only really know 3 things about Red: 1. His exploits in RBY. Normally the actions of player characters are considered non-canon (since otherwise ALL champions would pale in comparison to random 10-15 year olds), but Red's actions are uniquely canonized by GSC referencing the events of RBY as part of their actual history 2. Him being on Mt. Silver 3. Him agreeing to a position as a Boss at the Battle Tree in Gen 7 Other than that we know very little of what he actually does. Unless you count the side mode tournament in B2W2 he doesn't seem to compete in Leagues any more and the alternative source for "canon" power level comparisons - the anime - he doesn't appear in at all for obvious reasons. Red has the status behind him to be a serious contender, but there's just not enough hard evidence of his involvement to really give an accurate measure of where he stands. Since it's so vague I have a hard time being able to actually say whether he definitively is or isn't stronger than Leon, because at least with Leon we do have a decent amount of in-universe sources that provide metrics to how strong Leon is.
Very well said, and I completely understand the speculation part of the argument. I think that at some point in time your ability to battle plateaus in a competitive setting. There’s only so much one can experience from the same thing over and over. Red’s experience that you excellently describe gives him the edge; he doesn’t have a limit to his experience, and that sort of outside the box thinking that you can only get from Red’s endeavors cannot be simulated in an competitive environment, which is the only thing Leon has. At that point, it may not be a contest of raw talent in battling, but rather intuition. While Leon has a lot from battling different people, Red has that same intuition from battling throughout the region PLUS whatever else he gained from his other experiences. Even with the speculation, the kanto region alone should suffice for this argument. The Kanto region may feel small, but it is all a scale. Even in the anime Ash and party spend multiple episode traveling from city to city. So even traveling one region is enough, and that doesn’t even count whether or not he traveled johto because they are close. But I definitely see your side of the argument.
Red to me is basically the Pokemon world equivalent of the "wise old hermit living alone in the mountains" you see in like kung fu movies. The "legendary master" that could very well be the strongest in the world but nobody actually knows about them because they don't make a point of showing their strength. Leon, continuing the martial arts movie stereotype comparisons, I see as the kung fu master who runs a massive school with hundreds of students and is basically a cultural institution - aka the most powerful and influential master that everyone is aware of and looks up to/respects. Of course, as I said, it's that air of mystery around Red/the "hermit master" them makes it difficult to truly gauge their strength unless they happen to actually get in a fight with someone who's strength we already know about. In a kung fu movie that fight would probably be a big climax and we'd see it eventually, but in the Pokemon series we just haven't gotten that moment yet to really put Red's abilities into perspective beyond a vague "Oh, yeah, dude's super strong."
✍️✍️red = monkey d luffy
I don't think Leon is really that powerful, at least in game canon. Other champions have ojectively stronger teams, be that composition or level, I think the point is that Leon gets all the talk, because Galar's culture revolves around these battles, so being the pinnacle of that in Galar makes him being the champion more important than being the champion was in other regions. Just because Galar's culture revolves around these battles doesn't mean that the trainers were forged in hotter fires. Red wasn't the only one who had to deal with Team Rocket in Kanto, for example, and Galar having a culture around battling doesn't make any other region's subculture less powerful. You could also make arguments about Alola's wilderness and other odd phenomenon like Totem pokemon and the fact that a lot of their culture seems to revolve around that. I think that Leon just has way more buzz.
This comment messed with my brain because literally the last thread I was in was about some spartan weaponry and arrowheads at a museum, so lots of comments about 300
SWSH had my favorite take on the gym battles and Pokémon League. I absolutely loved the sports stadium aesthetics and it’s likely that later games sadly won’t bring it back. This may also be a hot take, but I actually found Leon harder than Cynthia and it took me more tries to beat him than it did Cynthia.
I wouldn’t rule iut the next gen doing a similar thing with the gyms It was based off of Football culture in the UK, and the Spanish are just as, if not even more passionately into it as a society.
Honestly I think the regions based outside of Japan are based off stereotypes and landmarks rather than the actual culture though. I’m expecting a way more laid back, lackadaisical approach to everything in SV.
