Well! Nothing's changed at all in the time I've been off the forum! Every thread somehow turns into a Serena thread!
Conkelldur surpassed Torterra's overwhelming losing streak
These aren't remotely the same since Torterra used to win as a Turtwig and Grotle whereas Conkeldurr lost at all stages.
it seemed like they gave up on developing his rivalry with Satoshi something after Adeku's debut episode: their rivalry just seemed really dreary after that point, and their last battle being a simple one-on-one was a disappointment.
I wonder whether that was around the time they found out about B2W2 and changed their whole plan for the BW anime?
with the exception of Alain, but he was more of a League rival than a long-term rival like Shinji and Shooti were.
He's not a league rival. He met Ash a year before the end of the saga, he appeared as early as the first year (not with Ash, but still), and had other arcs besides the league. League rivals are people who debut right before the league (or at the league) only for the purpose of having a "familiar" face during the league arcs, so that it's not just a bunch of randos. League rivals are Ritchie, Harrison, Morrison, Tyson, Solidad, Tobias, Cameron, Virgil.
XY rivals were not introduced until more than halfway into the series (minus the Kanto starter trio and Miette). The only one who wasn’t forgettable was Sawyer and that was ONLY because he was the first underdog rival in the anime.
Sawyer: debuted in XY64
Nini: debuted in XY50
Alain: debuted in SME1
Literally every rival debuted LESS than halfway into the series unless you count Amelia.
Also how is Alain forgettable?
I honestly see no similarities between Trip and Paul besides their nasty attitude.
in the series premiere, Pikachu failed to win a battle against them.
she also seemed to have a crush on Serena
Interesting. I only got that vibe between Zoey and Dawn not Miette and Serena. I will admit though that one part I agree with you on is that I never thought Miette liked Ash and was doing it only to tease Serena, so maybe you're right.
what else is there to do with her? She was handled very well.
um, have her BEAT Serena?
Ursula was the typical mean female rival, she was great too it’s too bad she was introduced too late in the series and just lost to Dawn 3 times in a row. They should have never introduced kenny and brought in Urusula early instead
No, I think with such a long series (4 years) DP was fine to have both Kenny and Ursula and develop them separately. They played different roles.
Yeah I don’t think there’s been a standout rivalry since DP. Some like Sawyer are close but not quite there. I think the main issue is there’s hardly any investment in their battles especially since they either show up late or rarely battle Ash.
First of all, I want to thank you for rephrasing
@Hanto's OP into being "since DP" rather than "since AG/DP". Not sure why they included AG, considering that Ash had NO rivals. I know May's rivals that generation were great, but Dawn's were arguably better in the next generation, so even if both gym and contest rivals were being considered, I would have still said just since DP.
I agree with you partially when you're comparing it to DP, but that's the thing: you're comparing it to DP, the best series. Obviously everything is going to seem worse. So I actually lean closer to what
@Apslup says and think that Sawyer and Alain can be considered the other two good rivals the show has produced for Ash outside of Paul, even if they aren't up to par with Paul, they are still better than Ash's other rivals.
I'm not sure how you can say that Sawyer and Alain rarely battled Ash when Sawyer battled him four times and Alain three times.
Overall, I would say that it's not specifically "post-DP" but mainly BW and SM, and XY kind of gets thrown in there because it was worse than DP, but it wasn't actually bad in terms of its rivals. While DP was definitely the best generation of rivals for both Ash and the girl, I would say that AG was the second-best generation for the girl's rivals and XY was the second-best generation for Ash's rivals.
In BW they went for quantity over quality, which failed, but quantity isn't always a bad thing. DP had Paul, Barry, Conway, Nando, Kenny, Zoey, Ursula, and Jessilina and handled them well. So it was more of a BW issue rather than quantity over quality. And in SM I think they've had fewer/barely any, rivals because of how many main cast members there are. Hopefully, it will just be an experimentation generation, as it seems that a lot of the odd-numbered generations have been, and next gen will be lit
Gladion is a rival in SM. He’s billed as one.
What does billed mean? (not the definition of the word, btw, which I know, like, what I'm asking is, what does it mean in terms of this show)
last one versus Amelia I think had a lot of drama between her and the old woman potentially guiding her and taunting her about not being as good as Ellie.
what drama? post-match drama isn't real drama lol. It was never even explained how she beat Amelia
Let's just get this one out of the way. I hate league rivals. Rivals should have an impact throughout the story. You can't just cram a rivalry at last minute and expect the themes to be developed or expect me to give a crap about a rivalry when the interactions between the two can be watered down to the same four lines repeated over the course of 10 episodes to a grand total of 5 minutes of interaction.
Agreed, but I wonder in some ways whether with Tobias they subverted this issue by basically admitting: "we can't write good stories for league rivals so let's just not even try"
A girl's clothes do not define her personality.
I can be as shy as possible, but still like to wear short skirts and cute dresses.
It wasn't about the clothes but about being broadcast on Kalos national TV.
Excuse me? How are trevor and Tierno better rivals than Gary, Drew, Harley, Barry, Stephan, Kenny, Ursula, Shauna, and Miette? And how does Zoey feel like not a rival?
So then this would be the question: keeping Showcases the same...how do you do that? There are no judges, just a popular vote. How do we as the audience know Serena was inferior to her rivals just from a popular vote? There's no relative measurement to go by. Because all you're saying is "well, the audience wanted to vote for this person...I don't know why, but they did".
yeah exactly the most confusing was when Amelia lost in her own hometown? like ???????????????
In hindsight, Shota would've been my choice for Satoshi's main Kalos rival instead of Alain taking that role in XY&Z. Shota should've shown up at the beginning of the saga however, so that his growth would've seemed much more organic than it ended up being.
Sawyer was the main rival. He battled Ash more times than Alain did, he started battling Ash earlier in the saga, and he beat Ash before the league only for Ash to reverse that in the league.
The only big rivalry ideas left are:
1. Rivalry with a female character
2. Rivalry with an actual villain
Hopefully Galar will have something unique.
I'm ready for Marnie.
I can only assume that since the writers began to focus on other subplots such as the Plasma-dan arc and the Decolora Archipelago mini-arc in the final year of the Best Wishes saga, they just didn't have time to showcase any of the rivals by that point since there was so much other stuff happening.
In XY&Z, just like BW!S2N, the villain team arc finishes after the league. Nevertheless, they were able to incorporate the rivals.