What's your opinion on the XY/XYZ saga?

[LuxrayOfTheWild]

Personally, I enjoyed the XY/XYZ series. Its not perfect by any stretch, but to me, it was one of the best series in recent years.

 

[Johtohfiller]

XY(Z) is my second favorite after DP - it doesn't match DP due to some pacing issues/subplots that could have been fleshed out more, which might have been fixed if it had aired for 4 years instead of 3. It does have my favorite villain plot and ending of any Pokemon series to date.

 

[HiroHunter]

Outside of Alain and the league its my favorite of the anime.

 

[SammyW27]

Hunter J approves.

As do Paul, Team Galactic, the Pokemon Rangers, and some of the Gym Leaders.

 

[Daenerys]

Personally, I enjoyed the XY/XYZ series. Its not perfect by any stretch, but to me, it was one of the best series in recent years.

I mean, it's easy to call XY one of the best series in recent years when its predecessor was BW and its successor is SuMo. There aren't that many options as far as picking quality is concerned.

 

[yab]

I mean, it's easy to call XY one of the best series in recent years when its predecessor was BW and its successor is SuMo. There aren't that many options as far as picking quality is concerned.

SM has a lot of genuine fans though, it's not like it's widely disliked. The humor isn't for everyone of course, but SM has had a lot of really strong episodes as of late. BW's problem is it started off seeming strong but then almost every aspect of it fell apart as the series progressed.

 

[Pyrossword]

Definitely my second favorite after Sinnoh. And you are right on one thing, for the first time in twenty years I felt like Ash would genuinely win the League until the writers pulled their cheap cop out, albeit not as bad as Tobias.
I liked the series transition into a proper battle shounen and it actually did a lot of good things for Ash.

 

[Hidden Mew]

Coming after BW probably helped XY gain more attention and fans, but I don't think that SM had anything to do with that. I'd still say that it is more mixed here rather than hated like BW was during its run and I still see a good amount of love for SM on other sites. All things considered, it seems to be generally well received. It's not drawing in as much attention as XY was, but I don't think that it is unpopular to like SM either, at least not as much as it was to like BW during its run.

 

[Almonds]

Coming after BW probably helped XY gain more attention

That probably contributed hugely to XY's popularity - all the more when we compare it by subject.

• Ash reset back to not knowing how to catch a pokemon in BW. In XY, Ash and Froakie came up with a smart strategy to catch Fletchling using Froakie's ninja-esque tactics.
• In Best Wishes! Ash's main rival Trip was eliminated in the first round, and Ash lost to someone who didn't know a full battle was 6 vs 6, and the battle strategies from both sides were terrible. In XYZ, Ash had his share of brilliant battles against Sawyer and Alain - flashy and overhyped, but at the very least, with dedicated animation and for Sawyer, an emotional toll.
• Episode N had an anti-climatic ending with a very short Charizard vs Reshiram despite the dramatization and hype. In XYZ, the Team Flare arc had a satisfying tie in with the Mega Evolution specials and presented impressive episodes with a wide cast of major characters participating in the fight.

These are the three that I can think of right now.

 

[Nicolas721]

My opinion is the same as it was 3 years ago, it depends on the part of it.

-From the beginning to episode 40-45 it's meh. In that part of the series there's a total of threenon gym-leaders characters that appeared at least twice (Sycamore, Alexa and Gurkinn) but two are related to gym leaders, so that leaves us one, a professor. Zero things to look foward to outside Ash's gym quest and zero additional plots. There's the Korrina story, but that developed Korrina more than everyone else. The characterization is pretty weak too, with only Clemont and sometimes Bonnie being decent. However, the episodes themselves are fine, well animated and are a breath of fresh air. I would recommend these episodes to someone who is looking for a Kanto / Johto experience.
-Episode 40-45 to Episode 75-80 is my favorite part of the series. While it's mostly remembered for the Goomy Arc, what was better was what was happening around it: Serena and Clemont getting a lot of development and making unexpected choices, three awesome gym battles and a nice Jessie filler and secondary characters finally coming back or debuting.
-Episode 80 to 92 loses the momentum, but is not bad by any means.
-XYZ, well, it does bad things as often as it does good things. The good is the Ash Greninja story, it was nice to see a "Protagonist can't control his power" overarching story, and the Team Flare plot, all of their appareances were great and Lysandre is an underrated villain. It could be said that because it delivered what it promised it's good, but no, because everything else was mediocre: Serena's quest had a decent ending but mediocre episodes, the league's "story" is full of nonsense, Squishy was underused and underdeveloped and its use of fillers was bad, they were there for the sake of having breaths from anything else and they didn't add something new.

