>tfw Pokemon could've had a coherent and satisfying ending instead of being stuck in a formulaic, marketing limbo.

While this review is indeed good and legit about everything else, Mew never said the clones are inferior in the Japanese version, as stated here. The fact that this is treating nonsense western rumors as fact makes me question a little bit about the veracity of the review.

One thing that I'm curious about is the "Shudo's originally planned final episode" stuff. I haven't read all of Shudo's translated blogs but I think that the original plans for a final episode would be something less obscure in the fandom if we had this kind of information provided.

Also, acording to Dogasu's review you can defend the scene about the Pokémon's tears de-petrifying Ash (he doesn't die at all in the Japanese version), as Takeshi Shudo explained it by himself. Of course it's in Japanese and, oddly enough, Dogasu decided to not translate it for some reason. Sigh…