Do you enjoy the direction Pokemon Sun and Moon anime is moving in?

[Epicocity]

Yeah, but she didn't do any of this with the intention of finding a goal. The pokepuff contest was to defeat Miette, her first battle was offscreen and right before Shauna mentioned showcases, and pokévisions are just hobbies, like reading comics.

Just because she doesn't say "I'm doing this to find a goal!" every time she does an activity, doesn't mean she wasn't looking for one. That just throws the obvious intent by the side, an intent established in XY 8. They don't need to tell us she's looking for a goal in this case because they told us she wants one, but she's indecisive and not a fan of failure, but is a fan of giving up. Everything about her character is given in those first 8 eps, and if they were to stop every focus episode or activity with "I wonder if I could do this for a goal...?" it would dither into nothingness and remove the very heavy "show, don't tell" aspect that exists in Serena's arc.

 

[Kintaro]

Yeah, but she didn't do any of this with the intention of finding a goal. The pokepuff contest was to defeat Miette, her first battle was offscreen and right before Shauna mentioned showcases, and pokévisions are just hobbies, like reading comics.

It's still trying new things. It's like when Dawn battled Maylene in the Gym. Did a coordinator like Dawn have any real reason to battle a Gym leader? No, but it was a great episode and it helped with Dawn's development and we got to see her bond with Maylene.

 

[DatsRight]

I think it really depends on execution, a lot of people liked Dawn doing non-contest stuff and what not because she was able to make it fun. Even some of the generic stuff like the COTD/TR fillers she could sometimes make the best of it.

Serena was often complained about being boring in action. Her internal development was okay, but a lot of people weren't interested in baking contests, or dancing, or half finished battles, especially when Serena didn't inflict a great amount of unique flair into it.

This is often how the better SM companions survive since even with limited central development they can sometimes play themselves into random roles well enough (eg. Lillie being the brains character, or Ash fumbling the class exercises but being good at on-the-fly action moments). Mallow and Lana to compare spend a lot of the time in the background unless the episode outright has them as the star.

 

[Genaller]

Okay @DatsRight there's something I want to check with you.

From the perspective of someone who watches the show primarily for the purpose of seeing Ash progress in terms of maturity and trainer skill, would you agree that XY is the better “fit” for them over SM (a.k.a they would prefer XY over SM)? Now not everyone has to primarily watch this show for that purpose nor is that purpose even necessarily the “best” reason to watch the show; however, would you accept that it’s reasonable for those who primarily watch the show for this reason to consider XY as the superior series?

Now for the record I’m not saying that SM Ash is necessarily a bad character especially when viewed as a separate incarnation of Ash; however, I would assert that he is a “bad” (or rather very inconsistent) character when compared to his past selves (in particular OS - DP -> XY) and there are several examples which show that he doesn’t measure up in either maturity (e.g. instances of pettiness, cheating, cockiness, cracking under pressure etc...) and trainer skill (especially in the cases of Ash’s 2nd Totem trial and 3rd Grand trial) with respect to the progression that he should have had up to this point.

On a tangent note a lot of your praise for SM (from what I gather) has to do with how well they seemingly handle micro narratives. Now I can’t assess the validity of this since micro narratives have practically negligible weight to my overall viewing experience though for argument’s sake let’s say your right in that SM has offered us some of the best micro narratives in the show’s history. Do you accept that viewers like me, who don’t place much (if any) value in the show’s episodic plotlines, wouldn’t have a favorable opinion of both the structure and focus SM seemingly has as a series?

Finally I have a question for you with respect to Ash’s “character agency”. You’ve praised SM Ash for better driving episodic plotlines than his previous incarnations. Let’s again say that for argument’s sake you’re correct in that SM Ash has shown the greatest micro character agency amongst all of his incarnations. Would you; however, accept that SM Ash has the worst macro character agency out of any iteration of Ash since as I’ve argued in a previous conversation of ours, SM Ash has been relatively very nonchalant about completing a major goal of his this series (the Island Challenge) whereas all other iterations of Ash had (most of the time) actively moved towards the next step in their major goal of that series?

