>>52071538As someone who watched through the show both as a kid and a few years back, I don't think that's quite the case. The whirl cup and Lugia arcs were interesting as a kid just because stuff was happening, but those arcs are complete garbage in retrospect. But you're right that Johto gets better in the last stretch. Right around the time Bulbasaur leaves, there's suddenly a huge uptick in quality for some reason. About 2/3 of the filler episodes from that point forward are entertaining.
As for Advanced Generation, I consider it the absolute worst the show's ever been. It starts out interesting by adding May to the dynamic, but once she settles in, it quickly turns into a worse version of early Johto. The contest episodes are forgettable and often incoherent, the gym battles VERY poorly written (Pikachu suddenly getting Static mid-battle, Corphish tanking like 8 hits while asleep, thunder armor, ect), even when filler episodes have interesting premises they have the most bland execution possible, and the Team Aqua/Magma subplot has kind of a shitty climax.
In its defense, it DOES get a lot better around 50 episodes in. I wouldn't call it "good", but it starts trying harder with the filler episodes (for some reason, XY also has a noticeable bump in writing quality around the 1-year mark...). The Battle Frontier, though... That season isn't good at all. People remember stuff like "omg Charizard vs Articuno", but forget what Charizard vs Articuno actually looked like. The season had noticeably lower animation quality than Hoenn, boring fight choreography, and all of the writing problems of the Hoenn gyms. Adding Harley as a recurring character made May's contest episodes more memorable, but even he started to wear out his welcome by the last one. The filler episodes were the same as Hoenn fillers, but with Kanto Pokemon.
AG as a whole really didn't have much going for it beyond some weak attempts to try something now.