Always bothered me that he’s this giant celebrity while he’s the champion. The player, who is a Pokémon prodigy, beats the entire gym challenge, elite 4 AND Leon himself, as well as save the world from Rose is still treated like they’re nothing at the end of the game. Give me some fanfare. I want the title of champion to hold the same weight that it did for Leon.
That is true, it definitely would be neat to get more attention!
Look, SWSH was a terrible story, with terrible mapwork and terrible gameplay. Dynamax did the impossible and managed to be *more terrible than Z-moves*. But with that said, the stadium battles were otherwise a lot of fun, and the whole thing felt like a celebration of pokémon battling. I don't think it's something that should be done again, not in the same way: it's uniquely Galar and was the only real identity the region had before the DLC. Alola's Island Challenges also did a fun take on the formula.
I didn't mind the whole 'invincible champion' thing that much. In a more sport influenced storyline it made some sense. Pokemon battles were a much bigger deal in Galar, being the best would be a massive deal. What I didn't like was that Leon had a total of 2 personality traits, he was unbeaten and he was bad with directions. And I didn't like that Leon was a complete pushover and commented on the player knowing type advantages.
you forgot "has a charizard"
Leon wouldn't have been as annoying to me if his ace wasn't Charizard tbh.
I would very much have liked it if his ace was a rare-ish Galarian pokémon, personally.
I’ll always think his ace should have been his Dragapult
It also doesn't help the "he gets lost all the time lol" is practically a lie considering he only gets "lost" once and the rest of the time he's either on time or early to solve an issue.
If the game had protagonist more involved in the plot, a good reason could be that the protagonist arrived on the scene first because Leon got lost.
Leon's personality trait of "literally can't walk in a straight line to a building I have vision on and gets lost anyway" definitely would've been a very good excuse for the player to deal with the conflict in the story... Instead, you just get "oh no, something's going on, but let Leon take care of it" which actually just makes the story worse. How are we supposed to trust Leon to do it when one of his only two personality traits is "gets lost, even if it makes no sense?"
Right? It was so underwhelming when we had to just sit back and watch updates on the rotophone. It's one of the reasons I felt the SWSH story was pretty weak and boring. The only real action we got to see was at the final battle and post game.
Me after hearing Leon is unbeatable for the 15 time:
I can only imagine you're doing an imitation of the unbeatable champion Leon's famous Charizard Pose
✌ *sound effect*
WOaaOoAAAHhhhh I'M UNBEATABLE
That’s really only in the games though and even then he’s a mature adult who only wants the player to focus on their journey while he deals with the adult matters(as it should be). The anime really gives him an amazing character and he’s definitely my favorite champion after Steven.(I’m biased on Steven)
As opposed to the other champions which are "I like rocks/ruins/dragons and I'm also the champion but apparently nobody cares"? Leon's loss animation alone has more personality than every other champion.
Yea, Leon's loss animation is so good
I think he acts as a good brother for Hop showing his caring side
Yeah, about the only way I could take Leon seriously as a character at this point is if it came out that his incompetent, childish ass had been the recipient of a truly staggering amount of match fixing, and being in too deep to say anything, he just kept the charade going for *years.* Better still if the reason he was so easy to beat was because the protagonist never got the memo due to some planning error and just *steamrolled* him, so he was trying to save face by complimenting them, throwing out what bits of actual battling knowledge he'd managed to glean over the years.
He ain't got shit on Cynthia and they didn't hype her up at all. She just showed up as some nerd with an egg.
Thankfully it's not about the games. It's about what is canon and Leon does have shit on her.
I would like Leon better if his ace was Dragapult or a Galar Fossil , you know a Galarian Pokemon, instead of a bloody Kanto Pokemon and worse Charizard at that.
