Weekly Anime Discussion - You bet your ass there's spoilers

[precita]

I'm really hesitant about the X and Y anime, I severely disliked Max in Hoenn, and Bonnie just seems like she will be as annoying, if not worse. I'm glad that Cilan is finally gone, but will miss iris, hopefully she'll turn up at some point with a haxorus, rather than just with kibago still.

You'll actually miss Iris? She was pretty much the worst handled female lead of the entire series and she barely went through any character development. Outside of some unique backstory with the dragon stuff, she was pretty dull and forgettable. Cilan on the other hand was not only a great character himself, but he made up for how utterly terrible Brock's character was in Sinnoh, who most of us wanted gone from the show for years. There's a reason why Iris was the least popular female lead to date, while on the other hand Cilan was more popular than post-Johto Brock and Tracey.

4-person groups have been better than the majority of trio's we've had in the series, the writers are obviously remembering what people liked about the Hoenn group a decade ago by going back to a similar set-up. I don't know if I'll like Serena or not yet, but so far things are looking good.

 

[Doubled]

I'm kind of excited by the opening, not only because its catchy, but because of what the starter displacement looks like. Its definitely reminiscent of Hoenn, but I did like that starter displacement. NOW ASH HAS NO EXCUSE TO NOT EVOLVE HIS WATER POKEMON Now, let's just bring back the DP formula for story...

 

[precita]

Yeah, DP didn't have so good characters, but the story/battles/rivals were the best the series had ever done. But between how boring and stale Brock was, and Dawn/Piplup not being all that interesting after the first 50 episodes or so, it made DP sort of difficult to watch outside of the battles.

Serena's personality already looks like a mix of May and Dawn's so she should be alright. Clemont looks fun and Bonnie seems cute...even if she might wind up becoming as pointless as Max became over time.

 

[Satoren]

Just saw the first two episodes of XY and I am really impressed. They really went all out with the premiere, as per usual; I really hope they keep the quality like this. The lighting in the frames were a nice touch, the animations were smooth, and the effects looked awesome. I think someone mentioned the quality was on par with the movies, and I agree!

Plot-wise, I really like the pacing and how they introduced Clemont and Bonnie. They seem like a sweet enough pair, and I'm actually really looking forward to watching them travel with Ash. Bonnie gets points for being a cute tag-along kid without being too bratty and insufferable, and they're building Clemont up to be a very skilled trainer. The fact that he can train a Pokemon that isn't his specialty and wreck Ash with it says a lot about his skill. Not to mention the fact that his gym refuses battles unless the challenger has four badges, just to make sure they're on his level!

Speaking of which, I think Ash demonstrated a lot of maturity from his battle with Clemont, and that's saying a lot given how groan-inducing his battling was back in Unova. He seems to be more competent now and was able to adapt to facing an opponent he's never seen before. (Using Iron Tail to trick Bunnelby into leaving himself open for electric attacks was pretty smart of him!)

All in all, it was a pretty exciting, action-packed opening to the series, and it's definitely left me excited to see where they go from here!

 

[precita]

To be fair the very beginning of each saga always starts off impressive because it seems new and fresh. But after the first 30 or so episodes air the characters get a bit blander and the show goes into the usual filler grind.

I remember when DP started people seemed to be a lot more impressed with Dawn at the very beginning than they were as the saga progressed. Piplup went from initially being liked to being absolutely hated, and Dawn went from being mildly entertaining to becoming not much more than a female Ash clone.

You can't really judge characters at the very start, if there's anything I've learned over the years. If anything almost all the main characters get progressively worse as a saga progresses.

 

[Mr.Munchlax]

Honestly, I think there are two elements that can make or break a pokémon saga (at least internationally):

1. The Writing- Like all forms of entertainment, the writing is definitely the strongest element and, in terms of the anime, this could count for the storyline, character development, plots, etc. In recent years (especially with BW DA) the writing has become a little stale and each episode becomes less enjoyable to watch. Plus, with the whole tsunami fiasco that ruined TR vs TP, the writing for BW gradually declined and it didn't feel as great as the previous sagas did
2. The Dubbing- Ever since TCPI left 4Kids and became their own independent company, the quality of the dub has become stale and downright horrible. At times, the VAs are saying phrases and sentences, or speaking in a certain way, that just seems corny or unbelievable. If you want to have a good anime for those who don't like watching sub versions, you need to make sure the dub sounds more like realistic conversations. And don't even get me started on stuff like Team Rocket constantly speaking in rhymes

