#they had no good episodes in bw and so far in xy ive only liked two of their centric episodes

[vaugarde]

team rocket being crammed into episodes they dont need to be in in xy (and jn to an extent) probably wouldnt be nearly as bad if they had literally any of the traits that made them quirky and unique in gens 1-4 but it seems that the only thing bw taught them about what people like about TR from what they changed was that team rocket has to be in as much episodes as possible, not that they were charming

[themattress]

Pokeani: The Evolution of the Structure

Part of what made the original Pokemon: Indigo League - the Kanto saga - so good was that Takeshi Shudo, whose job as head writer is also known as “series constructor”, gave it a very solid structure, dividing the progression of its story by several distinctive parts, usually by the part of Kanto that is the focus or objective. With 82 episodes, the structure looked like this:

Pewter: Ep. 1-5 Ceruelan: Ep. 6-13 Vermillion: Ep. 14-21 Saffron: Ep. 22-24 Celadon: Ep. 25-29 Fuschia: Ep. 30-36 Travels: Ep. 37-54; Ep. 65-66 Snap: Ep. 55-57 Cinnabar: Ep. 58-60 Viridian: Ep. 61-64; Ep. 67 Pre-League: Ep. 68-74 League: Ep. 75-82

Obviously, the one structural weakness would be the Travels section, which, at 20 episodes, lasted far too long (and had two of its episodes delayed due to the infamous Porygon episode incident), but that’s not to say that nothing interesting or important happened during this section (Charmeleon/Charizard, Jigglypuff, and Togepi all made their debuts here, and we got some spotlight into Jessie and James’ sad childhoods.)  Shudo usually knew just what to keep going throughout (the development paths of the main characters) and what to leave behind once its purpose was served (the various mini-arcs and characters like Todd Snap). 

What long pissed me off is that this kind of solid structure was absent for the Orange Islands, Johto, Hoenn and Battle Frontier sagas afterward - dropped in favor of a lazier and more simplistic “episodes (usually filler) just happen up until an important episode or episodes come along, rinse and repeat”.  This was at its absolute worst in Johto - Orange Islands was too short of an arc for it to be much of a problem, and the two Advanced Generation arcs actually didn’t do it so bad since the added quest for May (and villainous team arc in Hoenn) meant that important episodes occurred with more frequency. Johto, on the other hand, was Filler Hell, with some important episodes on rare occasion.  It’s why Shudo quit his job - why be on board for “Series Construction” if he’s not allowed to actually construct the series?

Sinnoh in the Diamond/Pearl series was the first to regain a head writer with the credit of “Series Construction”, Atsuhiro Tomioka.  Unfortunately, he wasn’t very good at his job here. Not only did he hog over half of the important episodes for himself to actually write rather than share with the others as Shudo had done, meaning he seemed to view this as a personal vanity project, but there was NO solid structure to the series at all!  This is at the very core of why I dislike the DP series - the structure is awful, and consists of multiple recurring important things rotating into prominence over and over again throughout four years, leading to sensations of whiplash and ultimately fatigue. It’s basically like this:

The Beginning: Ep. 1-10 Dawn's First Contest w/ Zoey: Ep. 11-12 SUDDENLY Filler: Ep. 13-14 SUDDENLY Oreburg City w/ Paul: Ep. 15-18 SUDDENLY Pokemon Capture: Ep. 19 SUDDENLY Hunter J: Ep. 20 SUDDENLY Filler: Ep. 21-25 SUDDENLY Contest w/ Kenny: Ep. 26-27 SUDDENLY Filler: Ep. 28-29 SUDDENLY Honey Mini-Arc: Ep. 30-32 SUDDENLY Filler: Ep. 33 SUDDENLY Pokemon Capture w/ Zoey: Ep. 34 SUDDENLY Elite Four Lucian: Ep. 35 SUDDENLY Eterna City w/ Team Galactic: Ep. 36-37 SUDDENLY Filler: Ep. 38-39 SUDDENLY Cynthia w/ Paul: Ep. 40 SUDDENLY Zoey: Ep. 41 SUDDENLY Filler: Ep. 42-44 SUDDENLY Hunter J: Ep. 45 SUDDENLY Filler: Ep. 46-47 SUDDENLY Recap Episode: Ep. 48 SUDDENLY Contest w/ Zoey and Nando: Ep. 49 SUDDENLY Tag Battle Mini-Arc w/ Paul: Ep. 50-52

....And that's just the first year!

