It's a shame really, despite the creative team in earlier days stating outright that the girls were only there for eye candy, there did ironically seem more of an attempt to make them characters. Even Misty was designed less around her gender and more as a character and foil (and the living definition of "Not so above it all"). She did slip out of focus in Johto, but there were still moments they tried to bring back her old personality.
Right now it actually feels like they're struggling to care about the girls this series (despite adapting one of the most iconic and sympathetic females in the entire franchise), and in spite of the new found leeway in formula, they're much more restricted to gender based roles, generally only doing the cutesy stuff and having less emphasis on actual flaws and personal challenges, things necessary to make them compelling protagonists. The show even seems to be slipping in and out with the "girls don't ever get hit" approach at times now, which in a very slapstick heavy series, is very detrimental to how much of a role they can have. It's glaring some episodes choose to barely even feature the girls, making it about the only series the male companions aren't the third wheels.
I really don't want the anime to end up one of "those" shows, the ones we've seen a billion times before where the boy protagonists do all the fun stuff and have most of the complex attributes and development (if usually at the expense of representing all the negative qualities of the dynamic) while the girl protagonists are just feminine sheets of cardboard unable to do any role higher than a straight man. If anything I loved how the anime was one of the few aversions of this out of cartoons I usually watched at the time, but if this keeps up Gen 8 may have the most boring female companion yet.