Why do you think they had females stop competitively battling after BW and following XY?

[Gingertail24]

Lana fought:
Guzma
Mallow in the league
The battle royale
Totem Wishiwashi and its ally mons
The hunters in the Kyogre episode

Etc

That's already more than Misty ever did in the OS, and excluding May for the contest battles makes no sense because it defeats the point being made

Because the new girls and direction wasn't more focused on battle goals doesn't mean the writers are adverse to the girls battling. That's the reason Serena barely never battled because she was focused on Showcases, Chloe because she was meant to explore stuff other than Goh and Ash's goals, Mallow coz she was a cook and Lillie coz her arc was relating to her family. If the story calls for it they don't have a problem with the main girls battling, like Iris May and Dawn had.
You need to realise the reason Dawn had so many battles is not coz the regime back then we're more favourable to girls battling or anything, it's coz of the nature of how DP was as a series

Trust me if the writers didn't want their main girls to battle at all they wouldn't have female rivals for Ash either to give female battling representation in JN.

There is a huge difference between female rivals battling and seeing the main pokegirl battling. JN still feels like a boys club because the majority of the time we are with Ash, GOH and Chloe. And who is doing the majority of the battling? Oh yeah GOH and Ash.

For someone to want main pokegirl female representation and to point at one off rivals we will never see Ash really battle again as sufficient representation is not a good justification. Marnie was a one and done battle, so was korrina, so was drasna. The only ones that stand out was Bea, which was only 3 battles. And Cynthia which was one battle but at least was 3 episodes. There not even series long rival like Paul and gary

Oh yeah, like we said, bringing up fights against bad guys doesn't count. Koharu fount TR but no one is gonna really use that as an example for pokegirl battling competitively. Which people still seem to miss the point. So Lana fighting hunters, while nice, isn't what the topic is about

 

[SerGoldenhandtheJust]

There is a huge difference between female rivals battling and seeing the main pokegirl battling. JN still feels like a boys club because the majority of the time we are with Ash, GOH and Chloe. And who is doing the majority of the battling? Oh yeah GOH and Ash.

For someone to want main pokegirl female representation and to point at one off rivals we will never see Ash really battle again as sufficient representation is not a good justification. Marnie was a one and done battle, so was korrina, so was drasna. The only ones that stand out was Bea, which was only 3 battles. And Cynthia which was one battle but at least was 3 episodes. There not even series long rival like Paul and gary

Oh yeah, like we said, bringing up fights against bad guys doesn't count. Koharu fount TR but no one is gonna really use that as an example for pokegirl battling competitively. Which people still seem to miss the point. So Lana fighting hunters, while nice, isn't what the topic is about

Im not DISAGREEING that there has been less battling by the girls
Im just saying there isn't a TABOO or conspiracy or sexism reason behind that. Just a focus on other stuff, but it doesn't mean they are allergic to having main pokegirls battle anymore and if the situation calls for it they don't mind the main pokegirls battling, like I said above
It's fine to want more battles by the Pokegirl and hope Riko is that, but it's weird to me to claim it's coz of some internal rule that pokegirls cannot battle, when they have even if it's less due to wanting to focus on other stuff. It's just a matter of the arc and story they want to pivot to

 

[Gingertail24]

Im not DISAGREEING that there has been less battling by the girls
Im just saying there isn't a TABOO or conspiracy or sexism reason behind that. Just a focus on other stuff, but it doesn't mean they are allergic to having main pokegirls battle anymore and if the situation calls for it they don't mind the main pokegirls battling, like I said above
It's fine to want more battles by the Pokegirl and hope Riko is that, but it's weird to me to claim it's coz of some internal rule that pokegirls cannot battle, when they have even if it's less due to wanting to focus on other stuff. It's just a matter of the arc and story they want to pivot to

I mean I don't think anyone here said it's a secret conspiracy but it is an annoying and noticable pattern that's been going on for years that's worth discussing. And every reason that has been brought up to explain it doesn't work. What's weird is that they seem to be considering it with Lana, but then only really implementing at the very end of the series. Where she either got help in the battle royale, beat mallow which doesn't say much, then got bodied by guzma

 

[SerGoldenhandtheJust]

I mean I don't think anyone here said it's a secret conspiracy but it is an annoying and noticable pattern that's been going on for years that's worth discussing. And every reason that has been brought up to explain it doesn't work. What's weird is that they seem to be considering it with Lana, but then only really implementing at the very end of the series. Where she either got help in the battle royale, beat mallow which doesn't say much, then got bodied by guzma

