I know we joke, but I kind of love the setup for the latest arcs in the Pokémon anime. Like, yeah, it’s low-effort, but that’s kind of the point: everybody knows the cartoon is gonna be about Ash day-tripping through the plots of the various games, and there’s no point pretending otherwise, so how can we send Ash to Pokémon Hawai’i for the least possible amount of effort? “Oh, Ash’s mom’s Mr. Mime won a vacation package in a prize drawing at the mall” – it’s so hilariously perfunctory it’s basically winking at the audience.

I’m very much looking forward to seeing what bizarre pretext they’ll use to send Ash to Pokémon England, is what I’m saying.