Why do people hate SM so much?

[Alola]

Something I haven't seen a lot of commentary on is how S&M's story telling was all over the place (even if it had the rare gem now and then, such as Mallow's episode with her mother).

Rather than travel through each island as Ash would have done between OS-XY, he remained on one island largely and occasionally ventured out to the others for contrived reasons. While limiting the perspective viewers would have ordinarily gained for such areas, people, and Pokémon, this immediately nixed the Island Challenge, the game's main focus point of growth from which the series was adapted, as we saw with Ash having fought a grand total of 2 Totem Pokémon; the Grand Trials, necessary for entering Alola's Pokémon League in the games, were swiftly undermined in importance when Kukui announced anyone could enter the League (another point of contention for fans). As such, there was no formulaic growth for Ash, which led to a lot of slice of life and random episodes akin to filler (if they weren't so ); SM's comical style only exacerbated that. Then, for some odd reason, they quickly shoved in the entirety of Lillie's arc, and short handed the people involved like Lusamine and Plumeria, and the climax of her story in Sun & Moon by the 54th episode; whereas Z-Form Lillie was a significant change and demonstration of Lillie going forward, it was portrayed as a temporary outfit swap with nary the same development. Imagine if DP resolved Team Galactic after Ash's second Gym Badge. Or Team Aqua/Magma before Ash even reached Slateport - it felt like that. The USUM version they threw in was little better. Massive story (mis)beats aside, we ended the thing with Ash finally winning a League. While very appreciated and celebrated round the world, there was also criticism of how undeserved it was compared to all the work and major battling Ash had just put in Kalos as well as this League's lenient structure (from full Battles to determine his victory, compared to the lesser 3v3 he had to do for Gladion; which, by the way, was because he did not have six Pokémon yet by the end of the regional League, something unprecedented and frowned upon). Compound that with jarring appearances or lack of from characters, such as Hau finally appearing right before the League, Guzma's own late appearance, and the Ultra Recon Squad failing to show up at all, and the whole narrative came off messy and unplanned to many, including myself.

 

[KrspaceT]

For all Journeys issues with the WCS and time on it the series still devoted more and better time to battles than SM which has always been my issue with it in general.it Cando good battles but SM often choose to do something stupid instead

 

[Sai]

I honestly wonder if people forget Litten/Torracat didn't get a single Kahuna battle. And then for Nanu and Hapu Ash only used one pokemon, Lycanroc and Pikachu for the whole match.

I liked a lot of aspects of SM but his team felt lackluster until the buffs in the last year. Meltan was also the usual late series capture that comes too late in the series to do much and Poipole was just there to be cute till it came back. While they did good with character interaction between the Pokémon the team didn't really fare well focus wise besides Lycanroc at first.

 

[Ghost Diplocaulus]

I honestly wonder if people forget Litten/Torracat didn't get a single Kahuna battle. And then for Nanu and Hapu Ash only used one pokemon, Lycanroc and Pikachu for the whole match.

People don't forget actually. In fact, Torracat's lack of usage in Kahuna battles was a pretty common complaint back when SM was airing and there's still plenty of people, myself included, who feel that it and not Pikachu should have been the one used against Hapu at the very least, especially since Torracat had just learned Fire Blast, making using it in the last Kahuna battle a decent payoff. But nope, Pikachu gotta Pikahog the spotlight

 

[Hidden Mew]

I honestly wonder if people forget Litten/Torracat didn't get a single Kahuna battle. And then for Nanu and Hapu Ash only used one pokemon, Lycanroc and Pikachu for the whole match.

People definitely remember that Torracat didn't get into a Kahuna battle. That is still one of the more common complaints about Torracat and the Kahuna battles as a whole. I don't think that people had too much of a problem of Ash using just Lycanroc against Nanu, or at least I don't remember that being frequently brought up, but people definitely weren't happy with Ash using just Pikachu against Hapu. Not only was the battle against Hapu generally not good, but it was such a lackluster way to end the Island Challenge. The Island Challenge was treated as such an afterthought, so I guess that they wouldn't have made a bigger deal of Ash beating the last Kahuna, but there was still such little fanfare involved, which made the battle worse.

I liked a lot of aspects of SM but his team felt lackluster until the buffs in the last year. Meltan was also the usual late series capture that comes too late in the series to do much and Poipole was just there to be cute till it came back. While they did good with character interaction between the Pokémon the team didn't really fare well focus wise besides Lycanroc at first.