For now, both the writing and the dubbing for the XY anime seem pretty good (though there were a few dub phrases that lost me), so I'm hoping they'll keep it up

 

[Satoren]

Usually once per region, Ash ends up losing to a Gym Leader, going on a training spree to figure out how to counter their Pokemon, and ends up winning in their rematch. This season that Gym Leader happens to be Viola. While I'm happy that they managed to make Viola seem like a credible threat as opposed to her in-game counterpart, I feel like the opportunity to trounce Ash could've better been used with the other Gym Leaders. I'd have liked to see Ash lose to Valerie simply because he's never encountered the Fairy type before and has to learn how to adjust to dealing with the new type.

Well, who knows. They could change it up a little and have that happen as well. Either way, I'm quite happy with how they portrayed Viola, and their battle was pretty epic. I mean, you'd have to be a really good Gym Leader for Ash to bullshit his way to victory, right? (In this case, Ash has Pikachu dispel Sleep Powder by aiming Electro Ball at itself.)

Next week, Serena gets her moment in the limelight as she decides what to do now after leaving home in pursuit of a boy she met ages ago when they were kids. I quite like the way they're going about her relationship with Ash. She clearly likes him, but Ash is still as clueless as ever. I think I'd be a bit disappointed if they suddenly made him like girls after 15 years of celibacy xD

 

[precita]

Let's just hope Serena actually gets a goal, rather than being "just there" like Iris or becoming as boring and unlikeable as Misty became during Johto. At least she's a game protagonist so it means they're probably going to do something important with her.

The writers work better with the female protagonists from the games rather than tag-along Gym leaders, so she can't possibly be handled worst than Misty was, and she might be an improvement from Iris as well.

 

[precita]

Is anyone actually watching XY? Or was everyone turned off from the anime after how horrible the Best Wishes season was?

XY is very similar to the Hoenn arc in writing which means its mostly enjoyable. Returning to a 4-person group is probably the best thing about the show so far. As I said above I'm not too sure about Serena yet as she hasn't gone anything interesting, but Clemont and Bonnie are fun.

While DP was probably the best saga writing and battle wise, you have to admit the group dynamics that saga just sucked. Brock was horrible in DP, (Brock was actually actively hated over the entire span of DP by most of the fanbase up until he finally left, and it honestly felt like nobody even cared that he left, which shows how despised his character was), and Piplup was annoying. Depending on how you viewed Dawn there was only two characters remotely interesting, and even Dawn herself felt largely like a less interesting version of May personality-wise.

What's refreshing about XY is even though there are repeated dynamics, they're still vastly different than past character. I don't think we've had a group this balanced since Hoenn. And the best part of it all....no Brock!

 

[RLRL]

I've actually not watched X and Y yet, going to watch a couple of episodes soon but mostly been just reading synopsis' for the moment.
I'm intrigued by the episode coming up where they're all trying to catch a shiny magikarp, partially because it's a cool way for them to teach kids about chain fishing in the game, partially because there's that part of me that's saying "ash never got the red gyarados in johto, oh please let him have one now" unfortunately he has froakie so I doubt they'll let him catch a shiny magikarp, unless they have ash with a revolving team again.

I'm curious as to how many pokémon ash will catch in kalos, if he still doesn't have a full team by 6th gym they better be doing a damn hoenn remake because even the anime would be hinting it...

 

[precita]

I really dislike the fact that the writers are pushing Serena's crush on Ash so hard in the last few episodes. The writers abandoned this idea with Misty a decade ago when they realized giving Ash a love interest was a terrible idea, so why bring it back with a new character? Serena also feels too much like Johto-era Misty to me, a throwaway female character who has no plot or story of her own, doesn't even battle, and has no interest in being a trainer but being Ash's love interest. This is what made Misty a dead and stale character during the Johto seasons, so I don't understand why this is happening again.

Its odd how much the anime has regressed since DP's conclusion. The female companions are being handled poorly once again (probably due to the lack of Contests?), and there's a lack of battling outside of Ash again. Ash's rivals have also been god awful since Paul left. I think the writers felt too many people disliked Iris that they tried to make Serena into a hybrid of all previous girls but it isn't working.

