>>20804320You can say for sure though, that Ash has advanced mentally. And things are different with time and perspective. Misty's bitchiness which was considered cute and understandable back in the day is now...just bitchiness. Other girls proved you don't need a bad attitude to be realistic - she got better once she was gone. A lot of people didn't like so many pity badges. Ash's battling skill, while good at improv, was still lacking in things like mere tactics, or even analyzing his terrain. He fell too hard into the shounen main character definitive of charging headfirst into things without even realizing what he was doing. And the League was just a yawner with some rage inducing moments in between, like Worst Judge. And lets not forget early characterization weirdness like Ash/Giselle which vanished later. There were good episodes, yes, and good music, but in many ways...well I guess its good for nostalgia, and see how far he and the crew have come.
Johto had a MUCH better end-of-region arc.
Its why BW was so painful. It was like returning back to worse than S1 after seeing Ash go balls out hyper competent. In the end, like with BW, you just can't see Ash becoming Champion let alone a Pokemon Master from S1.