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Dento/Cilan as a companion

Araragi-hakase

QUEEN NICKI DOMINATE
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Dento is one of my personal favorite traveling companions; he had a fun personality with many interests and a few memorable Pokemon. However, that's not to say that there are things that could have been improved about him.

Why was he so afraid of Choroneko, anyway? Do you think his goal of wanting to pursue fishing in the end was odd? Do you think his general goal of pursing being a Sommelier was handled well? Do you think he was a good traveling companion for Satoshi?
 
He was fun.

I enjoyed his chemistry with Iris and Ash, I liked his quirks and the fact he got the battle Skyla, he was just a fun, positive character. I wish his rivalry with Burgundy developed into something more than just a one-sided banter from Burgundy's side, but it was still neat how even his nicest side caused Burgundy to rage.

His goal got no focus whatsoever, his fear of Choroneko remained unexplained and ... he left for a fishing competition. It just kinda sucks that the writers chose to completely ignore his goal of becoming an S-class Connoisseur and resorted to his focus episodes mostly being science/fishing/detective Sommelier thingies. Some of them were fun but at the same time I wish he got more serious development. So, they missed out hugely by not developing Cilan in certain aspects. But I don't think he was a failure.

And they did the right thing by not repeating the Brock-situation by keeping him in Kalos.
 
Probably a childhood experience. Yes. Somewhat. No. The longer answers:

This is something that really bugged me about Cilan. For some unknown reason he has a huge fear of Purrloin. Now, when you first hear this, you think oh, no worries, he'll tell why some other time. The next time a Purrloin shows up, it's the same thing. I mean, you would think that in the end we would know why he hates Purrloin so much, and maybe even see him start to feel a little more comfortable around them, but no. Maybe it bothers me so much because my expectation of the situation didn't come true, but not answering a reoccurring question still left a bitter taste in my mouth.

While we know that Cilan is a connoisseur of many things, fishing being one of them, he never showed extreme interested in it. It was kind of pathetic how Cilan would have rather gone to a fishing competition than keep traveling with Ash, whom he learned so much from. He even said he would rather travel with Ash than go take care of the Striaton Gym, so technically, going to a fishing competition means more to him than the gym he's ran for the past x years. It was just such a stupid reason to leave a friend.

Well, there's not really a lot that a Pokémon Connoisseur does, so it was hard to show progress, in my opinion at least. While it would have been nice to have him become an S rank by the end of the show, it never happened. The only time we saw a connoisseur 'event' was Burgundy's debut episode. It would have been cool to see a larger scale event/competition where connoisseurs had to give evaluations, and whoever gave the better one got to move on. I don't really know, just an idea. The only time practiced his evaluations was when he battled trainers, with the only exception being his battles with Burgundy. It was a cool idea that unfortunately didn't get much show-time.

While I like Cilan better than some other past companions, the answer is still no. When compared to Brock, there really isn't that big of a difference besides their goals and interests. They were both the first gym leaders in their respective regions, traveled with three Pokémon (The exception being Brock while in Johto), and cooked meals for the rest of the gang. Cilan did have a lighter personality when compared to Brock, (especially during DP) but Ash has already had companions who brought a fun atmosphere to the gang. I personally feel that the show would have been the same, had Brock traveled with Ash instead of Cilan.
 
I personally feel that the show would have been the same, had Brock traveled with Ash instead of Cilan.
I beg to differ. Brock's gag had already gotten stale and annoying by the end of DP and Cilan was a refreshing change. Plus, he was a lot more active than Brock was in DP and actually interacted with Iris as opposed to Brock who rarely interacted with Dawn. Plus, Diamond and Pearl felt like a Ash/Dawn saga more than anything with Brock being left as a third wheel.

Brock did have his moments during DP, but BW would have suffered because with Brock, there wouldn't be Iris/Cilan and I can't see one without the other. Iris/Cilan are like black and white, ying and yang, the themes of the games, the opposites.

And such a thing simply wouldn't work if Brock were there instead of Cilan.
 
