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

My only real complaints are the lack of battles and the underused characters such as Mallow and Sophocles. I think the cast would have been much tighter if it was just Ash, Lillie, and Kiawe. I do like some of the SoL episodes and the stationary setting is a nice change of pace.

That said I'm already anticipating Gen 8 since it should continue the trend of change Sun and Moon started.

We’ve had 3 gens of change. They need to stick to something
 

AznKei

Dawn & Chloe by ddangbi
It was ok. Sure, I'm used its slice of life comedy since I watched other similar animes like Nichijou, but since the whole series last over 100 episodes, I would prefer the classmates get more developments than what is shown so far.

Then again, XY had a similar issue with the companions so I'm not expecting much. There's some bad episodes but I got over them quickly, since I'm fully aware of the producers intentions, along with their target audience.
The biggest change is yet to happen: Replacing Ash with a new main character.
Oh, I really wished that. He hold the recent companions/classmates potentials back imo. But he's far too important for this anime along with Pikachu.
 

Genaller

Silver Soul
No. The direction that SM has taken for the anime is the antithesis of my preferred direction for the series. @Epicocity bascially nailed it with respect to what the root of this saga’s problems are.

I’m honestly not sure where this essay/rant is going to go and it probably won’t be all that structured unlike many of my other essays on this forum. For some background I’m someone who fairly recently quit having an active investment in SM and only intend to watch the episodes involving battle/power scaling feats for Ash’s Pokémon out of a sense of obligation since I have an obsession with giving all of Ash’s Pokémon battle viability ratings.

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.

More importantly it seems that the focus of animation has shifted from battles to slice of life making it more apparent that this isn’t my kind of series. It’s not that I inherently dislike series that don’t put focus on battles. Battles in OS Kanto would be an utter joke by modern standards though I still enjoyed that series due to its great sense of humor and character/Pokémon chemistry. On the other hand the sort of “comedy” SM offers made me groan and cringe instead of smile and laugh.

As for our major characters overall I feel quite apathetic towards them. Kiawe’s focus episodes were easily the most engaging (comparatively) though sadly he’s criminally underused. I’ll admit that I’ve grown to like Lana more than my initial impression of her where I thought she was Misty but without the tsundere and actually wouldn’t mind seeing her dream he fulfilled which seems very possible given how tied it is to Primarina’s Z-move it seems to be though sadly she’s also underused. Lillie on the other hand is someone whom I had high expectations for. I really enjoyed her character arc in the games, but this was completely butchered in the anime yet it’s clear that she’s still being pushed as the most important companion. I also had hopes that she could be the first female lead to do a gym/trial quest though it’s clear that with the time remaining coupled with the lack of focus on battles that this is never happening. Overall anime Lillie has been extremely disappointing. Mallow and Sophocles evoke so much apathy in me that I can’t even be bothered to write about my problems with them.

Now as many of you know I’m someone that is heavily invested in Ash’s progression as both a trainer and person. I’m not saying that everyone needs to still be invested in this aspect of the series or even whether they should be, but know that this is and always will be the most important aspect of the Pokémon anime for me and with the premise that Ash is supposed to be gradually progressing (both trainer and character wise) throughout the show in mind, SM just like BW is objective trash. Now to be clear the problems that both these variants of Ash had are far from identical. In certain aspects SM Ash isn’t as horrendous as BW Ash (such as battle competency though he’s still pretty bad compared to DP and XY Ash) though in others (character consistency with respect to his past selves) he’s far worse than BW Ash. SM Ash even more so than BW Ash feels like a husk of flesh that the writers inject character traits into in order to fit whatever narrative they’re telling at the time.

I’m not sure which show I dislike more between SM and BW, but I will say this; while BW’s betrayal of Ash’s progression stings a lot more than SM, I could at least sense that “the spirit of Pokémon” was alive and well in BW; however, I sense nothing of the sort from SM.

