>>40133875I disagree with your claim that the art style is 'atrocious'. I think it only applies to Ash. I don't know what the fuck they were thinking with his eyebrows and cheek marks, it really wouldn't have been difficult for his design to be half-decent (as proven time and again by amateur fans).
They obviously gave Ash the win because of all the backlash from last season, and I'm not going to blame the writers for this. I blame the source media (the games) and the bigwigs with the final say. What likely occurred is that the staff weren't sure on how to develop the anime, due to the league not existing in the games until the very end but the bigwigs demanded they have Ash win the league when the time came.
In other words, I believe the Alola League was forced into the SM anime and Ash being champion was also forced, similar to how Ash was forced into losing every other league. The source (Sun and Moon games) made this fucking stupid because the league didn't even exist until the end of the story.
So, basically. Them making Ash lose the Kalos league, causing a huge backlash, resulted in bigwigs demanding Ash win the Alola league, but due to early SM having nothing to do with the league and the games not having the league until the very end of the story resulted in a huge conflict. The lack of build-up, teams and the fact that the battles were so limited (3v3) makes me believe this demand was actually only recently made.
So, similar to how bigwigs blatantly fucked the Kalos league, they also fucked the Alola league by demanding it happens and for Ash to win it, when the Alola league is completely absent in the source material until the very end.
I think all of this could have been fixed if Kukui had revealed his plans for an Alola League after the Kanto episodes and to ask them for their help. This gives Ash a long-term goal, develops others for the league and creates genuine build-up.
Just fix Ash's face and have the league announced earlier.