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Do you care about companions “out shinning” Ash?

Leonhart

Imagineer
RafaSceptile said:
the only one was against James and Miette and it was a ttag battle with Ash.

I think Serena was only shown to be a competent battler in XY105 because it was her Eievui's evolution episode, and the writers typically make newly-evolved Pokemon seem stronger right after they evolve.
 

RafaSceptile

Well-Known Member
I think Serena was only shown to be a competent battler in XY105 because it was her Eievui's evolution episode, and the writers typically make newly-evolved Pokemon seem stronger right after they evolve.

Yeah, if I remember correctly it was the only time that Serena finished a battle. Outside of that, she really wasn't showed to be competent during battles, that's why I don't like that last Serena's focused Episode, at least the rest of that Episode was decent.
 

DatsRight

Well-Known Member
The thing was Serena didn't really win out competence in that battle but more rule of climax that the Pokemon evolving has to be OP for their second wind. It's a common formula; Pokemon gets trashed in a fight, evolves or learns a new move, suddenly completely dominates and wins, even if their new power isn't shown to be ANYWHERE as effective in later episodes. Both of Tsareena's evolutions played her as unstoppable too while Noivern and Primarina's shown them able to counter against LEGENDARIES, something they never shown capability to do afterwards.

Otherwise I remember Serena still just spamming in that battle, just the new power boost meant she could win just doing that.
 
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LilligantLewis

Bonnie stan
Speaking of the whole Satoshi and Iris dynamic, I thought it was very unfair that a lot of viewers seemed to have a problem with Iris beating Satoshi at the Don Battle tournament. Satoshi had won many tournaments prior to BW, so the fact that Iris winning one was often seen as an insult to Satoshi's legacy never made sense to me.

I also think people slightly over exaggerate with Dragonite’s losing streak since they only battles he really had post disobedience was against Ash’s Charizard, Drayden and Clair and we all know she wasn’t winning those battles.

These are the exact same fans who had no issue with Serena being able to stand up to Ash’s Pikachu after being a FINALIST in the Kalos League. Granted Iris actually beat Ash but if we are going simply on “power levels” that battle made way less sense in my opinion.

I had no problem with Iris's Don Battle against Ash. I had huge problems with Serena's battle against Ash. However, I had moderate problems with Dragonite's "arc" and how the whole thing was presented. I had been rooting for Iris to beat Georgia with Axew (or an evolved form of Axew) all series, only for her to use Dragonite instead, never beat Georgia except that one time, and never beat Georgia legit. It felt as hollow as Dawn never beating Zoey.

I feel like a lot of it also might stem from the fact Iris was arrogant and playfully undermined Ash a lot, so people wanted her to get her comeuppance with Ash handing her ass to her. I suppose they might have thought getting Dragonite was 'feeding her ego' too, though it was more a deconstruction of that.

I did not have a problem with Iris teasing Ash. I had a problem with Dragonite specifically.
 

Captain Jigglypuff

Leader of Jigglypuff Army
I like the idea of a companion getting about as much time in the spotlight as Ash because it helps flesh out their character and makes them more than the group’s cook or tech expert. Clemont is interesting in terms of his love for technology but he was still sort of one note. Tracey only gave commentary most of the time and just drew pictures of Pokémon and hardly said anything important most of the time that he just faded into the background. May and Dawn had great character depth and showed that they had some personality to them. Serena failed a bit there as half of the time she never fully committed to anything other than Pokémon Spectaculars which were just Contests that were set up very poorly and in uninteresting ways.
 

Leonhart

Imagineer
Captain Jigglypuff said:
Tracey only gave commentary most of the time and just drew pictures of Pokémon

This reminds me of that time whenTakeshi was sitting in the stands and gave commentary when there was no one around him, which made it seem like he was talking to himself. Personally, I wish the writers would abandon commentary, or at least the sort that is spoken aloud.
 

Applecorp

Well-Known Member
I mean for that one I could buy it was a training spar and Ash was holding back, but the blatant competence upgrade Serena got just for that ONE battle was glaring.

Whoever wrote the script of that episode did an awful job but it was towards the end of Kalos so maybe they wanted to show that Serena had made some progress.
 

Leonhart

Imagineer
Applecorp said:
Whoever wrote the script of that episode did an awful job but it was towards the end of Kalos so maybe they wanted to show that Serena had made some progress.