If XY was the series that restored my hope in the anime, then SM is the series that fizzled most of it out again and has left me on the edge with the gen 8 series being the decisive factor with regards to what side I land on (renewed hope for the show or complete loss of hope and investment in it). Who knew that a show as light hearted as SM could induce such utter despair within me (with regards to the anime’s future) :-(.
 

Bguy7

The Dragon Lord
Yeah but said arc was often hard to get invested with given they appeared so briefly and was often executed in a monotonous way. "Battles" usually consisted of beating up Team Rocket in a completely one sided way with the same one or two attacks, which get REALLY boring after a while (I don't mind bumbling villains so long as they have an entertaining dynamic with the heroes, Team Rocket are funny but don't qualify at all in that regard). Very often the protagonists themselves felt like reactors; guys who just wandered around, observed things and didn't have a lot of involvement besides something very easy and indistinct like aforementioned easy one sided beatings. If they were lucky they got a competition arc, though that didn't necessarily make their character interesting, it just gave them something to do in what, often 10% of the series.

I would agree they weren't the best, but they at least felt like they had a reason to exist, which a good chunk of Sun and Moon episodes just don't.

A quick, one-sided battle against Team Rocket is at least some action, which more than we get in most Sun and Moon episodes. And even if all battles against Team Rocket were removed, there'd still be way more battles in previous series on average than there is in Sun and Moon.

I do appreciate that, while there are SOME 'fluff' fillers in SM (though I don't think anymore so than previous series) a lot of them feel more character driven on the protagonists side. In that rather than just focusing on a one shot they focus on the twerps themselves. This is the first series in ages where Ash recurrently drives an episode just by personality alone. Some can consider it pointless, but it is a way for the audience to care about him, to be invested when he DOES do a big plot.

In theory, I can agree that it's better to focus on the main characters than on characters of the day, the problem is that in practice, Sun and Moon has failed on that account too. Every once in a while we get some okay development for one of the main cast, but most episodes don't even have what could be considered development in the least. Yes, the focus is on one of the main cast, but nothing of any value happens because of it. Things just happen, and no one is any better or worse off for it. It makes the episodes feel pointless.
 

Kintaro

Banned
Admittedly Sun/Moons best eps are the ones that focus on slice of life, or eps on Kiawe/Lana, etc. or showcase the pokemon. It's all the "plot" centric eps that feel lackluster compared to previous sagas. Sun/Moon has it's enjoyable episodes, I really loved the last few new episodes like the Halloween episode, the play episode, etc...but it depends what you want out of the episode.
 

Prof. SALTY

The Scruffy Professor
NO WAY. Comedy ok. But to much comedy? Alola feels so small. Now will they suddenly give Rowlet focus after the only focus episode was his capture. TR is the only thing I like about SM.

Alola is small. Like, actually tiny. I really don't think a traditional travel story would work without toooooons of filler
 

Epicocity

Well-Known Member
Alola is small. Like, actually tiny. I really don't think a traditional travel story would work without toooooons of filler
Is that really true, though? A general series these days is about 140 episodes. If we followed the game structure instead of the weird trial system the anime implements...
7 Trials, 8 if we're including USUM changes
4 Grand Trials
1 for each of those to introduce the Captains/Kahunas
That's 23 episodes, not counting in case there are any 2-parters.
10 on the villain plot, to be safe. So we're now up to 33.

In a traditional travel story, Ash gets up to 5 Pokemon caught, and his companions get 2-3. For the purposes let's assume then, we have 5 capture episodes for Ash. 2 for each companion to a rounded total of 4. Add 9 episodes and we're up to 41.

Now let's factor in a league, usually about 7 episodes. 48 episodes total.

Evolutions? We'll assume the average of about 6-7 evolution episodes across the board, but we can play fast and loose with that. 55 episodes.

These are just things we could've guaranteed would happen. Throw in some rival episodes, some other move or focus episodes, possibly some Z-Crystal episodes not associated with the other 11/12 and we're likely reaching into the 70s or 80s on non-filler episodes alone. And that's a lenient, rough estimate.

It's not impossible to do a journey series for Alola (I would know; I wrote an 85 chapter journey fic for it), but they chose not to. Which isn't bad in and of itself. But they didn't earn it or make us ever think it was necessary in-universe.
 

