• Hi all. We have had reports of member's signatures being edited to include malicious content. You can rest assured this wasn't done by staff and we can find no indication that the forums themselves have been compromised.

    However, remember to keep your passwords secure. If you use similar logins on multiple sites, people and even bots may be able to access your account.

    We always recommend using unique passwords and enable two-factor authentication if possible. Make sure you are secure.
  • Be sure to join the discussion on our discord at: Discord.gg/serebii
  • If you're still waiting for the e-mail, be sure to check your junk/spam e-mail folders

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

Bendicion

Water Master
Did we seriously watch same series? May is the first female character who had large character focus which can rival Ash, because of being a beginner trainer she had much more development than Ash had in AG also had her own rivals who is way better than any companion rivals.
May sat out on EVERYTHING minus contests and that 1 pokeringer thing. Drew was rather a motivation trigger for May than a serious rival. Yes by definition he is her rival but they almost did NOTHING with him on a greater scale. Harley was a bit better but introduced a little too late in the Hoenn part of the series. It so ridiculous to say what a large character she is and large focus?? What?? She is the vehicle in which we discover contests, YES, but unfortunately, many of her contests were poorly written. May's battles were overwhelmingly focused on luck/hax/DEM as the victory condition with Pokemon that she is never actually shown to train, just inform us that she trained and just so happened to have taught her Pokemon a new move just before it'll be useful... when she actually trained the Pokemon to learn a move instead of it just happening out of nowhere.
 

Pokemonfan5

Well-Known Member
May sat out on EVERYTHING minus contests and that 1 pokeringer thing. Drew was rather a motivation trigger for May than a serious rival. Yes by definition he is her rival but they almost did NOTHING with him on a greater scale. Harley was a bit better but introduced a little too late in the Hoenn part of the series. It so ridiculous to say what a large character she is and large focus?? What?? She is the vehicle in which we discover contests, YES, but unfortunately, many of her contests were poorly written. May's battles were overwhelmingly focused on luck/hax/DEM as the victory condition with Pokemon that she is never actually shown to train, just inform us that she trained and just so happened to have taught her Pokemon a new move just before it'll be useful... when she actually trained the Pokemon to learn a move instead of it just happening out of nowhere.
What kind of bullsh*t is this? Contests was introduced in Gen 3 games and Pokemon anime just add things in them just like gyms and league, Drew is literally Gary done right, he had so much presence in AG/BF series and May's character, May and Drew had so much chemistry as well, he is literally way better written rival than all other companions rival, it was first time contests introduce in anime so they're not as great as DP one like how most of Kanto gym battles was so trash, but contests also help in May's development so much from rookie trainer to pro and overcome her confidence issue, her rivalries and more, she won some of the contests with brutal force which wasn't bad writing at all as it was to further develop her character to learn that she need her own battle style rather than depend on Ash's style, we have seen May training her Pokemons like Beautifly before her first contest and before second one to tech her new combos, teach skitty Blizzard and more.

Also about focus part which pokegirl had more focus than May? Only pokegirl I can think of is Dawn, Misty was the most useless pokegirl who only exist to fill girl spot in group that even Pokemon director said she was in anime for boys eye candy, Iris suffer so much from BW poor writing because of earthquake incident in real life and less focus that her dragon master goal is left alot to ask not to mention it take awhile for Iris to reveal her goal in BW series, about Serena I don't think I need to say when lots of people already talk about, SM having large cast has divided focus between 3 girls so Lillie didn't get as much focus.
 
Last edited:

TheWanderingMist

Paladin of the Snow Queen
Serena. Took her long to have a goal for the sake of "realism", then decided to rush her goal because they couldn't innovate the Showcases more, then pushed the ship tease stuffs because she didn't have anything to do and then trying another competition from another region which gave the impression that the Showcases are inferior to the Contests in their views.
A plan being bad doesn't make it unclear though. And the whole point of encouraging Contests was so she could expand her horizons and incorporate her experiences from them into the Showcase stuff.
 

RafaSceptile

Well-Known Member
Judging how contests are half battles and she likes calling those off, she's kind of wasting her time.
First part of Showcases is completely unrelated to Contests and the second part of Showcases is pretty much the first part of Contests, and the second part of Contests is completely unrelated to Showcases. What is she supposed to learn about Showcases?
 

Sham

The Guardian of Ruin and Birth
Judging how contests are half battles and she likes calling those off, she's kind of wasting her time.
The weird part is Serena fans explicitly defended her not doing battles because “it isn’t important towards her goal” but somehow Contests (which have battles) are suppose to help her with her goal… because reasons?
 

