wait, wasnt someone else at the position of the director for some years? which was revealed during the team star story, and since he was uncovering what happened with us, its also possible that he wasnt in the school at all during that time. Soo maybe there was a window for Iono to attend a school not meeting Clavell at all.
@@tonys202 Pretty sure Clavell was still at the school even prior to becoming director, so its still unlikely she wouldn‘t recognize him at all. Plus he‘s in Uniform, I really doubt she‘d miss that
@@avian1799Actually, I'm pretty sure that it's stated that the reason he wasn't aware of the bullying that led up to Operation Star was because he and most of the current administration did not work there at all until the previous administration walked out as a result of operation star. As for uniform, she might have just thought he was someone working there, but not necessarily the director. She does 100% give me the vibe of someone who didn't go there though.
Part of Raihan’s whole thing is manipulating the weather to pose an extra challenge. His Gigalith, Sandaconda, and Torkoal all have abilities that can manipulate the weather, which I’m guessing he’s allowed to use because there aren’t any dragon types in Galar that can do so as well (besides cloud nine Altaria). Good video btw
Right, so about that Jigglypuff flying away. Certain Pokémon will just be blown away during a thunderstorm, like Igglybuff, Jigglypuff, Hoppip, Skiploom and Jumpluff. More than likely due to light they are. It's honestly a pain sometimes, but it's always funny to see.
I really like the idea that some people find it easier to raise certain types, which is where specialties come from. It lines up with the trainers quite well, spooky girls are good with ghost type. Buff weightlifters are good with fighting types. Evil teams are good with dark and poison types. Psychics get psychics, gardeners get grass, swimmers get water, etc. etc.
For regular encounter trainers that holds, but for gym leaders I figured it was more down to logistics than skill. They're all good enough to raise any type if they want to, but if you're designing an entire facility for training pokemon you want all the pokemon to be able to take advantage of the same resources. Just buy a swimming pool for water types, instead of having to buy a pool, a greenhouse, a sandpit, a lake of lava, etc. The best multi-type trainers like the player, rivals, Cynthia, etc. travel around a lot so they can take advantage of different environments to raise their different pokemon, but for gym leaders who stay in one place, especially the ones with jobs, specializing in one type gives them a real advantage in raising their pokemon. Blue leaves his gym a lot and also isn't sharing facilities with gym trainers so he can maintain his multi-type team, and for a lot of leaders with an off-type pokemon it's one that would still live in the same environment as their specialty, or it's one from the local area so they can get the right environment without traveling. All that said some teams are still just baffling.
I always wondered how the Pokemon League even funds itself. Up until Gen 7, it wasn't exactly a big spectacle. You get to it, battle 5 people, go into a dark room to record your details and that's it. No one but your circle of friends even knows you won. The anime makes it look like an actual championship with tons of viewers, a great place to sell advertisments and sponsors.
Pokemon is just legalized mugging. The Elite 4 is just the top of the pyramid scheme. You can challenge Gym Leaders for the 'honor' or getting your butt kicked and having your money taken while you travel around the region collecting money from other trainers. If you manage to rob every Gym Leader they send you to the Elite 4 to get your butt kicked in a pretty unfair 4v1 back to back fight so they have a better chance at taking all the money you earned from beating everybody else in the country. The odds of you becoming champion are pretty low so the league likely makes more money back from losing challengers than paying winners.
Government funding. As we see in Johto and unova, The E4 and Gym leaders are expected to operate as a kind of task force for threats to the region… even in Hoenn actually…. And Sinnoh… wow, you know realizing just how few members they deploy to these things despite them making clear through action that that is their role… They really oversell themselves. “The E4 and champion are the strongest trainers. I’m sure it won’t take more than a few of them to handle these groups” And to be fair, I when even I’m struggling to beat some of them, how in the hell are they ever beaten over by these Evil Teams? Do they forget to bring their whole champion team? Do they have a team just for running around doing errands? I probably would… but I would pack 1 or 2 of my champion team.
@@Axolautism Counterpoints: Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS and the whole Digimon anime franchise (from Adult Level on, almost every mon is kaiju-scaled, so I guess it counts).
Fun Fact: Poppy is canonically 9. Just one year under Ash. Also, ALL of Paldea's Gym Leader "side hustles" are either stuff that is commonly done as a passion (Streaming, Sculpting, Baking, Sports, Teaching), or is explicitly stated to be the character's passion (Larry). As opposed to previous generations, with stuff like.. maintinence worker. Or miner.
So my headcanon for why Elite Four (and most other trainers) tend to specialize in types is not that it's required but that each type is actually different to train and raise and they're all most skilled at raising that particular type of Pokemon. It's why Lance can have "illegal" level pokemon, he's so good at raising Dragon types that they actually can evolve earlier than our more generalist trainers are capable off. Highly skilled generalists like the Player Character or Rivals who can actually effectively raise multiple types of Pokemon to an Elite Four competative level are very rare amongst trainers.
My general impression is that the Player Character really IS incredibly more skilled than the average trainer, matched only by the champ, their rivals, and maybe the villains. I mean, 99% of all Pokémon trainers specialize in a type or theme; it's not JUST the gym leaders and Elite 4, but every trainer you meet in the routes as well. Having the knowhow of managing a diverse, ever evolving team, is not the norm; which in-universe makes sense- these people cave to actually live day and night with their Pokémon, not like the player who gets a more dethatched, bird's eye view of all the systems. So if the choice is between a diverse, poorly managed/understood team, and an ultra specialized team, the latter is always preferable.
yeah the vast majority of people in the pokemon world are not trainers and do not raise their pokemon to fight. pokemon are pets, companions and coworkers. the most fighting they probably see is against wild pokemon. most trainers that you do fight have 3 or 4 pokemon which is the most they can handle. having multiple pokemon is probably a strain in the same way that having multiple pets is to us irl. the MCs are naturally talented, literal children which helps since you don't have to worry about responsibilities so you can focus on training your pokemon and can raise entire teams with ease which is why we can steamroll through most trainer battles without breaking a sweat. those types of trainers are definitely rare of course.
They're skilled with the type and also, you really don't want to be paying for a lava pit for your dragon and fire types and an olympic swimming pool for your water types and an industrial freezer for your ice types, etc. The player can travel around to good places to train different Pokemon, a gym leader sitting around waiting for challengers has to specialize.
I literally just tried telling a friend this, it's absolutely a sport, like beetle fighting or boxing or wrestling with the flair of any ball sport. It just so happens to use fantasy/scifi creatures
In fact actually I love how pokemon turned the typical jrpg genre on its head, before you would be traveling the world going to different lands to defeat strong enemies, fight the big bad's generals and then the big bad themself, you would be traveling with your party of heroes and be healing at churches In pokemon tho, it's all the same, but feels completely different. Instead of going to different lands to defeat strong enemies, you go to gyms to earn badges. Instead of fighting an evil army of generals and the big bad, you challenge the elite four and the champion. Instead of a team of heroes, you're training monsters. Instead of churches, you heal at pokemon centers It has all the typical jrpg stuff but with a different coat of paint AND ITS SO COOL
I'm pretty sure the pokemon league, traditionally, is a Japanese thing. The first four regions are Japanese based and all of them have the most rigid, defined version of the league. Everyone is getting paid well, there's not really any weirdness going on besides a couple young leaders (justified by the position being something you can pass down) and some type disparity. Blue is the biggest problem with typing, but there's an easy answer to that: Gym leaders are shown to have multiple teams, based on the fact that some of them have rematches and most of them are in the PWT. By the time you get to Blue, you're a champion with 15 badges. This dude just didn't bother holding back and used his actual team, which is perfectly valid. If anyone knows pokemon conquest, the warlords in that game are probably an example of a proto-pokemon league. The warlords are the predecessors to gym leaders, while the champion is someone like the player or Nobunaga who was strong enough to unite them. The Elite 4 were their most trusted advisors (maybe even the ones stationed alongside them in the capital). The warlord's purpose was a mix of training up more trainers and of defending their territory. As time developed it became less warlike and more structured, eventually turning into the pokemon league of today. In the other regions however, the historical and cultural significance of the pokemon league isn't there. Unova pays well, but not as good, and they don't care as much about things like "what order you fight the elite four" or whatever. They take it seriously, but they wouldn't be offended at the notion of mixing it up a bit. Kalos is probably the least enthusiastic region when it comes to the pokemon league. They don't seem to care much for pokemon battling, and even their top trainers are woefully uninterested and underprepared in comparison to pretty much everywhere else in the pokemon world. They follow the traditional structure, but its more because that's what they have to do than any real love for it. Their entire league is just perfunctory. Alola has some growing pains because, while the pokemon league model is the world standard, they have their own traditions they want to respect as well. They traditionally had their own version of the elite 4, and that was converted into an 'official' one by Kukui. They are an explicitly new league, but once they get established are going to be a unique but respected iteration worldwide. Galar's league probably offends people from the Japanese regions. Because Galar completely disregarded ALL of the history the pokemon league has. They took the barest definition of what it is, "Eight gyms then you fight a champion!" and turned it into a sport. I wouldn't say there's a single thing they do that should reflect on the rest of the pokemon leagues worldwide. They just want spectacle. Paldea is actually interesting to me. Paldea's league looks horribly mismanaged. Everyone working double jobs, a literal child on the elite four, the complaints about Geeta. I wouldn't be surprised if their league is only a decade or so older than Alola's and, despite her best effort, Geeta is just a horrible chairman and not fit for the position. The reason that league is such a mess is because she has no idea what she's doing. Which is why there's some lines of dialogue that to me read as her trying to prepare the player character to take over pretty much as soon as you come of age. She's hoping you'll fare better than she has.