Totem Wishiwashi does count, as does her characerisation of someone who wants to battle like Kiawe, and I don't think the writers consider the semantics of users here when they have her seriously battling hunters as well in the sense they are bad guys so they don't count.
Therefore Lana was meant to be a battler, SM in general was less focused on battling

 

[Gingertail24]

Totem Wishiwashi does count, as does her characerisation of someone who wants to battle like Kiawe, and I don't think the writers consider the semantics of users here when they have her seriously battling hunters as well in the sense they are bad guys so they don't count.
Therefore Lana was meant to be a battler, SM in general was less focused on battling

I mean they don't. We're talking about competitive battling. Serena fought TR a bunch of times and even a Pokemon hunter and team flare, are we gonna use that to measure how much she competitive battled? No because it's bad guys. Legit every character has used their Pokemon to defeat a villain. It's not really special. Heck koharu and mallow have done that. But that doesn't make any bat an eye, and for good reason. So no Lana fighting hunters really doesn't. Because for the most part of 90% of the series she isn't battling

Heck if you don't count villain fights. She barely scraped by mallow and Lillie. Since they also had battles in the league. Lana just had one extra. So all she really has is 4 battles that doesn't touch up on fighting villains. Lillie and mallow have 2 and 3 respectively

My issue with that is that she could of. Ash and kaiwe get rivalries, tons of battles, heck even training and sparring scenes all throughout the show. Lana gets bread crumbs. when there was no reason to other than the writers no interested in really making her a battler.

Yeah totem wishiwashi counts but then she doesn't battle for a long ass time until the Alola league. That such a big ass gap that's so unnecessary if they were even considering making her a battler. When we see kiawe and Ash sparring/training a bazillion times, make Lana jump in there. But they didn't. And then we only see her train in one episode in Lillie house. And that was just for z moves. The boys get that episode and a whole training camp episode. It's so obvious that kiawe and Ash are the battlers in the series. That was the main point of their dynamic in the group

I never really saw her characterization of someone who wants to battle like kiawe but that's subjective ig

 

[SerGoldenhandtheJust]

I mean they don't. We're talking about competitive battling. Serena fought TR a bunch of times and even a Pokemon hunter and team flare, are we gonna use that to measure how much she competitive battled? No because it's bad guys. Legit every character has used their Pokemon to defeat a villain. It's not really special. Heck koharu and mallow have done that. But that doesn't make any bat an eye, and for good reason. So no Lana fighting hunters really doesn't. Because for the most part of 90% of the series she isn't battling

Heck if you don't count villain fights. She barely scraped by mallow and Lillie. Since they also had battles in the league. Lana just had one extra. So all she really has is 4 battles that doesn't touch up on fighting villains. Lillie and mallow have 2 and 3 respectively

My issue with that is that she could of. Ash and kaiwe get rivalries, tons of battles, heck even training and sparring scenes all throughout the show. Lana gets bread crumbs. when there was no reason to other than the writers no interested in really making her a battler.

Yeah totem wishiwashi counts but then she doesn't battle for a long ass time until the Alola league. That such a big ass gap that's so unnecessary if they were even considering making her a battler. When we see kiawe and Ash sparring/training a bazillion times, make Lana jump in there. But they didn't. And then we only see her train in one episode in Lillie house. And that was just for z moves. The boys get that episode and a whole training camp episode. It's so obvious that kiawe and Ash are the battlers in the series. That was the main point of their dynamic in the group

I never really saw her characterization of someone who wants to battle like kiawe but that's subjective ig

The hunters were different from your normal mill of bad guys though
Lana was actually properly battling them throughout

 

[sutellakiara]

And people say XY fans are the ones looking for reasons to victimize themselves lmao.

 

[RafaSceptile]

And people say XY fans are the ones looking for reasons to victimize themselves lmao.

And they are

 

[Shadao]

I find it amusing that we're all arguing about SM and whether or not it did a proper representation for the girls, rather than devolving into an XY vs SM debate. And that I find myself really defending SM with all my passion here.

 

[Sham]

rather than devolving into an XY vs SM debate.

Well it's discussing XY and below which is including SM so it really shouldn't have

 

[Leonhart]

Female companions in general weren't exactly competitive battlers even before BW, however. Kasumi [Misty] rarely battled aside from the usual skirmishes against the Rocket-dan [Team Rocket], which she usually had help with, or against the occasional COTD once in a blue moon. Haruka [May] and Hikari [Dawn] battled more often than she did, but that was only because Contests by default involved battling.