AuraChannelerChris

Easygoing Luxray.
The weird part is Serena fans explicitly defended her not doing battles because “it isn’t important towards her goal” but somehow Contests (which have battles) are suppose to help her with her goal… because reasons?
I guess people in the anime universe subconsciously agree that Pokemon are like Avatar's Elemental Benders when in contest situations.
 

Bendicion

Water Master
May was hardly shown training. Its really upsetting that AG lacked this aspect. We hardly saw May training for her contests. If May needed to train and learn a new strategy, she did it off-screen. Hell, her contests were sometimes off-screen as Ash went off to train and the show focused on him. I also don’t think any of May’s Pokémon ever got a spotlight episode outside the eps she capture them. For Combusken her main starter even after it evolved I don’t recall May and it ever bonding at all outside a Contest. The rest of her Pokémon were treated similarly. May also did not enter any competitions except that one poke ringer thing and of course in the fillers she was just in the sidelines.
 

Pokemonfan5

Well-Known Member
May was hardly shown training. Its really upsetting that AG lacked this aspect. We hardly saw May training for her contests. If May needed to train and learn a new strategy, she did it off-screen. Hell, her contests were sometimes off-screen as Ash went off to train and the show focused on him. I also don’t think any of May’s Pokémon ever got a spotlight episode outside the eps she capture them. For Combusken her main starter even after it evolved I don’t recall May and it ever bonding at all outside a Contest. The rest of her Pokémon were treated similarly. May also did not enter any competitions except that one poke ringer thing and of course in the fillers she was just in the sidelines.
First watch AG series than talk about May's character, we seen May training on many occasions like with Beautifly and skitty in first two seasons that make Torchic uncomfortable for left behind, we seen May training with all of her Pokemons before her final contest episode in hoenn, we have seen May's Pokemons bonding and get focus outside contests as well, like May showing Bulbasaur and Eevee the world around them as Eevee was newly born while Bulbasaur never go outside that forest, Squirtle had lots of focus like in arcanine and the episode where May go to past and save that man, there are more to say but AG series is very forgettable that I need to rewatch to say more.
Why it's so important for entering in competitions? She had so many contests and grand festivals to compete already, AG doesn't even have many competition you can say same thing for Ash.
 
Last edited:

Bendicion

Water Master
First watch AG series than talk about May's character, we seen May training on many occasions like with Beautifly and skitty in first two seasons that make Torchic uncomfortable for left behind, we seen May training with all of her Pokemons before her final contest episode in hoenn, we have seen May's Pokemons bonding and get focus outside contests as well, like May showing Bulbasaur and Eevee the world around them as Eevee was newly born while Bulbasaur never go outside that forest, Squirtle had lots of focus like in arcanine and the episode where May go to past and save that man, there are more to say but AG series is very forgettable that I need to rewatch to say more.
Why it's so important for entering in competitions? She had so many contests and grand festivals to compete already, AG doesn't even have many that you can say same thing for Ash.
No, YOU go rewatch AG, and stop spreading misinformation you know NOTHING about.
 

DatsRight

Well-Known Member
I feel like a recurrent problem with many of the girls, especially Misty, May, Serena and the SM lot, is their tendency to struggle having an agency and reliance on plot armour or 'falling upwards' unless the plot is tailor made for them specifically, at least as a trainer. Yeah, there's a lot of cases they push themselves and are determined in a tough spot, but in terms of them actually figuring out an impressive way to win, it's not as common as the plot just saying 'oh well, the gesture's enough' and just plot armouring it for them. The boys suffer from this often as well, but I feel like it's the girls that tend to get exceptions the least, maybe because they always get the 'table scraps' after Ash in terms of developed battles and action where they're clearly using their brain (also I feel like they're more liable to subvert this sometimes and just let the boys lose miserably unless they do well too, meaning they don't skip over an accomplishment).

I think this is why so many like Dawn, and are starting to have a hindsight respect for Iris, since they could force themselves into the plot by sheer force of personality, and tending to get equal treatment in terms of trainer development. Even Lillie I think was more liable to get some involvement in random episodes (even if I think Sophocles kinda supplanted her as Ash's intellectual assistance in the end).

Looking back at Misty and May I think the recurrent problem with both is how often they rely on dumb luck or random boosts they had no real control over. Misty kept winning just by Psyduck's DEM headache powers and never really learned to control him properly onscreen or got many battles he didn't butt in and she got to show she could work on her own. She started off with an okay agency in Kanto as an actual character and foil, but as the formula started to fasten they just stopped bothering with her outside her running gags.