 

[Satoren]

I haven't really be keeping up with the anime lately, nut I thought this week's episode was worth a watch.

The premise is that Ash and co. are travelling through Reflection Cave to get to Shalour City, when Ash gets separated from his group. When Pikachu gets taken by 'another' Ash, our hero gives chase and falls through one of the crystal mirrors. He ends up in a strange mirror world where he and his friends all act differently than normal...

But trouble stirs when the Team Rocket from Ash's world decide to steal both world's Pikachus. Can Ash and his mirror world friends save them, or will Mirror Ash learn to be brave and rescue his beloved partner?

I really wanted to see how well they could pull off the idea of a parallel universe and it was pretty interesting!

• For starters, we got a timid crybaby Ash
• Pikachu being a little shit (akin to how he was back in Gen 1)
• A version of Serena that is more confident and affectionately bullies the mirror version of Ash. She's also the more accomplished battler.
• A Bonnie that is extremely polite
• A Clemont that is athletic and believes in magic and superstitions instead of using science
• And best of all, a Team Rocket that are 'heroes of justice' (unfortunately, they were mostly mentioned in passing and didn't appear in most of the episode.

It was an alright episode, but I would love to see them expand on this idea, maybe even dedicate an episode to the mirror world if it got popular enough! Since most of it was exposition and they had to throw in TR's evil plot of the day, there wasn't a lot of time to go into it. Ash even battles Mirror Serena, but it doesn't even last a minute.

Still, I really liked how well thought out the idea was (the mirror world characters even have their features reflected as well. It's not immediately noticeable and I liked that subtle detail!) and I hope the Kalos saga gets more interesting fillers like this.

 

[Green Dragon]

Saw last Saturday's episode of XY. It was kinda weird. So basically there are these two bros who are fighting and then their dad does a test for them to see who will inherit the family's fortune. I liked the way they did the two Meowstic in this episode, Pokemon love for the win.

 

[Misty2000]

I'm looking forward to the next Pokemon Showcase and maybe the next amourshipping hint since Miette is apparently returning in the episode.

 

[Steel Seth]

I for one can't what for the XY and Z series the theme song is awesome and LOUD well not that loud but the point is IT IS GOING TO BE AWESOME

 

[RLRL]

I am shocked and disappointed (should I be anymore, like, really?) that no one bothers to discuss the animé anymore. I take a 2 year absence from this thread and there's like 5 posts, what happened to the passion?! What happened to the speculation?! I'm ashamed of all of you....

OK so back on track. I've actually liked a lot of the XY series, not as much TR as previous seasons, watched the gym battle with olympia when i was out in japan last year, was genuinely shocked greninja didn't evolve that episode but oh well, i've made peace with that.
I really like ash's team this gen, it's a huge shame that once again he's gone to a region and caught practically nothing, not that gen 6 added too many (non mega) pokémon, BW really spoiled us with him catching loads of pokémon but as discussed before, there wasn't enough development with them. XY has done a good job of focusing on his team, developing each member, although I'm still really disappointed that Goodra left so quickly, I loved goomy =(

Speaking of dragon types, I genuinely thought Ash wouldn't end up with a Noivern, especially when he already had hawlucha and fletchinder (now talonflame) but I was so goddamn happy when that noibat hatched, not just because its freaking adorable. It's so rare in the anime for ash to end up with the same pokémon as another character, unless it's a plot point, Alexa leading him to Kalos with her Noivern, helioptile and gogoat ruled out all 3 of those pokémon to me, so it was a nice suprise.

I think Ash does need a fairy type, it's a bit ridiculous he doesn't have one, cover 2 bases, he needs a Klefki =) It's adorable, the shiny sprite has blue on it not pink, and it's fairy/steel which is 2 types he doesn't have =) Then again, its been long enough, we need to know what mega ash will have, he has 3 mega-potential pokémon already sitting around at oak's (charizard, sceptile, heracross) but, them doing the Ash-Greninja thing kind of says to me they decided against giving ash a mega evolution

 

[Storybook]

Hmm.. I actually had no clue this thread existed, and was rather excited to see that there was some activity. I agree with the fact that they probably won't end up doing a mega evolution simply because it would have been a plot point that should have been brought up by now. Think about it. If mega evolution took such time and effort for Korrinna to obtain her mega stone and then, still, to be able to mega evolve with it, you would think that they would have brought it up by now. The XY series ran to its end without even a mention of him obtaining such items, and I don't think they will have enough time in the XY and Z series to dedicate to bringing a Pokemon back, having him obtain a mega ring, giving him a mega stone, and having him work with that Pokemon for a long enough time to successfully master the evolution. Along with Ash-Greninja, the possibility seems less likely, although from a marketing stand point one would think there still stands a chance.

