Do you remember what was your reaction when you first saw Sun & Moon Ash?

[Sonic Boom]

It felt like a design shift that felt like regaining the old bouncy carefree charm from the original OS, in comparison to the aesthetically "epic" but otherwise routine style of XY, and I thought I recognized from before for another franchise, but couldn't quite put my finger on what it was.

Then I remembered that Sonic Mania was announced a few months prior, and suddenly the familiarity all made sense to me.

 

[Chano]

"Ash fanboys will hate this, nice"

 

[janejane6178]

I thought it an abomination

Journeys did improve on his face though

Fully agree
It was horrible, just horrible
Its like the writers thought: “How can we make Ash into the most fugliest thing ever”
Horrible

 

[AuraChannelerChris]

Dear god, what happened to his face?

 

[Kameinu]

Disgust.

 

[diesglamouris]

"Yeah, it's weird, but he won a League."

For study reasons I quitted Pokémon between 2013 and 2019, so almost everything (the new friends, the new monsters, the Z-Moves, all in a colorful and cartoonish style) was weird for me. Not in a bad or good sense, simply weird.

 

[tlhGS]

It was horrible that I stopped following the anime after XY. I used to make subtitles for Turkish community but thanks to S&M anime I completely left everything related to Pokémon.

 

[AznKei]

For me who I dislike Ash, I approved Ash being the slapstick in SM.

 

[MaMcMu]

The new art style reminded me of One Piece, mostly the 6th movie.

 

[janejane6178]

Disgust.

Fully agree

 

[Pokegirl Fan~]

His z marks along with the red hat and attire made him look like Mario to me. Lol.

 

[Jeal]

I don't understand why only the old characters's art style was ugly. What was the point they were trying to make?

At least they abandoned this stupid idea now. The new artstyle is a lot better.

Anyway, my biggest problem with SM was not the artstyle, but the fact that was like the story had not an ongoing plot. Same as the current season. I hope the next season to have a focused storyline and not being a filler season with some relevant self-contained episodes here and there like after XYZ ended.

 

[Miraidon]

“Damn, Pokémon anime will finally die, huh?”

Was super wrong thankfully!

 

[janejane6178]

I don't understand why only the old characters's art style was ugly. What was the point they were trying to make?

At least they abandoned this stupid idea now. The new artstyle is a lot better.

Anyway, my biggest problem with SM was not the artstyle, but the fact that was like the story had not an ongoing plot. Same as the current season. I hope the next season to have a focused storyline and not being a filler season with some relevant self-contained episodes here and there like after XYZ ended.

The new characters looked fugly as well
For example, Lillie’s eyes were too close to each other. They fixed it in JN and she looked less horrible there
Other characters looked horrible to begin with, regardless of the artstyle, like the blue girl and orange boy

 

[Krackochu]

I thought it was fine. Ash didn't really look to different to me.