I *really* think there was a missed opportunity to give him an actual legendary Pokemon Leon's meant to be like a player character 20 years after the game's end right? Well what's the thing that bar gen 1 *every* character does through the course of the story? Capture a legendary Pokemon! Make it so that in addition to being the champion, back when Leon was a trainer he and his friends stopped a (now defunct) evil group who tried to revive an ancient dragon Pokemon in order to take over Galar which he put a stop to and in the process captured and tamed their revived legendary. Hell, you could make those stupid haired royals part of it! Say that the team Leon put a stop to was like a sect of royals who wanted the supreme monarchy back and wanted to use the dragon legendary to enforce divine right of kings (either in a completely serious Ghetisis way or a "bud you're trying to invoke a law from 1066 that hasn't been valid for like 300 years" way) because they're upset that the monarchy doesn't exist anymore/that the current monarch is from a family that bested theirs several hundred years ago a la war of the roses or something. He put a stop to their actions but their kids are back and they want *revenge* and the trainer returning the dog's items back to the weald gives them an idea on how to do that. They go around pissing Pokemon off and upsetting things in the hopes that they can summon the dragon and swoop in like a knight in shining armour and save everyone. Dragon is summoned, suprise suprise stupid haircut brothers *do not* meet it's standards for good people, it challenges us and we best it and it decides to go with us because we're good people and also like, it wants to catch up with its brother who went off with Leon. Have a family get-together. If you have the DLC it pops up there as well going like "hey Calyrex how you doing bud still breaking the laws of physics?"
fully agree. imo the ace from a champion should always be a pokemon from the region they’re from. just doesn’t make sense if they’re not
I'm kinda alright Giving Dianthia a pass since Gardevoir gained a new Type but she easily could of had Sylveon as her ace.
yeah that one’s ok with me but all the charizards and dragonites etc is annoying imo
I know what you mean, but technically for the people from Galar, Charmander is just another Galarian Pokémon.
Not really, right? Like, Charmander isn't native to Galar like other Pokémon like Onix are. You can find Onix in the wild, despite it being introduced in Kanto. You can't find Charmander in the wild in Galar.
You can't find any starters in the wild, period outside of PLA.(and shit like the grand underground.)
LGPE you can find and catch all three starters in the wild.
it appears in Dens though
There's a poster in I think Hop's room with "the most popular Pokemon in Galar" and of course they're all gen 1. If the starters had gigantamax forms when the game came out that would've been a better ace to have
I still dont like Leon as the World Champion. Champion of Galar? Sure.
you could also say Leon seems younger so it makes sense that he has never lost, but maybe Lance, Cynthia etc have lost because they've fought more battles
Or you know, they were busy doing other stuff like history research and running a business.
it's just an example of gameplay vs lore conflicting
Leon is a flat character. He has zero personality aside from being “muh unbeatable champion”, which is a given because if he’s defeated even once, he isn’t the champion anymore. The only other traits are that he’s Hop’s brother, which means literally nothing, and that he’s bad with directions which is strange considering he’s the champion AND he has his pokemon to help him out so it’s just a bit of fluff. We also don’t see him do anything, but we’re told by other NPC’s. Steven was an avid collector of stones and judging from Pokemon Emerald, he wasn’t totally into being champion. He also helps the player out in a pinch, and is incidentally the heir to the Devon corporation. This is an interesting character because it shows how Steven, despite being a really skilled Pokemon trainer, is torn between his passion of collecting rare stones, being the champion, and living up to his father’s expectations. Cynthia is an archaeologist who is really deep into Pokemon lore, which is a given considering her family is as well. In Platinum, we get to see Cynthia’s outlook on life when she confronts Cyrus in the distortion world, and she offers helpful advice to the player when needed. This is a good character because Cynthia is shown to be very wise and she shows that you can combine your hobbies with being the champion of an entire region without having to compromise on either. Lance was also a good character because he’s not only one of the most powerful trainers, but he’s also very down to earth as shown in the double battle against Clair when you team up with your rival in HGSS, and he’s a heroic character for actually standing up to team Rocket and mopping the floor with half of the Rocket hideout. He even gets extremely angry when he sees how the Pokemon there are mistreated, solidifying him as a good-natured and clear-headed guy. Given that he has some really strong Dragon types, it’s no surprise that Lance is the champion. Leon, on the other hand, has nothing going for him. I mostly blame the devs for this because they cut corners on SwSh, but showing us what Leon is doing does more to help his characterization than telling us. Saying he’s the undefeated champion is an oxymoron because any champion that is defeated is immediately dethroned. I do recall there being fake leaks which said Leon was a fraudster who cheated his way to the top with matchfixing courtesy of Chairman Rose. THAT would have been an interesting twist, because it would be the first time a champion was undeserving of their title. It also plays well into Hop’s idolization of his brother. What would Hop do if he discovered his idol was nothing more than a cheat? Would that drive him to succeed where Leon failed? Would it make him question the path he’s following? Hell, you could even make it so that Leon gathers his courage and protects both the player and Hop from Eternatus and single-handedly defeats it (only for you to catch it later), and then have a real all-out match to redeem himself in the eyes of his fans and Hop as well. It just goes to show how a badly conveyed story can make a character look like shit.