In Paldea there is a severe lack of proper infrastructure, but the trainers school is a massive institution. Paldea is based on Spain, so it's likely intentional that its pokémon league is a dysfunctional, likely corrupt, mess. I can't wait for Gen 10 when we get an Italian region where we have to help the pokémon league overthrow local grass roots governance (mob families) and subjugate towns into joining the league. Bonus points if all the towns start out with unique dialects but switch to standardized writing once you clear them out of opposition.
I’m surprised ya didn’t mention that Jasmine used to be a rock type gym leader til she switched to using the newly discovered steel types this is said bye a NPC Sailor in the lighthouse.
I mean the "champion class trainer" thing only makes sense, considering we've had quite a few regions at this point with quite a few separate leagues and quite a few league champions. Makes me wonder if they can't compete in their own competition to see who is the "champ of champs" and can really be the strongest out there.
Yea I'm pretty sure there's two definitions of champion at this point. There are champion class trainers, who is anyone who has beaten the elite 4 test, and Champions (capital is important) who are the person actualy running the league. Also, the PWT is probably the olympics for pokemon and there to determine the champ of champs.
I've always figured the various regions' leagues are all self-contained, kinda like how real-world sports work. Like, the MLS doesn't have a second tier that teams can get relegated to, it determines its champions through a postseason tournament rather than just using the end-of-season standings, it doesn't take international club-level tournaments nearly as seriously as they do over in Europe, but it's still playing the same sport as the Premier League.
With Gen 9 it’s obvious that the league most likely doesn’t pay their members properly, or pays them in LP. Larry works 3 jobs, Hassel works at the school, Rika is the receptionist at the league and Poppy has no financial responsibilities
@@wyawardclown You're right, LP can be used everywhere in Paldea, but that might be the problem, they can only be used in Paldea, only exception being Kitakami with its only shop, and even then it had to be implemented since it's so new to this lost rural region, probably at the demand of the caretaker So they get paid with a currency that is equal in trade with Pokedollars, but they can't use it anywhere beside Paldea, meaning they can go screw themselves if they ever want to say get a vacation in Alola or get a job in another region, so yeah Geeta is certainly one of the worse bosses in Pokemon lore 😂
Why can't every system work differently by region? We already see each generation is supposed to have their own thing with Pokemon so why can't their league? /:(
I'm fairly sure that Caitlin is supposed to be from Unova considering that the house that Cynthia is found in BW/B2W2 belongs to her. But I guess it could just be a vaction home since Undella Town is a vaction spot
I think the main problem in your argumentation is that you assume that every region follows the exact same rules and don't have any variations. I think it's more like democracies in the realy world, where the only real consistence is the core meaning of the system.
@@djt08031996 Pokémon blowing away in the wind is intentional. It only happens to species like Jigglypuff and Hoppip during stormy weather, and it applies to nearly all of them (3 of them were shown being blown away). It's along the line of other Pokémon with more unique despawning conditions like Sandygast disappearing in rain. Shiny Pokémon are even specifically unaffected by these kinds of things.
She likely doesn’t. I can see her paying in LP but it’s called league points. It’s likely a currency they made up. It’d be like if they paid you in a bitcoin.
I think a problem with this is that it's assuming that all the regions' Pokemon Leagues work the same when we clearly see that they don't. They all function somewhat similarly, but internally, the rules and regulations are different across regions.
In regards to gym leaders having jobs and Larry apparently working three: There have always been two sides to the "Gym leader is a job" topic. In Kanto, and Johto, as well as Sinnoh and Hoenn we see League members running around acting as a sort of civil servant. Lance specifically as acting Champion is investigating Team Rocket in Johto games. Watson recruits your help in fixing a power plant. Cynthia nebulously exists to scare people. In the specifically American region of Unova (Not Orre, though Justy does work alongside the evil mayor) we see the gym leader as a side gig. Lenora is first and foremost a museum curator, Cheren is a teacher, everyone has a job alongside being a gym leader. Kalso apparently continues this trend. In Galar the leaders are paid by the evil energy conglomerate who has a hand in everyone's daily lives and runs the media. They are employees. In Paldea the League seems more loosey goosey. The League itself is clearly a business or is otherwise organized like one. But I think Paldea is specifically in an economic slump, the Area Zero situation and the ridiculous prominence of a singular school indicates a massive swing by whoever is actually in charge of the government toward attempting to promote growth. America, Spain, and England are kinda terrible to their gym leaders. France realized Japan had a serviceable idea and copied them. The big question remaining is thus: Will the spacetime distortions and unoptimized nature of the next major region alter how its League operates? Or will we get a well running world capable of expressing a ray of guiding light through the bleak post-war world of Pokemon?
I definitely agree that contextually speaking, its reasonable to assume that trainers in the League(s) definitely aren't paid enough, especially in later entries but there are some gaps that we can fill in. A lot of older members of leagues can be inferred to be retired from their non-battling professions like Drake and Bertha, and a lot of others seem to supplement their income via their own "old money" wealth, such as Caitlin, Drasna and Wikstrom, all seemingly descendants of nobility/royalty. I much prefer the League having roles outside of Pokémon battling and non-strict type requirements, as it fleshes the world out a lot more by presenting them as characters rather than RPG bosses. At the same time, I feel a lot of the 'problems' pointed out can simply be boiled down to understanding that each League (metatextually and intertextually) were built with their specific region in mind are similar only in nothing but name and loose structure, much like real-world government organisations. Also, Marshall is "just a guy"??? Bro literally wears a mouth guard and pads, I think we can pretty safely he's some kind of professional fighter/athlete
My assumption was that the Leagues were actually each regions government and the point of the gym challenges was to train a large amounts of trainers and have them travel around solving any problems the wild pokemon might cause before they become a problem
With gen 9, we kinda get confirmation that the specifics of the league are regional and set up by the leagues organizer. That's why Geeta is scraping the bottom of the barrel for her elite 4 and kukui just picks 4 people.
I like in pokemon red there was fewer types so type specialists needed to use pokemon outside of their type. Like Sabrina, Lorelei(that slowbro is a counter to rocks and firetypes) and Agatha. I mean pokemon should use other themes for gyms and elite four. Like sleeptalk stall or special defence(normal and poison) or cute pokemon or even pokemon with multiple heads.
Champion in the original games was a plot twist. The only people we were supposed to beat was the Elite Four. The idea of the Elite Four is a common trope in Japanese culture and Anime (See Kill la Kill). Blue being at the end was just an eff you, and a great plot twist. It's just that every subsequent game after kept this tradition for no stated reason. Now we(and the games) just take Champions for granted, but nowhere in the original game prior to beating Lance was there an expectation to beat anybody beyond the Elite Four. And it's most likely that each regional league is it's own separate league, not something that is global or worldwide. Each has it's own separate rules, policies, hiring process, general way they do things, and even purpose for existing. So asking "How does the Pokémon league work?" referring to the "The Pokémon League" as if all regional leagues are 1 thing seems like an odd question.
In the RS manga (not canon to the games) Wallace was supposed to take the Champion role while Steven, as second place, would take Elite 4, but Wallace stepped all the way down to Gym Leader because Winona.
@@KINGD353Actually they broke up. Wallace stepped down both to take over for Juan and also to be closer to Winona, but she didn’t want to be dating a man who was stronger than her because she thinks it would be smothering. Because of that, Winona broke up with Wallace. Which, like, I can see not wanting to be smothered, but imo that’s something to talk about with your boyfriend, not break up with him over just because he wanted to be closer to you. Bit of a bitch move from her honestly.
The video structure here is like, SUPER annoying. Every time I was locked in and interested in league rules I got interrupted by some playthrough of S/V. That's not what I'm here for wtf??
I think he does it because he doesn’t know what to do with transitions, but it seems more like he’s lazy just doing it for the sake of doing it. It’d probably be better to just remove those sections
I don't really know what you're talking about when you say "defeated Champions become the top Elite Four member" because that...literally never happens? Ever? No Champions in Pokémon ever become Elite Four members, least of all Lance. He wasn't champion until *after* the Kanto games. It's never been stated or even implied anywhere that he used to be Champion but got demoted to being in the Elite Four. If you're talking about Blue beating him, it was literally stated that Lance was still an Elite Four member when that happened. He wasn't Champion when Blue fought him, in fact no one was. It's implied that the Indigo League Champion spot was just. Open until Blue filled it.
@langadube9611 Not only did that DLC come out after this video did...that also just didn't happen in it??? Geeta is still Champion in Blueberry Academy.
5:18 I'm pretty sure Nymble isn't a Fighting type. I know it might be a bit confusing because it learns Fighting moves, but it's totally okay to make that mistake, especially if you're just learning the basics.
The video in itself was pretty interesting, but the pacing is honestly really crappy, constantly interrupted with that completely unrelated challenge run or something.
i wanted to add that though this obviously isnt canon to the games, the manga has had a chairman for the pokemon league since their gold and silver arc, so that idea has been around a lot earlier than rose!