I beg to differ. Brock's gag had already gotten stale and annoying by the end of DP and Cilan was a refreshing change. Plus, he was a lot more active than Brock was in DP and actually interacted with Iris as opposed to Brock who rarely interacted with Dawn. Plus, Diamond and Pearl felt like a Ash/Dawn saga more than anything with Brock being left as a third wheel.

I completely agree that Brock's gag had gone stale, but more around the AG period. I also agree that he was a refreshing change, but I don't feel like Cilan's lighter side really contributed anything new to the show. True, Cilan was more active than Brock, but that could have been easily changed if he were to travel in Unova. Same thing with his interaction to the female in the group.

Brock did have his moments during DP, but BW would have suffered because with Brock, there wouldn't be Iris/Cilan and I can't see one without the other. Iris/Cilan are like black and white, ying and yang, the themes of the games, the opposites.

And such a thing simply wouldn't work if Brock were there instead of Cilan.

I have to disagree with you here. If Brock were to take Cilan's spot, he could have been Iris' opposite. They had the same moral values, were calm and collected and offered advice usually opposite of the Iris figure in the group. I just don't see a huge difference in the two.
 
I have to disagree with you here. If Brock were to take Cilan's spot, he could have been Iris' opposite. They had the same moral values, were calm and collected and offered advice usually opposite of the Iris figure in the group. I just don't see a huge difference in the two.
I guess you could see it that way, but Cilan was different. They purposely made him more rational and scientific and Iris more rash and spiritual. I don't know, I guess I personally feel it wouldn't work with Brock all that well, he seems more passive than Cilan and Cilan's all fanboy-like with all his quirks and hobbies. Brock wasn't like that so Iris would only be annoyed by Brock flirting. :/

It had to be two fresh characters. But again, this is just a personal view. ^^
 
Cilan, in my opinion, didn't do much for Ash as a companion. He himself rarely received any focus, and most of it just seemed random. He was a different Connoisseur every day, and the fact that most of these passions lasted for about an episode or two seemed to hurt him more than help. Yes, it allowed them to do a lot with him, but it just seemed like they gave him so many interests just so that he could have some focus. And I don't understand that because he HAS A GOAL! Why not focus on that? Cilan gives his little evaluations from time to time, but it never means anything for him; it never helps him. To be honest...it never really does anything for anyone. This includes his fear of Purrloin. It's never elaborated on, never explained, nothing ever comes from it! So why is it there? It's made out to be so serious, but absolutely nothing about this fear is known. It just feels like another attempt at giving Cilan something interesting but never doing anything with it.

His rivalry with Burgundy was pretty much non-existent, and that really upset me because the two had interesting dynamics. And I wanted to ship them. She fought other characters more than she fought him. The "rivalry" was little more than her expressing her distaste for him (no pun intended) every time she appeared and it really felt lame because neither of them were improving in any aspect. The rivalry felt pointless after the second time she appeared and they didn't fight each other as Connoisseurs or Trainers.

And he really didn't do much for Ash. Ash now in Kalos is, arguably, the same person he was before he met Cilan. Honestly, I don't see anything that has changed in Ash due to Cilan.

Cilan was handled very poorly to me. He was interesting at first, but after a while, he was not much more than the group's cook and problem-solver.
 
As a companion, I think Cilan worked quite well for both Ash and Iris. He offered good chemistry as a friend, cook, and battling partner. It did seem however, that his Connoisseur goal didn't really go anywhere. Originally he was an A-Class Connoisseur that was working toward becoming an S-Class Connoisseur, but it seemed that he was more focused on showing off his current skills and knowledge and not looking into how he can actually obtain his goal. His main skills were cooking and fishing, and it didn't seem that in the end he made any significant progress to become an S-Class Connoisseur.

His fears of Purrloin also were left unanswered, though I think that it was intentional for anyone to not find out in the end. Unlike with Iris, I think they wanted his to be kept mysterious and unknown forever. I think as a companion, that he could have been made a bit more of a mentor and in the end go after an S-Class test or something to finish his journey with Ash and Iris, instead of leaving for a fishing competition out of the blue.
 
