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Is Mallow character necessary for SM anime cast?

Satoshi & Touko

Peanuts aren't just a nut.
If a fire, electric, and water trial captain type character is necessary for the cast, then I think a grass type one is as well.
 
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Deleted member 384931

Guest
They could easily find another support character. And saying she is here for Tsarena: they can easily let somone else debut the line. The Rowlet-gag went stale very soon and showing the same gag each time Bounsweet evolved was just boring as hell. And giving her an Z-ring at this point.... I can see already how she is gonna leave: I wanna go to other regions to learn more about cooking.Lol who gets more hate: Iris or Mallow? (I still dont understand why Iris deserved so much hate)
 
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Deleted member 384931

Guest
What is Sophocles’ goal even? Because if he has one then it’s been unexplored, forgettable, or both.
That is what you get with such a large cast. Less focus for each character.... And lets be honest with Soph: he is just a fat Clemont xD
 

Jeal

Well-Known Member
That is what you get with such a large cast. Less focus for each character.... And lets be honest with Soph: he is just a fat Clemont xD
And there were people who thought this would be good. It was obvious from the beginning that this would happen.
 

Daizy

I call you honey
Mallow's okay. We can argue that she doesn't get much screentime but then again this is true for Lana as well. SM's cast is too huge for its own good.
 

UltimateNinja

Praying for the holy relics
SM's cast is too huge for its own good.

And that's pretty much the death for minor side characters like Mallow or Sophocles.

To answer the threads question. No she isn't. She's getting so less and what she got was mostly so dissappointing, that it questions me why the heck they even introduced her at the first place. The same for Sophocles. Having such a big cast wouldn't be a problem for a SoL inspired setting, but they failed to spread out the screentime evenly to the whole cast, but then more important characters like Lillie would get less an so on.

I sincerly hope for the next gen we get another trio but with one male side character ala Cilan/Clemont and a female protagonist with a non type related goal with actual contest and something to earn (Ribbons, keys whatever) and a final tournament.
 

DatsRight

Well-Known Member
I think the difference between Mallow and Sophocles is that Sophocles at least regularly gets good characterisation in the little screen time he has, and does actually get some good supporting roles now and again. In fact Sophocles is probably the one SM character least reliant on cheap plot devices or padding like Team Rocket, while Mallow is even more reliant on such things than any previous series companion.
 

Leonhart

Imagineer
KenzeyEevee said:
That is what you get with such a large cast. Less focus for each character.... And lets be honest with Soph: he is just a fat Clemont xD

I definitely feel like the cast's size is what has held Mao back. If Lilie and Suiren weren't around for example, Mao would've had free reign from the beginning.
 

DatsRight

Well-Known Member
I definitely feel like the cast's size is what has held Mao back. If Lilie and Suiren weren't around for example, Mao would've had free reign from the beginning.

I'm sorry but Lillie comes before Mallow BY MILES. Not just in terms of her games prominence, but the sheer fact she's more vibrant and endearing when she DOES get limelight. I fear even if there weren't as many characters to get in Mallow's way, they'd still struggle with her, we'd likely just get more TR spams and COTD paddings, which is one thing I'm thankful we don't get as much with the other SM companions.

Remember even in with the three/four character format, certain protagonists still struggled in earlier series. Brock seldom got limelight in AG/DP and Serena, even in XY with the TR mandate gone, kept relying on their tired shtick interrupting all her episodes. Some just aren't strong enough to hold a plot on their own, even when the ideal opportunity comes.
 
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AshxSatoshi

Ice Aurelia
I'm sorry but Lillie comes before Mallow BY MILES. Not just in terms of her games prominence, but the sheer fact she's more vibrant and endearing when she DOES get limelight. I fear even if there weren't as many characters to get in Mallow's way, they'd still struggle with her, we'd likely just get more TR spams and COTD paddings, which is one thing I'm thankful we don't get as much with the other SM companions.

Remember even in with the three/four character format, certain protagonists still struggled in earlier series. Brock seldom got limelight in AG/DP and Serena, even in XY with the TR mandate gone, kept relying on their tired shtick interrupting all her episodes. Some just aren't strong enough to hold a plot on their own, even when the ideal opportunity comes.
Which isn’t the characters fault. At the end of the day I may love Lillie but she already had an established personality before the series even started. The writers just expanded on it. She always was a timid smart girl who wants to overcome her fears and progress to eventually become a trainer. The writers added their twists and turns but nobody can say game Lillie and anime Lillie are two completely different characters. It’s just who the writers cares about and who they don’t
 

DatsRight

Well-Known Member
Which isn’t the characters fault. At the end of the day I may love Lillie but she already had an established personality before the series even started. The writers just expanded on it. She always was a timid smart girl who wants to overcome her fears and progress to eventually become a trainer. The writers added their twists and turns but nobody can say game Lillie and anime Lillie are two completely different characters. It’s just who the writers cares about and who they don’t

Which is a fair point but only punctuates the truth, they're just not clicking anything for Mallow.

I think a series with a large ensemble cast can work so long as they find a developed place for every character to stick out. Look at shows like My Little Pony and Winnie the Pooh, which have large casts that are often limelighted as much as the de facto lead. There's always some characters that 'click' better than others however.