May had an effort to give her an arc but as mentioned her contests tended to not very developed well, she relied on spamming or plot armour a lot of the time over well choreographed battles. Also AG wasn't terrific with supporting roles either, she had an okay bond with Ash at times but otherwise tended to sink into the background unless it was a focus episode for her. The biggest exception seemed to be her high tendency to get kidnapped or put in peril. Even the Manaphy movie, which felt her limelight movie, ended up with Ash saving her and May failing to have much actual agency.
 
Last edited:

Bendicion

Water Master
May’s contest goal was wasn’t done correctly in the slightest. She constantly won most of them and rarely ever lost. It was always be jarring to me how she would have 25% of her points lefts but be able to turn the battle around in the last couple of seconds. One of the biggest offenses to this is the episode where she used Eevee against Brock. It’s part of the reason why I wasn’t all that upset when Dawn defeated her because most the Contests in AG were fixed unless Drew was there to beat her. It had many issues that was soon perfected in DP. May made some key steps of improvement over Misty, but even then she did often fade into the background in episodes she wasn't the centre piece, and her contest arc sometimes struggled to give her a legit agency, with some poorly choreographed wins and a lot of it being padded with the usual villain antics or whatever Ash was doing. May was included to obviously promote Contests in the anime but her character never got much focus on the cast and the writers pretty much got bored and abandoned her quickly. They would even cut out May’s contests to focus on Ash training Swellow or snorunt evolving to Glalie rather than focusing on her battles. Ridiculous.
 

RafaSceptile

Well-Known Member
May was included to obviously promote Contests in the anime but her character never got much focus on the cast and the writers pretty much got bored and abandoned her quickly.
May is the 2nd pokegirl with more percentage of dedicated episodes during their respective series only below Dawn. May had her own problems, but the "lack" of Focus and writers abandoning her is completely false.
 

Pokemonfan5

Well-Known Member
May’s contest goal was wasn’t done correctly in the slightest. She constantly won most of them and rarely ever lost. It was always be jarring to me how she would have 25% of her points lefts but be able to turn the battle around in the last couple of seconds. One of the biggest offenses to this is the episode where she used Eevee against Brock. It’s part of the reason why I wasn’t all that upset when Dawn defeated her because most the Contests in AG were fixed unless Drew was there to beat her. It had many issues that was soon perfected in DP. May made some key steps of improvement over Misty, but even then she did often fade into the background in episodes she wasn't the centre piece, and her contest arc sometimes struggled to give her a legit agency, with some poorly choreographed wins and a lot of it being padded with the usual villain antics or whatever Ash was doing. May was included to obviously promote Contests in the anime but her character never got much focus on the cast and the writers pretty much got bored and abandoned her quickly. They would even cut out May’s contests to focus on Ash training Swellow or snorunt evolving to Glalie rather than focusing on her battles. Ridiculous.
Yeah her contest goal done more of fantastically, May lost her very first contest so terribly showing how much she lack as a trainer and can't really focus well under pressure, many times she made a mistake in performance round to show that she still need to work hard for it and the results shown in kanto contests/grand festival where she hugely improved, May winning with brute force was part of her development to find her own battle style, winning with Assist was part of her strategy not just luck and she work hard with skitty to learn Blizzard, skitty didn't learn Blizzard out of nowhere, Dawn lose more in contests because she had a useless losing streak in season 3 as writers was dragging DP story arc to finish in 4 years timeline, you're comparing with Misty who was pretty much useless and never was center stage until whirl cup arc, battle, coming victorious at last moment is the problem of entire OS and AG series, Ash had win many battles like that as well because battles wasn't really good that time, like how Ash OHKO Gary's entire team in johto league not one or two but all 6 while he was put in corner, Ash's Pokemons take so much damage against Tucker and Spencer but somehow able to OHKO them and other OS and AG gym battles, that's the problem with early series.

May was included as secondary protagonist and the foundation of future pokegirls arc, contest was use as her goal just like Ash with gym battles, you can say that Ash was in anime to promote gyms and league but why Dawn is promoting contests in DP? Also writers abandoned all the pokegirls who travel with Ash, does that means writers got bored with them, May literally had far better reason to leave than most other pokegirls, Misty, Dawn, Iris and Serena had really bad written goodbye while May leave to find her own battle style rather than depend on Ash after having a brutal lost.
Ash's training with Swellow had ZERO impact on contests focus because battles against random characters NEVER got focus at all unless it was needed for story, that's the reason whole Wallace cup arc battles skip until semi finals just like kalos league except Ash because he lose, that means SEVEN main characters battles was skipped in wallace cup.
 

Nyter

Island Challenger
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.
 
Top