To be clear what I’m mainly trying to do with this post is to see whether, despite speaking out so extensively in favor of SM and against XY, you do understand at least some of the legitimate reasons for why a large section of the Pokémon anime fandom may prefer XY over SM.

 

[Spider-Phoenix]

Short answer: No, I don't.

(kinda) Long answer: Ok, I admit that coming right after XY, I wasn't really pleased with SM at first. I hated it but for virtue of being pokémon and I considering myself a grown adult who enjoy kids show (I've made my peace with that hehe) I decided to give it a chance.

The first two episodes weren't the trainwreck I was expecting to be. As it went along, I started to like it more. Far from my favorite, but I grow used to it enough so I don't hate it. Even when they do things that piss me off such as bringing back misty, brock and jigglypuff, things I dislike a lot from the first series (and mind you, I'm one of those who started with the fad in the early days) I still could support the show.

Even now, despite the lackluster Aether/Nihelego-Lusamine/Necrozma arcs, there are still things I like. And post Necrozma/2-week hiatus in the japanese version I felt the series improved (with the exceptions being the recent Eevee episode - which is a thing for another time/thread - and the upcoming "return" arc of certain people).

All in all I'd say that I don't like the current direction that much but I grow used to it to the point I don't really hate. I can appreciate some things, be neutral in some regards and hate others.

I hope Gen 8 series will try to mix the few things SM did right while bringing back some of the good stuff from AG-XY.

Now, I'll do some quotes. Saved them on a notepad so I don't forget anything but unfortunately couldn't get the code to direct to the original post...

To start off with I can’t stand to look at Ash though surprisingly most of his “softer” features aren’t the problem; it’s those oversized deformed Z marks. I’m not quite sure whether it’s because they’re oversized or asymmetric, but I feel very unpleasant (like my brain is malfunctioning) every time I’m forced to look at those atrocities plastered to Ash’s face. More generally speaking the character and Pokémon designs are simpler in SM to allow for more fluid animation though frankly I find the increase in fluidity granted by this simplification to not be worth the loss of the more detailed artstyle in the slightlest.

I... I can't believe I'd find someone who, like me, is bothered by that detail.

SOUL BROTHER!

*high five*

Don't know about that. I thought Unova easily has the best and most strongest start of the anime thanks to it's fast-paced almost no-filler nature early on and whatever filler episodes did happen contributed to the plot. I especially loved the beautiful environmental layouts and the new animation and the action scenes. In fact, I'd even have to say Black and White's early start was a VAST improvement over Diamond and Pearl's long and slow early start that was just full of annoying filler. I think the only reason why people criticize the early start of Unova is Ash's Pikachu losing against Snivy and that's really it. If you look past that, you can really see what looks like an amazing bridge of animation and fast-paced storytelling between Diamond and Pearl and XYZ.

I have a similar opinion about BW as well. I do admit that Trip's second battle with Ash did annoy me but honestly, aside from that poor rivalry (which came right after Ash v. Paul) and the Elesa episode (the worst of the entire anime in my opinion) the BW series is really decent.

the fact it felt like they wanted to do a reboot but did not go full reboot

C'mon, guys. Just go full DC and call it a "Relaunch"

Is it sad I can count the number of "fierce battles" in one hand or two.

That many? I don't even need to pont my fingers to count it with one hand. Which just goes to show what kind of number I'm thinking.

She didn't even gained a special! It's almost like if the writers were forced to write her in the show.

For me, the reason she has no special is... Her story is basically done. She finally stopped being the unsure, timid girl. She now has a clear goal, knows what she wants to be and made her feeling clear to the guy she loves. A special would add what? And that's coming from a Serena fan who did want a special focusing on her...

