At long last! Part 7 of the “Did Ash Actually Earn This?” series! 

1. How many Gym Leaders did Ash fight?
2. How many Elite Four members did Ash fight?
3. How many awards did Ash fairly earn?

Seasons 20-22 bring Ash and his new art style to the Alola region, where the sun always shines, and Team Skull is throwing up gang signs every 10 seconds.

With the release of Pokémon Sun and Moon and their expansions, the way the Pokémon League works has changed. Gyms are replaced with Island Trial Challenges, typically given by a trial’s Captain. Players complete tasks and battle Totem Pokémon, earning Z-Crystals in the process. There are Z-Crystals that can be obtained outside of a trial, but ultimately take the role of Badges. After all island trials, the player has a Grand Trial battle against the Island Kahuna. This earns them another Z-Crystal and a Completion Stamp, and the player moves to the next island. Battling Trial Captains is optional (except in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, where it’s necessary in some cases). 

In short, to become the Alola Champion and to roll the credits, the player needs to complete at least seven Trial Challenges, 4 Grand Trials, defeat the Elite Four, and defeat the not-really Champion.

With all this in mind, we’ll need to tweak the criteria a bit for Ash’s Alola journey: 

In order for a Trial Challenge to be fairly completed, Ash must complete the required number of tasks on an island, as designated or verified by a Captain or Kahuna. For Grand Trials, Ash must defeat the Island Kahuna in battle, either by knocking out all the opposing Pokémon, or if the opponent forfeits. It doesn’t matter which Z-Crystal he gets as a reward.

To become the Champion, Ash must defeat all Alola Elite Four members, then Professor Kukui or Trainer Hau.

I need to point out that most of the Captains are not designated as such in the anime. Lana, Kiawe, Mallow, and Sophocles are Ash’s classmates, and aren’t given the Captain title. Illima and Mina aren’t in the show much at all. But, in the games, there is a trial that doesn’t have a captain presiding over it, so I’m counting the trials as long as a canon Captain or Kahuna says it is one.

For our purposes here, I’m counting Acerola’s trial as valid, even though, in the anime, Ash was given the trial as a snipe hunt. The task was given to him by a Kahuna, and the task’s completion was verified by both the Captain and the Kahuna. But, even with that in mind, Ash still didn’t complete the necessary number of trials on each of the islands. Except for Hapu’s Grand Trial in Sun/Moon specifically, the player needs to complete all available trials on an island before battling the Kahuna. Thus, Ash shouldn’t have qualified for two of the Grand Trials.

According to the game, the Alola region only recently started using other regions’ Pokémon league rules, and technically started the proper Alola League that year. What this means in-game is two of the Island Kahunas are made Elite Four members, and there is no reigning Champion. Instead, the player gets to sit in the winner’s chair for 10 seconds, then faces off against Professor Kukui in Sun/Moon or their rival Hau in Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon, in order to be formally recognized as the first Alola Champion.

In the anime, the big single-elimination tournament is the Manalo Conference. Not only is this tournament notable in that many of the “Gym Leaders” participated, it was also the first canon-to-the-games-sort-of Regional conference that Ash won (remember, Ash won the Orange League Conference, but there’s no Orange League in the games).

For consistency’s sake, I’m using the same Elite Four battling exception as previous seasons: If the Elite Four member was previously battled as a “Gym Leader,” they need to be battled again for it to be a League win.

In the anime, the only Elite Four members to actually battle in the Manalo conference were Acerola and Kahili, but neither of them ever battled Ash. Ash already battled Hala and Olivia, but he only battled them once as part of the Grand Trial. And with that in mind, Ash, for the final time, would not qualify for the regional League Championship based on the game’s rules. 

Ash earned 3 of his Z-Crystals fairly, by completing the required Melemele Island and Poni Island Trials. This would have earned him two Passport Stamps. But, going by the rules of the games, Ash would not have qualified for the remaining Grand Trials, let alone qualify for entry into the Alola League Championships.

In terms of getting his achievements fairly, Ash backslid pretty hard in Alola. Not since the Kanto region has Ash’s legitimate achievement record been so bad. But, I’m not going to give the writers too much grief over this. There were numerous other characters that got the limelight in the Alola arc, and they all had their own turn to face trials and earn Z-Crystals. There just wasn’t enough time to dedicate to Ash’s personal journey through the Alola region.

After the conclusion of the Sun and Moon arc, Ash spends the next few seasons of the anime exploring the entire Pokémon world, visiting multiple regions and faffing about until the quarterfinals of the World Coronation. After becoming the new Monarch, despite being formally recognized as one of the strongest Trainers in the world, Ash feels that he isn’t a Pokémon Master yet. To him, being a Pokémon Master means befriending all the Pokémon in the world (…Sure.). So, he sets off again on his quest, wherever it may take him. After that, the focus of the anime shifts to new protagonists.

As such, this marks the end of “Did Ash Actually Earn This?” It was a lot of fun to do, since I hadn’t watched a lot of the Pokémon anime over the last few years. Maybe I’ll do another one of these with a different series? Who knows?

Until then…thanks for sticking with me while I underwent this ridiculous project.