It's a pretty tricky question, overall: I feel like I have softened my stance on SM a lot over the recent years, but it's still ultimately a series I don't really enjoy as much as some others, partially for story and writing preferences and partially because I don't feel certain turns and choices were particularly well-executed. As such, there's a lot that I genuinely like that could come across like backhanded compliments, and it's hard to find something I consider 100% caveatless good as a whole.

That said, I do think SM is generally good at creating 'moments' that can be meaningful and impactful in their own vacuum, and if one gets invested in the characters that way, the show is filled with memorable instances. I also feel the show is capable of using its premise for good storytelling sometimes, as I believe the Litten pre-capture arc works as well as it does also due to the stationary setting and the Ultra Ruin arc puts an interesting twist on the theme of loving Alola by showing us a version of Melemele completely destroyed by Guzzlord and the one person willing to still try to save it. I also think Jessie, James and Meowth are generally handled well when used as characters, and they managed to make the jump to a more comedic show more gracefully than Ash overall. I also find Sophocles and Rotomdex themselves pretty solid characters overall even if saddled with a few less than stellar episodes which are not their fault in the slightest.

While I may have a few nitpicks or issues on the larger picture and even some of the traits I mentioned, I can see where the appeal of SM can lie at least, and those are things I can say I enjoyed on the whole confidently enough.