Looks like I'm running out of time this morning (a real shame, I could have talked for so much longer), but now that I know this thread exists, you can count on me keeping it going It's always a good treat to analyze, and try to discover what we missed and what comes next.

 

[RLRL]

I of course, completely forgot about the mega evolution specials, meaning the anime really doesn't have to worry about including mega's or really having Ash get one. Pretty sure we've hit the nail on the head with Ash-greninja being the focus on ash's bond with his pokemon, rather than him either catching a mega-evolving pokémon or bringing back one of his 3 potential candidates, but them adding Alain's character for XY-Z is potentially leading us towards a Megacharizard X vs Y battle somewhere down the line, even if Greninja vs Charizard is the bigger rivalry between the two right now.

I'm genuinely wondering about the Kalos league right now, Ash only has 1 more badge to get, Sun and Moon are on the horizon (ha, get it?!) and the Unova league was the most disappointing league ever. If Sun/Moon are out in september then we're talking 5 months for 1 badge, 1 capture, 1 showcase and 1 league, now hopefully the league itself will be at least 6 episodes, so unless there's going to be a lot of storyline focus after the league realistically second week of august should be the preliminaries.

I really hope the episode in 2 weeks time about the white phantump will be ash catching his second shiny pokémon, and it does cover him for not actually having a grass type this generation, naturally them being in the winding woods is good as it means we're looking at the last badge hopefully by the last week of may, let's hope they don't go primary-recency and have Ash lose to Wulfric like he did Alexa at the start, unless that's what makes him go "screw it, get me a mega stone and my charizard" before melting avalugg =)

 

[Satoren]

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)b​

Kudos to the writers for knowing exactly what their secondary demographic wants and trolling them hard. Admittedly, Serena is probably one of my favorite female protagonists in the anime, and the one I ship Ash with the most now xD Her characterization may not be all that unique (but hey, since when has Ash ever had a truly one-of-a-kind supporting party member) But gosh darn is she definitely one of the more charming girls to wander into Ash's life.

 

[RLRL]

I wonder how unceremonious Ash and Serena splitting ways at the end of the series will be dealt with, there was already the whole "I don't remember you from summer camp" thing at the start of the series, it'd be great if we get a similar thing, serena all nervous and "I'll miss you, Ash *bats eyelids*" and just like every pokémon he could have caught, ever, Ash is all "yeah we had great fun, catch you soon!" and just walks off humming to himself.

 

[Satoren]

I'm adamant that AshGreninja is actually MegaGreninja in a sort of developmental stage. The way it's appearance slowly evolves, and the legend behind it being an 'ancient technique' I think implies it is quite possibly the same method for which the very first megaevolution came to be in the Pokemon world's mythology.

Plus you know, Ash has started wearing what appears to be a jury rigged Mega Bracelet.

 

[Keleri]

I just saw this clip of Ash vs. Diantha and I really have to get into watching the anime (I like to watch dubs while doing other things now, it's hard to sit down properly for a subtitled anime).

Spoiler

I nerd raged a bit about Ash beating Diantha but to be fair that's 1) only one of her pokemon who was going easy on Greninja and 2) Ash friggin passes out after winning, so there's still room for this synchro evolution power to grow, in true shonen anime fashion.

 

[RLRL]

Yeah, I had exactly the same thought, I was like "ok, so does he have to do another full battle or something, are we looking at ash finally winning a league then challenging the elite 4 to try and become champion?" As I'm all for that.

Disappointed in greninja's performance against Sawyer and his sceptile today, I get it, Ash can't win them all, but I was expecting something a bit more fun, and unfortunately the battles pretty much devolved into OHKOs which is find partiicularly disappointing especially for hawlucha, yes the idea is to show that Ash is underestimating his opponent, but I'd at least like to see him get a hit or two in =/

Oh and Keleri, it's in the title, no need to put spoiler tags in this thread =)

 

[Satoren]

You can tell it's a quality anime arc when Ash goes into an existential crisis. It's really interesting how much they've broken off from their 'once a region' traditions like Ash losing only once during his gym campaign. It certainly makes the next season something to look forward to for all the possible ways they'll mix it up.