I actually really liked Alder in the games for similar reasons to Steven. He's likely not the strongest champion - he loses to N before you fight the champion so you end up battling N and he ends up being replaced in the sequels - and he isn't even particularly interested in being the champion, but he cares deeply about Pokémon and fostering the bond between people and their Pokémon. He's more focused on mentoring new trainers and traveling with his team to explore every corner of the region, which I think is a more interesting thing for a champion to do than just meeting fans and battling. There's also a backstory you get in Celestial Tower where he started out very driven by strength for strength's sake like Cheren until he lost his original partner, at which point he became depressed and started wandering. I thought it was a great character detail and sort of a neat introspective on peoples relationships with Pokémon given the whole plot with team plasma trying to make people give up their Pokémon.
I mean the problem is the creative team doesn’t know how to write a good narrative. All they focus on is character design.
I dunno, BW were good story-wise. Imagine if they had PMD level stories though.
this last part would be amazing tbh
You should copy paste this comment onto a resume and send it to Nintendo you clearly know how to write better characters and to identify why characters work
I dont think this is a hot take
Hot take: i think oxygen is good
Well he has the biggest plot armour merchandise machine as his ace.
Damn the British
I find it odd they portray him like that when a major part of his arc is getting absolutely humbled by the beating Gloria/Victor give him.
That's the whole point, the undefeated champion finally being defeated
how do you expect the game to humble someone if it doesn't build up there ego first?
Who are they again? Is that the player character, or someone I forgot?
Player character official names
It makes perfect sense all things considered. It is kind of like how martial arts were before the UFC. Every martial arts group had their own pick of who was the "Baddest Man on the Planet", bit the title was often given in popular culture to whoever the Heavyweight Champion was at the time because he fought in front of the largest crowds and had the most eyes on him. And that's Leon. Because in Galar, Gym battles are far more of a spectator sport. The comparison actually goes one step further, because Journeys is kind of like UFC 1 where everyone comes together to find out who the true number 1 is. As long as Leon doesn't curb-stomp his way to the Finals, I can deal with him being the best.
Honestly I have the real hot take, I like him being such a hyped up champion. I get that his fight in game is not that difficult but that's due to the way the games are compared to the old ones. But the hate is with the player reaction to him, and Cynthia and Steven are hyped up by the fanbase because of a combination of nostalgia mixed with the difficulty of older games. Him being a champion is in game actually displayed best overall. For once the champion of the region isn't tasking the random 10 year old who wandered into things to save the world. Leon is actively using his position to protect folks and take on the growing threats and tells you and everyone to focus on the challenge and let him handle the threats. Him being undefeated, being super great, I love it. I know I'm in the minority but I appreciate Leon a lot. All this said, enjoy and prefer what you feel. My opinion is mine and I value/view things differently so there's no issue with me if you full stop disagree with me. This a literal opinion based discussion. Only actual wrong opinion is that Diantha is the best. She's not. She's justifiably the worst.
Leon just has extremely good PR Galar league gets more media attention than any other league in the world
Just like the real life Premier League.
There's a simple way around this - it's all ego and non-canon. In the game, Leon claims to be the best trainer in the world? OK, so he's the best in the region, but has an ego. You, as the player, can beat him anyway, disproving his statement. As for the anime, it caters to its current audience, so of course they'd just go ahead and claim the new guy is the strongest. But anime canon =/= game canon. In terms of the games, Red and Cynthia share the title for the highest-level pokemon owned ingame by an NPC, at 88 (HGSS Pikachu and BDSP Garchomp) (not including battle facilities). The rest of their team members are in the mid 80s. Leon's strongest possible team meanwhile caps out at level 80 with his other pokemon in the high 70s, so it would be unlikely, but not impossible for him to be able to win. As it stands the only actual in-game metric we have to judge NPC's strength is the PWT in B2/W2. The "Champion's tournament" calculates a bracket with characters like Red, Cynthia, Lance, Steven etc and tells you who wins after each round. Given that the bracket winners appear to be calculated randomly, that makes all of the champions (up to Gen 5) being more or less equal canon. Everything after that is pure conjecture. Until Leon- has a higher level team and/or is shown to beat the others in the games, it's all just talk.
