Best Pokemon Anime Series (Least Favorite to Favorite)

Pros

-The animation is smooth and fluid, it really is a work of art.

• Ash hasn't been completely reset maintaining that keen battle sense he had in XY.
• Ash's team (SO FAR) is looking good (Pikachu, Rowlet, Dusk Lycanroc, and Torracat).
• Gladion is a hardcore SOB
• Lillie is a good character
• Kiawe is a good character
• Lana has potential
• Character designs are nice.

Cons.....

• I'm not feeling the slice of life approach it's taking.

-Brock and Misty cameo'd instead of EVERYONE cameoing. Brock and Misty aren't Ash's only companions, May - Serena are too. Heck I'm even willing to say Clemont is as much of Ash's best friend as Brock is, and Serena and Dawn have closer relationships with Ash than Misty does.

• This school that was being advertised so much is more of a setting than something actually relevant to the plot.
• Ash has nothing to do, with hardly any mention of the trials.
• Ash looks *censored* terrible
• Ash's personality has been reset to an idiot/butt monkey.
• The Aether Foundation Arc. was RUSHED
• The comedy is forced with VERY few laughs
• The "funny faces" the cast make are cringeworthy.
• The cast is WAY too big. Pokémon can barely maintain a cast of four, it can barely maintain a cast of three, but SM is showing that it CLEARLY CAN NOT maintain a cast of EIGHT with some characters (particularly Mallow and Sophocles) getting the shaft.
• Lillie is a disappointing character
• Kiawe and Lana have little to no focus due to SM's large cast (or Lillie hogging the screentime)
• The group chemistry is meh. Rather than feeling like companions on a journey who will have the other's back no matter what, they feel like classmates who are in the same afterschool club.

So far, this series is hit and miss. 6.25/10

Where the series starts to improve for me. Although so far imo the best generation of games (That I've played, as of March 3rd, 2017 I've only played Generations 1-3 & 7) is in the middle of the pack of the anime but overall still good.

Pros

• Ash & May's Student-Mentor Relationship
• May imo is the 2nd best female companion of Ash so far with the 2nd most development
• Pokémon Contest are a welcome addition to the series
• Ash actually taken the initiative to train his Pokémon.
• Ash captures a fairly balanced team (Swellow, Sceptile, Corphish, Torkoal, and Glalie with Aipom joining his team towards the end).
• Good Pokémon League (Probably the 2nd best)
• Good Kanto/Hoenn Grand Festivals
• Battle Frontier was cool
• Ash beginning to show his true merit as a trainer. In Hoenn he's still immature but during the Battle Frontier he's inbetween immature like in Hoenn and Mature like in Sinnoh.
• Decent Group Chemistry Overall

Cons

• Max was annoying
• Team Rocket are clowns (Not to the extent they were in DP but still bad)
• Brock starts to become stale
• Bad Villainous Storylines. Neither Team Aqua or Magma were memorable in anyway throughout the series. The climax was alright but still overall bad.
• Ash has no rivals he doesn't get rivals until the Hoenn League and they only stick around for half a dozen episodes.

Overall a good series, this is where the series began to really get good in my opinion. We a female lead who REALLY improved with time, Pokémon Contest are cool (Although I'm not too big a fan of May winning a lot of her contest because "Dues Ex Machina". May probably has my favorite rivals for a female protagonist. 7.5/10

A great series. Probably the most mature series to date or just falls a little short in that regard. Haven't played the games yet so I can't compare the two.

Pros

• Ash is mature and competent
• Ash has a really solid team (Pikachu, Staraptor, Torterra, Infernape, Buizel, Gliscor, and Gible)
• Team Plasma is probably my favorite villainous team from the anime
• Hunter J who's my favorite villain from the anime.
• Good closure for both villainous arcs.
• Not a lot of filler with only 1/4 of this series being filler.
• Dawn wasn't a bad female lead at all (Although out of all of Ash's female friends she's in the middle of the pack for me). I like that Dawn was treated with equally as much focus as Ash.
• Dawn won her contest with skill instead of "Dues Ex Machina"
• Ash's best rival in the yet (Probably the best he'll ever have) with Paul
• Best Pokémon League yet with the best League Battle (Ash vs. Paul)
• Good Sinnoh Grand Festival

Cons

• Team Rocket are just a bunch of clowns
• Brock really has no reason

I don't think this series is as bad as so many people make it out to be. It has pros and cons like every others series.

Pros

• The animation (Not as good as XY, but the 2nd best of the series)
• Ash's Companions
• Group Chemistry isn't bad
• Good Pacing
• Ash's Charizard makes a return
• Dawn's Cameo
• Team Rocket actually being serious/competent/threatening villains
• The Team Plasma Arc. wasn't bad
• The rivals of Ash's companions were entertaining
• Minimal Filler (18% Filler, the least amount of filler for any Pokémon series)
• Bianca (I haven't played the games, but I've heard she's VASTLY different from her game counterpart but I still like her, I would've liked for her to be a traveling companion of Ash).

Cons

• Ash's Companions (Iris and Cilan are cool, they have personality: Iris has a lot of spunk which I like and Cilan's hamminess makes him fun to watch, but neither of them really did much development as characters).
• Ash's Rivals were weak (Stephan was cool though)
• Ash's Pokémon were underd

The best Pokémon Series yet and this is coming from a 21 year old guy who has been watching Pokémon since the VERY beginning. I stopped regularly watching Pokémon after Diamond and Pearl but XY made LOVE the series again but this time in a way I've never loved it before. Probably the most mature/serious Pokémon has been since Diamond & Pearl or....ever really. Haven't played the games yet so I can't compare the two.

Pros

• Amazing Companions (Serena and the Lumiose Siblings)
• ALL of Ash's Companions got their fair share of screentime and development establishing their own personalities and in the were all treated as equals for the most part despite Ash and Serena obviously being the stars of the show.
• The XY Team's Group Chemistry is bar none the best (Seriously these four felt like a family)
• Serena and Ash's Relationship (Yes, I am an Amourshipper, that is one of the things I LOVE about this series, but even without all the teasing of Ash and Serena beginning a romantic relationship, the interactio

Yeah that's right, the original series isn't #1 or in the top 3. A common motto I like to say is:

"Nostalgia is a powerful drug, but it isn't a drug I overdose on. Nostalgia can only take you so far and if nostalgia is the best thing you've got going for you, you're not going to get far at all".

With the original series that motto of mine REALLY shows.

Pros

• Good Companions
• Good Group Chemistry Overall
• Ash vs. Drake was a good battle
• Good Pacing
• Team Rocket are Semi-Competent
• Johto League was cool

Cons

• Ash's Companions (Brock and Misty were cool at first, but after Kanto both of them became as stale as cardboard doing borderline NOTHING to further their own dreams).

• Little to no character development for it's characters
• An UNBELIEVABLE amount of filler. Seriously almost HALF of the original series is filler that could've been taken out and NOTHING would've been different and even then most of the filler I didn't even think was good.

Kanto = 35% Filler Orange Islands = 43% Filler Johto