>>51009847>Ash deserved the respect he got in XY. Deserving of respect sure, being sucked off by nearly every single person he met friend or rival no. There was barely any conflict or disagreement within the group, and they hyper-focused so much on what relationships they wanted to build that others within the main friend group felt tenuous at best. Serena's Relationship with Clemont and Ash's with Bonnie were both hardly explored over the course of the show. They felt like "friend's friends" rather than close companions outside of scant few instances, and that's a fatal flaw when we're supposed to be watching these people over the course of an entire season
>I liked the XY gang. They were fun. I don't care that Serena was a waifu bait, it was cute seeing her spilling spaghetti everywhere.Serena is inoffensive on her own, where she goes wrong is being the third fucking contest girl (no, calling them "showcases" and then gutting the only actually interesting part of contests in the battling doesn't suddenly make them different) and her aforementioned weak bond with Clemont making her feel like and utter Ash fangirl first and actual character second. This is perfectly epitomized in the Clemont gym battle.
>f you ignore BW, XY Ash can feel like a continuation of DP Ash.I'm not going to ignore and entire season. This is exactly what I mean when I say Ash can change between seasons with no rhyme or reason and people will try to wave it off. It's shitty writing, plain and simple, and a huge downgrade from the steady arc of OS-DP.
>BTW, DP had a glaring issue that you are ignoring, which is the number of god-awful fillers that aren't even GOODI never said DP was perfect, just that it was better than XY. I'm not some nostalgiafag who's obsessed with treating everything they grew up with as god. Team Rocket still being in the "we're gonna show up nearly every ep whether we do something important or not " phase was also massive shit and a blight on the series