Prof. SALTY

The Scruffy Professor
Is that really true, though? A general series these days is about 140 episodes. If we followed the game structure instead of the weird trial system the anime implements...
7 Trials, 8 if we're including USUM changes
4 Grand Trials
1 for each of those to introduce the Captains/Kahunas
That's 23 episodes, not counting in case there are any 2-parters.
10 on the villain plot, to be safe. So we're now up to 33.

In a traditional travel story, Ash gets up to 5 Pokemon caught, and his companions get 2-3. For the purposes let's assume then, we have 5 capture episodes for Ash. 2 for each companion to a rounded total of 4. Add 9 episodes and we're up to 41.

Now let's factor in a league, usually about 7 episodes. 48 episodes total.

Evolutions? We'll assume the average of about 6-7 evolution episodes across the board, but we can play fast and loose with that. 55 episodes.

These are just things we could've guaranteed would happen. Throw in some rival episodes, some other move or focus episodes, possibly some Z-Crystal episodes not associated with the other 11/12 and we're likely reaching into the 70s or 80s on non-filler episodes alone. And that's a lenient, rough estimate.

It's not impossible to do a journey series for Alola (I would know; I wrote an 85 chapter journey fic for it), but they chose not to. Which isn't bad in and of itself. But they didn't earn it or make us ever think it was necessary in-universe.

Alola AS A REGION is very compact. I REEEAAALLY doubt they could stretch a Journey over the islands without adding a ton of areas not present in the games which THEY ALREADY DO without travelling. The region is not built for a traditional travel show.
 

Epicocity

Well-Known Member
Alola AS A REGION is very compact. I REEEAAALLY doubt they could stretch a Journey over the islands without adding a ton of areas not present in the games which THEY ALREADY DO without travelling. The region is not built for a traditional travel show.
Do you even know how many towns and other locations are added into the anime to begin with? It's not impossible to add more locations. That's fallacious thinking at best. Just because the current anime has decided to restrict 80% of events to Melemele and Hau'oli doesn't mean there aren't a plethora of locations. Heck, in this anime there's a grand total of 10 locations we haven't even touched that aren't even related to the trial plot.

But I could also think of about 7-8 locations where a town could be placed if they so chose. It's actually very easy to write a travel around Alola.
 

MattySadler

Well-Known Member
Having followed the Pokemon anime pretty closely since the late 90s, this is the quickest I've ever lost interest in a series.

The art style infuriates me, I don't find the stories interesting and I think "Ash's friends" are really underused.
 

Prof. SALTY

The Scruffy Professor
Do you even know how many towns and other locations are added into the anime to begin with? It's not impossible to add more locations. That's fallacious thinking at best. Just because the current anime has decided to restrict 80% of events to Melemele and Hau'oli doesn't mean there aren't a plethora of locations. Heck, in this anime there's a grand total of 10 locations we haven't even touched that aren't even related to the trial plot.

But I could also think of about 7-8 locations where a town could be placed if they so chose. It's actually very easy to write a travel around Alola.

It's different fro other regions. you can't pad out the legs between towns if theres water surrounding every shot. With a mainland region you can duck off into a forrest or climb a mountain or something. Kiawe literally travels the entire region every morning before school to drop off milk. It's not a traditional travel series so not every location needs to be used, that's not the focus.
 

Bguy7

The Dragon Lord
It's different fro other regions. you can't pad out the legs between towns if theres water surrounding every shot. With a mainland region you can duck off into a forrest or climb a mountain or something. Kiawe literally travels the entire region every morning before school to drop off milk. It's not a traditional travel series so not every location needs to be used, that's not the focus.

They could do whatever they wanted, really. There doesn't have to be "water surrounding every shot." Ash and friends go plenty of places where you can't see the ocean. It's not really that hard to say there's a random forest or mountain between point A and B on the inland parts of the island. Or you even just significantly lengthen the existing routes. It's not like the anime has ever concerned itself with geographical accuracy before. I'm sure if you actually tried to make a map of Ash's journey's in other regions, the proportions of lengths between different cities would be entirely different than it is in the game.

