I don't really get the praise for SM's supposed good handling of character arcs, either. Granted, Lilie's arc was pretty impressive since she went from fearing Pokemon to actually having her own, but none of the other characters really amazed me as far as their development went. If the next saga is the same as SM as far as character arcs go, then I'll be disheartened. But perhaps if the cast in Galar is much smaller than it is now, it could work better.
Arcs I will freely admit are underwhelming in SM, but the thing is that arcs only make up so much of EVERY series. Most of them are still compounded with filler and episodic antics, and I think SM's approach of at least letting the heroes take pilot seat and do their own thing in them over following the same generic formula where they're not allowed to do anything but call attacks against a fodder bad guy at least means more opportunities for the cast to shine. I don't want to wait until a main event episode happens just for the protagonists to do something enjoyable.
Even arc heavy series don't hand one to EVERY protagonist so at least some fun episodic moments for them that aren't just 'beating Team Rocket very easily' would even the balance for them. That's likely why Kiawe hasn't ended up another Brock for example, there's more room for him to have a role in the freer storytelling, even when he's not the focus of development.
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