It's likely Ash is gonna resolve his troubles in the next episode, but I'd certainly like them to make it clear how he does so and what his thoughts are. The last time he lost that badly, it only took his team consoling him in one scene for him to get over it. Melancholy may not be 'Ash' but quickly and vaguely resolving his issues is pretty poor writing, and I hope the writers thought of the older fans when they wrote this episode; especially since this sort of character development doesn't really knterest the younger primary demographic anyway.

Not asking for a lot, just for satisfactory character develop,ent from the one character that's alwaus been with the fans since the anime started airing.

 

[RLRL]

I too, was glad that he lost, even if it makes me less hopeful that we'll see ash actually win the league. Though you're right, he'll be over his funk within an episode, hopefully it'l be a good one, even though we know that the episode after will be the important one, I'm looking forward to the giant water shuriken, if only because I'm a huge fan of the TCG and that's Greninja BREAK's ability =)

I really am glad that Ash is stopping off by Goodra in a few weeks time, I don't see him taking it back on his team unfortunately, however Carbink joining Ash's team is the second best fairy type he could have imo after klefki which is too "girly" in its standard form and I can't see Ash having a shiny again =(

 

[RLRL]

Well as it's been a couple of months I don't feel bad about double posting.

Ash is going to the finals of the Kalos League! In fact, episode 934 is titled "Kalos League Victory! Ash's Ultimate Match"

Let that sink in for a moment....

Ash is going to win the kalos league... I really hope this is a change in direction that the anime has needed, of course, there's a huge part of me now that wants to see Gary turn up and smash ash to oblivion with Tapu Koko but we all know the "ash needs to follow gary" trend is dead.

Also just throwing it out there, but the top of this page is the start of the kalos saga, now we're at the league....



EDIT 21/08/16

Ok so adding this in now and keeping original post the same... Fuming that Ash lost. That is all

 

[Satoren]

New Games, New Anime! Pocket Monsters Sun and Moon is here and it's looking great so far!! And much like the games, Ash's latest adventure in Alola is something quite different! There isn't a lot of action or plot going, which is quite a departure from the timeworn formula Pokemon is known for; however, the anime's quality gets further bumped up a notch from the gorgeous battle animation of XY&Z to an even more fluid and comical style for the series as a whole!

While there's a lot of mixed reactions from older fans, I feel the anime greatly appeals to its target audience- budding young Pokemon trainers, with its plethora of cute Pokemon (ROWLET!) and hilarious slapstick gags. (Bewear replacing TR's 'blasting off' is fucking gold!)

Looking forward to how this latest entry grows from here; and I'm especially curious about how they'll handle the game's plot-heavy characters like Lillie and Kukui (who atm behave very unlike their game counterparts)

 

[RLRL]

I caught an episode of sun and moon when I was in japan a few weeks ago, it was pretty painful to watch. I'm not a huge fan of the look of the season (though I don't like the way sun and moon looks too) really didn't care for rowlet just being asleep in ash's bag, and the entire episode was something to do with them getting locked in a storage unit facility, it was dull, and gave me more reason to hate that stupid owl.

Unless it gets better, really, really fast, it looks like I'm out as far as the anime is concerned this time around.

 

[RLRL]

hey look! A tumbleweed!

Ok so curiosity is getting the better of me, I'm going to have to watch these next 2 episodes... I'm always curious to see what new pokemon they give to old characters (I wanna see ritchie and his tyranitar soon, that pupitar has definitely evolved) and as we were cheated out of brock's onix evolving for the first time, it's good they're finally having brock use mega steelix, and I'm super psyched to see it in battle! Brock's onix was always up there as a favourite partner pokemon, screw croagunk, onix was awesome and an animator's nightmare. I'd quite like brock's geodude to evolve finally or him to catch an alolan form. As for misty, can her starmie come to play?
It's a shame ash has no kanto pokemon with alolan forms aside from muk, who is fully evolved and therefore can't obtain one. I am interested to see if any kanto pokemon stay as part of his team, but that does feel like a wasted opportunity, alola has enough pokemon for ash to come away with some funky 'mons...