I’m sorry, but I just couldn’t with this style.  There’s pacing plot threads and characters gradually throughout a series, and then there’s just throwing as much shit in as possible, and having them rotate in and out of focus so fast and in such a short-lived manner - in between the usual filler, mind you - that the result is by the end, I don’t care anymore.  I don’t care how the Myth Arc is wrapped up and how Team Galactic is defeated, I don’t care why Dawn is called “Dee Dee”, I don’t care about Ash and Paul’s go-nowhere rivalry, I’m just tired of the roller coaster of plot threads, characters, mini-arcs and general crap without any solid structure and pacing behind it.  It feels like Tomioka was just going “LOOK! WE HAVE MORE PLOT, CONTINUITY AND IMPORTANT ELEMENTS NOW!” without actually making said plot, continuity and important elements gel together in a cohesive way. It’s like Spider-Man 3, except that I’d gladly take Emo Peter over Emo Paul any day, he’s actually entertaining!

The Black and White series is the one that changed everything, for the better. It restored a coherent structure to the anime, very akin to what Shudo did in Kanto.  It’s like this:

The Beginning / Meteonite: Ep. 1-25 Road to Nimbasa: Ep. 26-40 The Don Battle: Ep. 41-44 Nimbasa Subway / Meowth: Ep. 45-50 Nimbasa City Tour: Ep. 51-54 Milos Island / Weather Trio: Ep. 58-63 Road to Mistralton: Ep. 55-57, Ep. 64-70 The Donamite: Ep. 71-75 End of the Badge Quest: Ep. 76-86 Undella / Meloetta: Ep. 87-99 Iris' Homecoming: Ep. 100-103 The Unova League: Ep. 104-110 The White Ruins / N: Ep. 111-124 Decolore Islands: Ep. 125-144

It’s mostly a very good, solid structure.  The structural weaknesses are in the notoriously disappointing third year - thanks to executive meddling, The Unova League is a tad too short, The White Ruins / N is definitely too short, and Decolore Islands is too long...in fact, Decolore Islands has no good reason to even exist other than to preemptively advertise the XY games.

The XY series also provided a solid structure for its story, like this:

The Beginning: Ep. 1-10 Road to Cylagge: Ep. 11-25, TSME Act I Mega Evolution Trials / Korrina: Ep. 26-34 Summer Camp / Rival Trio: Ep. 35-44 Serena's Goal: Ep. 45-60, TSME Act II Back to Lumiose City / Clemont: Ep. 61-70, TSME Act III Kalos Quests: Ep. 71-93, TSME Act IV Zygarde / Squishy: Ep. 94-107 The Master Class: Ep. 108-113 End of the Badge Quest: Ep. 114-122 The Kalos League: Ep. 123-131 Team Flare / Lysandre: Ep. 132-136 Goodbye to Kalos: Ep. 137-140

This structure also has three points of weakness: Road to Cylagge and Kalos Quests are both lengthy periods where little of anything of interest or relevance happens, while Serena’s Goal is fraught with letdowns, above all being the titular goal which ends up being basically contests but without the battles or the charm. These weaknesses hurt XY worse than BW’s affected it, as while BW’s weaknesses all happened toward the very end where it could stand to lose viewers, XY’s happened much earlier and as a result, the third year (XY&Z) was an absolute ratings bomb, since most of the show’s core viewers had already dropped out by then. And given that XY&Z was of exceptional quality, this is incredibly disappointing. 

And now we have Sun and Moon, which is like this so far:

The Beginning: Ep. 1-4 Melemele Trials: Ep. 5-20 School Days: Ep. 21-30 Akala Trials: Ep. 31-37 Kanto Field Trip: Ep. 38-43 Cosmog / Nebby: Ep. 44-55

Yet another solid structure, with no weaknesses thusfar. Let’s see how long it lasts...