>>52775494Brock x Cilan? Just a coincidence. Brock is super hetero and Cilan wasn't alluded to at being gay. Woke stuff wasn't THAT prevalent back then let alone in Japanese kodomos. It became more prominent during PM2019 with Goh though, and the funny thing is, it's actually JAPAN itself pushing this, the USA audience was not very fond of the SM calarts artstyle shift, the ashnime having good ratings on Cartoon Network got cancelled on the channel right after the artstyle switch so SM got shifted to Disney XD, a pay to watch channel, eventually it fell off even there and moved to...Netflix.
Even the CN channel executives didn't like Pokemon going woke because there are certain expectations for a series like Pokemon...it's too iconic to be toyed around like that. Shame on OLM, this literally wasn't asked for.
May and Serena? There might be something but you gotta break it down first. It's from PM2019 so there might be some woke stuff in there.
In the meta, it may be a seethe-punch from the writers who got tired from the shipping autism and wanted to hint at May x Serena to get rid of May's plotline since her JP seiyuu is literally sick with her throat cords so she can't voice act anymore. Also it kinda gets rid of Amourshipping with the writers wanting to keep Ash asexual. Plus yurifag pandering except May and Serena are the two least fitting characters in universe to go for that, Dawn, on the other hand, had way more Zoey and Cynthia yuri sex hints.
In universe, it makes zero sense as May has been portrayed as consistently hetero for Drew, Serena had some blushing for Miette's physical teasing but she herself would never coerce May into that and May wouldn't even think of that in the first place.
The scenes were literal still shots with zero dialogue to actually assess how close they are so you can't tell anything from that especially with how handshakes were never portrayed as a romantic thing in the ashnime, might as well ship Ash with Brock by that logic.
