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- Oct 18, 2012
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If you're implying that gen 5 was a "reboot" to the series, that's wrong. The series have only been "rebooted" once, and that was between the gap between gen 2 and gen 3, and yet i don't see Hoenn and Sinnoh as "twin" sisters like Kanto and Johto were. Just because gen 5 set the series far away from the japanese regions doesn't mean that it was a "reboot" to the series and that gen 6 and 7 are going to be the "proper" gen 1 and 2.
I think you're reading too much into it tbh.
They're implying that Gen V was something of a "soft" reboot, and not even necessarily that in exact terms - just that it has elements of one, which I would agree with them about.
It's not just about Gen V being the first in a non-Japanese region. That certainly emphasizes the feeling (along with the decision to reset the route count and to line the regional Pokédex with niche-imitators of some of the original 151), but on a more technical level, Gen V is when they really began to streamline the existing mechanics of the games as opposed to mostly focusing on building on top of what the previous game introduced. Not to say that they didn't streamline some things before, but Gen V is when it started to become more prominent, and it continued into Gen VI. Additionally, they also changed their storytelling style quite significantly in Gen V, and Gen VI, even for as tepid as the story was, tells its story using a lot of the same conventions as Gen V.
That's not to say that I fully agree with the interpretation of Gen VII as a "reimagined" Gen II, but I think you may be reading their statement too literally.
I still think hinging all this speculation that Alola and Kalos are linked just on Zygarde and the Strange Souvenir is weak at best. And calling Alola the Johto to Kalos just sounds wrong to me. They're not remotely the same at all. Kanto was an afterthought in GSC and was added only because Iwata managed to compress the data which left enough room for them to do so. I've seen nothing that it was planned from the start. And I dunno it just bugs me that so many people are so caught up on Zygarde that they seem to be endlessly trying to tie everything new to Kalos and not just letting it stand on it's own.
I do think that the fandom has a nasty habit of constantly trying to squeeze things into the frame of Gen I and Gen II (or other "traditional" patterns), but overall it's an honest point of speculation. They are obviously trying something new with the formula with Zygarde and the Souvenir, but we can't really say what exactly the endgame is. It's natural and perfectly harmless for people to come up with theories and consider the possibility of a deeper connection.