Blazing Charmander
Well-Known Member
Ok, bad pun aside, I just wanted to start a discussion about whether people felt that May's time on the main cast was cut horribly short. I've been thinking about her interesting character development throughout Hoenn and Kanto, and remembered just how well that the writers had handled her in the long-run.
As we all know, May started out as a timid traveller who had little to no interest in Pokemon or Pokemon training. It took her a while to admit this to Ash and co. and eventually, she settled upon the dream of being a Pokemon co-ordinator. We witnessed her at the very beginning of her contest career (which was by the way, a whole new concept in the Anime) when she and her Pokemon were inexperienced, and she gained a formidable rival in the form of Drew (yay Contestshipping!!!1!!1!) who wasn't scared of revealing to May her shortcomings. So eventually May became better and better at the whole Contest thing until she was well on her way down the path to the Grand Festival. Along the way, she also met a few other colourful rivals - most notably Harley.
Her first contest campaign and Grand Festival was a great learning curve, and her excellent development continued on in to the Battle Frontier saga. I personally enjoyed some of her centred-episodes like Time-Warp Heals All Wounds (one of my all-time favourites) and then her loss at the Kanto Grand Festival showed that there was way more room for improvement. Added to this was the fact that she had many under-developed Pokemon (unevolved Bulbasaur, Squirtle and Skitty) as well as a marketable Munchlax and an Eevee that could well have signalled a Sinnoh Eeveelution. I remember at the time, the fandom were anticipating May carrying on to the Diamond and Pearl series as a result. Then came the news that the new female character would replace her. Cue uproar.
Personally, I really like Dawn and have enjoyed her own contest career in Sinnoh. However, I can't help but facepalm at the fact that she replaced May on the cast to assume a like-minded dream, when the writers had clearly left May with plenty of room in the character development department. Fair enough, they gave her a feasible journey to Johto to compensate, but even then, would it have killed the writers to have created a sideseries (like Hoso/Chronicles) so that we could see her new journey unfold? I'd have quite liked to see the continuing rivaly between May and Drew/Harley/Solidad, as well as seeing her Bulbasaur and Squirtle evolve and win her ribbons in the process.
Sorry for ranting so much, but May's development is quite a detailed issue that caused a big divide in the fandom back in 2006. Three years later, I thought it'd be interesting to see what people's thoughts were about May's (and Max's
) sudden departure with so much potential left untapped.
As we all know, May started out as a timid traveller who had little to no interest in Pokemon or Pokemon training. It took her a while to admit this to Ash and co. and eventually, she settled upon the dream of being a Pokemon co-ordinator. We witnessed her at the very beginning of her contest career (which was by the way, a whole new concept in the Anime) when she and her Pokemon were inexperienced, and she gained a formidable rival in the form of Drew (yay Contestshipping!!!1!!1!) who wasn't scared of revealing to May her shortcomings. So eventually May became better and better at the whole Contest thing until she was well on her way down the path to the Grand Festival. Along the way, she also met a few other colourful rivals - most notably Harley.
Her first contest campaign and Grand Festival was a great learning curve, and her excellent development continued on in to the Battle Frontier saga. I personally enjoyed some of her centred-episodes like Time-Warp Heals All Wounds (one of my all-time favourites) and then her loss at the Kanto Grand Festival showed that there was way more room for improvement. Added to this was the fact that she had many under-developed Pokemon (unevolved Bulbasaur, Squirtle and Skitty) as well as a marketable Munchlax and an Eevee that could well have signalled a Sinnoh Eeveelution. I remember at the time, the fandom were anticipating May carrying on to the Diamond and Pearl series as a result. Then came the news that the new female character would replace her. Cue uproar.
Personally, I really like Dawn and have enjoyed her own contest career in Sinnoh. However, I can't help but facepalm at the fact that she replaced May on the cast to assume a like-minded dream, when the writers had clearly left May with plenty of room in the character development department. Fair enough, they gave her a feasible journey to Johto to compensate, but even then, would it have killed the writers to have created a sideseries (like Hoso/Chronicles) so that we could see her new journey unfold? I'd have quite liked to see the continuing rivaly between May and Drew/Harley/Solidad, as well as seeing her Bulbasaur and Squirtle evolve and win her ribbons in the process.
Sorry for ranting so much, but May's development is quite a detailed issue that caused a big divide in the fandom back in 2006. Three years later, I thought it'd be interesting to see what people's thoughts were about May's (and Max's
) sudden departure with so much potential left untapped.