Ranting about A New World, A New Way

Recently, I've been thinking too hard about my issues with A New World, A New Way. I've decided to write them down here just to get it off my chest.

• The Poképhilia. I would be able to tolerate this, since it's not the only thing the story is about, if it wasn't for the fact that the story keeps hammering the point home by vilifying the Pokémon Rangers and other canon characters.
• It tries to take a darker look at the Pokémon world, which demands moral complexity, but instead the characters are divided into black and white categories of who supports Poképhilia and who doesn't, and who is okay with the Pokémon appearing and who isn't. The only exception to the former I can think of is X.
• It also pulls the "Pokémon only bad because master bad" card, which is cheesy in a kids' show, but downright aggravating in a T-rated fanfiction. It gives me this iffy vibe that Pokémon are morally higher than all other sentient beings.
• Everything the New Ranger characters say about relationships in the main story makes me feel uncomfortable. The absolute worst part is Abbey's rant at Wendy and Sven, which boils down to "Poképhilia is good because Pokémon are good and humans are bad."
• On a lighter note, Juniper tells the schoolkids that Arceus named Pokémon and no-one knows what it means, which bothers me way more than it should.

That being said... I don't completely hate A New World, A New Way. There are some things I like about it, such as the character interactions and potential for worldbuilding. Different species co-existing is a soft spot of mine, and the bar for that has been set so low in fiction in general that I started unironically liking Cars 2 for a while. Some of my favourite side stories are the ones that DON'T talk about any of the heavy stuff that I mentioned, such as Sweet Scent. (There's also Stage and Swarm, but I got bored of those ages ago. Maybe I could try re-reading them?)

I've even written a couple of side-stories, that also stray away from the heavy stuff, and try to give a more positive look at humanity. I've unpublished Growing Up in a New World because I'm ashamed of it, but I've improved a lot since then, and The Tides Have Turned is helping me get good at writing.