XY was not that good....(Not Ragebait/Sarcasm)

NOTE: Please notice I said XY and not XYZ (one of the best seasons fr), this is just a criticism post for XY and Kalos Quest

ANOTHER NOTE: I'm not criticizing the animation or art direction, I think this series had the best art of any of the others (except Ash looking 16 but then again, he never REALLY looked 10 to begin with...) adn the 3D camera works without fail (except in one thing, which i'll come to)

The first 5 episodes are actually amazing and feel fresh and energetic....then it begins to go downhill

Serena: She awkwardly follows the group around aimlessly for the first 50 episodes, then they introduce a random contest ripoff for her to do in which she doesn't compete until the 60th episode, she also loses only like twice? + don't get me started on the haircut scene it's basically a way to show off the customization feature that made its debut in the XY games. She has little to no personality and her only motivation is to not do rhyhorn racing (XYZ fixes a lot what I disliked about her, giving her agency, having her grow away from Ash and deciding to compete in contests, but the 1st two seasons she really felt like dead weight they were dragging along)

Pacing: People call DP out for this but the pacing of XY was soooo terrible that they had to rush and rush throughout XYZ to make up for it, like, Alain was well set up through the ME specials, but Sawyer appears after Ash's 5th badge and then has 8 badges BEFORE him somehow?? The fillers are especially boring in this series (worst of the series if i may) and aren't even fun to rewatch, except the one with the gengar in a haunted house (scary hospitality? cant remember the name clearly).

Clemont & Bonnie: They get shoved aside so hard in the first 40 episodes for a character who doesn't even have a goal?! They had the potential to be really interesting but Clemont and Chespin are played off as absolute (unfunny) jokes (again, until XYZ with Clembot, XYZ really course corrected this series) and Bonnie gets on my nerve more than Max could ever wish to (Yippie yay was sooo annoying and XYZ giving her squishy made her kinda redeemable)

Performances: This is the element where the 3D camera fails XY HARD, there is sooooo much going on in the performances, the trainers dancing, the pokemon dancing, the pokemon using moves, combinations of different moves and it feels wayyyy too chaotic and it feels impossible to pay attention to any one specific thing. I will say though, Serena's final performance in Master Class was breathtaking (Again, XYZ) The whole concept of Performances is fundamentally flawed though (kind of follows idol culture), why can only girls participate in it? Yeah I mean we've never really seen much women in the leagues but it's never outright "males only" while by giving the title Kalos "queen" you really narrow it down + after her only 2 losses, every performance requires something that Serena is just naturally good at? How random was the rhyhorn showing up in a POKEMON PERFORMANCE. The magic fairy light voting system with holographic keyholes over the performers' heads was so stupid like wtf, at least in Contests and Leagues there's a visible screen on which they display remaining pokemon and all, what are these glowsticks which send orbs to the performer you liked the best? (+Jessie should've won but I won't count that as a criticism because 1) XYZ and 2) it's my personal opinion)

Ash's Pokemon get barely any personality or development bar Greninja, which is a problem that carries over to XYZ but I think since the league takes place in that season, it allows a tiny bit of attention to be given to Ash's other pokemon...Pikachu still felt like a static sidekick for the entirety of this series tho

And finally, the one opinion I KNOW I will get downvoted for:
The main group had zero chemistry, there are no fun dynamics between them, they are always super extra nice to each other that when Ash has like that depression arc and him and Serena argue (in XYZ tho, one of my only criticisms with that season) it's displayed in such an over the top and dramatic way as if this was the 1st time it was happening (in XY it was but in the overall series, it would've been a regular day for Misty and Dawn), also unlike Dawn, who tried to cheer Ash up by setting up a cheesy-wholesome circus, Serena says "You're not the Ash I know", making it seem like she had like this perfect, ideal version of Ash that she remembered because handkerchief. XYZ really helped during the Team Flare arc to actually show these people interact with each other because we barely get to see Clemont and Serena interact or Bonnie and Ash interact, which makes the first 70-80 episodes excruciatingly boring, the animation of the battles was the only thing that kept me going through those seasons...if XYZ hadn't gone as hard as it did, I think XY would be my 2nd least favorite series (after Gold and Silver)