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Anime has always had fan service even in kids shows but the term fan service is thrown around a lot, especially in a negative sense. Bathing suits can be really obvious fan service or subtle, I mean it's only clothing. Tons of western shows have characters wearing bikinis, it's not meant to be taken that way even if it can. That is just Misty's outfit in the game, and I believe we see Brock shirtless doing his game pose as well in the next episode.
As far as Tracey, he got a lot of flack mostly because he was replacing Brock and "ruining" the original trio. We are now used to seeing the cast change but Tracey got all the hate for being the first one, ironically enough it was done to appeal more to western audiences. Sadly he's been forgotten, I don't see how he was a "big part of the series" after Orange Islands. Chronicles was an awesome way to give other characters the spotlight, sadly none of that worked out since we rarely get specials like that anymore. Featuring him in the openings is far from "being important" and with the cast of previous "main" characters growing gen after gen then it's obvious they would cut the fat, and non-game characters like him the first to go. I like him though
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