>>51406746James Turners designs are fine in small doses. He adds a goofy, cartoony levity to many of them, which helps with Pokemon's overall variety, but is terrible as a main hook and base for Pokemon as a whole. While I don't hate Gen 8 designs as a whole, it very clearly has a much more stark contrast with the amount of goofiness. The starters alone are proof of this.
Ariga on the other hand, has a sleek, and very cool design work that still uses simple shapes and plenty of color, making his designs still approachable and charismatic.
While he lacks the animalistic realism and slight touch of crunchy grittiness that Sugimori has, they both have a basis in "cool", just different flavors of it, and not incompatible ones at that. This is all to say, Hitoshi Ariga's style is a way better fit for the franchise as an overall art director than Turner, and if it ever happened, I'd be totally fine with it.
