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Say what you will about SM, say what you will about BW, hell say what you will about Johto
I certainly have in all those cases. But you know what? For as boring, confusing, and just plain dogshit some of those might've been, at least they had a soul. At least they all tried to have stories to tell and make a world for the characters to exist
PM (2019) is maybe one of the most soulless things TPCi has produced, which given the current state of the franchise is a mighty big feat. I love Erika, she's one of my favorite Kanto gym leaders, but why the fuck is she here besides more Kanto pandering? Weren't we just in Sinnoh? Regions aren't actual regions anymore, they're just fucking set-pieces and interchangable settings.
This shit is just a constant stream of "member THIS character, clap because you remember this classic character, nevermind they do almost nothing and are quickly forgotten about, clap because you remember them"
Everything about this series is cold and lifeless and exists purely to push merchandise, I mean even more than the anime ALREADY existed to push merchandise.
And if this truly is the format they want to go, then there truly is nothing to look towards
I can't wait for Gen 9 to have a mini-arc that shits out the already lazy plot of the games into a somehow even lazier format, one of the female gym leaders to get a glorfied cameo "rival" role, and Unova to get an arc to itself, but it's okay because they'll finally do the Team Plasma storyline they hinted at 10 years ago, but it will be gimped to hell and back, and Team Rocket won't be relevant at all, yay.