 

[U.N. Owen]

I think BW inflated the number of battles female companions like Iris had because we had so many tournament arcs. BW set our expectations low, but Clubslosion was relatively fresh in our minds during XY. When we saw the lack of battles with Serena, our freshest point of reference is those Clubsplosions.

 

[Gingertail24]

Female companions in general weren't exactly competitive battlers even before BW, however. Kasumi [Misty] rarely battled aside from the usual skirmishes against the Rocket-dan [Team Rocket], which she usually had help with, or against the occasional COTD once in a blue moon. Haruka [May] and Hikari [Dawn] battled more often than she did, but that was only because Contests by default involved battling.

I mean the only example you have is misty... Which they definitely improved during sm and after

And the hikari and may thing is exactly what we're talking about???? Confused on your point there

Female were definitely competitive battling before XY

This thread feels like revisionist history lately. First arguing Lana is a competitive battling girl like the girls before xy then turning around and saying girls before xy weren't really competitive, lol ok

 

[Poke Master 7]

I think BW inflated the number of battles female companions like Iris had because we had so many tournament arcs. BW set our expectations low, but Clubslosion was relatively fresh in our minds during XY. When we saw the lack of battles with Serena, our freshest point of reference is those Clubsplosions.

I mean, if anything, BW showed fun ways in which the female companion could get involved in competition outside of her goal. Heck, even Dawn got into the Hearthome tag battle tournament and the Junior Cup and that had nothing to do with Contests. It’s actually kind of a shame that the writers introduced these kinds of tournaments in BW that allowed the whole cast to compete but never did anything like that in subsequent series. The Battle Royal Dome could’ve given us something like that in SM and even events like the Flute Cup from early Journeys could’ve served a similar purpose.

 

[AuraChannelerChris]

I mean, if anything, BW showed fun ways in which the female companion could get involved in competition outside of her goal.

Misty did this plenty too, notably the competition to win the exclusive doll set and the Whirl Cup.

 

[keepitsimple]

bc none of the companions since were gym leaders in the games which allowed the writers to take their trainer career in a different direction so they're not doing the same thing as Ash?

 

[Sham]

I mean, if anything, BW showed fun ways in which the female companion could get involved in competition outside of her goal.

Yeee I don’t get the excuses. All most of this is telling me is that the writers (staff) just didn’t care anymore about finding innovative ways to allow girls to battles and now we have whatever has been going since. They didn’t have to include battles in Contests and they didn’t have create Don Tournaments.

 

[Poke Master 7]

bc none of the companions since were gym leaders in the games which allowed the writers to take their trainer career in a different direction so they're not doing the same thing as Ash?

That doesn’t really work as a rationale considering that only 2 female companions were gym leaders in the games. May and Dawn were player characters or NPCs yet that didn’t stop them from battling. Even Serena’s game counterpart battled but that didn’t translate to her anime self so it’s definitely got nothing to do with what their game counterparts did.

 

[Shadao]

What people forget about battles is that they are not something you put in a computer and it generates results to copy paste onto an episode (though stock footage is the closest you'll get). People wanted clean battles with original animation, no flashline backgrounds and whatnots. The introduction of a 3D camera offers a lot of visually appealing motions and consequently, people remember the battles a lot more than in the past.

But the Pokémon are still drawn in 2D and it's a lot of effort to make it look really good. Consequently, you may noticed that the Kalos League skipped most of Ash's battles to just two Full Battles. The hard work to reach Top 4 in DP has been summarized into a brief 3 v 3 battle against Astrid against the conclusion. Meanwhile, SM just opted for 1 v 1 up until Top 4. Then it became 2 v 2 before the finals went for 3 v 3. And then the exhibition match was the actual 6 v 6. The only 6 v 6 battle.

Oh, and Journeys man. You know something was up when it's revealed that a lot of the Master 8 Battles were meant to be off-screen and told as only sketches. And when they had to animate them, they outsourced the animation to other animation studios, which many noticed a dip in quality. Only Ash's battles get the best animators, and even his battles tend to cut corners... namely he jumps up in ranks off-screen.

And then you get confirmations from the animators themselves they are understaffed when working on Pokémon.

 

[Trey pokes]

It'll be interesting to see how they animate battles around Liko and Roy, more so if they employ similar tactics like in Gen 6 or 7 for example.