I believe it's required for most Gym Leaders with a few exceptions. Blue could've been an E4 member, but may have agreed to be a Gym Leader if he could keep his team variety. Other Gym Leaders must have at least half of their team stick to the assigned type.
@@ceulgai2817 It's all we have to go off of when nowhere do we get an explanation for how any league is organized. Finding snippets of lore is all we get. The anime and games sometimes contradicting each other really doesn't help.
@@commonviewer2488 If we don't have a source stating that our assumption is true or not, then we shouldn't just assume we're right. If anything, the evidence to the contrary should be considered and- holy heck, Batman! Intellectual honesty! Yeah, Gym Leaders aren't required to have a type specialty. Do most? Sure, but nothing suggests they have to.
There's another comment here that I think makes sense, from MercuryA2000 Blue uses a team that isn't just one type because when you fight him you're already champion and have every other badge in Kanto. So he's just using his actual team. He theoretically could have a separate team for normal gym challenges, but like, the Kanto gym battles are different from normal ones because you're already a champion so everybody's using their best pokemon. Most gym leaders keep a team similar to their gym team, but Blue has a different one. Maybe. I guess there's no evidence for that. But we do have evidence for types being required. So I like that idea.
This video's intro had me so confused for a few days lol I had it open as a tab unwatched and from only the first frame I thought mark had actually done a minecraft let's play in 1.19 and the title was mismatched for some reason kjfkjsdgl;sd;l Anyway great video!
I think that the pokemon league is likely funded by multiple revenue sources, including whatever government each region has since even ignoring potential things like military, pokemon as outright stated in PLA can absolutely kill a person to death Albeit i think it depends on location and severity to how much a league and its members are given pay to some extent also probably depends on the league itself
Personally view Galar and Paldea as like opposite ends culturally. Like yeah in Galar there's this prestige to the leauge, there's various rules but also huge stadiums, gym leaders and the champion are celebrities with brand deals and sponsers. But in Paldea it's like a thing school kids do over summer vacation, the gym leaders are just notable community members, I wouldn't be surprised if they were originally volunteers. Champion is just a title because they don't care who the champion is, its just a way to say you're strong. Geeta is seemingly trying to push Paldea towards being more "Galar-like", corporateizing various aspects , making the gyms and leauge office buildings, standardizing the badges, flexing her executive power. It's no wonder people tend to not like her much. In a way it's like a failed version of the Alola leauge, trying to modernize an old tradition, just without accounting for the traditions and culture.
The bigger question is how do they even set up the battles? In Gen 9 all gym leaders have jobs outside of being a gym leader. So do they call up Larry and schedule his battles? For other regions is it like an 8-5 kind of thing and they’re just waiting around for someone to enter the gym? So many questions
>"Blue is the *only* example of (not specializing in a single type)" >Proceeds to show Raihan, the *other* example of not specializing in a single type. Raihan specializes more in a battle style (weather) than the dragon type like everyone seems to think he does.
Actually for Alola, especially in Ultra Sun and Moon, you could argue the island challenge IS the gyms. You fight 8. Normal, Water, Fire, Grass, Electric, Ghost, Dragon, and Fairy. Im sure kukui wont instate actual gyms, but completing the island challenge would result in 8 "Badges" of the league
Lance was just a member of the Elite Four in Gen 1 there was no champion before Blue. That anime clip you showed of Blue challenging the elite four is considered canon and there is no fifth member that lost their position. What likely happened is that after Red went to Mt. Silver to train Lance stepped down from his position in the elite four. So, he could challenge the new elite four of the Kanto-Johto region to be its champion. Each region likely has their own rules and traditions: Each gym needs to have a theme and the gym leader decides the theme. While normally its a preferred Pokémon type they can be different like with Blue, the triplets, and Raihan as long as it approved. They are powerful trainers that often specialize in a type. Though they made be required to take up a type instead. Cheren Gym leaders can change the type of gym it is at their discretion. Jasmine was originally a rock type gym leader that became a steel type gym leader due to her Onix evolving. They can modify their gym to their preferences. Volkner was apparently well known for doing this. Gym Leaders will adjust their Pokémon to the level of the challenger. Cheren mentioned this before Origins came out and later games make it clear. Some gyms are passed down through the family. There are 8 official gyms. Though there allowed substitutes depending on the region. Aloha's Island Trials. There can only be one gym per city. Originally, the fighting dojo in Saffron was the city's gym before Sabrina defeated them. Gym Leaders are allowed to challenge the Elite Four for the title of champion if they feel like it. Wallace. Volkner. Iris. Take up vacant positions in the elite four. Koga. The gym leader is considered a role model for trainers. This is the official reason why there were no dark type gym till Galar. Most Elite Four and Gym leaders specialize in a type because most trainers do so as well in story. You need to defeat the Elite Four to become the champion, but if there is already a champion you must defeat them for the title. That was the twist at the end of the first game. You, Red, would have become the Champion by defeating the Elite Four, but Blue did it before you. So, now you got to defeat him for the title. Nemona isn't The Champion she is a champion level trainer. As in, she is considered skilled enough to defeat the elite four and challenge The Champion. The Elite Four are considered the best four trainers of the region that are not The Champion. Though as Aloha showed they are initially decided at the very least by who created/runs the regional league.
So please explain why a Lance had to take Red's place as Champion. Because Red was undefeated and stepped down. If what your saying was the case Lance wouldn't have needed to take over as Champion.
@@langadube9611 This is my best guesses. But, out of universe in the original games they wanted the twist of Blue beating you to the champion title. So they needed a new champion to beat because that twist would get dull if it happened every time. So they needed a new champion type, which Lance became the framework of as you meet and help him before you challenge the league. In story, it is implied that the Champion is the icon, leader, protector, and mentor to young trainers of the the region. In Gen 8, part of why Chairman Rose became evil is because he felt Leon was more concern about champion-title matches instead of protecting the region. Gen 7, Professor Kukui felt the best way to deal with the problems of the region was to create a Pokémon league so trainers have something to aspire to. Gen 5, Team Plasma's plan was for N to become the champion and use the position's authority force everyone to release their Pokémon. So Lance may have felt that the region needed a standing Champion after Red step down that he didn't feel before. Team Rocket was implied to have formed and grown strong when there wasn't a champion, so maybe that there needed to be an active protector of the region. Maybe he felt that after seeing Red sit on the champion's throne then stepping down to train there need to be a Standing Champion. Its all guessing for the in story reason, because we have never been given a exact reason.
@@Bailonus It's really hard to believe that the Pokemon League which has existed for years in Kanto not even going to talk about the other regions, didn't have a champion before Blue or didn't see it fit that a champion wasn't appointed if the one before left for some unknown reason. Pokemon Scarlet and Violet shed some light with the Blueberry academy Elite 4. When you beat the Champion you become champion and they are moved to top spot of the Elite 4 and the lowest ranked Member is kicked out. Seeing how Blue Berry is located in Unova most likely coping the real Elite 4 Champion system and that system doesn't seem different in the other regions that aren't Galar or Paldea. It's safe to say that's how it works.
@@langadube9611 Early instalment weirdness. Gen 1 didn't have a Champion because they wanted the Champion to be Blue for a surprise twist. Even when they made canon shorts or anything else they never mention that Lance was the champion that lost to Blue, nor they have ever mention a previous 5th member that lost their spot due to Blue's win. He was just the Strongest of the Elite Four. The choice to not have a Standing Champion in the first games, then have one in every other game after. Is due to decisions made by the Game Developers. Anything else is just trying to come up with in-story justifications for why it is the case. I have not played them but apparently in Let's Go Pikachu/Eevee. You challenge the Elite Four and are awarded the Title Champion was the rule, but they were apparently talks in the end game to change to have a permanent standing champion. While I don't know everything because I haven't played it. That is the closest thing to justifying the change, and even then its still. "Yes, it used to be like how it was in Gen 1, and we changed it after that."
@@Bailonus Look the lore has been built and the retcons have been made. Maybe in the beginning there didn't need to be a standing champion but as of Gen 2 now there does. That's a retcon but it makes the Lance thing canon.
subbed. love this type of content, and this is top notch. you remind me of Spiffing Brit. ofc I subbed for you, I do not expect anybody to be a clone of someone else. just saying, I have a type ;)
Worth noting that gym leaders not having to stick to their type specialty goes all the way back to Volkner in Gen 4, or even Giovanni in Gen 1 if we count Yellow giving him a Persian to reference the anime (though considering later Gen 1 remakes drop the Persian from his team and go back to him only having ground-types, I probably wouldn't count that)
i always assumed that the gyms are half passion and half official. the league handles all the business stuff, pays volunteers and the gym leaders and gives out stipends to maintain the actual gyms. the gym leaders operate as local servants, maintain the peace, serve as role models and celebrities and train the next generation of pokemon trainers. the gyms themselves are a gathering spot for trainers in the town or city hence all the gym trainers that you have to fight. they are either friends with the gym leader, fanboys/girls or just employees since some gyms are just straight up businesses. like how Misty's gym is literally just a swimming pool and when no one is challenging her its probably used as that by locals. that seems to be the standard for the japanese regions but the non-Japanese regions naturally stray from that. from the mess that the paldea league seems to be to the glorious commercialized mess that the galar league is no one seems to do things the way the japanese regions do. and i assumed the league format came from there too since they have it down to a very standardized format.
