I enjoyed the Kanto trio the most. There was definitely strong interaction. Satoshi made many mistakes, but many were entertaining, some were reasonable, and he learned from the mistakes. Takeshi looking at girls in Kanto were far more appealing, to the regards that it wasn't excessive and it was funny to a certain extent. Kasumi had a companion effect but interaction with Satoshi while interesting, was never perfect. Since this is charactre group, it somewhat ignores the weaknesses of the constructed battles, and the interaction among the group was by far a forte. In Jouto it was still good, but the filler era caused the focus to be on the presented pokemon or charactre. It also felt like if a person of the three were taken out, larger disaster strikes. Also, their adventures were more interesting in the Kanto days, spanning several different things. They also had the really depressing sounding music, which was my particular favourite because it presented the largest amount of emotion. Really good episodes like the first episode and Pikachu's Goodbye contained this music, as well as the end of Jouto, among other episodes. Sometimes you had episodes exclusively on the care of the characters among each other, or Satoshi with his pokemon. You had far more cases of them getting lost or separated, which was realistic among the resources that they had. The needed of each other increased because there were larger amounts of dangers more frequently. Kanto had it's shares of fillers, but early on the gym battle transitions were extremely quick. Getting to Cinnibar Island was much longer BUT it was also much further and was only accessible by sea. It felt somewhat distance consistent. Jouto had too many stops though, even though a select few episodes were rather interesting. By having so many encounters with so many people, a select few were indeed impressive.
As much as I like Haruka, it felt like two independent scenarios. If there was no Haruka, Satoshi could easily bypass anything contest related and it wouldn't even go out of the way of the storyline. Of course it would make little sense if Haruka wasn't a coordinator anyways, so her role could never have been anywhere similar to Kasumi's. Because of the Pokenavi, getting lost almost never occurs. Because of that, the characters needs to be together doesn't occur as often (it's definitely happened, but it seemed a lot less comparatively).
In AG, there were several times where Satoshi's mistakes were of ones that he had pretty much already made before. While there is Takeshi to assist Satoshi in battles, it also lacks Kasumi. Unfortunately, Haruka aside from great support, cannot really do that much to particularly assist Satoshi in his victories. Masato usually gets impressed by the realism effect of battling, but the fact that he was initially smarter strategically, it seemed too technical of him to place facts that were already obvious, which was also why he was a poorer battler by having too much statistical inferences. I liked the really early episodes of AG, where they had food problems. Being disgruntled seemed to occur much less among each other (despite many adventures where they were in trouble together and pulled through together), there was less teamwork effect. Usually when a scenario occurs, while they can work as a team, no matter what the situation is, at least one character is unable to implement support. Say they needed their pokemon out ... Masato has no pokemon. This was nice variety but it felt like there was much more bystanding.
There may have been more separate storylines and development, but they seem rather independent. It's like it's nice that Haruka has a nice relationship with Masato, but their family business is literally independent of Satoshi. And thus, these independent effects promote new travelling buddies, but doesn't assist in allocation for battling. In fact, it strayed further away from it. Technically, they could travel separately and still get the same goals done without much loss.
I personally enjoyed Kasumi and Takeshi's battle analysis and spectating more than Haruka and Masato with Takeshi.
I liked Satoshi's mistakes from Kanto but I absolutely hated the mistakes he made in Houen.
AG seemed far more explore and learn. A lot of derivations from the game were made. It may have been better drawn, better orchestrated, better looking, among other things, but it seemed too straightforward. There were several things from Kanto that had nothing to do with the game at all. It felt like it had more of the adventurous appeal (despite it's share of horrible episodes). I don't think I saw as many jokes in AG, it didn't seem as funny. A select few episodes were alright, but it dies out. It might be the overly familiar effect, but I still preferred incorporation of pokemon more than high presentation of pokemon. Basically, that meant having them go along with the episode, instead of having the episode particularly about them.
Jouto was too filler but AG seemed too showcase-ful. It's a bit too clear who has the advantage.
Lol the strengths of Kanto were adapting and accomodating weaknesses, or the composition of the weaknesses. I didn't like any of the failures from AG of battles or contests (or some wins for that matter). However, I thought losses had more meaning in Kanto. One is like a clean loss and the other is either getting jacked or a shouldn't-have-lost.
I think the biased effect have to do with the different times. Kanto has the nostalgia bias and AG has the current bias. Since I was more into pokemon then, there would be more bias of then than now because of the different experience.
It also might be the conciseness. Kanto was shorter, so it had less filler room. The episodes with more meaning felt more meaningful with the trio. Though in AG, it didn't feel the same. The newness effect was good, but the charactre composition could have been different. Again, take out someone from the trio and they're screwed. Take out someone from AG and they're not as screwed (though this could simply be from numbers since going from 3 to 2 is worse than 4 to 3 lol).
AG might have been a better season, but the charactre value seemed more important with the trio. It still had showcases but it was better incorporated.
If Satoshi didn't have companionship in Kanto he would have been swalled by a water current. (Well then again in AG were there no Haruka, Satoshi might have not been able to have gotten up that cliff as easily. I always like to think Haruka helped save him and Pikachu because supposedly she was supposed to stay at the lab.) Shrug, the trio needed each other more. I'd agree that the AG group were just there.
Trio produces good nostalgia. I don't feel nostalgic about AG (though they're the current group, so that probably factors into that). Good memories with the trio and their chemistry, but I don't really feel that sort of interaction among AG.
The mallet/gong/watergun/random item effect was also good. Haruka doesn't utilize any of that.
AG was better for showcasing, but it didn't feel as strong as group teamwork. 3 seems like needs to each other is at max. 4 seems excessive.