Yeah, I never really cared for Meltan myself. The friendship between it and Rowlet could be cute, but it made it harder for me to believe that it had a strong connection to Ash, unlike the rest of his SM team. It also felt kind of tacked on. Ash really could have caught something else instead of having two open slots on his team for most of the series. Melmetal has a lot of brute force going for it, but since it didn't really have a lot of battles or training under Ash, it didn't really mean much. Poipole was just to be cute and it effectively got the Goodra treatment in the sense that it came back for the Alola League, but at least it actually accomplished something, which is more than I can say for Goodra and the Kalos League. I'd also give Poipole a bit of credit for its farewell being pretty emotionally effective.

Despite not getting a Grand Trial battle, I do think that Torracat was handled pretty well. It still got a good amount of focus and development throughout SM. It would have helped for it to get more battles, but SM in general wasn't really battle heavy. It would have been nice for it to get a battle in after evolving into Incineroar, but evolving after defeating Professor Kukui's Incineroar was the most fitting way for it to evolve.

 

[galaticarticuno]

For me, it's the entire art style. If you look at the other series from Kanto to even BW or even XY, Ash's entire look looks really childish and cartoony. You can pretty much tell, well in my opinion anyway, that they put in the original fan's faces that 'ash is always 10 years old' without bothering to explain how aging works in the series (which they probably will never do, same as they'll never show who Ash's father is), but you could really tell if you're an old fan from the 90s how...young is the only word I can describe it from Ash's appearance in sun and moon compared to his other series. Heck, even in Indigo, he didn't look as...childish as in S&M. He almost looked younger than 10 if you ask me in the series. First thing I thought of when seeing Ash riding on the back of that Sharpedo (which has a stupid design in my opinion-I understand it's meant to be based off a torpedo) was "WTF is this?!" The facial exaggerations were really out there...perhaps even more so compared to some of the other anime I've watched through the years.

Didn't like Torracat evolving into Incinaroar. Didn't like it's design at all, going from a four-legged creature to a two-legged creature. At least have given it a split evolution depending on sex or stats. I get that it was meant to reflect Hawaiin culture or something along those lines, honestly forget, but...honestly the design just...I don't like it.

Lyncanroc...of course it would be Ash that get the only new form of Lycanroc that nobody else knew about. Not unusual, that always seems to happen to Ash.

Heck Misty and Brock, when they came back, also looked childish and cartoony. Really threw me and personally think the designs are ugly.

I don't know what the point was of Ash 'going to school' at all in S&M honestly. After a while it got boring. Probably why I haven't finished Sun and Moon yet. From what I remember, the island challenge seems to be an after thought.

I have to say, I do like Lily's arc and wish that were focused on more, particularly with Snowy. I have seen an episode with Cosmo evolving and that's interesting but gods it's an annoying little...brat... when a Cosmo, always crying and stuff...the teleportation bit was funny to me though.

That Bewear...oh my gosh it was annoying. Like the one time where Team Rocket almost beat Ash and then it shows up and ruins everything. Felt bad for them in that episode honestly.

 

[Sai]

Brock's face was too oval shaped in SM but Misty looked fine. Also SM is a series that looks better in motion than when people take screencaps and post them online. I don't have a problem with anyone design other than Ash at first so I'm glad his design was changed again.

 

[CharizardFan7]

Brock's face was too oval shaped in SM but Misty looked fine. Also SM is a series that looks better in motion than when people take screencaps and post them online. I don't have a problem with anyone design other than Ash at first so I'm glad his design was changed again.

Yeah.....SM was definitely not Ash's best look.

 

[Mochii ✎꒦꒷✩‧₊˚]

I'm not an experienced fan, so don't judge me (I didn't even finish watching all the different series)


I watched SM before XY, so I was shocked because the style it just totally different I still like XY art style better!
But anyways, I still love the SM series so much!

 

[ripplefieldz]

i've got an addition now that i had a discussion with a friend who watched x/y: as much as i love the sun/moon anime dearly, compared to x/y it was ABSOLUTELY on some pussy shit. like yeah sure alola talked about death and trauma BUT DOES ALOLA GIVE ME THE CHANCE TO SAY SHIT LIKE "IMAGINE IF STEVE JOBS CRUCIFIED A CHILD ON THE EIFFEL TOWER"? I THINK THE FUCK NOT. and the fact that the dub aired on disney XD makes it way funnier i think because amphibia ALSO aired there and THEY had to gvie a content warning on one episode because they fucking impaled a child onscreen.

also yeah the pacing was. OUCH. i think the fact that my past 2 fixations (the kirby anime and pokemon sword and shield) were also kind of. like that with plot stuff helped it for me but the sun and moon anime also doesn't have the benefit of being as surprisingly political as the kirby anime (granted viren like. as a whole reminded me of king dedede)

That Bewear...oh my gosh it was annoying. Like the one time where Team Rocket almost beat Ash and then it shows up and ruins everything. Felt bad for them in that episode honestly.

also. YEAH bewear was extremely frustrating for me. in general when i watched ag and a bit of x/y i was like "wow team rocket did not pull off NEARLY as many silly little schemes in sun/moon" so that's a thing too.

