Is it poorly written, is it betraying its own themes? Yeah.
And yeah tons of people are disliking the videos.

None of these are problems, this series isn't written for people who can register their own youtube accounts and hit the dislike button. It's not written for people who can make long analytical videos, it's written for children.

It's not like digimon, the show is only as deep as a child can wade and isn't built to progress permanently.

Is it underhanded and cynical? Sure, but it works, its doing what its supposed to do and I don't mind.