>>50941848>BW soft reboot killed Ash's momentum as a MC and has never really gotten back on track.*XY's ending
The BW soft reboot was awful and created redfagging (remember the red-eyed edgy red?). But XY gave Ash a huge boon. He looked older and cooler, he became the mature voice of the cast, had a canon love interest, The coolest Ace yet, every pivotal moment had amazing animation, fights had choreography, and it adapted the game's plot better than the games. XY became the foundation of most of the modern pokeani fanbase. (case and point, /padt/)
And after ushering in this new anime standard, how does it end? a clean cut-off for a regional restart the same way as every other season. Having this profound meta impact and then deciding not to actually impact the series killed the momentum of the anime. Shit on SM all you want (and there is a lot to shit on despite the lack of events and fewer interesting events) but at least the ending put its sequel in a better place than it started
