>>50315136Basically this.
I'm neither here nor there on the design personally. It has some cool Sakuga ridden fights in the anime and gave a nice little incentive to play the SM demo.
I don't think it's God's gift, but the hate feels really overblown. Then again I honestly think so is the hate for Ash. The extent to which people hate this character, who isn't even in control of his own goals, fate or competency which is beholden to whoever is writing the episode that week, feels almost obsessive.
If you want to hate OLM or TPC for not adapting Adventures, [insert other Pokemon manga here] or a direct adaptation of the games that's fine. I certainly do. But when you're constantly, autistically hating Ash it just comes off as you being some poorly educated 13 year old who doesn't understand how business works.
And if you're one of those genuinely wondering why it is Ash has stuck around, go check how Yu-Gi-Oh and Digimon are doing 