It would have been less jarring if XY went on for 4 years like AG/DP did. Maybe that's what the writers thought.

You know, I think that's indeed the case. Just remember the Yajima interview where he only found out his series had to warp up ONE year before the new debut.

 

[Kintaro]

The very first year of BW was alright, but the payoff immediately went away once all the flaws started to become apparent. I remember people being incredibly hyped about "serious Team Rocket" but then we all know that went nowhere so looking back it's pretty bad now. Same with people being excited at first about Ash capturing a lot of pokemon....then we all know how that went with his Unova team being poorly handled developed and all his pokemon barely doing anything and his starters not evolving.

Some of the early/mid BW fillers were pretty decent too and I liked the secondary rivals not counting Trip. But yeah, something about BW went haywire as it progressed. Even things that were hyped up like the Plasma arc, Dawn's return, etc...kinda fell flat. And then they clearly didn't know what to do with Iris after awhile, I still feel to this day Dragonite was only given to her once the writers realized they had to do something with her dragon related goal before she left the cast. For a long time she only had 3 pokemon, Axew, Excadrill and Emolga...and Axew was screwed over by not evolving. lol

But overall it doesn't matter now. I do think SM is a bit better than BW because as I said before, it knows what it wants to be. And has a lot of supporting/recurring characters.

 

[mehmeh1]

I wonder how things would be if gen 8 was directed by daiki and written by tomioka, I mean, they worked together for generations and it turned out pretty good for the most part

 

[Jeal]

For me, the reason she has no special is... Her story is basically done. She finally stopped being the unsure, timid girl. She now has a clear goal, knows what she wants to be and made her feeling clear to the guy she loves. A special would add what? And that's coming from a Serena fan who did want a special focusing on her...

Yeah, but Misty's ,Dawn's and Clemont's were too, and they got specials. Misty got four! The worst of it is that they decided to do a special focused on never seen characters that nobody cares about instead of Serena. And she don't will get a cameo too.

 

[Kintaro]

Yeah, but Misty's ,Dawn's and Clemont's were too, and they got specials. Misty got four! The worst of it is that they decided to do a special focused on never seen characters that nobody cares about instead of Serena. And she don't will get a cameo too.

Misty only got 4 specials because AG had a series dedicated to specials, and back then Misty and Tracey were the only former main characters. I think Tracey is in around 7 of those specials, do you really think Tracey was popular enough to appear in 7 specials? Of course not. He only appeared a lot because there weren't any other old main characters at the time.

That's also why every companion after only got 1 special when they left besides a few. Or Brock returning in Cilan's special and then Cilan in Bonnie/Clemont's.

 

[Jeal]

Misty only got 4 specials because AG had a series dedicated to specials, and back then Misty and Tracey were the only former main characters. I think Tracey is in around 7 of those specials, do you really think Tracey was popular enough to appear in 7 specials? Of course not. He only appeared a lot because there weren't any other old main characters at the time.

That's also why every companion after only got 1 special when they left besides a few. Or Brock returning in Cilan's special and then Cilan in Bonnie/Clemont's.

Yeah, but Serena continues with no special or cameo. It says how much the writers cared about her.

 

[Kintaro]

Yeah, but Serena continues with no special or cameo. It says how much the writers cared about her.

May didn't get a special. Iris never got a cameo. Misty went 12 years without appearing between AG and SM to the point where most never thought she would show up again.

What does it matter?

 

[Jeal]

May didn't get a special. Iris never got a cameo. Misty went 12 years without appearing between AG and SM to the point where most never thought she would show up again.

What does it matter?

It does matter when every girl got a special or cameo and she didn't because the writers preferred to do a random special about random characters instead of the co-protagonist of the show. It does matter when Clemont and Bonnie got one and she didn't.

 

[Kintaro]

It does matter when every girl got a special or cameo and she didn't because the writers preferred to do a random special about random characters instead of the co-protagonist of the show. It does matter when Clemont and Bonnie got one and she didn't.

