I mean... Orange League. And for people screeching "Reee it does not count it's fillah" - Anime is completely different continuity from games, manga and stuff. It's actual, legit thing that happened in anime. Ash is a winner of two leagues (but champion of one region because Orange Archipelago had weird rules and Ash withdrawed from being part of Orange Crew, oh well) and nothing will change it.
Let's put it this way: Alola League was not a 'proper' league. It's just like an local exhibition match with contestants coming from just one remote region over yonder, making it limited in both variability and strength level of the contestant. Comparing it with 'proper' league like Indigo League, which is renowed INTERNATIONALLY and having proper Trainers that literally trained for YEARS solely for beating each other and not some street kids trained more by their sidejob of subduing exotic, DANGEROUS Pokemons from other world compared to real battle training already put the 'win' in 'questionable' realm.
That being said, Ash, who had like 20+ years of battle experience under his belt STILL doing idiotic shit like not properly researching what moves Melmetal has and only spamming one move (despite it being slow as heck) only won because the Pokemon Company said so. And all of the improvement he got over the series, including his team would definitely got reset, including Pikachu's progress by the lame ol' 'Team Rocket Mecha' card all over again.
Let's put it this way: Alola League was not a 'proper' league. It's just like an local exhibition match with contestants coming from just one remote region over yonder, making it limited in both variability and strength level of the contestant. Comparing it with 'proper' league like Indigo League, which is renowed INTERNATIONALLY and having proper Trainers that literally trained for YEARS solely for beating each other and not some street kids trained more by their sidejob of subduing exotic, DANGEROUS Pokemons from other world compared to real battle training already put the 'win' in 'questionable' realm.
That being said, Ash, who had like 20+ years of battle experience under his belt STILL doing idiotic shit like not properly researching what moves Melmetal has and only spamming one move (despite it being slow as heck) only won because the Pokemon Company said so. And all of the improvement he got over the series, including his team would definitely got reset, including Pikachu's progress by the lame ol' 'Team Rocket Mecha' card all over again.
> Researching moves of what is basicaly a cryptid in-universe that he saw for the first time in his life like 3 minutes before actual match.
:'D Kiddo anime does not work like games, they have no internet or Smogon and some things works differently there. Stop babbling, you have no idea what you are talking about. And Ash in Indigo Plateu got almost bodies by a freaking Bellsprout, if only not his Muk being a huge pile of plot-armor.
> Researching moves of what is basicaly a cryptid in-universe that he saw for the first time in his life like 3 minutes before actual match.
:'D Kiddo anime does not work like games, they have no internet or Smogon and some things works differently there. Stop babbling, you have no idea what you are talking about. And Ash in Indigo Plateu got almost bodies by a freaking Bellsprout, if only not his Muk being a huge pile of plot-armor.
> Said cryptid are, like many others, unlike cryptids in our universe who existance never actually been proven nor having living sample walking and doing its shit in front of you-able to understand human speech. It won't take two seconds of 'gimme what you got' kind of order to make any pokemon shows all the moves that they know, unless it learned that move in the middle of a battle.
Some things works differently? Why yes, you can practically break the elemental rock-paper-scissors chain by using real life logic (if you're not grounded, then electricity can work...just like rock could be damaged by electricity as long as it's wet. Ever heard of Type-IV Fulgurites?) Not only that, the moves they have can have different effect from what we have in the game. Not only those, the anime trainers have the 5th move that is 'EVADE' which makes my point even stronger: the more you repeated a move the easier the opponent can evade your move. Making that same moves in a row? That's just asking to be countered.
Point is, bad writing is bad. Even the earlier badly-criticized mind-numbingly bad Best Wishes has Ash having better logic in battling.