Overall I'd say its passable, but it has mistakes everywhere. Its biggest mistakes are things I didn't menction, the lack of training scenes and the lack of continuity to previous series.

As for the original thread which was about how it impacted the fandom...
-Why is it so loved from people outside the fandom? It brought back the more mature and strategic Ash from DP and the battles were outstanding for this series' standards.
-Did it ruin the community? No, people will always complain if something they like it's gone. The same happened with DP, which was menctioned at least once in most threads involving BW. People will grow out from it eventually. And there's no way SM wouldn't have been controversial.
-Was it the worst thing to happen? No, as it wasn't really that revolutionary.

 

[Johtohfiller]

Its biggest mistakes are things I didn't menction, the lack of training scenes and the lack of continuity to previous series.

Agreed on these. I wish they'd put more emphasis on Ash and Clemont as sparring partners, we got to see it a few times but they could have done a lot more with it.

 

[Cookies and Creme]

I've talked about my opinion many times in the past so I'll make it short: I believe it's one of the best series of Pokémon, especially since it's sandwiched between the terribly received BW arc and the divisive SM arc.
Ash is much more mature, all the characters are likable, and the battles were top quality, not to mention the darker and deeper storyline during XYZ.
Looking back to the past, there are definitely many negatives, such as a pretty mediocre party, some really dull episodes early on, and the aforementioned league loss, which really didn't complete/help neither Ash's arc nor Alain's arc in this series.

 

[Hidden Mew]

While I understand the complaints about Ash-Greninja, I really liked that part of the series. I'd even say that it was one of the highlights of XY for me. I thought that it was an interesting mystery since it wasn't based on something from the games. I liked how it took Ash awhile to master it. It didn't feel dragged out or rushed, but just about right pacing wise. I thought that Ash's bond with Greninja was believable. It wasn't on the level of his connection to Pikachu, but I could buy that he and Greninja were close enough to make that form believble. Plus, it led to some surprisingly great character moments for Ash during his attempt to get his last Kalos badge, as well as during the Team Flare arc.

Like I said, I can definitely understand why it was more mixed at best reactions from fans. I don't know how far ahead they planned for Ash Greninja, but it was almost certainly made to capitalize on Greninja's popularity, as well as kind of giving Ash a Mega Pokemon without having him bring in one of his older Pokemon. Having Ash-Greninja do that much damage to Diantha's Gardevoir wasn't a good idea for a few reasons, although I still say that Alain's broken Mega Charizard X is far worse in the overpowered department, and it did take up a lot of attention during the last stretch of the series.

Even so, I don't think Ash-Greninja was a huge problem in regards to Ash's Kalos team, mainly because all of my problems with it started much earlier in the series. Ash's Kalos team was perfectly fine until they rushed through Goomy's storyline. They rushed through its evolutions just so that Ash could have a Goodra in time for his match against Clemont and then left him back at the wetlands. It was rather telling that most of the reactions to Goodra's departure weren't sad over Ash losing one of his close Pokemon friends. Most of the reactions were basically upset that Ash didn't have a Pusedo Legendary Pokemon anymore. Noivern somehow turned out to be even worse despite being on the team longer. It barely had any focus, wasn't used in any Gym battle and yet it still evolved and ended up forcing Sawyer's Salamence into a draw in the Kalos League. It was pretty awful and I'm still upset that they left an open slot on Ash's team just for Goodra to come back. That issue might not have been too bad if Goodra or at least Noivern were handled better, but it just felt like they wasted a slot, especially when Goodra didn't really do much in the Kalos League. The most it did was the Rain Dance powering up Greninja's Water attacks, but it should have done something more than that if they wanted to bring it back for the Kalos League.

It certainly isn't one of the worst teams Ash has pulled together, but I would say that it was one of the more frustrating ones. I think a lot of people liked it because it was the first time that nearly all of Ash's Pokemon had evolved and that is a neat concept. I just think it's significantly weakened when only four out of six of those Pokemon have any believable kind of strength. I don't think Ash-Greninja contributed to those problems, but I can still see why it annoyed other people.

 

[yab]

I'm currently rewatching it (in Japanese of course, the dub is terrible), and I'm enjoying it immensely. It really is a more action oriented pokemon series (or as action oriented as the anime can be), and I do love the group dynamic and how fun Bonnie/Clemont are. Serena does have a slow start but she does develop whether you like her choice of goal or not, etc. It has it's flaws like every saga does, and there are a lot of things DP does better such as Paul, etc....but on its own it was the most competent saga of the anime in years.