We didn't get specials or cameos for a lot of older characters. The writers obviously aren't interested in showing Serena alone outside Ash (which is actually unfortunate, I would have liked to see Serena enter her first Hoenn Contest, but oh well), that's really all there is to it. Also Yajima is probably the only one who will write Serena if she returns at some point, they're not going to have the other writers do it. Yajima directed Movie 21 so we'll see if he ever works on the main anime again.

 

[DatsRight]

Okay @DatsRight there's something I want to check with you.

From the perspective of someone who watches the show primarily for the purpose of seeing Ash progress in terms of maturity and trainer skill, would you agree that XY is the better “fit” for them over SM (a.k.a they would prefer XY over SM)? Now not everyone has to primarily watch this show for that purpose nor is that purpose even necessarily the “best” reason to watch the show; however, would you accept that it’s reasonable for those who primarily watch the show for this reason to consider XY as the superior series?

Now for the record I’m not saying that SM Ash is necessarily a bad character especially when viewed as a separate incarnation of Ash; however, I would assert that he is a “bad” (or rather very inconsistent) character when compared to his past selves (in particular OS - DP -> XY) and there are several examples which show that he doesn’t measure up in either maturity (e.g. instances of pettiness, cheating, cockiness, cracking under pressure etc...) and trainer skill (especially in the cases of Ash’s 2nd Totem trial and 3rd Grand trial) with respect to the progression that he should have had up to this point.

On a tangent note a lot of your praise for SM (from what I gather) has to do with how well they seemingly handle micro narratives. Now I can’t assess the validity of this since micro narratives have practically negligible weight to my overall viewing experience though for argument’s sake let’s say your right in that SM has offered us some of the best micro narratives in the show’s history. Do you accept that viewers like me, who don’t place much (if any) value in the show’s episodic plotlines, wouldn’t have a favorable opinion of both the structure and focus SM seemingly has as a series?

I guess this is kind of a subjective matter, since Ash himself (along with several other long running characters) has already been flung here and there in terms of characterisation, even XY isn't 100% with DP Ash. I guess it's the fact that I saw Ash as a bland character originally and SM giving him more vibrancy while still giving him enough connections to the original to feel like the same character being tuned up. I know there have been some breaches of what he usually does, but besides a couple cases like the recent episode with Rotom, I never felt them too severe. After all Ash started off as a petty arrogant jerk, and while he has become a better person, the odd subtle relapse makes sense. No one ever matures into a perfect human being.

I understand your concerns because I usually hate when they skew a once likeable chaarcter into having tons of one-time vices or quirks for the sake of a quick story (take say, how Po was handled in the first Kung Fu Panda TV series) but it usually feels like in SM they are at least trying to keep a balance, and trying to add a more vibrant flexible edge to Ash's character while still mostly keeping him in check with his handling beforehand and all the while trying to keep him a heartfelt and likeable character. It's not like say Ash is abruptly selfish/dumb/close minded/any other random vice in every single episode for the sake of a story and a lesson to learn.

So yeah it might be down to a biased opinion with answering this question.

Finally I have a question for you with respect to Ash’s “character agency”. You’ve praised SM Ash for better driving episodic plotlines than his previous incarnations. Let’s again say that for argument’s sake you’re correct in that SM Ash has shown the greatest micro character agency amongst all of his incarnations. Would you; however, accept that SM Ash has the worst macro character agency out of any iteration of Ash since as I’ve argued in a previous conversation of ours, SM Ash has been relatively very nonchalant about completing a major goal of his this series (the Island Challenge) whereas all other iterations of Ash had (most of the time) actively moved towards the next step in their major goal of that series?

To be clear what I’m mainly trying to do with this post is to see whether, despite speaking out so extensively in favor of SM and against XY, you do understand at least some of the legitimate reasons for why a large section of the Pokémon anime fandom may prefer XY over SM.