8:20 was not expecting the Andrew Cunningham deep cut. Also, if the Alola champion seat is left empty until someone beats the Elite 4 for the first time, that implies some fascinating things about the Gen 1 Indigo League
*Paldea has a very high cost of living* Especially considering Niranja/Uva Unova too. But BB was privately funded probably, but Unova. (America, specifically New York (City))
For some reason ive always fogured the school and league in Paldea was prepping its students for taking over gym leader positions since none of the current ones seem enthusiastic and what better crop than than the champion level trainers
Alright, a rundown of my personal thoughts based on your evidence. Every region has a chairperson, who finances the league and runs (and profits on it) based in their region. Much like owners of American sports teams. There is a set of rules they have to follow to stay as an officially recognized League (such as the Badge System), but the exact details can vary with some just copying the homework of their neighbors (Galar is the only non-Elite Four member, because they wanted to be different). This also might explain why we only know of a few of the Chairpeople. They are the Jerry Jones or Mark Cuban of the leagues. But who the hell owns the Columbus Blue Jackets or the Pittsburgh Pirates, you get what I mean? The type specializations follow the same format. The big League Offical rules say "each gym must specialize in a type" but its up to the Chairperson to enforce that. Some may have to argue a thematic typing that at least stays in the spirit of their specialization ("Gyarados is obviously a dragon") while others are pushing the envelope because no one is snapping back or are playing at some loophole (the Striaton triplets). Logically yes, in Alola the E4 would be picked by the Chairperson. Same with any first time company or sports league. You can't promote from nothing. As for the jobs thing, as many others have said, the majority of the side-hustles are passion projects (writer, Vtuber, baker, running a criminal Empire...). And as someone who has several side hustles but still keeps my day job, I can tell you exactly which of those two each gym leader has thats paying the bills. And actually, although I included Giovanni as a joke there, in hindsight as I write this it explains why the Viridian City gym isn't open most of the time, he doesn't need it to be any more than he's required to. The big exceptions to this are Roark and Byron in Sinnoh and a good chunk of Paldea. With Byron being old enough to have an adult son of Roark, most likely the mining gig was his job before becoming a Gym leader and he's sticking with it because got a good pension plan or something. He could also be a serial workaholic, which would explain why his son does the exact same thing. Although at least Roark is the safety foreman, which is much more of a desk job. As for Paldea, it's very possible as others have said that Geeta doesn't pay as well as other Chairpeople. Also, we know that she is waaaaay more hands-on than any other, possibly to a controlling level considering she makes Larry SWITCH HIS TYPES FOR NO REASON.
I had THE EXACT same reaction when I realized super light (weight wise) pokemon could blow away in the storms in S/V. I originally thought it was a bug because... S/V.
i always wonder if poppy is lying about being 9 to... benefit??? in some way??? even though that's insanely young for the E4 anyway-- or if she reall *is* 9 and just saw that one baby talk trend popular in some fashion circles on pokemon tiktok and picked it up.
In Gen 1 Saffron City used to have a fighting type Gym, but Sabrina set up her Psychic type Gym and forced the fight type Gym out of its place in the league.
A personal theory I have as for why lance became the champ again is that they just promoted him after red left to go to mount silver and blue wouldn’t have came to get his title back because he took over the viridian city gym after Giovanni left
Sorry friend, you not only lost to a gym battle in the newer games, you lost in the FIRST gym. everything you said will be taken as a joke. But pretty cool transitions
Hey, I really liked your discussion in this video. I've gotta say, though - your constant interruptions with the S/V playthrough REALLY hurt the flow. Oftentimes, you'd cut yourself off midsentence to mention the S/V playthrough, which was MASSIVELY jarring. I'd love to see more of your discussion pieces, but if it's all going to have this back-and-forth structure, I don’t know that I can follow along with them.
I think the situation with Larry isn't that Gita forced him to specialise, but that she made him use a different type for his Elite four team than his Gym Leader team.
I guess for an organized sport like how Pokemon is represented in Sword/Shield, there has to be probably a universal set of standards, sure. But, it seems like each region has their own chairman as well, and how things are organized really depends and varies on each chairman’s decision. That, or, yeah, each system of league is a unique body, or even privately owned by a company.
Everybody lets Blue Oak do whatever he wants because 1) him using his Champ-era Pokemon is definitely a bigger draw to League Challengers-- probably more educational for them too-- and 2) trying to get Blue Oak to follow rules is like trying to get a housecat to take a bath. Also the previous Viridian Leader _did_ specialize in Ground types and was also the head of a crime syndicate, so mixing it up is probably better for the Gym's reputation.
I feel like the kid elite 4 member is probably a good doctor type person, as she could be a Survant at battling with steel types (or she’s Stevens cousin or smth)
When I was scrolling through my feed, I saw this video as by Kazoocat, but with MandJTV's pfp. Now imagine my confusion when I clicked on it and saw the start of a Markiplier Minecraft video. I think part of my soul has permanently died from confusion
you forgot entirely about the fighting gym next to sabrinas in saffron that she beat into irrelevance, and all the security/anti terrorism work you see the champions and occasionally gym members doing. I think there is a definate regional security aspect to the league. when magikarp can get into any body of water, evolve, and destroy your village in a rampage, you want a gym in your town.
I would actually argue that tofu changing the trial to the bidding thing was more an interim trial of well we're not at my gym so here do this thing if you succeed you've passed so I would argue that it's not so much it can be changed at any time but that it can be substituted for whatever the gym leader needs to be
15:09 In her Gym Challenge, Iono does not recognize Director Clavell of the Academy. This is a reference to the fact she didn‘t go to College
This implies that enrollment at the Academy is not mandatory
wait, wasnt someone else at the position of the director for some years? which was revealed during the team star story, and since he was uncovering what happened with us, its also possible that he wasnt in the school at all during that time. Soo maybe there was a window for Iono to attend a school not meeting Clavell at all.
@@tonys202 Pretty sure Clavell was still at the school even prior to becoming director, so its still unlikely she wouldn‘t recognize him at all. Plus he‘s in Uniform, I really doubt she‘d miss that
@@avian1799Actually, I'm pretty sure that it's stated that the reason he wasn't aware of the bullying that led up to Operation Star was because he and most of the current administration did not work there at all until the previous administration walked out as a result of operation star.
As for uniform, she might have just thought he was someone working there, but not necessarily the director.
She does 100% give me the vibe of someone who didn't go there though.
Part of Raihan’s whole thing is manipulating the weather to pose an extra challenge. His Gigalith, Sandaconda, and Torkoal all have abilities that can manipulate the weather, which I’m guessing he’s allowed to use because there aren’t any dragon types in Galar that can do so as well (besides cloud nine Altaria). Good video btw
Couldn't he just be aground type gym lwader instead. or rock type. or steel type. or ice type. or fife type. or wat
@@usernametaken017 Or even just choose one weather and stick with it.
he could i guess but his best friend is the champion he probably asked for a carve out lol
Right, so about that Jigglypuff flying away.
Certain Pokémon will just be blown away during a thunderstorm, like Igglybuff, Jigglypuff, Hoppip, Skiploom and Jumpluff. More than likely due to light they are. It's honestly a pain sometimes, but it's always funny to see.
All those Pokemon canonically blow away in wind (according to the Pokedex), so that's a fun attention to detail.
Now I'm just imagining seeing a shiny blown away.
@@JuniperLea NONONO COME BAAAAAAACK
@@JuniperLeathankfully the shinies stay put. It’s a surprisingly efficient way to hunt these mons, did it with Bramblin myself
Wait it's on purpose?
I really like the idea that some people find it easier to raise certain types, which is where specialties come from.
It lines up with the trainers quite well, spooky girls are good with ghost type. Buff weightlifters are good with fighting types. Evil teams are good with dark and poison types. Psychics get psychics, gardeners get grass, swimmers get water, etc. etc.
For regular encounter trainers that holds, but for gym leaders I figured it was more down to logistics than skill. They're all good enough to raise any type if they want to, but if you're designing an entire facility for training pokemon you want all the pokemon to be able to take advantage of the same resources. Just buy a swimming pool for water types, instead of having to buy a pool, a greenhouse, a sandpit, a lake of lava, etc.
The best multi-type trainers like the player, rivals, Cynthia, etc. travel around a lot so they can take advantage of different environments to raise their different pokemon, but for gym leaders who stay in one place, especially the ones with jobs, specializing in one type gives them a real advantage in raising their pokemon. Blue leaves his gym a lot and also isn't sharing facilities with gym trainers so he can maintain his multi-type team, and for a lot of leaders with an off-type pokemon it's one that would still live in the same environment as their specialty, or it's one from the local area so they can get the right environment without traveling.
All that said some teams are still just baffling.
@@felonyx5123 that's actually a really interesting theory, but what about the elite four?
I always wondered how the Pokemon League even funds itself. Up until Gen 7, it wasn't exactly a big spectacle. You get to it, battle 5 people, go into a dark room to record your details and that's it. No one but your circle of friends even knows you won.
The anime makes it look like an actual championship with tons of viewers, a great place to sell advertisments and sponsors.
I mean, you can't have a battle anime- even a card game or kaiju battle anime- that doesn't have a tournament arc
Pokemon is just legalized mugging. The Elite 4 is just the top of the pyramid scheme. You can challenge Gym Leaders for the 'honor' or getting your butt kicked and having your money taken while you travel around the region collecting money from other trainers. If you manage to rob every Gym Leader they send you to the Elite 4 to get your butt kicked in a pretty unfair 4v1 back to back fight so they have a better chance at taking all the money you earned from beating everybody else in the country. The odds of you becoming champion are pretty low so the league likely makes more money back from losing challengers than paying winners.
