>>57967145I'm not that anon, but I'd say more. Mostly because evil leaders had already been done in the manga with the gym leaders as mentioned, it just kinda feels like more of the same. Should've just picked either one or the other to be villains.
Also I feel like evil gym leaders works a little better narratively because it implies, like, control over their specific areas of the map while also not being big enough to be on everyone's radar constantly. I get that evil elite four is interesting too because it implies the whole system is corrupt or something, but again, it might've felt stronger if that was the first time the manga had done that.