I will say fair play and in the long run, the trial premise is very awkwardly set about this series. I do think there are in universe that can be attributed to it (namely Ash's ever curious nature and him wanting to try a different approach after six regions of regimented failure) but debatable execution I will say kinda hangs over it.

With that said, I feel like this Ash delivers more in terms of DRIVING the macro character agency, since a lot more of the stuff he HAS accomplished has still been through his own character and efforts. Yeah there's still the odd plot armour boost and hand outs like the Z Ring, but we've seen more cases of Ash's actually training for boosts or going out of his way to iron out the problems with his team in an effective way than arguably any series besides DP. Not to mention feeling a lot less like he has been just forced into the main arc conflicts and is going out of his way to contribute, even if said arcs are riddled with many other problems.

I understand a lot of my preferences between the two series are subjective but at the end of the day I'm a fan of character driven works. I understand plot driven works are still a proper method of storytelling, but I just feel more investment with SM's approach, even with its own heavy flaws.

I think it's also the fact that, well, SM is trying something new, it's breaking the formula. A lot of the things it manages to accomplish in such are things that are seldom been rectified before, even if they've added other problems into the mix. I will agree that the show should aim for a better compromise afterwards, but the fact the writers have managed to finally overcome an ever recurrent obstacle and break the mould at this point gives hope since it means they can do it again from now on.

BW was far from perfect as well for example, but it was brave enough to break some usual regiments that made the storytelling a bit more flexible (eg. Team Rocket no longer mandated for every episode). Later series have tried to fine tune on that so ultimately while maybe the series itself maybe was messy in handling, it's concepts were ultimately for the good of the show.

 

[U.N. Owen]

I hate the idea that we're building towards a league when the league hasn't been relevant since Kalos. Look, you can't have a climax without proper rising action. I'd prefer the slice of life mixed with some story arcs like we've gotten, just better paced, than building towards another league. Unless the league structured like Ash running into people demanding a battle like it was some Victory Road quest, then I won't hold my breath.

 

[MidnightMelody]

You know what really annoys me? The fans! Hear me out! The fans are annoying because if you critic SUMO they jump on you. I'm not saying opinions I'm saying you will get attacked if you say facts. For example it is a fact SUMO has horrible pacing. Say it though and the fans attack you. The one that really urks me is the one where if you are not a fan of SUMO you are automatically a XYZ worshiper. The amount of times I have said I'm blinded by XYZ after saying what is wrong with SUMO is insane. I hardly even watched ANY XYZ. The fact is every Pokemon series has issues. I love DP but I accept it had issues. But if you say ANYTHING negative about SUMO the fans will literally try to hang you.

 

[DatsRight]

I thought the erratic pacing was one of the things even the SM fans agreed upon. I mean few are defending Nebby's arc lasting TEN EPISODES.

 

[Epicocity]

I thought the erratic pacing was one of the things even the SM fans agreed upon. I mean few are defending Nebby's arc lasting TEN EPISODES.

Go on Twitter. There are a lot of people there ready to jump on you and spin SM's worst aspects into the positive. If you were to listen to half of them, the series doesn't have any flaws. And yes, I've seen that entire arc praised.

Not so much of that stuff here, though.

 

[Kintaro]

Go on Twitter. There are a lot of people there ready to jump on you and spin SM's worst aspects into the positive. If you were to listen to half of them, the series doesn't have any flaws. And yes, I've seen that entire arc praised.

Not so much of that stuff here, though.

Depends where you go, some people love the series and some do not.

 

[AuraChannelerChris]

Go on Twitter. There are a lot of people there ready to jump on you and spin SM's worst aspects into the positive. If you were to listen to half of them, the series doesn't have any flaws. And yes, I've seen that entire arc praised.

Not so much of that stuff here, though.

They only praise those liiiiiiiiiiiittle moments they can make GIFs out of. Ha ha.