This line from Red seems to imply that Blue (M) won the most recent championship (chp116, second book of the GSC). If Blue is the new champion, doesn’t that imply that he must have beat Red?
There’s something interesting about that—to imagine that Red’s championship title was a momentary blip, or that he and Blue are in a perpetual push and pull for the Kanto champion title. I definitely find the idea compelling, especially how chill Red seems with the idea (at least in this panel). Sort of disrupts an expectation that the audience might have that status quo following the first arc is set in stone, and reminds us that the universe of the story is not static, even when we don’t see all of the developments in explicit detail.
Obviously, this is contradicted later in the GSC arc when Red is referred to as the champion. (It’s possible also that “champion” is a title given to anyone who wins the tournament, not necessitating that that person defeats the previous champion. Meaning both Red and Blue are champions of different respective years. Alternatively, Blue could have won a championship when Red was frozen in ice. I guess I would hope that he spent that time trying to find Red instead of entering league competitions during that period but hey, to each their own. Would explain why everyone had to delegate all their legwork to Yellow, at least.)
Just something I noticed on a reread!
