Hmm. That feels more like taking a bit of an extreme away from what was (I'm assuming to have been accurately) said. Again, a work can be episodic while still having an unambiguous sense of continuity.
The Pokemon Anime has always been that way, even early on. Over time, though, serializartion creep has happened, wherein despite the series technically still being an episodic one, in practice is was becoming more and more heavily serialzied. Less and less, eac episode didn't stand on its own as its own story, where it was one story in a tapestry of many. Rather, it was one story split into many parts with an order that needed more explicit adherence than usual. The Alola League being the explicit culmination of many characters and storylines of the Alolan cast meant that there was no mercy for any drop ins. (I'm not saying or implying serialized story-telling is bad; just making my point.)
I imagine these words were just them trying to affirm their desire to go back more so to how things were, where each story is part of a continuous whole, but function as their own story. So those who are watching it in a serialized fashion still get a nice little present, but those who don't or can't can still pop in whenever and have solidly enjoyable episodes whereever they find themselves at.
However most instances in the Alolan league were heavily recapped so they can technically stand on their own without needing to actually see the whole series.
The best example of this is the Ash vs Gladion fight Lycanroc vs Lycanroc. You really didn't need to have seen their rivalry beforehand because they recapped the majority of the rivalry between each other in the form of their Lycanroc.
Same with the scenes of Ash recapping his journey through the Alola league when it was the Z-move clash between Ash and Kukui. Sure if you had watched the episodes, you would get that serialized feel I guess. But I don't think it was absolutely necessary, especially if you can and I have done it myself boiled down scenes of Pokemon in some cases down to Pokemon vs Pokemon. You don't necessarily need to have seen the entire Alolan series to enjoy Ash vs Kukui especially the final fight, since the anime in my personal opinion makes a good representation of what these battles mean within the actual episode without actually requiring you to have seen the episodes in question. For example Torracat vs Incineroar, you can tell that they have an intense rivalry and the characters tell the story enough within the episode to know that by the "fire pledge" the Poke ball symbolism with Ash and Kukui with Torracat's and Incineroar's Poke balls. The reaction of the characters, the recap that Torracat has been powered up from prior to the battle, the ultimate feel that the one battle would decide their rivalry for the last time, even the culmination of Torracat roaring in victory as it evolves did not necessarily require the people watching to have seen the entire series.
They made it clear that even despite the serialized feel of the Alolan league, I do think they made an excellent showing that anyone can just plop in and enjoy the an episode without necessarily being confused, so if they can do that, which I personally think they can, why hinder yourself by limiting yourself only to an episode, especially when we're talking about situations where a single episode DOESN'T actually benefit the self contained episodic feel, like Ash vs Korrina. It doesn't benefit the spirit of the concept that it is a battle tournament to just have a bunch of 1 vs 1s in screenshot fashion of Pikachu winning a battle, Gengar, even Dragonite, only to have a small but bigger portion of the battle be about Ash vs Korrina. While also within that 22 minute episode trying to cram in a subplot of Go going on a capturing spree even having some apparent big role that you don't want to miss. How is it beneficial or enjoyable to cram all of that in a single 22 minute episode? I personally do NOT see the benefit of a more episodic series if it means battle tournaments are going to be screwed over in the process. The only benefit I see is it that it allows the writers to write MORE and MORE "different" stories although that honestly just means more of the same that we've already seen but just in greater quantity. How long until they recycle the Ho-oh episode for example?
With all that said I can't speak for everyone so maybe someone who doesn't know anything about Pokemon might be confused as well as their tastes, and likes/dislikes. For some maybe they're fine with a bunch of 1 vs 1 battles that only get a small chunk of screen time (because of the other plot stuff), because maybe they don't like battles, that's fair I guess. Not everyone is going to have the same perspective.
I personally think that a more episodic series in Pokemon hurts the pacing of the plot as I think some criticism for some episodes was that there were too many things happening at once. But that's my opinion, and I'm sure people can and will disagree with me. I prefer the more serialized approach if it means the pacing of an individual plot can be spread over more than one episode. That's what I want. I'm not saying we need to have Dragon Ball Z (Super) or Stein's Gate level of serialized plot because like I said Pokemon's never been like that. Even the overarching goal can't qualify as a serialized plot because this anime already has an overarching goal. It might not be as refined as a trinket collecting goal like with Contests (Ribbons) and Gym Battles (badges) but Ash going through the PWC is definitely has that overarching feel, and if you qualify that as a serialized approach then how is the series truly episodic anyway? Why hinder the plots of episodes by forcing them to only be a single episode, if your going to have serialized feel plots and episodes as well as continuity, why not do what the anime has been doing, but for plot purposes like Korrina the Kalos region battle tournament, why wouldn't you spread that over two episodes? How does that make the series less episodic?
But perhaps my contention right now is just the Korrina Kalos Battle Tournament, I'll need to see an additional 10-15 episodes to see if I think the Korrina episode feels like it should have ultimately been 2 episodes, as well as the episode. I just don't know how the pacing is going to be "good" if they are cramming all they are going to in 22 minutes that due to the episode titles will easily be resolved by the end of the episode. We'll see though.
