I weirdly like the Indigo League seasons, kinda more for nostalgia reasons than because I think they're prime examples of animated storytelling, haha. Those first couple of seasons had a vibe like the overall tone and worldbuilding aesthetic of Pokemon as a franchise hadn't really solidified yet, and the anime writers had a lot more creative freedom, for better or worse. Characters had different designs and personalities from the games, and sometimes whole elements of geography were swapped around (like how they weirdly completely omitted Fuchsia City). The writing also had a lot of creative choices that, looking back as an adult, were kind of bizarre--lots of absentee/deadbeat parents, emotionally volatile females, narratives centering around social rejection (Meowth's backstory, anyone?)... sometimes it kind of seemed like someone had some issues they were trying to process.
But I have fond memories of it as what the anime was when I was into it. I also remember one time as a kid, I got sick in the middle of the night, so my mom sent me downstairs to the living room with a bowl so I could watch videos until fell asleep. I sort of randomly picked the VHS with the episode where Ash meets Haunter, and although that's probably not everyone's first choice for what to watch when one can't sleep in the middle of the night, for me it was oddly relaxing and comforting.
I stepped away from actively watching the anime around the start of the Johto season for two reasons. First, I'd reached a point where I realized the writing just wasn't engaging me and the novelty of "Pokémon on TV!" had worn off.* Second, it started airing at a different time, or on a different station or some such, and I just couldn't bother to figure out where it had migrated to. But I admit I like peeking in at recent episode summaries and seeing what's been happening. I think the series has improved with time, and I really liked that the Alola saga and Journeys weren't afraid to radically switch up what had become a really tired formula. I think Journeys did a great job of giving Ash a fine sendoff for his retirement. And I like Horizons's fresh start and its determination to not really have much of anything to do with the core series games, which is the sort of originality I was craving from the earlier anime seasons. I keep telling my niece she should watch Horizons. We might have to have a binge session next time she visits.
*Honestly I blame this on the fact that the first season of the Digimon anime was airing around the same time, and I fell hard for it after just one episode. The character development was really well-thought-out for a kids' show, and the "fate of both worlds is on our shoulders" conflict was something I felt way more emotionally invested in than "Ash loses a Gym battle but manages to get the Badge anyway, meanwhile Misty finds new ways to criticize him, Brock annoys women, and the Team Rocket trio once again fail to learn from their mistakes".