I can also understand why people like SM more, but I think both sagas have their charms for different reasons. I think this fandom generally has a habit of saying an entire saga is bad because they don't like a few things that happened in it, which of course it is weird, given every saga has some terrible writing choices the writers do. In many ways I wish XY ended Ash's story and the new SM boy was in the SM saga, it would have made things much better off but of course that would not happen.

 

[Lillie]

I wasn't really a fan of the series. I guess my opinion of it changed somewhere around the 20th-30th episodes of the series because of Serena's slow start and I didn't really like the mega Lucario arc getting so many episodes when Serena and the others could have benefited from getting one of those episodes to focus on them and their Pokemon instead.

 

[HiroHunter]

I wasn't really a fan of the series. I guess my opinion of it changed somewhere around the 20th-30th episodes of the series because of Serena's slow start and I didn't really like the mega Lucario arc getting so many episodes when Serena and the others could have benefited from getting one of those episodes to focus on them and their Pokemon instead.

I would had liked it more if Korrina traveled with Ash instead of Serena.

 

[yab]

Serena's personality is fine, I just wish her goal was better and she battled more. She is a distant 4th place for me for favored pokegirl, and the crush/ship isn't for everyone, but she's fine.

 

[SinnohBoi]

It was awful. Actually, XYZ was awful. XY wasn't too bad. It was too edgy and there felt no continuation to the previous Saga's. This is mainly seen through Ash's identity, where he slowly became the archetype to every negative characterization of a shohen protagonist. By the final gym the show had become this massive Ash circle jerk and the other characters were left in the shadows. If we could consider a percentage of time dedicated towards each character in the show since it's beginning, Ash was focused on far more in XY than even in the indigo plateau. Seriously, everything revolved around him and it was tiring. Then there is the league, which was only saved by it's animation. However, the handling of it was far worse than Best Wishes. The pacing was awful and the lack of reserves was upsetting.

The only positive to the show was it's animation and Serena and Ash's relationship. The rest was forgettable and the whole show was completely over-hyped. Sinnoh is still the best Pokemon series to date, and by a large margin too.

 

[KenzeyEevee]

It was awful. Actually, XYZ was awful. XY wasn't too bad. It was too edgy and there felt no continuation to the previous Saga's. This is mainly seen through Ash's identity, where he slowly became the archetype to every negative characterization of a shohen protagonist. By the final gym the show had become this massive Ash circle jerk and the other characters were left in the shadows. If we could consider a percentage of time dedicated towards each character in the show since it's beginning, Ash was focused on far more in XY than even in the indigo plateau. Seriously, everything revolved around him and it was tiring. Then there is the league, which was only saved by it's animation. However, the handling of it was far worse than Best Wishes. The pacing was awful and the lack of reserves was upsetting.

The only positive to the show was it's animation and Serena and Ash's relationship. The rest was forgettable and the whole show was completely over-hyped. Sinnoh is still the best Pokemon series to date, and by a large margin too.

Why keeping comparing XY and Diamond & Pearl? Each series had it flaws and good points,done. You cannot compare Serena and Dawn, two different people. You cannot compare Alain and Paul.

 

[SinnohBoi]

Why keeping comparing XY and Diamond & Pearl? Each series had it flaws and good points,done. You cannot compare Serena and Dawn, two different people. You cannot compare Alain and Paul.

XY was supposedly composed as a response to Sinnoh after the backlash Best Wishes received. You can see it through Ash and Greninja's relationship mirroring Ash and Infernape's. Showcases was a response to contests and the show focused on character progression and growth, as did Diamond and Pearl. However, none of these were able to match Sinnoh. Showcases made no sense; admittedly, it was also a patronizing response to contests. It was secluded to one gender and made no attempt to showcase strength, rather it was all about looking good. (Hey girls you too can look good and not be strong by being in showcases). Meanwhile, contests avoided any stereotypes and showed that strength can be found through beauty. Dawn and Zoey's contests were focused on juxtaposing strength with beauty. Ironic how Sinnoh began 7 years prior to kalos, however, Sinnoh was far more progressive. I could go on here, but you answered my own question there. Alain isn't comparable to Paul and Serena isn't comparable to Dawn. This is where the show went wrong. There used to be a May vs Dawn debate way back, however, that didn't even exist this time because it wasn't even much of a debate to begin with.

By the way, Best Wishes and Sun and Moon are far below XY, so there are worse options out there. But I think people will always remember Sinnoh, like they did with Hoenn. But no one will remember Kalos.