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Which companion did you feel like the writers didn’t have a clear plan for?

DatsRight

Well-Known Member
Honestly... I think even now, the writers do not know what the eff they are doing with Chloe...

I wish there was a companion that wanted the same goal that Ash wanted and was also his rival, kind of like what Joey Wheeler was to Yugi Moto.
Not a full-on example but it was still kind of exciting when it was made clear Kiawe would be taking part in the league as well.
 

Nyter

Island Challenger
Not a full-on example but it was still kind of exciting when it was made clear Kiawe would be taking part in the league as well.
See if it was the case that only Kiawe was entering and that the standards to enter the league were high, then I would be content with it as it would be a breakthrough in plot and character development to Kiawe.

But Ash battled all 4 Kahunas and then EVERYONE entered the Alolan League... so what was all that for?

But yeah Kiawe comes the closest. Good point out
 

DatsRight

Well-Known Member
See if it was the case that only Kiawe was entering and that the standards to enter the league were high, then I would be content with it as it would be a breakthrough in plot and character development to Kiawe.

But Ash battled all 4 Kahunas and then EVERYONE entered the Alolan League... so what was all that for?

But yeah Kiawe comes the closest. Good point out
I suppose SM at least remedies it a little by making the trial prizes actual power up macguffins instead of just entry tokens for its league. Ash had a big rounded team so needed to collect a lot of Z Moves for each of them, while everyone else only did a couple trials for their specialist type.

Kiawe did at least fight Olivia and got picked for Tapu Fini's trial over Ash.
 

Shadao

Aim to be a Pokémon Master
Brock in the Johto and Hoenn saga comes to mind. They brought him back because of his popularity with fans in both the East and West, but they never really do anything to make him to make his return warranted. He was just there and it wasn't until DP that Brock got some actual focus as a character.

I would also say Misty in the Johto season but at least she had a Whirl Cup arc to herself as well as a proper goodbye episode.
 

DatsRight

Well-Known Member
I do feel May kinda fell into the background in a lot of episodes (usually the ones she wasn't the main character) and her agency was sometimes really undercooked, but I feel that's less because they didn't have a long term plan for her (they clearly did) and more simply because they were still over reliant on the old formula driving everything. May still did better than Brock and Max after all, who barely got ANYTHING.

May also had the problem of being coming right before Dawn, who was basically a redo of her own competition arc but with them fine tuning a lot of the problems the previous one had.

I think this is a factor to remember, that the individual arcs planned ahead aren't always EVERYTHING that goes into making a good developed character. You need good dynamics, chemistries, agencies and at least some substance that allows them to work in on the fly plots.
 

Blastmaster

Well-Known Member
Yeah I think they knew what they wanted to do with May, she's just a product of how the anime was written at the time. Her Contests were written with the same cliches as most of Ash's battles. It wasn't until DP that they really started tackling the whole plot armor issue.

As much as Serena frustrates me, I do have to admit I don't think her arc was unplanned either. Or her general direction at least. There's enough foreshadowing in the first few episodes for me to know she was always going to take the same basic story beats that she did. I just think it was badly executed.

If there's anything that might've been poorly planned, it was Showcases. Feels like they wanted so much to drive home that whole "nothing is a waste of time" message but stalled on it for a year trying to figure out how to do it. The way that every single one of them is based specifically on some previous talent of hers is way too contrived. There's no way a beauty pageant where girls qualify by baking and herding Rhyhorn was something they wanted to do from the start.

Fwiw though, every show gets written as they go to some extent. It's not just a Pokemon thing. Every show takes trends and fan popularity and changes itself to match.
 
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