Honestly, I found Cilan to be disappointing in the long run. He started out as quite a promising character, and superficially at least there was a lot to differentiate him from Brock, but the overall lack of progress he made during his time on the show caused him to stagnate very quickly. One of the main problems was that, far from being something that the writers were interested in developing and exploring as a goal, the whole Sommelier thing ultimately amounted to little more than the punchline in an overly-long running gag about how many random and unlikely hobbies they could give him (fishing, subway, detective, etc). His rivalry with Burgundy likewise didn't really go anywhere (a shame, because I loved Burgundy, and thought that the set-up there had a lot of promise). Even his battling prowess didn't offer a great deal of spice in the main, what with his heavy reliance upon the same strategy involving Dwebble/Crustle's Shell Smash. It seemed as though his brother Chili honestly made more progress as a character over the entirety of the series than he did, and in a single episode at that (which does get me thinking about whether the series would have been any better off if it had cast Chili as Ash's traveling companion instead).

The lack of explanation where his ailurophobia is concerned was really the least of my issues, as it was, in my view, always deliberately set up to be a question with no answer, and that's fine by me - it's one of those things that's always funnier when left up to the imagination of the viewer. Kind of like the specifics of whatever occurred between Brock and Professor Ivy. In both cases, I'm sure that any official explanation would simply disappoint compared to what I've adopted as my personal headcannon.
 
I liked Cilan for the most part. I liked how he was into different hobbies, even though that became a bit of a problem as the series progressed, and being so energetic gave him a more fun and memorable personality for me. I liked the chemistry he had with Ash. They came off as good friends and he generally worked as the older trainer of the group.

Unfortunately, he was pretty uninteresting for the most part as well. He had potential at the start of the series, but as time went on, it seemed like they had no interest in exploring his goal of becoming an S-class Connoisseur. To be fair, it would be kind of difficult to show progress for a goal that doesn't involve Pokemon battles, but I think that they just forgot about it completely. Not only because of the running gag that Cilan was a Connoisseur of different hobbies, but every time he did an evaluation, it was treated as a gag too. The fact that Iris and Dawn in her return episode saw it as being annoying didn't help either. I never quite understood why some characters reacted to his evaluations like that. He'd be a bit overly energetic in describing the relationship between the Pokemon and it's trainer, but how else could he evaluate them without talking?

Anyway, I think that another sign that they forgot about Cilan wanting to be an S-class Connoisseur was his decision to leave the group in favor of a random fishing contest in Hoenn. They couldn't even bother to think of some reason to get Cilan to leave that connected with becoming an S-class Connoisseur. He liked fishing, but never to the point where he'd choose fishing over traveling with Ash, or at least it didn't come off like that. It felt especially strange considering he wanted to keep traveling with Ash more than go back to the Gym to defend it. Although, both Iris and Cilan wanting to leave the moment they got to Kanto, despite spending an entire arc traveling to get there, was pretty weak too. While Brock leaving to be a Pokemon Doctor could have been handled better, at least there was an episode setting up his decision to change his goal, instead of coming out of nowhere in the last five minutes of the series finale.

His rivalry with Burgundy was nonexistent, which I was disappointed about, but more for Burgundy since she was an interesting character. I don't mind that the Purrloin bit wasn't revealed. They probably wanted to keep it a secret to make it funnier. It would have been nice to reveal exactly why that was the case, but compared to the other problems with his character, it was pretty minor. The idea of Brock taking his place sounds interesting. The Iris and Cilan as opposites to tie into B/W thing was there, but it wasn't so heavily focused to the point where one couldn't be in the group without the other, at least for me, so that wouldn't be an issue. As much as I like Brock, replacing him was for the best at that point and it did help to give BW a fresh start. I do agree that it was good that they didn't give Cilan the Brock treatment and keep him for another series. While I liked Cilan's personality, he was not much of an interesting character and by that point, they didn't show much interest in his character if the few focused episodes he got and a pathetic reason to leave were any indication, so replacing him was for the best.
 
I don't like Cilan. All he ever does is talk about food, his rivalry with Burgundy went nowhere and overall I find his character to be bland.
 