I still think that the implication was that Eievui got a strength boost upon evolving into Nymphia, which caused it to be on Pikachu's level, at least for that battle.
 

LilligantLewis

Bonnie stan
Well, if I mind or not depands on the companion ...
Dawn/Serena/Iris etc.. Happy to see lots of focus.
Goh, less..
So which is worse? SM or PJ?
 

Ignition

We are so back Zygardebros
My only issue with the companions when they get focus is that it often feels like they’re wasting that limited amount of time. In SM I felt as though only Kiawe, Sophocles, and some of Lillie used their focus well where as Lana and Mallow felt like a waste for a good portion of their episodes.
 

Leonhart

Imagineer
Ignition said:
My only issue with the companions when they get focus is that it often feels like they’re wasting that limited amount of time. In SM I felt as though only Kiawe, Sophocles, and some of Lillie used their focus well where as Lana and Mallow felt like a waste for a good portion of their episodes.

I agree that in some cases the writers never properly utilized the screen-time that the companions had. In the case of the SM characters, I remember how Suiren and Ashirene mastered Oceanic Operetta off-screen, which made me question what the point of Suiren's development episodes were if she was just going to make such a huge step in Ashirene's progression off-screen.
 

DatsRight

Well-Known Member
Lana and Mallow admittedly feel like characters that were better designed to be supporting roles than fellow protagonists. Even worse it felt like their personalities didn't hit off and actually more diluted as time went on.

Lana started off as the introverted 'weird girl' of the group that was understatedly talented, though slowly just sort of became a generic 'exaggeratively good at everything' running gag. Again something that is humorous as a side role but doesn't have a lot of potential as a main character.

Mallow meanwhile started as the genki girl and near enough the leader of the group before Ash got comfortable, and then eventually became just the down to earth 'normal' one, a straight man could have worked, but truthfully wasn't as needed when the other cast members evened out each other already. Again it felt like they tried to rewrite Mallow to be more depthful in the last season but were still kinda lost with how to click her.

By contrast Kiawe and Sophocles started off blander minor characters and then clicked an awesome dynamic with Ash as time went on, while Lillie had a likeable enough character throughout the show but slowly dwindled in having a proper role, just sort of being the cute dorky baby sister for most of it.

With that said however, I can't really begrudge the last season of SM deciding to TRY and give everyone one final attempt at development and not just giving up and throwing them into the sidelines permanently like some of the previous failed companions. I thought Mallow was one of their worst efforts for the first two seasons, but Ultra Legends at least made her somewhat likeable to me, if still not exactly fully realised. I appreciated they were TRYING to fix this issue, compared to earlier where it felt like they barely put any effort into her at all. This is nearly always a deal clincher with me, if I can tell the writers were TRYING, something that isn't always clear with a formulaic show.
 
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Sonnas

Well-Known Member
With that said however, I can't really begrudge the last season of SM deciding to TRY and give everyone one final attempt at development and not just giving up and throwing them into the sidelines permanently like some of the previous failed companions. I thought Mallow was one of their worst efforts for the first two seasons, but Ultra Legends at least made her somewhat likeable to me, if still not exactly fully realised. I appreciated they were TRYING to fix this issue, compared to earlier where it felt like they barely put any effort into her at all. This is nearly always a deal clincher with me, if I can tell the writers were TRYING, something that isn't always clear with a formulaic show.
But wouldn't that feel like it's a "too little too late" with how they're putting it on the last season as apposed to the other 2?
 

Ubermuk

Sticky & Sweet
I agree that in some cases the writers never properly utilized the screen-time that the companions had. In the case of the SM characters, I remember how Suiren and Ashirene mastered Oceanic Operetta off-screen, which made me question what the point of Suiren's development episodes were if she was just going to make such a huge step in Ashirene's progression off-screen.

I think they rushed it because the Alola league was coming up and they ran out of time to give Lana a whole episode where she could work on the Z-move with Primarina.
 

DatsRight

Well-Known Member
But wouldn't that feel like it's a "too little too late" with how they're putting it on the last season as apposed to the other 2?

Oh yes, definitely. I hold it a key flaw that they wasted so much time in Ultra Adventures. But what I mean is I'm glad they didn't just give up at that point and did still try to make up for lost time and give them SOMETHING to fall back on before the series ended. It doesn't make up for the past two seasons but it's SOMETHING.
 
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