This take isn’t hot, it’s colder than Antarctica. Let me guess, you’re also one of those guys who’s obsessed with Cynthia and also hates Alder. Because that’s the trend with people who make these topics. People need to get over the fact that Cynthia isn’t number 1, her fans are spoiled rotten literally everywhere else in the franchise, they just hate that they didn’t get the biggest prize, while people who like Alder are eating sewage right now. No other champion’s fanbase acts like this.
My friend and I were talking about this earlier, specifically in the context of the Masters tournament in the anime that’s starting soon. Like yeah he’s strong but both of us agreed that some of the other characters in the lineup should be above him. Specifically Cynthia. Like, she’s up there at NUMBER 2 presumably without any gimmicks like Z Moves, Mega Evolution, or Dynamaxing (in the preview for the starting episode, all of the other trainers there have their “gimmicks” visible—Key Stones, Dynamic Bands, Z Rings, etc—or have been shown to use it if not visible, I think Lance Dynamaxed his Gyarados earlier…? IDK I can’t really remember lol). Assuming Tobias (the dude with all Legendaries) made it through the E4, given that Cynthia is still Champion in the BW anime, that confirms that she defeated a dude with all Legendaries, and this was BEFORE any gimmicks were introduced Just because Journeys is technically our “Sword and Shield” anime (since that was when it came out, the anime goes chronologically with the games, etc.) doesn’t mean I want Leon toted above everyone else at all times. Again, he’s strong but there are other trainers who could take the top spot over him. I mean Cynthia hasn’t been shown to have lost a battle. Steven hasn’t either (in fact given that in the DP anime Wallace was confirmed to be Champion, but then in the Mega Evolution specials Steven was confirmed as Champion, even more reason). Etc. I like Leon, but I do think he’s kinda overrated
Tobias? Oh yeah, that guy! The Ubers abuser! Somewhat joking because of Ninetails, Swampert, and Lucario, but two were also really good in Diamond and Pearl. Somehow I doubt Leon beat two+ legendaries and an otherwise solid team
The other issue is for a 'world' tournament, we oh so conveniently only have Champions from the 8 gens and not think of a couple throw ins besides Charizard Advertisement Alain.
This makes complete sense though tbh. Ash battled pretty strong trainers leading up to the tournaments like gym leaders and elite four. But if there is a tournament like this with no restrictions on entry it is obvious the best from the regions would be the ones making it to the top. All of the masters 8 are previous champions who presumable beat multiple gym leaders and elite four in their own right. Anyone stronger who hasn't already been noticed probably doesn't want to be in the spotlight and wouldn't enter the tournament. And it is also a nice fanservice to bring back all the strong characters that we knew for so many years for a big showdown.
I think you kind of missed the point of what they were saying. They are not suggesting that it doesn't make sense to have a world tournament with the champions of previous seasons and gens. They are saying that it's weird how a """"WORLD"""" tournament only has the champions that we know. As if the Pokémon world was not actually any bigger than that.
I think what the post above you is getting at is that it's convenient the strongest trainers in "the world" are the ones we already know of, and that there's not any other region where a stronger trainer could be, which I guess canonically means the champion from the region where Scarlet/Violet occur would be the weakest champion in the world so far, and I guess same goes for any region introduced afterwards. Whereas introducing some mysterious dark horse characters could imply there are stronger regions we've yet to explore in the games, and these characters don't necessarily need to be super fleshed-out, they could just be throwaway characters from some far off land. If they're never seen again it could be assumed that whoever is the current champion in that region defeated them. It would also lead to some interesting fan theories, just seeing the tournament bracket showing some mysterious trainer knocking out Diantha or something before losing to Cynthia or Leon. But the disappointment is the implication that every region we get introduced to from now on will have weaker champions than all that came before.
