>>51057735OS was funny and had a lot of freedom to do stuff that wouldn't fly nowadays. Not a great work but enjoyable. Filler was a big problem, especially in Johto
AG in a lot of ways was a retread of OS unfortunately, though Ash's short character arc with regards to his cockiness is good. BF really elevates this season by breaking the formula, giving us world building, and really being the first big push for Ash to become a pokemon master.
DP was great for its storyline with regards to Paul and continuity from the BF. This is where the anime felt really wholistic and there was a decent feeling like it was going somewhere. In an ideal world, Ash would've won the league here. The substandard animation and filler is a problem as always.
BW is honestly just bad. The series carries all the negatives of the previous series (filler, bad animation, lack of strong characterization) and loses the only thing the anime had going for it at this point which was the feeling of consistent progress and improvement, and a belief in Ash's competency. Pokemon was never high art, even at its best it's popcorn shlock. So when you eliminate one of the only things people liked about it, which was Ash becoming stronger and competent, it becomes a bottom of the barrel experience.
XY was a return to form in a lot of ways. Ash was returned to his DP competence, with a boost as well, basically ignoring BW (which was the right decision). Along with that, the show got a big BIG boost to its visuals, to the point it wasn't just finally passable, it actually looked consistently great. The only big mark against it was its disconnect from the rest of the series, which was another big appeal of the show up to this point. Oh, and the terrible ending lmao.
SM was good, but fundamentally a different show imo. The people who like it like it for a very different reason people like the other series, to the point that comparing them is silly. It knew what it was trying to do and it mostly succeeded.
1/2
