Ok I know I havent been doing anything on here for like 2 months but I just watched XYZ 42 and 43. And then I realized. How did we go from this

To this

Like yeah, I can think of a couple of reasons why the writers/animators would do this. Probably, the reason I think makes the most sense is that they are going to make the anime more kid friendly since, well, Lysandre committed "suicide" in episode 42 and died for real in 43. Pokemon's probably going to lose the PG rating when the new anime comes around.

I won't watch this season of Pokemon at all tbh. It's not exactly topping or even around the level of the animation quality of XY and Z/Pokemon Origins. I'll give like 2 episodes a chance and then I'll make my judgement from there. But no gyms kinda kills the whole Pokemon Trainer vibe.