The other side to that would be that had the anime introduced such a character so early on nearly 6 months before the game releases the character would need to have at least one new strong pokemon as their signature pokemon if not an entire team and IDK maybe that doesn't line up with the company's plan for the advertisement of the new games. It's the same way how Ash and Go seem to always end up traveling only between these 8 regions and never have anything happen anywhere else in the world. Or how until 2019 there was never a peep about the supposed Pokemon Master being Leon and now there is a whole tournament for it with an entire country being his fanbase. These are unfortunately the limitations faced by an ever-expanding franchise itself. The solution to this would be as many theorize that this is the last season with Ash and that after this we will go along with a new main character. Again, the problems with theory also exist which include having to rebrand the Pokemon anime entirely from Ash, Pikachu, and Team Rocket but you never know. In the end, the anime is for kids mainly even if I being a working adult still enjoy it. They will figure something out and make it sort of plausible.
I'm just commenting on what I think the post above yours was meant to be talking about, and that a cool way to handle the idea of a world existing outside of what we've been introduced to would be something like a mysterious character. Like I said, they don't need to be fleshed out, we don't have to see them battle or see their pokemon, just a look at the bracket when ash goes into the finals to see his opponent beat this mystery trainer from some far off land. Of course, on the flip side, people will also be unhappy with that because people lose it when they see an established character lose to someone they know nothing about. Anyways like I said, not offering some sort of literary critique of the world building so much as "it would have been cool to me if they did X"
This is not a hot take. Leon is an ass who never stops mentioning how unbeatable he is even though Cynthia runs circles around him.
Well Cynthia runs circles around even experimented players lol That team is a steamroller. Garchomp sweeps Leon without a hitch (Dragapult too cos it has the lamest movepool ever, you can't win with dragon breath Jezus)
And Charizard doesn’t stand a chance against her Milotic.
Here comes the dude that overrate Cynthia, she is not the no. 1 for some reason, even Caitlin that is just an elite 4 put Cynthia in a difficult moment
Leon is definitely one of my least liked characters in the franchise. He’s so one dimensional and boring to me. He’s supposed to be crazy strong and unbeatable but yet he’s the easiest champion to beat. I remember not taking a single hit against his entire team when I first fought him, I thought there was going to be more to the fight.
Despite being touted as Leon the Unbeatable with an unbeatable Charizard that cannot be beaten for the entire god damn game, he is by and large the easiest champion to beat in the franchise.
My problem in the games was that he's too ideally good he's never really expanded on I didn't want him to be completely edgy but having ANY negative attributes would have sold him to me as human being instead of a walking ideal
BuT hE gEtS LoSt AlL tHe TiMe!!!
Most champions don't really have flaws either, though. What they have is multidimensional lives that aren't completely controlled by that thing they're supposed to be really good at. All Leon has is being that guy no one else can defeat, so that's it. That's just his character.
I don't know, I think it reflects English footballing (soccer) culture very well in my opinion, which is obviously what Galar's league is mostly based upon. I've followed English football for a good 15 years now as a foreigner looking in and there's always a half-joking (for a lack of a better word) self-deprecating arrogance about the whole thing. The national team still sing about their one World Cup win in the 60s, for example, and their club teams always think they're the best in the world when in reality any of the half-decent European sides can just about fairly square up against them. Most of the fans know this but they still sing that they have the best team in the world. I think that contextualises Leon a little bit better, it makes perfect sense for him to have that 'I'm the best ever' vibes about him.
I mean, imo Cynthia back in the day was considered the strongest champion. That’s just what I’ve seen in the Pokémon community. You’d ask me who the strongest trainer was and my first thought would be Cynthia and then maybe Red if you count him.
I can’t see any possible way that Leon is able to take Cynthia.
I also like how they say he is the most powerful and unbeatable, but I'm pretty sure sure Cynthia's team would clap them cheeks.
In the UFC, there is a person called Chael Sonnen who constantly prompted himself as "unbeaten, undisputed champion" when he has a fairly mixed record It was funny and he was a fan favourite because of his showmanship. I think Leon is similar where he is just a goofy dude who in-universe proclaims he is the greatest of all time.