And the only reason they have Kiawe traveling the region like that is because of the choice they made for Ash to be bound to one spot. They needed travel across the region to be fast so that they could get him wherever they want on a moment's notice. Take away that need, and I'm sure we wouldn't be seeing people traveling the region in less than a day.

Heck, it's not like being able to fly across a region in a short amount of time is anything new. Ash and friends have taken blimps, planes, boats, trains and Pokémon across large chunks of past regions in very little time. Kiawe flying Charizard across the region is no different.

The lack of travel, for better or worse, was choice a choice of the writers. By no means did thay have to present things the way they did.
 

satopi

Life doesn’t end, …it changes.
I've mostly enjoyed SM's new approach in it's entirety but there are some issues I have with it. It's a lot easier to binge watch episodes and I like that they're showing more variety in how they handle episodes with it's characters. I do wish that the main characters outside of Ash and his team would have some sort of issue (only one being Lillie) instead of remaining completely and utterly static. It's like the only people I show only give a damn when it comes to storytelling is Ash, Lillie, or Ash's Pokémon. Sure there's Kukui but he isn't much of a focus character. I wished they stuck to using school tropes but they're too concerned with making stupid anime references for split second scenes that adds no meaning other than fanservice.
Anime Team Flare was the best villain arc they did, with Galactic second. Every other villain team they manage to screw up in some form.
Galactic and Hunter J are better, it took until near the very end of Team Flare just to attack while the DP villains were more consistent and challenging, especially Hunter J.
 

ash&charizardfan

Humans are tools
Galactic and Hunter J are better, it took until near the very end of Team Flare just to attack while the DP villains were more consistent and challenging, especially Hunter J.

Team galactic were more consistent throughout the series, but team flare finale was more impactfull, they attacked the main city full of people and not to mention even talked about genocide, TG on the other hand in the last arc were underwhelming, not giving focus to other characters and only focussing on MC and cynthia like they were the only one responsible for saving sinnoh, atleast TF gave some screentime to other people.
 

Epicocity

Well-Known Member
Galactic and Hunter J are better, it took until near the very end of Team Flare just to attack while the DP villains were more consistent and challenging, especially Hunter J.
It all comes down to intent, though.

Galactic was good, but we can't count J since she was just a hired gun for Team Galactic at the very end and very much separate. Galactic also made themselves known very early. They spent about two episodes sneaking around before they became a visible threat who kept remaining visible once they'd revealed themselves.

Flare, on the other hand, was meant to be hidden. The fact they never went out in the open until they had to on account of losing Squishy and then disappeared once they'd gotten Z-2 until their plans were ready speaks to that. Just because they weren't persistent foes for Ash doesn't make them bad, because their intent of use was clear, just like Galactic's.

Those are two villain groups whose intent matches their portrayal...which can't be said for everyone.
 

DatsRight

Well-Known Member
Truthfully I thought BW Team Rocket was the better of the lot, largely due to the catharsis of it being the Trio and them still having moments of actual chemistry with the twerps (eg. the Meowth turns good arc). Also the last half they were near around the right balance, they weren't so overpowered that the twerps always needed a fluke or outside interference to stop them, but they still often put up a proper fight and forced them to do something at least semi competent or resilient. Also when they were just bumbling fools they played them as bumbling fools and gave them funny moments with the twerps, rather than trying to just play them as a standard stock villain. They were decent antagonists in terms of being foils for the twerps and actually forcing them to put on a show. The only villain that's really got this balance right in SM is admittedly Bourgain/Viren, who in fairness has only appeared in three episodes.

Early XY did this for a short while, but I think quickly in they couldn't keep it up (especially since half the twerps weren't even good battlers and Ash was getting focus on more relevant rivals and challenges) and had to dumb them down again.
 

TheWanderingMist

Paladin of the Snow Queen
I like it, but it's kinda disappointing me with setting up things to be awesome at the beginning and just never following up.
 
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