Government funding. As we see in Johto and unova, The E4 and Gym leaders are expected to operate as a kind of task force for threats to the region… even in Hoenn actually…. And Sinnoh… wow, you know realizing just how few members they deploy to these things despite them making clear through action that that is their role…
They really oversell themselves.
“The E4 and champion are the strongest trainers. I’m sure it won’t take more than a few of them to handle these groups”
And to be fair, I when even I’m struggling to beat some of them, how in the hell are they ever beaten over by these Evil Teams? Do they forget to bring their whole champion team? Do they have a team just for running around doing errands? I probably would… but I would pack 1 or 2 of my champion team.
A mix of government funding, merch, and probably a bunch of tournaments and events that aren't part of the gym leader circuit.
@@Axolautism Counterpoints: Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS and the whole Digimon anime franchise (from Adult Level on, almost every mon is kaiju-scaled, so I guess it counts).
Fun Fact: Poppy is canonically 9. Just one year under Ash.
Also, ALL of Paldea's Gym Leader "side hustles" are either stuff that is commonly done as a passion (Streaming, Sculpting, Baking, Sports, Teaching), or is explicitly stated to be the character's passion (Larry). As opposed to previous generations, with stuff like.. maintinence worker. Or miner.
Counterpoint, Larry?
@@jordanthomas7194 Larry explicitly enjoys what he does. It is explicitly his passion.
@@herowither12354 how did I miss that
@@jordanthomas7194in your defense he does look absolutely dead inside
I thought he was overworked and sad too
@@Powder-Point He's also passionate about being a business man.
So my headcanon for why Elite Four (and most other trainers) tend to specialize in types is not that it's required but that each type is actually different to train and raise and they're all most skilled at raising that particular type of Pokemon. It's why Lance can have "illegal" level pokemon, he's so good at raising Dragon types that they actually can evolve earlier than our more generalist trainers are capable off.
Highly skilled generalists like the Player Character or Rivals who can actually effectively raise multiple types of Pokemon to an Elite Four competative level are very rare amongst trainers.
My general impression is that the Player Character really IS incredibly more skilled than the average trainer, matched only by the champ, their rivals, and maybe the villains.
I mean, 99% of all Pokémon trainers specialize in a type or theme; it's not JUST the gym leaders and Elite 4, but every trainer you meet in the routes as well.
Having the knowhow of managing a diverse, ever evolving team, is not the norm; which in-universe makes sense- these people cave to actually live day and night with their Pokémon, not like the player who gets a more dethatched, bird's eye view of all the systems.
So if the choice is between a diverse, poorly managed/understood team, and an ultra specialized team, the latter is always preferable.
yeah the vast majority of people in the pokemon world are not trainers and do not raise their pokemon to fight. pokemon are pets, companions and coworkers. the most fighting they probably see is against wild pokemon. most trainers that you do fight have 3 or 4 pokemon which is the most they can handle. having multiple pokemon is probably a strain in the same way that having multiple pets is to us irl. the MCs are naturally talented, literal children which helps since you don't have to worry about responsibilities so you can focus on training your pokemon and can raise entire teams with ease which is why we can steamroll through most trainer battles without breaking a sweat. those types of trainers are definitely rare of course.
They're skilled with the type and also, you really don't want to be paying for a lava pit for your dragon and fire types and an olympic swimming pool for your water types and an industrial freezer for your ice types, etc. The player can travel around to good places to train different Pokemon, a gym leader sitting around waiting for challengers has to specialize.
Pokémon has always been a sport RPG/anime. It’s a fantasy sport, but it’s a team sport none the less
I literally just tried telling a friend this, it's absolutely a sport, like beetle fighting or boxing or wrestling with the flair of any ball sport. It just so happens to use fantasy/scifi creatures
In fact actually I love how pokemon turned the typical jrpg genre on its head, before you would be traveling the world going to different lands to defeat strong enemies, fight the big bad's generals and then the big bad themself, you would be traveling with your party of heroes and be healing at churches
In pokemon tho, it's all the same, but feels completely different. Instead of going to different lands to defeat strong enemies, you go to gyms to earn badges. Instead of fighting an evil army of generals and the big bad, you challenge the elite four and the champion. Instead of a team of heroes, you're training monsters. Instead of churches, you heal at pokemon centers
It has all the typical jrpg stuff but with a different coat of paint AND ITS SO COOL
I'm pretty sure the pokemon league, traditionally, is a Japanese thing. The first four regions are Japanese based and all of them have the most rigid, defined version of the league. Everyone is getting paid well, there's not really any weirdness going on besides a couple young leaders (justified by the position being something you can pass down) and some type disparity. Blue is the biggest problem with typing, but there's an easy answer to that: Gym leaders are shown to have multiple teams, based on the fact that some of them have rematches and most of them are in the PWT. By the time you get to Blue, you're a champion with 15 badges. This dude just didn't bother holding back and used his actual team, which is perfectly valid.
If anyone knows pokemon conquest, the warlords in that game are probably an example of a proto-pokemon league. The warlords are the predecessors to gym leaders, while the champion is someone like the player or Nobunaga who was strong enough to unite them. The Elite 4 were their most trusted advisors (maybe even the ones stationed alongside them in the capital). The warlord's purpose was a mix of training up more trainers and of defending their territory. As time developed it became less warlike and more structured, eventually turning into the pokemon league of today.
In the other regions however, the historical and cultural significance of the pokemon league isn't there. Unova pays well, but not as good, and they don't care as much about things like "what order you fight the elite four" or whatever. They take it seriously, but they wouldn't be offended at the notion of mixing it up a bit.
Kalos is probably the least enthusiastic region when it comes to the pokemon league. They don't seem to care much for pokemon battling, and even their top trainers are woefully uninterested and underprepared in comparison to pretty much everywhere else in the pokemon world. They follow the traditional structure, but its more because that's what they have to do than any real love for it. Their entire league is just perfunctory.
Alola has some growing pains because, while the pokemon league model is the world standard, they have their own traditions they want to respect as well. They traditionally had their own version of the elite 4, and that was converted into an 'official' one by Kukui. They are an explicitly new league, but once they get established are going to be a unique but respected iteration worldwide.
Galar's league probably offends people from the Japanese regions. Because Galar completely disregarded ALL of the history the pokemon league has. They took the barest definition of what it is, "Eight gyms then you fight a champion!" and turned it into a sport. I wouldn't say there's a single thing they do that should reflect on the rest of the pokemon leagues worldwide. They just want spectacle.
Paldea is actually interesting to me. Paldea's league looks horribly mismanaged. Everyone working double jobs, a literal child on the elite four, the complaints about Geeta. I wouldn't be surprised if their league is only a decade or so older than Alola's and, despite her best effort, Geeta is just a horrible chairman and not fit for the position. The reason that league is such a mess is because she has no idea what she's doing. Which is why there's some lines of dialogue that to me read as her trying to prepare the player character to take over pretty much as soon as you come of age. She's hoping you'll fare better than she has.
In Paldea there is a severe lack of proper infrastructure, but the trainers school is a massive institution.
Paldea is based on Spain, so it's likely intentional that its pokémon league is a dysfunctional, likely corrupt, mess.
I can't wait for Gen 10 when we get an Italian region where we have to help the pokémon league overthrow local grass roots governance (mob families) and subjugate towns into joining the league. Bonus points if all the towns start out with unique dialects but switch to standardized writing once you clear them out of opposition.
@@Yzerbruh Me when 3 gym leaders are secretly Team Rocket members and half the elite four are Giovanni's brothers:
I’m surprised ya didn’t mention that Jasmine used to be a rock type gym leader til she switched to using the newly discovered steel types this is said bye a NPC Sailor in the lighthouse.
I mean the "champion class trainer" thing only makes sense, considering we've had quite a few regions at this point with quite a few separate leagues and quite a few league champions.
Makes me wonder if they can't compete in their own competition to see who is the "champ of champs" and can really be the strongest out there.
They essentially did this in the anime for gen 8
If they made the Journeys anime league the actual premise of Gen 8. I could see it for Gen 10 though
Yea I'm pretty sure there's two definitions of champion at this point. There are champion class trainers, who is anyone who has beaten the elite 4 test, and Champions (capital is important) who are the person actualy running the league.
Also, the PWT is probably the olympics for pokemon and there to determine the champ of champs.
Wasn't there a champions cup in gen 5?
@@Yzerbruh There was. PWT was an amazing little bit of fanservice and I wish they'd bring it back. Gen 10 maybe?
I've always figured the various regions' leagues are all self-contained, kinda like how real-world sports work. Like, the MLS doesn't have a second tier that teams can get relegated to, it determines its champions through a postseason tournament rather than just using the end-of-season standings, it doesn't take international club-level tournaments nearly as seriously as they do over in Europe, but it's still playing the same sport as the Premier League.
With Gen 9 it’s obvious that the league most likely doesn’t pay their members properly, or pays them in LP. Larry works 3 jobs, Hassel works at the school, Rika is the receptionist at the league and Poppy has no financial responsibilities
I'm pretty sure paying your workers anything other than legal currency is illegal
@@brilliant_Potato "My lord, is that legal?"
Geeta: "I will make it legal!"
