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There is one simple aspect of Pokemon that makes it fundamentally anti-shonen. Something no amount of retarded shonen logic can overcome. The one simple aspect that made JN feel so alien compared to the rest of the series. And that simple aspect is the fact that the trainer isn't the one fighting.
It doesn't matter that they've been a trainer for 25 years. Unless they've used the same team those 25 years, they're still as weak as ever because its the pokemon that are fighting, not them. Ash has not been using the same team for 25 years, so the whole "growth over time" part of a Shonen does not apply here.
It doesn't matter how many tragic backstories the trainer goes through or how many flashbacks they have in the middle of a fight. It's not the trainer fighting, it's the pokemon.
These simple facts make JN the most jarring season in the entire anime. Ash took a team that has literally never fought a single battle in their lives and turned them into champion slayers when before he was never able to even reach the elite 4.
>b-but SM was also bad, Ash became a champion in it!
Alola didn't have a champion or an elite 4 when Ash became their champion. Alola didn't even have a real professional battling scene, the island trials were more like a traditional game than a serious competition. Ash managing to beat the other casual trainers, even with a new team, isn't too farfetch'd, because other than Guzma, Gladion, and Kukui there was no competition. Guzma got butchered by the writers, sure, but that's nothing compared to what happened to the world's champions in JN.
