>>53396447In a sense, yes. But not necessarily. First of all, the director of PM2023 has actually worked with OLM before, but IS pretty new to this whole directing business. She actually storyboarded and directed PM2019's second OP. She has also directed like half a dozen or so Pokemon episodes in the past.
My guess is that Tomiyasu and Yajima are there to help delegate the directorial "workload". Both have experience helming their own series, and they'll help keep things organized. Also, I'm not expecting them to stay in those predefined roles; they will inevitably have hands in all of the cookie jars, purely because of the circumstances of the production.
>>53396517It was probably planned imo. Looking at Saori Den's ANN, her work suspiciously cuts off at late 2021 where she did PM2019 45. My guess is that PM2023 has been in preproduction since then.