Important question... Do we think they'll evolve our favourite little bulbasaur? We always knew it *could* happen, I mean, no one saw cyndaquil's evolution coming at the start of the sinnoh league (it's like the writers were taking a jab at the lack of fire types). I've always wanted ash to have ivysaur, and evolving in battle with misty or brock would be a fitting way to finally evolve a pokemon that chose not to evolve previously. Come to think of it, caterpie, metapod and krabby were the only regular evolutions in aah's original team, all the others either chose not to evolve (pikachu, bulbasaur) or were evolutions to do something specific (charmander, charmeleon, pigeotto) there really was a huge anti-evolution thing going on, since gen 3 it's been all, give the pokemon an arc, evolve it, repeat when necessary...

 

[Cybersai]

Saw the recent eps, it was nice to see Misty/Brock actually have a good battle for once since both characters were pretty terrible at battling all throughout the Kanto/Johto eras, or just barely ever battled or used their pokemon to begin with. I always thought Misty/Brock should have been portrayed like battlers like in the games, but instead they made Misty bomb/fail all her battles in Kanto and then stuck her with Psyduck and Togepi essentially treating her like a running gag character. Misty literally gave us the worst battles of practically all the female companions in the series, not counting the recent SM girls yet.

I'm pretty sure Brock never won a battle after joining Ash until he got his Croagunk in DP. Brock pretty much loses every non-TR battle he was ever in during Kanto/Johto, and from what I remember most of AG as well. I seriously have a hard time remembering Brock's pokemon winning any battles prior to DP.

So it was nice seeing them treated as experienced trainers for once, and not running/repetitive gag characters or background characters. The SM art style takes a while to get used to, but it isn't that bad. I prefer XY's style, but it's better than past sagas. And at least it's not the terrible Johto seasons or BW either.

 

[ScarletEevee]

Hi there

 

[RLRL]

Ash caught a poipole! So aside from Rowlet, and Torracat, both of which are starter pokemon, his only other pokemon in this region he's caught is his lycanroc. I'm glad he didn't catch a pikipek, and i know he's met most of the new pokemon, and probably wanted to avoid him catching any pokemon that are the same species as totems, but I'd have liked him to at least catch an alolan-pokemon (who doesn't want ash with an exeggutor!) surely there'l be an excuse for him to get something by the end of the season, I almost think this is an intentional move on the writer's part, if we don't see any more regional varints Ash only has standard pokemon from each region (similarly to him leaving his greninja in kalos, and not having any mega stones)

 

[PunkMama]

I finally got around to watching Sun and Moon this morning (first six episodes) and I freaking love it.

I've been watching this show since it first aired in the US, when I was ten (Starting your Pokemon adventure at ten years old and all that, so I kinda geek about that since I kinda started mine at ten, I'm a dork, I know) and I watched the episodes just now with MY kids (six and three). It's crazy how that is, huh?

A big thing that I love is how the Alolan region sort of captures the attitude that I could see and feel when I lived in Hawaii for a few years. It's enthusiastic and relaxed, energetic but not feeling rushed. Plus, I love how Professor Kukui sort of let's the students do their own thing, while providing help from the sidelines. I also LOVE that the students get to teach. The positivity in this show is amazing and... Well, I could keep on gushing.

Plus, Meowth and Wobuffet reacting Mimikyu was drop dead hilarious.

I stopped watching the anime for a long time cuz I guess I grew out of it? I watched so much of it when I was younger but as time went on, the show just seemed stiff and repetitive. It felt like nothing new. But with Sun and Moon? A breath of fresh air.

I adore the new show and can't wait to watch the rest with my kids. ♥

 

[Cybersai]

Looks like Misty/Brock are getting another return cameo to tie into the Let's Go games. Hau debuts too.

Really surprised Misty is getting so many frequent cameos again, the writers originally stopped giving her appearances after Hoenn way back in 2005, and then went the next 12+ years with no appearances outside flashbacks because the writers didn't think her character had any reason to be shown anymore. I guess the whole Kanto nostalgia stuff really made them bother putting her in again. I still remember to this day how people thought she would appear in the DP saga and never did, lol.

I also prefer her and Brock's SM personalities over the blandness we got from them in Johto and beyond, it makes them feel more like their Kanto selves rather than the backdrops they became. The Mega evolution battles we got from them were also probably the only good battles Misty had in her entire run so far.