>>40038774Gen 5 turned Ash into as much of an idiot in the first few episodes as he was in early Kanto and there's a strong feeling that the intended story arc died with the unaired Rocket vs Plasma 2 parter. Even when he gets better there's still the absolute stupidity of his gym battle against Elesa and losing in the League to a trainer who only had five Pokemon and originally thought he needed to go to Johto to compete in the Unova Pokemon league.
SM, on the other hand, is just a radical departure from the previous series and goes for humor and SoL over battles, with results which can charitably be called "mixed".