MLP has done an okay job making some characters like Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie as prominent as Twilight Sparkle, and even adding some new main characters like Starlight Glimmer into the mix, though the likes of Applejack are infamous for gets the scraps of limelight. Winnie the Pooh also tends to give Piglet, Tigger and Rabbit as many key roles as the main character (to the point the previous CGI series straight up made Tigger the second title character). Good luck finding a limelight episode for Kanga however. There's also characters like Roo, Owl and Gopher who, depending on era and creative team, fluctuate between being part of the main cast to barely appearing at all.

I'm sure many of us got introduced to ensemble cast shows with Thomas the Tank Engine as well. Similarly there was a pseudo lead (Thomas), but two or three characters who got palpable screen time and story arcs (Percy and James), a few others that weren't regularly important but had okay episodes (Gordon, Henry and Toby), and one or two that just struggled for spotlight at all (Edward).

I don't think it was just the games that gave Lillie a head start however, especially since the show took a lot of liberties on her story. The writers managed to give her a cute foliage with Ash for example, and they also seem more willing to punctuate slapstick and tough scrapes for her than the other girls this series. Lillie's more strategist role was not developed in the games either, which helps a lot in some of her supporting roles. As said, it might just be something the writers saw and could cease lots of potential out of.

Kiawe was also limelighted as minimally as Mallow in the games, and yet he is a much stronger supporting character than her, and while his limelight episodes are the most minimal of the cast, they do the job developing him well enough. To compare Mallow's previous episode was pretty formula driven (nearly EVERYONE rightfully predicted exactly what would happen before it even aired), her two boosts had no involvement from her, and her most previous supporting role was in the Sandshrew episode, where she pretty much just regurgitated exposition to what her goal is and provided minor comic relief, like what one of the third wheel companions often did in previous series.
 
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Slapstick-Olivia

Well-Known Member
You guys are kinda right about this. I also think if Mallow was the only girl of the group, she probably would still struggle as a character. I still think it has to do with the lack of an own identity. This is the biggest issue I think Mallow suffers from. If she just had something for her own: her own running gag or just some quirks she would have been a much more interesting character.
 
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DatsRight

Well-Known Member
What I like about a fair amount of the SM cast is that, in spite of underplayed development, they still have smidgeons more signs of character agency than the anime's usual protagonists are known for. Most of the time teamwork and filler consisted of helping a COTD or fighting off TR in a very generic way that didn't really flesh out their characters or niches. Ash, Kiawe, Lillie and even Sophocles however have more defined moments of their quirks and niches coming in handy or playing into how they work with the rest of the cast. I think this might also be why the writers are more willing to give them harsher challenges or weak points as well, since they are more confident that their good points will still vindicate them (Ash is very often the butt monkey and fails miserably at many competitions, but his versatility means he gets to do something remotely useful and brilliant in a fairly developed way nearly every episode to make up for it).

Mallow on the other hand still runs on the same level of proactivity as a normal companion pre-SM, with both undeveloped strong and weak points and relying on the formula and plot to decide how her role runs.

Even in terms of normal bad guy plots, the others at least get the odd developed personal rival or involvement against a more challenging opponent like Bourgain and the Ultra Beasts or even the odd time TR put up a halfway decent fight (eg. the Alolan Meowth episode) that requires some degree of agency and non-superficial development or using their Pokemon in a clever corresponding way. Mallow has got....Team Rocket's Meowth three times in a row, and even in all those she needed some twist of luck to ensure it didn't become too much of a proper fight.
 
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Leonhart

Imagineer
Slapstick-Olivia said:
If she just had something for her own: her own running gag or just some quirks she would have been a much more interesting character.

I don't know. SM has enough gags already in my opinion, and even though Mao having one of her own might help make her funnier than she currently is, it might also make her too similar to her peers.
 

keepitsimple

site of lies
They could easily find another support character. And saying she is here for Tsarena: they can easily let somone else debut the line. The Rowlet-gag went stale very soon and showing the same gag each time Bounsweet evolved was just boring as hell. And giving her an Z-ring at this point.... I can see already how she is gonna leave: I wanna go to other regions to learn more about cooking.Lol who gets more hate: Iris or Mallow? (I still dont understand why Iris deserved so much hate)
Criticism isn't hate in either case.
 

LilligantLewis

Bonnie stan
Though, it would be cool if she has a rival, mostly about another restaurant competing against hers

Given that so many COTD episodes have featured restaurant rivalries, I'm surprised they didn't think of the concept when they actually have a main character with a restaurant.

We have three boys, their for we needed also three girls.

I don't think that's the reason she exists at all. Until Gen VI we never had equal boys and girls so I don't think they were just trying to include a third girl for that reason and that's the only reason she exists.
 

DatsRight

Well-Known Member
The cooking goal wasn't exactly a dry well. We could have looked into stuff like the Poke Beans just in terms of game stuff, not to mention lots of amusing plays on how food is made (where exactly DOES meat come from in the Pokemon world?). There's tons of Pokemon with dex entries related to food that she could have caught and given her employment more personality.

TR could have easily been legit business rivals to Mallow with their malasada wagon but alas they only do so via their usual shtick because challenging her personal agenda would require developing it and putting substance into something she is competent at and is supposed to give her character agency.
 

AuraChannelerChris

Easygoing Luxray.
The cooking goal wasn't exactly a dry well. We could have looked into stuff like the Poke Beans just in terms of game stuff, not to mention lots of amusing plays on how food is made (where exactly DOES meat come from in the Pokemon world?). There's tons of Pokemon with dex entries related to food that she could have caught and given her employment more personality.

Thing is, references to using Pokemon as food have dropped ever since Kanto. I don't know if that was the influence of that one writer who passed away after the third movie.
 
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