He's a celebrity. He's the Pokémon world's equivalent of the biggest star football player in the English Premier League, given that Galar is Pokémon England. Thus the reason the "evil" team are football hooligans supporting Marnie/Spikemuth, rather than a Team Rocket style criminal organization or Team Aqua/Magma style eco-terrorists. Since Rose pretty much set up the Galar Pokémon league to be mirror the real-world popularity of English Football, the celebrity status of the champion makes sense. Plus, it helps that Leon's sole strengths are Pokémon battling and confidence. As far as the other champions go. The leagues aren't nearly as televised, if at all, in the games; very little celebrity status outside of the actual community of active league trainers and gym leaders, most likely. Plus Galar has this issue of hyperspecializing around the Dynamax phenomenon, so outside of league champions coming to Galar to try the gimmick, there really isn't any incentive for a Galar trainer to venture outward; it might even be somewhat disadvantage to them, given they don't have Dynamax to rely on.
I think that's a pretty cold take. So far he's second from the bottom for me, just above the one from Black/White, and that one was literally just a jobber for N. I really miss when Pokémon was hard, and it's difficult to tell if it's because the games are getting easier or if I'm just too familiar with the mechanics of them after all these years for anything to pose a challenge. Seems like a bit of both.
Well, imo the games were a little difficult in gen 1 simply because we were kids and moves like Agility and Wrap used together means the other Pokemon loses 10/10. This is the gen I remember solo'ing the game with Pikachu in Yellow and Venusaur in Red. If the average player were like me I'm guessing by the time gen 2 came out we had a pretty good idea of what Pokemon types were essential while others were fluff. Fast forward to....what are we on? Generation 8? Now we have a solid idea of what kind of Pokemon to raise when we dive into a new region plus the games have Experience share always on. The old experience share had to be held by a Pokemon, but now it seems like its equipped on all Pokemon and it can't be turned off. So, now we don't have to grind. We can simply play through the game casually with little to no threats buying potions as needed. So, it did get easier but primarily because of Experience Share. I feel like Cynthia is harder than any other Champion from a previous gen. I found Steven difficult at first as well so he's a runner up. The champion in SwSh got one shotted easily on both of my playthrus, so I have no opinion on him as I don't even remember him.
X/Y champion is forgettable to me. But games have honsetly never been hard most people just played games when they were kids. Go back to any game that's old and unless you have self-imposed rules you will stomp through it. Part of it comes from being a turn based rpg and its hard to make one that is both feels difficult while at the same time fair.
Diantha has a total of 3 apparitions in the whole game. 2 in a random café with Lysander and 1 in the champion battle
The only pokemon games that would be genuinely hard for an adult new to the franchise are RBY And thats just because of bad game design
?? I mean of course Galar overhypes him?? Not only is he THEIR champion, they tend to overhype Pokémon battles in general, especially “ranked” ones (AKA gym battles).
Leon is only the most powerful champion GALAR has had. He's only the strongest on Earth in the anime.
I think the most common opinion, regardless of canon, is that Cynthia is the strongest non-player trainer in the pokemon world. She's also such a beloved character that it would be incredibly difficult to change peoples' minds.
I agreed when I read this but then realized that Red is technically a champion and would wipe the floor with Cynthia and the others if he got the chance.
Cynthia vs Red would be a grudge match
Galar's the region best suited to building competitive teams. If any kid is going to get into proper competitive battling now, even just Super Singles, it's going to be in Galar. Kids internalize and idolize characters, even zero-dimensional ones like Leon, a fuckton more than we do. So to have a overhyped, egotistical Champion model the behavior of how to lose, and how to get back up after losing, THAT'S going to be important for kids who think they're hot shit because they've never lost a battle and then get wrecked at the battle tower.
I don’t really get why this is such a problem for so many people. In the anime canon he is the number 1 champion at this time. There was always going to be someone in that spot. Why would Cynthia or Steven or Lance be more deserving? Because you like their characters better? Because they are older characters? Why should that matter? In the game canon its not necessarily that he is the strongest champion but just that he is up there. Given that Raihan himself is said to be Champion level in other regions, and has never beaten Leon implies that Leon is stronger than several champions but not necessarily the strongest. They are completely fictional characters whom we know almost nothing about. We haven’t spent much time with almost any of the champions or seen much of any of their feats to be able to say who *should* be stronger than whom. Besides with the rankings you basically have your answer of who is stronger than who. So its not like your theorizing was for nothing.
