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So I'm just moving this to a blog post, I had it as a thread in A&M section but it was met with disdain and backhanded insults from voracious SM supporters (even though I worked really hard to make sure I was being as kind as possible about the series). I really wanted to post it for discussion, but I am tired of all the controversy, so I will put it up as a blog. If you are a huge SM anime fan, this really shouldn't bother you, but if you know you are typically bothered by anything that doesn't praise SM, then please just don't read it. I actually try really hard to not insult the SM series, I just think it may give off a message that isn't terrific for children.
Not sure if anyone will care/agree with this, but it has been bothering me for quite a long time and has come to a head recently with some of the Alola league stuff, so I thought it would be worth posting for discussion.
One of the really positive life lessons in the history of the anime (especially for kids - the target audience) to me has been stressing the importance of hard work and perseverance. Essentially the lesson that if you work really hard towards something you want you may not always win, but you will be a lot better for the experience and learn a lot and that eventually if you want something enough, with enough hard work you can become very skilled at it.
I feel as though the SM series has really come up short in this regard. I get that some people view the arc as a vacation for Ash, but it was never stated as such and what about the rest of the main characters in the series? Effort is limited and sporadic at best. In some ways, this is perfectly natural as they are just going for the relaxed life of ten years olds scene, and many ten year olds don't have a defined passion at which they know to pour their efforts into. It is the moments though that not only ignore this important theme of the previous 19 years of the anime, but go in direct contradiction to it that I believe are a big issue.
Obviously the most glaring example is that all classmates that have no interest in battling, have never practiced or put any effort into battling, will all be a part of the Alola League (and by the looks of it will do quite well, even winning matches). Considering all the people we have seen in the past in this series who were dedicated to something such as battles or contests, worked their tail end off for huge periods of time, and wound up coming up shorter than these Alola classmates who don't even care, is just insulting and completely detracts from the message the former series were trying to portray.
On top of this, there are a great many activities the class takes part in where the activity is tried for the first time and everyone is ranging between competent to good at the activity. Recent golf episode comes to mind, where everyone (except sort-of Lillie) did quite well right away, when golf is actually an incredibly difficult sport for beginners. Not only does this reduce the message of hard work, but also could help lead to children being discouraged when they first try an activity and have a very hard time doing it, it may make them more likely to give up and not try at all, because they expected it to come easily and it didn't.
Now I do think the series has done okay in some regards, because the series doesn't need to have every episode or every moment be goal-oriented, and they have shown things such as Mallow working hard at cooking, for example. I just think if they decide someone is going to be interested in/work hard at something, they probably shouldn't show them being hugely successful at something else that they don't even care about/work towards. (And lets be real, they used to frame top 16 in league as a huge accomplishment - the legend, Gary Oak, was only top 32 at Indigo -, and I get this league isn't the same animal, but some people always look at it by numbers rather than by quality - and there really should be plenty of people in Alola that can beat these classmates that don't care about battling Pokemon).
This is all without even touching on what Ash is doing, which is to say they still try to frame him as this awesome trainer when they feel like it, while framing him as a clumsy doofus the rest of the time. If this were to be a vacation, then show some side-effects to that. He doesn't train his Pokemon, so show some impact, like less success in battles. Basically, imagine a kid who watched more than one series (I know people say that isn't the idea, but we all know it happens), so they watch Ash work super hard in XY then they watch him chill in SM and not worry about battling, but he's just as successful (if not more) in SM than XY, what is that lesson teaching kids? So again, as far as having the series less goal oriented, thats fine, but you then have to show some impact of that, such as less success at said goal, or you are giving off the wrong message. So this isn't an argument as to which series is better, just if you are going the SM route than maybe leave out the league altogether, or show some sign of this team not being as good as the ones in the past that put in crazy amounts of hard work. In this case, it seems as if they wanted to go the SM route for the series, but they couldn't quite go all the way, so they left in some battles and a league, and a by-product was some very mixed messages.
Unfortunately I think this change in message coincides in a time where culturally (at least where I live) hard work is less stressed than ever, and many children expect success to be handed to them without much work. Pokemon has always been a shining light amidst a dimming public perception of hard work, in my opinion, as a way to teach children to pursue their dreams, no matter how difficult they may seem, and to work really hard and good things might happen.
An Alola series that shows kids relaxing, trying moderately hard at some future dreams they aren't really after right now, and just having a lot of fun may have missed out on stressing this important lesson like the series did in the past, which would have been a minor disappointment to me, but it still would have been a lot closer. But throwing in success for those that put no effort into certain endeavors is what really makes the series fail in regard to the lesson about hard work and perseverance, because it not only ignores it, it contradicts it.
The missing message is a positive one, not a "you don't work hard enough", but a "try your best and go after your dreams, even if they are hard, keep trying". Showing things coming super easy is risking an unhealthy message, because then the child compares themselves to these "perfect" characters and has self-doubts when they struggle at things that in reality everyone struggles with. Past series made it very obvious that the Pokemon path was very difficult, and that a lot of struggles came along the way, but through perseverance these characters could at least take tangible steps towards achieving their dreams (without always achieving them, which I think was also very important). Now we just see some people goof around all the time and then be far better at something than they should. It creates a false expectation that something will be easy and creates self doubt when in real life nothing real is that easy. It is important for children to understand just that, because there is no real way to shelter them from learning that many things in life are difficult, because eventually they will learn this, and if they are not prepared for it, life will become even more difficult.