@@brilliant_Potatoto be fair, pretty sure LP can be used as currency in every shop in paldea (i think? feel free to fact check me if untrue)
@@wyawardclown You're right, LP can be used everywhere in Paldea, but that might be the problem, they can only be used in Paldea, only exception being Kitakami with its only shop, and even then it had to be implemented since it's so new to this lost rural region, probably at the demand of the caretaker
So they get paid with a currency that is equal in trade with Pokedollars, but they can't use it anywhere beside Paldea, meaning they can go screw themselves if they ever want to say get a vacation in Alola or get a job in another region, so yeah Geeta is certainly one of the worse bosses in Pokemon lore 😂
@@dekumidoriya2928 you can't pay with LP in kitakami if you try the owner has no idea what you are talking about
Why can't every system work differently by region? We already see each generation is supposed to have their own thing with Pokemon so why can't their league? /:(
Just spit-balling, you know. |:/
I'm fairly sure that Caitlin is supposed to be from Unova considering that the house that Cynthia is found in BW/B2W2 belongs to her.
But I guess it could just be a vaction home since Undella Town is a vaction spot
Caitlin was originally a member of the Generation 4 Battle Frontier as a child, which supports the idea that she’s not from Unova.
@@thewitchbasket I mean she could easily be both? Unovan father sinnohian mother, or vice versa?
I think the main problem in your argumentation is that you assume that every region follows the exact same rules and don't have any variations.
I think it's more like democracies in the realy world, where the only real consistence is the core meaning of the system.
Yeah I think the same
The regions do their own variations
It seems like Kanto through Kalos all use a similar League system, while Alola, Galar, and Paldea have more pronounced differences.
Then again, it is strange if they don't. I mean they have the Internet and all so why wouldn't everything be streamlined?
@@SomeWerido-t7r Just because they have the internet doesn't mean it would be the same. Different countries do things differently.
@@SomeWerido-t7r Ah yes we all know all countries follow thw exact same laws sunce the internet irl
3:31 the wigglytuff line is canonically lighter than air, so they fly away with the wind like in this scenario
Glitch apologizers be like
@@djt08031996 never seen it happen to anything else so what else could it be
@@joshualeespiny7172 it could've spawned at the wrong point in a collision trigger
@@djt08031996 Pokémon blowing away in the wind is intentional. It only happens to species like Jigglypuff and Hoppip during stormy weather, and it applies to nearly all of them (3 of them were shown being blown away). It's along the line of other Pokémon with more unique despawning conditions like Sandygast disappearing in rain. Shiny Pokémon are even specifically unaffected by these kinds of things.
Imagine that, Geeta doesn’t pay her workers properly. Go figure.
She likely doesn’t. I can see her paying in LP but it’s called league points. It’s likely a currency they made up. It’d be like if they paid you in a bitcoin.
I think a problem with this is that it's assuming that all the regions' Pokemon Leagues work the same when we clearly see that they don't. They all function somewhat similarly, but internally, the rules and regulations are different across regions.
In regards to gym leaders having jobs and Larry apparently working three: There have always been two sides to the "Gym leader is a job" topic. In Kanto, and Johto, as well as Sinnoh and Hoenn we see League members running around acting as a sort of civil servant. Lance specifically as acting Champion is investigating Team Rocket in Johto games. Watson recruits your help in fixing a power plant. Cynthia nebulously exists to scare people.
In the specifically American region of Unova (Not Orre, though Justy does work alongside the evil mayor) we see the gym leader as a side gig. Lenora is first and foremost a museum curator, Cheren is a teacher, everyone has a job alongside being a gym leader. Kalso apparently continues this trend.
In Galar the leaders are paid by the evil energy conglomerate who has a hand in everyone's daily lives and runs the media. They are employees.
In Paldea the League seems more loosey goosey. The League itself is clearly a business or is otherwise organized like one. But I think Paldea is specifically in an economic slump, the Area Zero situation and the ridiculous prominence of a singular school indicates a massive swing by whoever is actually in charge of the government toward attempting to promote growth.
America, Spain, and England are kinda terrible to their gym leaders. France realized Japan had a serviceable idea and copied them. The big question remaining is thus: Will the spacetime distortions and unoptimized nature of the next major region alter how its League operates? Or will we get a well running world capable of expressing a ray of guiding light through the bleak post-war world of Pokemon?
I definitely agree that contextually speaking, its reasonable to assume that trainers in the League(s) definitely aren't paid enough, especially in later entries but there are some gaps that we can fill in.
A lot of older members of leagues can be inferred to be retired from their non-battling professions like Drake and Bertha, and a lot of others seem to supplement their income via their own "old money" wealth, such as Caitlin, Drasna and Wikstrom, all seemingly descendants of nobility/royalty.
I much prefer the League having roles outside of Pokémon battling and non-strict type requirements, as it fleshes the world out a lot more by presenting them as characters rather than RPG bosses. At the same time, I feel a lot of the 'problems' pointed out can simply be boiled down to understanding that each League (metatextually and intertextually) were built with their specific region in mind are similar only in nothing but name and loose structure, much like real-world government organisations.
Also, Marshall is "just a guy"??? Bro literally wears a mouth guard and pads, I think we can pretty safely he's some kind of professional fighter/athlete
My assumption was that the Leagues were actually each regions government and the point of the gym challenges was to train a large amounts of trainers and have them travel around solving any problems the wild pokemon might cause before they become a problem
With gen 9, we kinda get confirmation that the specifics of the league are regional and set up by the leagues organizer. That's why Geeta is scraping the bottom of the barrel for her elite 4 and kukui just picks 4 people.
I get why ppl talk about how Lance doesn't use all Dragon types on his Gen 1 team, but it's not like he was gonna have 3 Dragonair and 2 Dragonite
I imagine a type specialty is like being a scientist and specializing in a field
I like in pokemon red there was fewer types so type specialists needed to use pokemon outside of their type. Like Sabrina, Lorelei(that slowbro is a counter to rocks and firetypes) and Agatha.
I mean pokemon should use other themes for gyms and elite four. Like sleeptalk stall or special defence(normal and poison) or cute pokemon or even pokemon with multiple heads.
Champion in the original games was a plot twist. The only people we were supposed to beat was the Elite Four. The idea of the Elite Four is a common trope in Japanese culture and Anime (See Kill la Kill). Blue being at the end was just an eff you, and a great plot twist. It's just that every subsequent game after kept this tradition for no stated reason. Now we(and the games) just take Champions for granted, but nowhere in the original game prior to beating Lance was there an expectation to beat anybody beyond the Elite Four.
And it's most likely that each regional league is it's own separate league, not something that is global or worldwide. Each has it's own separate rules, policies, hiring process, general way they do things, and even purpose for existing. So asking "How does the Pokémon league work?" referring to the "The Pokémon League" as if all regional leagues are 1 thing seems like an odd question.
I always imagined the Elite four never defeated the champion, they just lost their job to the next guy who defeated them
In the RS manga (not canon to the games) Wallace was supposed to take the Champion role while Steven, as second place, would take Elite 4, but Wallace stepped all the way down to Gym Leader because Winona.
Aww, Wallace and Winona are a thing? That's cute...
@@KINGD353Actually they broke up. Wallace stepped down both to take over for Juan and also to be closer to Winona, but she didn’t want to be dating a man who was stronger than her because she thinks it would be smothering. Because of that, Winona broke up with Wallace. Which, like, I can see not wanting to be smothered, but imo that’s something to talk about with your boyfriend, not break up with him over just because he wanted to be closer to you. Bit of a bitch move from her honestly.
Really good video. Enjoyed the sendoff when you said hi to Fuecoco.
The video structure here is like, SUPER annoying.
Every time I was locked in and interested in league rules I got interrupted by some playthrough of S/V.
That's not what I'm here for wtf??
Thank u I’m glad someone else said it, the vid would be perfect if he didn’t continuously interrupt the flow with something completely unrelated
I think he does it because he doesn’t know what to do with transitions, but it seems more like he’s lazy just doing it for the sake of doing it. It’d probably be better to just remove those sections
I don't really know what you're talking about when you say "defeated Champions become the top Elite Four member" because that...literally never happens? Ever? No Champions in Pokémon ever become Elite Four members, least of all Lance. He wasn't champion until *after* the Kanto games. It's never been stated or even implied anywhere that he used to be Champion but got demoted to being in the Elite Four. If you're talking about Blue beating him, it was literally stated that Lance was still an Elite Four member when that happened. He wasn't Champion when Blue fought him, in fact no one was. It's implied that the Indigo League Champion spot was just. Open until Blue filled it.
Thats true, Lance was never the champion in Gen 1
It happened in gen 9 for blueberry academy.
@@Arctic_Etho It's Stated in exteranl Media that Lance was the Champion Blue defeated.
@langadube9611 Not only did that DLC come out after this video did...that also just didn't happen in it??? Geeta is still Champion in Blueberry Academy.
@@yaboi8er Paldea's system as it is described works differently in other regions beat the champion you become the champion.
5:18 I'm pretty sure Nymble isn't a Fighting type. I know it might be a bit confusing because it learns Fighting moves, but it's totally okay to make that mistake, especially if you're just learning the basics.
If it isn't now, it's *_gonna_* be when it becomes Lokix.
@@helixsol7171 Do you still think Bug/Dark is an unused type combo?