EDIT: WAIT OH MY GOD I ALMOST FORGOT TO MENTION. THE ANIME'S IN THIS WEIRD PLACE WHERE IT APPEALS TO FANS OF THE ANIME NOR FANS OF ALOLA BECAUSE OF THE MORE SLICE OF LIFE VIBE MIXED WITH THE HANDLING OF SUN/MOON'S PLOT. AND LIKE. I LIKE THE SUN/MOON ANIME I DO. BUT I CAN VERY MUCH GET WHY SOMEONE WOULD THINK IT LOOKS AWFUL.

and like, dear god the handling of lusamine was genuinely fucking horrible. ironically, them trying to make her "better" actually made her feel even more insidious to me. the beginning of SM048... shudder. and then there's the fact that like. okay so they're like "ok so since lusamine's not evil we'll make faba the villain" right? but then in a truly bizarre move they... redeem their replacement villain? i still don't get it. in general faba got the short end of the stick as a villain, i feel like SM049 was the only time he got to be a genuine threat (you could make an argument for SM050 but the magical girl moment kind of ruins any intimidation factor imo) which is unfortunate because he was showing some damn promise!

so uh. yeah i can absolutely see why someone would want to steer clear of the sun/moon anime. i still totally recommend it though just skip SM092 i don't know why they made me see faba shirtless why would they DO THAT

 

[Adelon]

I mostly hate it for the art style and for letting Sophocles even exist, I don't know why but something about that kid really rubs me the wrong way.

I did like that Rotom Dex though, I thought his facial expressions when Ash or one of his friends would do/say something stupid were the funniest thing ever.

I found Alolan Oak pretty annoying though.

I also wasn't a huge fan of how silly Ash was. Now, he's always been a bit of a clown but he was acting even more buffoonish than he usually is.

 

[ripplefieldz]

I mostly hate it for the art style and for letting Sophocles even exist, I don't know why but something about that kid really rubs me the wrong way.

I did like that Rotom Dex though, I thought his facial expressions when Ash or one of his friends would do/say something stupid were the funniest thing ever.

I found Alolan Oak pretty annoying though.

I also wasn't a huge fan of how silly Ash was. Now, he's always been a bit of a clown but he was acting even more buffoonish than he usually is.

listen man sophocles was doing his goddamn best. samson oak sucked though yeah, i assume it mainly comes down to translation issues though. if you want good pokemon puns bdg's perfect pokerap has got quite a few.

rotomdex was also like. a pleasant surprise compared to usum. also i get to make jokes about them being a kinnie which is always fun

this is reminding me though, yeah having 6 main cast members was always kind of doomed to fail, especially when ash is ALWAYS a major character. i can literally name like 3 different episodes where the gals just got shoved off to the side off the top of my head (and one of those, SM123, happens to be one of my least favorites due to how the message absolutely rubbed me the wrong way. now that i think about it sophocles was kind of a mood at a few points and this ep was absolutely one of them so seeing this ep be like "yeah he's in the wrong god forbid you have your own way of doing things lol" was. OUCH.)

 

[Blob]

People don't forget actually. In fact, Torracat's lack of usage in Kahuna battles was a pretty common complaint back when SM was airing and there's still plenty of people, myself included, who feel that it and not Pikachu should have been the one used against Hapu at the very least, especially since Torracat had just learned Fire Blast, making using it in the last Kahuna battle a decent payoff. But nope, Pikachu gotta Pikahog the spotlight

Not to mention for a while Torracat didn't even have any Z-Moves it was compatible with.

 

[Sai]

The large cast was a nice change of pace but I probably would have left Lillie as a recurring character like she is in the games. The writers didn't have much to do with her after the Aether arc ended and if she stayed closer to her game incarnation she would only appear from time to time when needed. Sophocles could have also been a recurring character similar to Acerola. I guess Mallow and Lana could have had larger roles as the two main girls and Kiawe would be the usual male companion which he was.

But that's besides the point, the characters all got their spotlight from time to time and the writers did much worse with smaller casts. So I don't know, there's really not any other way I could see them handling the main cast since Alola isn't a place for companions to have any type of major goals themselves. I think they did a decent job, the girls got more focus as time went on too.