Y'all took Ash losing to Tobias, then Trip's Snivy WAY too seriously, then blame the writers for what is clearly Ishihara overriding them.
And it shows with all this defensiveness and blaming innocents over and over again.
That's what Sinnoh-Unova Transition Derangement Syndrome is.
Writers in anime are ORDERED WHAT TO DO, not free. This isn't the 90s, or Nauto/Boruto, One Piece, Dragon Ball, etc.
How about you blame the middling programmer turned soulless bumbling marketing CEO overriding creatives and selling people what they're supposed like and buy merch of instead of letting things happen organically, instead of underpaid writers whose creativity has been chained up with an iron ball attatched?
I am sick of the writers being blamed for what isn't their fault. The SHEER VENOM spewed towards people who have ZERO creative freedom is a "shoot the messenger" scenario.
It REEKS of naivete regarding corporate entertainment as a business and entitlement over TOYS and TOY MARKETING TOOLS.
This episode was only bad if you had toxic expectations because you bought into marketing BS. ISHIHARA and TPCI's WHEELHOUSE.
IF THE MARKETING LIED TO YOU, BLAME THE MARKETING FIRM'S DISHONEST LEADERSHIP. It's that simple.
This is why I refuse to buy into anime marketing.
I can love the anime without getting venomous when lies are sold by the ACTUAL bad people. Not Game Freak, not the anime writers, not the VAs or those casting them or replacing them, THE SOULESS MARKETING DEPARTMENT.
Please put aside your biases, stop buying into TPCI's anti-consumer tactics, and learn how to judge episodes like this without flashing back to the Sinnoh-Unova transition and losing your minds.
This episode was FINE.
THAT'S IT.