3:16 missed opportunity to say "Koraidong"
Was just about to type this lol
Thank you for making this I feel it hasn’t been talked about enough
5:13 in yeah Brock states that a gym leader specifically can challenge the champion at anytime or a elite four member for there spot
The video in itself was pretty interesting, but the pacing is honestly really crappy, constantly interrupted with that completely unrelated challenge run or something.
Yeah, I wondered why were there so many cut-offs
Each region probraly has its own rules.
i wanted to add that though this obviously isnt canon to the games, the manga has had a chairman for the pokemon league since their gold and silver arc, so that idea has been around a lot earlier than rose!
the anime also did Charles Goodshow, he actually makes an appearance for all of Ash's conferences Kanto through Sinnoh
8:27 NO WAY YOU JUST QUOTED ANDREW CUNNINGHAM??!!
07:01 *Must* Gym Leaders have a type specialty? Or is it just that most do, similar to how *most* trainers in the Pokemon world have a type specialty?
I believe it's required for most Gym Leaders with a few exceptions. Blue could've been an E4 member, but may have agreed to be a Gym Leader if he could keep his team variety. Other Gym Leaders must have at least half of their team stick to the assigned type.
@@commonviewer2488 I don't think that's stated anywhere and instead an assumption formed through Pokémon fans' hypersensitive pattern recognition.
@@ceulgai2817 It's all we have to go off of when nowhere do we get an explanation for how any league is organized. Finding snippets of lore is all we get. The anime and games sometimes contradicting each other really doesn't help.
@@commonviewer2488 If we don't have a source stating that our assumption is true or not, then we shouldn't just assume we're right. If anything, the evidence to the contrary should be considered and- holy heck, Batman! Intellectual honesty!
Yeah, Gym Leaders aren't required to have a type specialty. Do most? Sure, but nothing suggests they have to.
There's another comment here that I think makes sense, from MercuryA2000
Blue uses a team that isn't just one type because when you fight him you're already champion and have every other badge in Kanto. So he's just using his actual team. He theoretically could have a separate team for normal gym challenges, but like, the Kanto gym battles are different from normal ones because you're already a champion so everybody's using their best pokemon. Most gym leaders keep a team similar to their gym team, but Blue has a different one.
Maybe. I guess there's no evidence for that. But we do have evidence for types being required. So I like that idea.
Why did the intro fool my into thinking i was watching a markiplier video
Damn gym leaders gotta deal with inflation now. They out here doing multiple jobs now
I feel that each region has its own set of rules of how Gym Leaders operate.
I love videos like this analysing the world of Pokemon and how it functions
This video's intro had me so confused for a few days lol
I had it open as a tab unwatched and from only the first frame I thought mark had actually done a minecraft let's play in 1.19 and the title was mismatched for some reason kjfkjsdgl;sd;l
Anyway great video!
I love how in some interpretations the elite 4 and champions are the government
8:24 holy shit Andrew Cunningham reference
I think that the pokemon league is likely funded by multiple revenue sources, including whatever government each region has since even ignoring potential things like military, pokemon as outright stated in PLA can absolutely kill a person to death
Albeit i think it depends on location and severity to how much a league and its members are given pay to some extent also probably depends on the league itself
The reason Poppy isn’t a champion class trainer is because she’s a nepo-baby
Personally view Galar and Paldea as like opposite ends culturally.
Like yeah in Galar there's this prestige to the leauge, there's various rules but also huge stadiums, gym leaders and the champion are celebrities with brand deals and sponsers. But in Paldea it's like a thing school kids do over summer vacation, the gym leaders are just notable community members, I wouldn't be surprised if they were originally volunteers. Champion is just a title because they don't care who the champion is, its just a way to say you're strong.
Geeta is seemingly trying to push Paldea towards being more "Galar-like", corporateizing various aspects , making the gyms and leauge office buildings, standardizing the badges, flexing her executive power. It's no wonder people tend to not like her much.
In a way it's like a failed version of the Alola leauge, trying to modernize an old tradition, just without accounting for the traditions and culture.
I think the main take away I got from this is that Larry, objectively speaking, is the best character, and deserves all of my money?
The bigger question is how do they even set up the battles? In Gen 9 all gym leaders have jobs outside of being a gym leader. So do they call up Larry and schedule his battles?
For other regions is it like an 8-5 kind of thing and they’re just waiting around for someone to enter the gym? So many questions
such an interesting style of video, mixing essay with playthrough at the same time
>"Blue is the *only* example of (not specializing in a single type)"
>Proceeds to show Raihan, the *other* example of not specializing in a single type. Raihan specializes more in a battle style (weather) than the dragon type like everyone seems to think he does.
Actually for Alola, especially in Ultra Sun and Moon, you could argue the island challenge IS the gyms. You fight 8. Normal, Water, Fire, Grass, Electric, Ghost, Dragon, and Fairy. Im sure kukui wont instate actual gyms, but completing the island challenge would result in 8 "Badges" of the league
Lance was just a member of the Elite Four in Gen 1 there was no champion before Blue. That anime clip you showed of Blue challenging the elite four is considered canon and there is no fifth member that lost their position. What likely happened is that after Red went to Mt. Silver to train Lance stepped down from his position in the elite four. So, he could challenge the new elite four of the Kanto-Johto region to be its champion.
Each region likely has their own rules and traditions:
Each gym needs to have a theme and the gym leader decides the theme. While normally its a preferred Pokémon type they can be different like with Blue, the triplets, and Raihan as long as it approved.
They are powerful trainers that often specialize in a type.
Though they made be required to take up a type instead. Cheren
Gym leaders can change the type of gym it is at their discretion. Jasmine was originally a rock type gym leader that became a steel type gym leader due to her Onix evolving.
They can modify their gym to their preferences. Volkner was apparently well known for doing this.
Gym Leaders will adjust their Pokémon to the level of the challenger. Cheren mentioned this before Origins came out and later games make it clear.
Some gyms are passed down through the family.
There are 8 official gyms.
Though there allowed substitutes depending on the region. Aloha's Island Trials.
There can only be one gym per city. Originally, the fighting dojo in Saffron was the city's gym before Sabrina defeated them.
Gym Leaders are allowed to challenge the Elite Four for the title of champion if they feel like it. Wallace. Volkner. Iris.
Take up vacant positions in the elite four. Koga.
The gym leader is considered a role model for trainers. This is the official reason why there were no dark type gym till Galar.
Most Elite Four and Gym leaders specialize in a type because most trainers do so as well in story.
You need to defeat the Elite Four to become the champion, but if there is already a champion you must defeat them for the title. That was the twist at the end of the first game. You, Red, would have become the Champion by defeating the Elite Four, but Blue did it before you. So, now you got to defeat him for the title.
Nemona isn't The Champion she is a champion level trainer. As in, she is considered skilled enough to defeat the elite four and challenge The Champion.
The Elite Four are considered the best four trainers of the region that are not The Champion. Though as Aloha showed they are initially decided at the very least by who created/runs the regional league.
So please explain why a Lance had to take Red's place as Champion. Because Red was undefeated and stepped down. If what your saying was the case Lance wouldn't have needed to take over as Champion.
@@langadube9611 This is my best guesses. But, out of universe in the original games they wanted the twist of Blue beating you to the champion title. So they needed a new champion to beat because that twist would get dull if it happened every time. So they needed a new champion type, which Lance became the framework of as you meet and help him before you challenge the league.
In story, it is implied that the Champion is the icon, leader, protector, and mentor to young trainers of the the region. In Gen 8, part of why Chairman Rose became evil is because he felt Leon was more concern about champion-title matches instead of protecting the region. Gen 7, Professor Kukui felt the best way to deal with the problems of the region was to create a Pokémon league so trainers have something to aspire to. Gen 5, Team Plasma's plan was for N to become the champion and use the position's authority force everyone to release their Pokémon.
So Lance may have felt that the region needed a standing Champion after Red step down that he didn't feel before. Team Rocket was implied to have formed and grown strong when there wasn't a champion, so maybe that there needed to be an active protector of the region. Maybe he felt that after seeing Red sit on the champion's throne then stepping down to train there need to be a Standing Champion. Its all guessing for the in story reason, because we have never been given a exact reason.
@@Bailonus It's really hard to believe that the Pokemon League which has existed for years in Kanto not even going to talk about the other regions, didn't have a champion before Blue or didn't see it fit that a champion wasn't appointed if the one before left for some unknown reason.
Pokemon Scarlet and Violet shed some light with the Blueberry academy Elite 4. When you beat the Champion you become champion and they are moved to top spot of the Elite 4 and the lowest ranked Member is kicked out. Seeing how Blue Berry is located in Unova most likely coping the real Elite 4 Champion system and that system doesn't seem different in the other regions that aren't Galar or Paldea. It's safe to say that's how it works.
@@langadube9611 Early instalment weirdness. Gen 1 didn't have a Champion because they wanted the Champion to be Blue for a surprise twist. Even when they made canon shorts or anything else they never mention that Lance was the champion that lost to Blue, nor they have ever mention a previous 5th member that lost their spot due to Blue's win. He was just the Strongest of the Elite Four.
The choice to not have a Standing Champion in the first games, then have one in every other game after. Is due to decisions made by the Game Developers. Anything else is just trying to come up with in-story justifications for why it is the case.
