>>38370935No, I dropped it in mid-Johto when the endless CotD horseshit was being used to drag out the story and was quite happy to ignore it, save for a few wiki catch ups every couple years. Only picked up SM as I'd seen a couple clips that made me gutlaugh unexpectedly and the scene where he fires off Gigavolt Havaoc in the first fight against Koko (almost a year behind at that stage) and it piqued my interest and I was bored enough to look for something new to watch. As I said, the fact it broke from the "gym leader guide/newbie trainer tagalong" to do an ensemble cast (type of shows I always loved) with a view of showing off the pokémon world while telling the story as opposed to seemingly rushing along to hit all the notes. I've no doubt it'll revert to formula again and I'll likely drop it again, but I have hopes of next series having a core of maybe 7 characters who travel with Ash, but no two or three travel consistently at any one time. (Have them rotate in and out as he travels through Galar, with him sometimes spending an episode on his own every now and again to further explore the ecosystem), just continue to shake up the storytelling enough to be interesting to watch, because after OS, the old way just isn't.