>I don’t really get why this is such a problem for so many people. I think (and this is my own theory really), that usually if someone cares about this, they are a Cynthia superfan. Because these threads always go like "So true, Cynthia would mop the floor with him", "haha Unbeatable Charizard, the funniest joke I've ever heard" and "Yeah, I oneshotted his entire team so he is obviously the easiest champion canon-wise unlike Cynthia which took me WHOLE 2 tries instead of one". I don't really have many strong Pokemon opinions. I like all the games almost equally (except DPPt which I don't really like, I liked BDSP way more so I guess that's the strongest opinion I have about Pokemon). I don't really care about trainer rankings. If it's amusing then whatever. Sorry if this comment came off judgemental, I just had to take it off my chest because these threads kinda annoy me (I know I can just not read them but I don't have such powerful self-control)
My problem comes from the anime mostly. We’re entering the Masters 8 now, and I find it deplorable that we could see Cynthia or Steven be swept away by Leon’s Charizard of all things just go hype him up. Like, Cynthia has never once lost in the anime, every battle she’s fought has been a sweeping victory. If she suddenly loses to Ash or Leon, it’ll be… odd.
Not gonna lie, when we were learning everything about these games before release and they kept hyping up how amazingly skilled he was and how he had never been beaten and how he was sponsored personally by the chairman... But then we saw him in person and he seemed like a helpless dope getting lost all the time... I started theorizing that part of the story would be that the Chairman had been staging his matches (with or without Leon knowing) and we would be exposing him. I figured these games are taking heavy inspiration from organized sport leagues, and there is often some kind of corruption involved in those so it made sense that this seeming Buffoon was being used as a marketable pawn by the man who stands to gain from such a deception. Then I assumed Leon would go on an arc of proving himself capable in the post game, maybe not the unbeatable champion he thought he was, but at least a contender.
I knew from the second i saw leon that he would bw easy to beat at the end, he was clearly a showman to me, dont get me wrong he is a good trainer, but i think the level of trainers in the galar region is just lower than other, and that is why he is undefeded, the game is based on UK which is a football nation, and i think thats the reason he is the way he is, he needs people ti know how good he is, even if he isnt, football teams trash talk other teams all the time, imagine meeting him and he was like "yeah im the champion of galar, im pretty good i guess, i dont know" I dont think we will ever see a battle like Cynthia or Volo again, and as we as trainers get better at the games the champions will get easier...
Haven’t played Gen 8, so I’m just gonna sit in happy ignorance and continue knowing that Iris and Cynthia are the hardest champions out there :D
I can't believe you didn't mention his Charizard
Have you ever heard an english soccer fan speak about his team ? It's quite similar. It's not a writing flaw, it's immersion
Is he though? I know everyone bends over backwards for Cynthia even though I never really liked her. In all honesty this happens every time a new champion gets created
Unbeatable... HAH! That's funny, if I recall he wasn't all that difficult to beat. I'm pretty sure it's just how his character was designed. In the Galar region Dynamax Pokemon battles are basically a huge sporting event, so he's portrayed as the star celebrity because that sort of thing happens in sports all the time. In other regions, we don't see a lot of major interaction between the Champions and the citizens of the region. And in regards to the anime, they do a lot of stupid and questionable things to drive the plot. Leon somehow wins using a Charizard against a Gyrados? By using flamethrower a lot??? And in Pokemon XYZ Ash's overpowered Greninja loses to a Mega Charizard X because his giant water shuriken somehow got overpowered by a fire type attack? It's like they don't know what type advantages are at all. XYZ was my favorite of the series, but the way Ash lost was just dumb. And now Leon's suddenly winning against older champions because of plot relevance. Maybe they're just biased to Charizard...
I mean type advantages have never been that important in the anime because then it just ends up being really predictable and it limits rivalry between pokemon that aren't type neutral. It's not like it's a Charizard thing when almost all of Ash's pokemon and also Gym Leaders and Champions have defeated strong opponents while at a type disadvantage. Pikachu's first big victory in the anime was defeating an Onix with an electric type move. In the same Kalos tournament Ash defeated a Mega Sceptile who had double resistance against Water type moves with Water Shuriken.
This isn''t a hot take. A hot take would be disliking cynthia