Ash Ketchum's "first" Pokemon world championship win in 25 years is mired in controversy

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There are asterisks all over Ash's "first" big win

Ash Ketchum and team hoisting a Pokemon championship trophy
(Image credit: The Pokemon Company)

After more than two decades of effort, upstart trainer Ash Ketchum has just claimed his first Pokemon world championship - and if that news sounds familiar to you, you're about to step into the sports controversy that's rocked the Pokemon community.

The most recent episode of Pokemon Journeys: The Series - titled The Finals 4: Partner - aired in Japan on November 11. Throughout the previous episodes, Ash has advanced to the finals of the World Coronation Series, competing against Leon for the title of Monarch. The battle ultimately comes down to a lavishly animated duel between Ash's Pikachu and Leon's Charizard.

Ash and Pikachu prevail. While the episode is unlikely to air outside of Japan for another six months or so, the English-language Pokemon Twitter was quick to promote the trainer's win worldwide, saying "He's done it! Ash has become a World Champion!"

Some were quick to celebrate that Ash had finally won his long-sought world championship after 25 years of trying - an awe-inspiring feat of perseverance for a 10-year-old. But a cursory look at the structure of Pokemon competition will reveal that the Pokemon League is an absolute shambles, and any effort to declare a proper 'world' champion is ultimately meaningless.

You see, there is no singular 'Pokemon League'. Instead, many Pokemon Leagues are spread out across various regions, each of which has its own champion and organizing principles. Each league has conference championships, which typically see trainers with eight of a region's gym badges invited to a single-elimination tournament, with the winner declared that Pokemon League's champion.

This is how we've defined being a Pokemon League champion for the 25 years that Ash has been vying to 'be the very best'. Or, really, I should say 22 years - because Ash won a Pokemon League championship back in 2019, reaching the top echelon of the Alola Pokemon League. It was a big deal. CNN even wrote about it.

The World Coronation Series, the subject of Ash's most recent win, is a recent invention. Can we truly say Ash has been striving to meet this goal for 25 years when the idea of a "world" champion when that title did not exist for the vast majority of that time? Folks, I say we cannot.

Ash became Pokemon champion in 2019, and let no one tell you otherwise. (Unless you're prepared to talk about the disrespect we've all been showing the Orange League, which Ash won way back in 1999.)

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Dustin Bailey
Dustin Bailey
Staff Writer

Dustin Bailey joined the GamesRadar team as a Staff Writer in May 2022, and is currently based in Missouri. He's been covering games (with occasional dalliances in the worlds of anime and pro wrestling) since 2015, first as a freelancer, then as a news writer at PCGamesN for nearly five years. His love for games was sparked somewhere between Metal Gear Solid 2 and Knights of the Old Republic, and these days you can usually find him splitting his entertainment time between retro gaming, the latest big action-adventure title, or a long haul in American Truck Simulator.