There's a lot of controversy to Ash's first league run through, quite a bit well deserved, but at the same time for the most part he would have won his badges regardless. Maybe not against Brock, but nowadays that Onix was weak as hell because a simple Rain Dance would have done it in presently. Then Sabrina, there was no chance he was beating Sabrina, but then how do you deal with reality warpers? The rest all had stupid things happen during the battle but he would have won for the most part regardless against the likes of Erika, Misty and so on.

But I digress. I'm pretty biased because of my nostalgic love for the OG team. But, at the end of the Indigo Plateau, right after losing to Ritchie, what kind of levels do you think his pokemon were packing? Not game-wise, but more the Adventure's Manga kind of levels.

It's hard for me to picture just what level they would be without being biased. I mean, we've seen Pidgeotto one shot a Rhydon with Double-Edge, Bulbasaur take on Rhyhorn's in a tackle fight, Kingler stomp a full team of Exeggutor, Seadra and Golbat in his first battle without ever evolving, Pikachu in the movie lit up that team awua looking guy's team in one shot. Raymond was his name if I remember right but Pikchu smoked his Venemoth, Pinsir and Golem in one Thunderbolt.

So with my bias I'd probably heavily over level them. I'll put down my thoughts on their levels, but I'd really like to hear about what you guys think the levels could be yourselves if they were in the manga-verse.

Pikachu - Level 54

Pidgeotto - Level 48

Bulbasaur - Level 50

Charizard - Level 56

Squirtle - Level 50

Kingler - Level 53

Muk - Level 40

Primeape - Level 32(?) - no idea how strong he's grown since he went training to become a P1 Champ.

Tauros Herd - 30-40 on average, Level 50 herd leader. I'd think the herd leader would have to be pretty powerful since Ash used him without even training with him and he rocked at the Orange League.

 

Jordino, your leveling is spot on overall. Pikachu one-shotting three Pokemon at once---especially a rock/ground type like Golem, makes it obvious high Pokemon are high level. HOWEVER are they high level because Ash grinds & wins battles or due to Plot?

We had to grind in the games to reach a full team of 40/50 level Pokemon. Ash did not grind like we did, and "Levels" unto themselves does not translate well into the manga or anime.

Ash was not the "best" trainer due to power-of-friendship boosting many of his Pokemon. On top of that, he consistently let's go of his core team just around their peak without evolving them. PLOT-LEVELING in my opinion is why he won the League, as oppose to winning countless battles (without an Exp. share at that).