I'm curious to see what others think about this. Let's not let this turn into a "which series is better" argument, as we have plenty of threads for that already, and by now I'm pretty sure we all know who likes and doesn't like SM. Like I have tried to mention in some areas, I'm not attacking the SM style of show (although I think it may have less life lessons), the biggest issue is the contradictory parts that I think are mostly only present because they didn't quite go "all in" on the SM style and left in some old elements that were executed poorly.
Not sure if anyone will care/agree with this, but it has been bothering me for quite a long time and has come to a head recently with some of the Alola league stuff, so I thought it would be worth posting for discussion.
One of the really positive life lessons in the history of the anime (especially for kids - the target audience) to me has been stressing the importance of hard work and perseverance. Essentially the lesson that if you work really hard towards something you want you may not always win, but you will be a lot better for the experience and learn a lot and that eventually if you want something enough, with enough hard work you can become very skilled at it.
I feel as though the SM series has really come up short in this regard. I get that some people view the arc as a vacation for Ash, but it was never stated as such and what about the rest of the main characters in the series? Effort is limited and sporadic at best. In some ways, this is perfectly natural as they are just going for the relaxed life of ten years olds scene, and many ten year olds don't have a defined passion at which they know to pour their efforts into. It is the moments though that not only ignore this important theme of the previous 19 years of the anime, but go in direct contradiction to it that I believe are a big issue.
Obviously the most glaring example is that all classmates that have no interest in battling, have never practiced or put any effort into battling, will all be a part of the Alola League (and by the looks of it will do quite well, even winning matches). Considering all the people we have seen in the past in this series who were dedicated to something such as battles or contests, worked their tail end off for huge periods of time, and wound up coming up shorter than these Alola classmates who don't even care, is just insulting and completely detracts from the message the former series were trying to portray.
On top of this, there are a great many activities the class takes part in where the activity is tried for the first time and everyone is ranging between competent to good at the activity. Recent golf episode comes to mind, where everyone (except sort-of Lillie) did quite well right away, when golf is actually an incredibly difficult sport for beginners. Not only does this reduce the message of hard work, but also could help lead to children being discouraged when they first try an activity and have a very hard time doing it, it may make them more likely to give up and not try at all, because they expected it to come easily and it didn't.
Now I do think the series has done okay in some regards, because the series doesn't need to have every episode or every moment be goal-oriented, and they have shown things such as Mallow working hard at cooking, for example. I just think if they decide someone is going to be interested in/work hard at something, they probably shouldn't show them being hugely successful at something else that they don't even care about/work towards. (And lets be real, they used to frame top 16 in league as a huge accomplishment - the legend, Gary Oak, was only top 32 at Indigo -, and I get this league isn't the same animal, but some people always look at it by numbers rather than by quality - and there really should be plenty of people in Alola that can beat these classmates that don't care about battling Pokemon).
This is all without even touching on what Ash is doing, which is to say they still try to frame him as this awesome trainer when they feel like it, while framing him as a clumsy doofus the rest of the time. If this were to be a vacation, then show some side-effects to that. He doesn't train his Pokemon, so show some impact, like less success in battles. Basically, imagine a kid who watched more than one series (I know people say that isn't the idea, but we all know it happens), so they watch Ash work super hard in XY then they watch him chill in SM and not worry about battling, but he's just as successful (if not more) in SM than XY, what is that lesson teaching kids? So again, as far as having the series less goal oriented, thats fine, but you then have to show some impact of that, such as less success at said goal, or you are giving off the wrong message. So this isn't an argument as to which series is better, just if you are going the SM route than maybe leave out the league altogether, or show some sign of this team not being as good as the ones in the past that put in crazy amounts of hard work. In this case, it seems as if they wanted to go the SM route for the series, but they couldn't quite go all the way, so they left in some battles and a league, and a by-product was some very mixed messages.
Unfortunately I think this change in message coincides in a time where culturally (at least where I live) hard work is less stressed than ever, and many children expect success to be handed to them without much work. Pokemon has always been a shining light amidst a dimming public perception of hard work, in my opinion, as a way to teach children to pursue their dreams, no matter how difficult they may seem, and to work really hard and good things might happen.
An Alola series that shows kids relaxing, trying moderately hard at some future dreams they aren't really after right now, and just having a lot of fun may have missed out on stressing this important lesson like the series did in the past, which would have been a minor disappointment to me, but it still would have been a lot closer. But throwing in success for those that put no effort into certain endeavors is what really makes the series fail in regard to the lesson about hard work and perseverance, because it not only ignores it, it contradicts it.
The missing message is a positive one, not a "you don't work hard enough", but a "try your best and go after your dreams, even if they are hard, keep trying". Showing things coming super easy is risking an unhealthy message, because then the child compares themselves to these "perfect" characters and has self-doubts when they struggle at things that in reality everyone struggles with. Past series made it very obvious that the Pokemon path was very difficult, and that a lot of struggles came along the way, but through perseverance these characters could at least take tangible steps towards achieving their dreams (without always achieving them, which I think was also very important). Now we just see some people goof around all the time and then be far better at something than they should. It creates a false expectation that something will be easy and creates self doubt when in real life nothing real is that easy. It is important for children to understand just that, because there is no real way to shelter them from learning that many things in life are difficult, because eventually they will learn this, and if they are not prepared for it, life will become even more difficult.
I'm curious to see what others think about this. Let's not let this turn into a "which series is better" argument, as we have plenty of threads for that already, and by now I'm pretty sure we all know who likes and doesn't like SM. Like I have tried to mention in some areas, I'm not attacking the SM style of show (although I think it may have less life lessons), the biggest issue is the contradictory parts that I think are mostly only present because they didn't quite go "all in" on the SM style and left in some old elements that were executed poorly.
