Pokemon Best Wishes! Season 2

Meloetta arc is what makes this season great. The Unova league part is lame.

In English Version, the season ends at Meloetta arc and serves as a season finale where Ash and his friends fight against team rocket. This has only been done in this season and the previous season.
A more structured season is made instead of just ending it anywhere. This entire arc is well written and fun to watch. Melloetta is adorable. Piplup and Oshawott are even more adorable.

Everything about the league sucks. Ash vs. Trip is a 1v1 battle instead of a full 6v6 battle.
New characters are introduced just before the league. ... One of these characters ends up winning the league. What about all of the characters that worked so hard from the beginning of the series? None of the league battles are memorable.

This is an interesting reviewing experience for me. I'm used to having about 100 episodes to have to sum up-- or sometimes twice or three times that amount. And these 24 episodes feel a little oddly placed... But they were pretty good, and a lot of important things happened. I'm not really sure where to start... so I guess I'll just go in order.

I really liked that they brought Dawn back for a little adventure with the new gang. Continuing on in Unova, I missed Diamond and Pearl more than I'd expected to. Though that little adventure was brought down a bit by Meloetta... the ... Mary-Sue Pokémon. I know Japan has a thing for idols, but she just... annoyed me. This powerful, important, damsel-in-distress legendary that everyone just can't help but fall in love with? Gag me. But the conflict with Meloetta did finally reveal Team Rocket's big plan, which was also... interesting. I mentioned that I liked what they were doing with Team Rocket in the past season-- portraying them as a formidable villain for once, and I was glad to see that come together. But it does feel a little strange that, of all places, in this season that hasn't even been particularly good... this is where Ash finally meets and confronts Giovanni. Who's on a quest to summon the dumbest-looking legendaries this world has ever seen. The episodes were handled quite well, but... I don't know. It just didn't feel right. And I'm wondering where this defeat leaves Team Rocket now. They all went back to Kanto together. Will the writers try to play it off as if their brief success was totally inconsequential and revert Jessie, James, and Meowth back to their usual pathetic selves? (Is it too much to hope that they'll just disappear for good, never to be seen again?)

Anyway, as this season reached its midway point, I was fairly pleased. There were a lot of things these 24 episodes did well. I surprised myself by really liking the episodes dedicated to developing Iris. I think she now has the most depth of any Unova character, and my opinion of her might just be softening a bit. And then we moved on to the Unova league and, as with the first conflict of this season, I'm about half and half when it comes to enjoyment.
There have been a few things the writers tried to do differently in Unova, and I've approved of most of them. (Especially because lack of originality was one of their biggest shortcomings starting out.) And while I appreciate switching things up a bit... I mean, do I even have to say it? There's a reason you don't write the match against the important rival as the very first qualifying battle of the tournament. I really like how much Trip seems to have grown since their last encounter, but I wish we'd seen a lot more of it. The final battle against the big rival of this season as just a one-on-one match? Not satisfying at all, in my opinion. I just didn't really care about any of Ash's other rivals, so after beating Trip and getting to move on, it was sort of inevitable that whoever he did end up losing to was going to be disappointing. Especially because the writers ended up going with Cameron, who's just stupidly strong. As well as being just stupid, period. Like, his strength does not make sense to me. But I digress...

The next season is even shorter, but I think I'm okay with that. Best Wishes redeemed itself a little... But I don't anticipate missing Unova like I missed Sinnoh. The time to move on to X and Y, which I've heard is really good, cannot come soon enough.

Pros:
- some gym battles,
- artstyle,
- some episodes focusing on side characters can be interesting,

Cons:
- team rocket doesn't have any meaningfull story development,
- Ash trainer skills are the same as in the very first season back in 1997,
- lack of team plasma storyline,
- it feels more like a filler
... - anime directors kinda lost their idea what they want to do with this anime plot,

Overall the anime writers lost their creativity and innovation, and good ideas from the first part of season 1. This is part of the reason why some fans consider this one of most weakest Pokemon anime generation.