I have not played them but apparently in Let's Go Pikachu/Eevee. You challenge the Elite Four and are awarded the Title Champion was the rule, but they were apparently talks in the end game to change to have a permanent standing champion. While I don't know everything because I haven't played it. That is the closest thing to justifying the change, and even then its still. "Yes, it used to be like how it was in Gen 1, and we changed it after that."
@@Bailonus Look the lore has been built and the retcons have been made. Maybe in the beginning there didn't need to be a standing champion but as of Gen 2 now there does. That's a retcon but it makes the Lance thing canon.
I wish you added the details from the anime because Minor Gym Leauges definitely exist in other regions!
Also I thought the Indigo Leauge had a chairman too
Unova just told information we knew, fantina had an actual job and so did jasmine
Imagine living like Larry...
it s amazing how good ai has gotten. I love this brand of humor :3 also, good video !!! thanks.
subbed. love this type of content, and this is top notch. you remind me of Spiffing Brit. ofc I subbed for you, I do not expect anybody to be a clone of someone else. just saying, I have a type ;)
weird to ignore gen 1 fighting gym or that Giovanni could keep the gym closed for so long, but what you gonna do.
Christmas of 2022 I witnessed a bunch of Jumpluff fly off in a thunderstorm scattering like the dragon balls. My response was wtf
Gen 6 does bring in a new bit of info- elite 4 members can have connections to evil teams, since Malva is a team Flare member
Worth noting that gym leaders not having to stick to their type specialty goes all the way back to Volkner in Gen 4, or even Giovanni in Gen 1 if we count Yellow giving him a Persian to reference the anime (though considering later Gen 1 remakes drop the Persian from his team and go back to him only having ground-types, I probably wouldn't count that)
i always assumed that the gyms are half passion and half official. the league handles all the business stuff, pays volunteers and the gym leaders and gives out stipends to maintain the actual gyms. the gym leaders operate as local servants, maintain the peace, serve as role models and celebrities and train the next generation of pokemon trainers. the gyms themselves are a gathering spot for trainers in the town or city hence all the gym trainers that you have to fight. they are either friends with the gym leader, fanboys/girls or just employees since some gyms are just straight up businesses. like how Misty's gym is literally just a swimming pool and when no one is challenging her its probably used as that by locals. that seems to be the standard for the japanese regions but the non-Japanese regions naturally stray from that. from the mess that the paldea league seems to be to the glorious commercialized mess that the galar league is no one seems to do things the way the japanese regions do. and i assumed the league format came from there too since they have it down to a very standardized format.
8:20 was not expecting the Andrew Cunningham deep cut. Also, if the Alola champion seat is left empty until someone beats the Elite 4 for the first time, that implies some fascinating things about the Gen 1 Indigo League
Back in Kanto, Sabrina demonstrated you can just set up a new Gym in town and kick the previous Gym leader out of position. RIP Fighting Gym
This is similar to an IRL practice called "dojo-yaburi" where someone will go around challenging dojos and those that lose have to close
*Paldea has a very high cost of living*
Especially considering Niranja/Uva
Unova too. But BB was privately funded probably, but Unova. (America, specifically New York (City))
3:13 Come on, KoraiDONG was RIGHT THERE!
For some reason ive always fogured the school and league in Paldea was prepping its students for taking over gym leader positions since none of the current ones seem enthusiastic and what better crop than than the champion level trainers
Alright, a rundown of my personal thoughts based on your evidence.
Every region has a chairperson, who finances the league and runs (and profits on it) based in their region. Much like owners of American sports teams. There is a set of rules they have to follow to stay as an officially recognized League (such as the Badge System), but the exact details can vary with some just copying the homework of their neighbors (Galar is the only non-Elite Four member, because they wanted to be different). This also might explain why we only know of a few of the Chairpeople. They are the Jerry Jones or Mark Cuban of the leagues. But who the hell owns the Columbus Blue Jackets or the Pittsburgh Pirates, you get what I mean?
The type specializations follow the same format. The big League Offical rules say "each gym must specialize in a type" but its up to the Chairperson to enforce that. Some may have to argue a thematic typing that at least stays in the spirit of their specialization ("Gyarados is obviously a dragon") while others are pushing the envelope because no one is snapping back or are playing at some loophole (the Striaton triplets).
Logically yes, in Alola the E4 would be picked by the Chairperson. Same with any first time company or sports league. You can't promote from nothing.
As for the jobs thing, as many others have said, the majority of the side-hustles are passion projects (writer, Vtuber, baker, running a criminal Empire...). And as someone who has several side hustles but still keeps my day job, I can tell you exactly which of those two each gym leader has thats paying the bills. And actually, although I included Giovanni as a joke there, in hindsight as I write this it explains why the Viridian City gym isn't open most of the time, he doesn't need it to be any more than he's required to.
The big exceptions to this are Roark and Byron in Sinnoh and a good chunk of Paldea. With Byron being old enough to have an adult son of Roark, most likely the mining gig was his job before becoming a Gym leader and he's sticking with it because got a good pension plan or something. He could also be a serial workaholic, which would explain why his son does the exact same thing. Although at least Roark is the safety foreman, which is much more of a desk job. As for Paldea, it's very possible as others have said that Geeta doesn't pay as well as other Chairpeople. Also, we know that she is waaaaay more hands-on than any other, possibly to a controlling level considering she makes Larry SWITCH HIS TYPES FOR NO REASON.
I had THE EXACT same reaction when I realized super light (weight wise) pokemon could blow away in the storms in S/V. I originally thought it was a bug because... S/V.
i always wonder if poppy is lying about being 9 to... benefit??? in some way??? even though that's insanely young for the E4 anyway-- or if she reall *is* 9 and just saw that one baby talk trend popular in some fashion circles on pokemon tiktok and picked it up.
In Gen 1 Saffron City used to have a fighting type Gym, but Sabrina set up her Psychic type Gym and forced the fight type Gym out of its place in the league.
Gen 1 also confirms that the fighting gym used to be the official one until Sabrina beat them to become the gym leader.
Fuecoco has some major carnavine energy in this video 😂
A personal theory I have as for why lance became the champ again is that they just promoted him after red left to go to mount silver and blue wouldn’t have came to get his title back because he took over the viridian city gym after Giovanni left
Sorry friend, you not only lost to a gym battle in the newer games, you lost in the FIRST gym. everything you said will be taken as a joke.
But pretty cool transitions
I always assumed that each region's pokemon league was a separate organization, so of course each region would have different rules on how it operates
jigglypuff flying away is very funny when you have an outbreak
I truly despise how this interesting video cuts to an uninteresting let's play that I sincerely don't care about at complete random.
My head cannon is the Blue was supposed to pick a type specialty, but because he was the second strongest trainer, he just did whatever he wanted to.
3:38
yes, yes that can happen
cause you know what happens when a balloon floats in a storm?
that, that happens
Hey, I really liked your discussion in this video. I've gotta say, though - your constant interruptions with the S/V playthrough REALLY hurt the flow. Oftentimes, you'd cut yourself off midsentence to mention the S/V playthrough, which was MASSIVELY jarring. I'd love to see more of your discussion pieces, but if it's all going to have this back-and-forth structure, I don’t know that I can follow along with them.
I just assume that the whole Gym leader and Elite 4 thing is a tax write off to stabilise the economy.
I think the situation with Larry isn't that Gita forced him to specialise, but that she made him use a different type for his Elite four team than his Gym Leader team.
I always thought trainers were ranked like "Beginner, Amateur, Advanced, Elite, Gym Trainer/Leader, Elite 4, Champion" or something alomg those lines
Could we just appreciate how Jigglypuffs got litteraly obliterated from existance
I guess for an organized sport like how Pokemon is represented in Sword/Shield, there has to be probably a universal set of standards, sure. But, it seems like each region has their own chairman as well, and how things are organized really depends and varies on each chairman’s decision. That, or, yeah, each system of league is a unique body, or even privately owned by a company.
Technically Kalos teaches us that evil team members can be redeemed and work as league members.
Everybody lets Blue Oak do whatever he wants because 1) him using his Champ-era Pokemon is definitely a bigger draw to League Challengers-- probably more educational for them too-- and 2) trying to get Blue Oak to follow rules is like trying to get a housecat to take a bath.
Also the previous Viridian Leader _did_ specialize in Ground types and was also the head of a crime syndicate, so mixing it up is probably better for the Gym's reputation.
I feel like the kid elite 4 member is probably a good doctor type person, as she could be a Survant at battling with steel types (or she’s Stevens cousin or smth)
Or Larry's just a workaholic
When I was scrolling through my feed, I saw this video as by Kazoocat, but with MandJTV's pfp. Now imagine my confusion when I clicked on it and saw the start of a Markiplier Minecraft video. I think part of my soul has permanently died from confusion
you forgot entirely about the fighting gym next to sabrinas in saffron that she beat into irrelevance, and all the security/anti terrorism work you see the champions and occasionally gym members doing. I think there is a definate regional security aspect to the league. when magikarp can get into any body of water, evolve, and destroy your village in a rampage, you want a gym in your town.
I would actually argue that tofu changing the trial to the bidding thing was more an interim trial of well we're not at my gym so here do this thing if you succeed you've passed so I would argue that it's not so much it can be changed at any time but that it can be substituted for whatever the gym leader needs to be
The adhd approach to your videos is great
WHY DOESN'T THIS VIDEO HAVE MORE VIEW OMG IT HAD ME CACKLING
I love this guy's content!
Man said 'objection substained'