I kind of like the direction the series went in in terms of Ash. The problem with adhering to the game's logic of leveling is that once you get something to level 100, which is piss easy after one or two regions, even the Pokemon existing as the closest thing to canonical gods aren't much of a challenge to face down.
By keeping everything power-capped, they effectively have more believable power levels per creature, and like the games expanding on what's built from the existing species list beforehand, should ideally make it more about what each member is doing as opposed to just overpowering everything with the species you already used. This is why moments like Ash losing to a Snivy at the start of the B/W era are great, even though at first glance they make no sense.
Keyword is "should," since Pikachu at the end of the day will just Thunder/Volt Tackle/Gigavolt/whatever since it has an extra high power cap due to being a protagonist.
There are three steps to fixing the Pokemon anime:
>Have Ash keep some of his old Pokemon.
Not necessarily all of them, but some of them that didn't get their own character arcs. Granted, they did this partially correct with some of his Pokemon like Bulbasaur lasting until the end of the 3rd gen, but having a consistent hallmark besides Pikachu both lets the audience evaluate new threats with something they can compare their level to, and benchmark how far Ash has traveled. The Pokemon, when they're written well, have a chance to be great characters since their emotions and personalities are almost completely done through their actions. From a storytelling perspective, that's difficult to pull off, but if they actually put in an effort to capitalize on this, would make for one of the best anime out there (but that's a HUGE 'if').
>Focus on side characters
This both distracts from Ash remaining relatively static and mirrors the games in the story being driven by characters other than the main protagonist. There are only two games where the hero really has any character in Gen II, where as you progress you actively go out to face all of the challenges you physically can up until you travel to a remote mountain to go fight the previous champion, and Colosseum, which, really, should have had its own arc.
>Increase Ash's, and the villains' competence.
Jessie and James are fine as they stand, but as the main series games get more story-driven, the villains get increasingly more complex. Lysandre, Ghetsis, and Cyrus could easily go on par with some other looming threats overseeing some grand scheme on levels we've seen in other anime. The problem is that they're never used as a means to showcase how far the protagonists have progressed, or their plans just get a dedicated few episodes. Let's go back to the first season. How did Ash beat Giovanni? What were Giovanni's plans? I don't like when people just say "just make it like Adventures," but at least in having everyone team up to go face the Elite Four they did something right for getting on a good climax for that saga of the manga.
Just the same, tying back to my opening here, the series could utilize its best strength without increasing the power cap while allowing its protagonist to think a little bit, which, I do admire in some parts where they at least try, even if it doesn't make sense.
Ash fighting Misty again in the S/M arc is a great example of this (if you can get passed the art style change) - Misty mega-evolves her Gyarados to demonstrate how far she's progressed in becoming a threat after parting with Ash, and in turn it forces Ash to think strategically by using three-dimensional space to his advantage (something the games could never demonstrate because of the battle system), eventually landing a good Iron Tail on Gyarados without necessarily overpowering it, but because Pikachu is a faster species. Misty retaliates by using Hurricane after rain has been set up, which follows the mechanics of the game well because of the accuracy boost that's given. Granted, the fight gets stupid afterwards and devolves into some other problems with the series (climbing on a hurricane? Really? Why couldn't the victims of Hurricane Sandy by as resourceful as Ash Ketchum?), but this demonstrates some of the good the series can pull off if they get their tools aligned.
>>792466
>Pokemon
>normalfag crowd
Pick two