I feel Clephas is a bit harsh on it, but I could understand the sentiment. The Pokemon anime is one of those things I have a love-hate relationship with. The points Clephas made are valid, especially if you're an avid fan of the Pokemon games since the anime practically tear the Pokemon rulebook into shreds with their "dumb anime logic" (their words, not mine), such as being able to dodge moves that cannot be dodged (Aerial Ace) or having type advantages being ignored (Aim for the horn, Pikachu!). "Makes no sense" indeed.
For me, I have a nostalgic attachment to it, but not too much. I'm more of a Digibro, not a Pokemanz, even though I like the Pokemon games more than the Digimon ones.
Here are the things I like and dislike about the Pokemon anime:
Likes
Many great OP and some great ED themes on the Japanese side of the anime (Spurt! and Battle Frontier are my favorite); 3-4 good themes in the dub. Advanced Challenge has my favorite dub OP.
Pokemon D/P is an improvement over all other seasons. Satoshi (yes, Satoshi, not Ash) actually uses strategies! The rival actually makes logical points about battling pragmatically (instead of that friendship bullshit)! But it's only an 'improvement'; still not amazing compared to other anime.
Visuals improved vastly after Advanced Generation @720p.
Emotional tearjerkers are aplenty in the first season (the first episode, Bye Bye Butterfree, Goodbye Pikachu). I didn't cry as much in later seasons.
Kasumi is best gurl.
Dislikes
Terrible dub themes in later seasons after Advanced Challenge.
As said before, Pokemon moves make no sense. Tackle against Skarmory and Bubblebeam against Gyarados.
Contest episodes are as boring as the in-game contests.
Fillers galore, especially in the notorious Johto.
EVOLVE YOUR POKEMON, SATOSHI
Silly love and friendship is the norm. The presence of this cliche is as bad as other shounen anime like One Piece and Naruto.
>Don't want to evolve Pokemon because friendship
>Make them fight each other in cock fighting instead
Okay...
Constantly releasing powerful Pokemon because of said friendship bullshit. STOP RELEASING YOUR POKEMON, SATOSHI.
Satoshi took the APTX 4869 every season (Detective Conan in-joke; look it up), resulting in never aging.
Satoshi's intelligence also took the APTX-path, regressing back to zero every season, making dumb battling moves again.
Pikachu suffers the same fate, getting defeated by a Snivy, and getting injured or sick at the start of every season.
No Mega Evolution for Satoshi. And if he does have one, he'll probably take the less powerful Mega form - Charizard Y.
Repetitive story about some brat trying to get 8 badges and make animals fight each other.
Satoshi Forever Friendzoned.
Anime takes liberties from the game, not adapting it faithfully.
And many more...
Nah. Just kidding on the "Many more" part. But seriously, the anime has so many problems. It's one of my least prioritized anime to watch. I only watched it recently because of nostalgia, and it feels kinda fun playing Pokemon using Satoshi's Pokemon team from the anime. I sometimes watch the anime while playing for full effect, pretending I'm playing Satoshi in the game.