As far as goals go, the writers encountered the same problem with Cilan that they did with Brock. They gave him a flimsy occupation as a Pokemon Connoisseur - the idea that you can evaluate a Pokemon compatibility with its trainer by looking at them is far-fetched - that really couldn't be measured or compared. Even though they explained that there were ranks and exams to increase those ranks, they never explained what, exactly, constituted each rank. Cilan was an A-rank, which suggested he was really good, but what makes an A-rank good? What's required to be one? More pertinently, what made Cilan's evaluations more "right" than Burgundy's?

It's no wonder they never went anywhere with it. They could have had Cilan attend Connoisseur competitions and have him evaluate something, then have someone else evaluate the same something and then... what? Where do you go from there? Would that even be entertaining?

Then they ended up giving him a running gag that was, again, similar to Brock's. Where Brock was interested in every girl he met, Cilan was interested in just about every hobby he met, except instead of just taking up a few seconds, it took up an entire episode. Now, that would have been had Cilan's motivation for leaving home was to find a different calling in life, but it wasn't; he wanted to be an S-class Connoisseur.

So essentially, you had a character who had a goal, but did nothing to achieve that goal and decided to go fishing, play detective or collect stamps dotted about a train station instead. Examined like that, I don't think his character was handled well by the writers at all, which was a shame since his eccentricities, knowledge and excellent yin/yang relationship with Iris added a lot of colour to the cast.
 
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Cilan who?

Seriously though IMO the only reason to vaguely remember Cilan are his annoying habits and tasting time.

While the Brock gag had grown old and was in need of some change i would have preferred Brock on the Journey. Imagine Ash telling Iris that Brock falls in love with every women... except..

Again, Cilan who? Let's leave that annoyance in the past OK.
 
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Dento is one of my personal favorite traveling companions; he had a fun personality with many interests and a few memorable Pokemon. However, that's not to say that there are things that could have been improved about him.

Why was he so afraid of Choroneko, anyway? Do you think his goal of wanting to pursue fishing in the end was odd? Do you think his general goal of pursing being a Sommelier was handled well? Do you think he was a good traveling companion for Satoshi?

What cilan shared with brock is thier vague goals (breeding for brock and Sommelier for cilan) and thier suddenly changing occupations (brock to doctor and cilan to fisherman i guess). And i really don't think that it was handled all that well, it was brought up sometimes, but I just sorta wish that there was a explanation of how he got to that A-Class point.

And yeah, I have a feeling that the purrlion fear was some that was not meant to be answered. Sorta like prof ivy and brock thing in the OS.
 
Ugh...I really hate Cilan.

First of all, he was so damn annoying. His comparing everything to food was so irritating and got old REALLY fast. I also didn't find his habit of transforming in a "whatever the episode is about" connoisseur all the time very entertaining at all.

Second, I really don't see what he did during his entire time on the show. He said he wanted to travel with Ash to study his "unique battling", but I don't recall him ever using any of Ash's techniques in battle. I also don't feel that he made much of an impact on either Ash or Iris during the journey. His "rivalry" with Burgundy was a complete joke. He only battled her once and never did either ever make an impact on the other. His connoisseur goal also never made any progress or really effected anything in any major way, so that's another disappointment. In fact, overall, I don't feel that Cilan ever really developed. I don't think there is anything he improved on from the beginning of BW until the end.

I could say more, but I don't want to make this too long or rant-like. Overall, I never cared for Cilan and didn't find him entertaining or interesting in the least. Definitely my least favorite of Ash's companions and one of my all time least favorite characters.
 
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What cilan shared with brock is thier vague goals (breeding for brock and Sommelier for cilan) and thier suddenly changing occupations (brock to doctor and cilan to fisherman i guess). And i really don't think that it was handled all that well, it was brought up sometimes, but I just sorta wish that there was a explanation of how he got to that A-Class point.

I don't think that Cilan changed his goal to becoming a fisherman like what happened with Brock becoming a Pokemon Doctor. He had been into fishing before and he just wanted to enter a random fishing competition in Hoenn. It was an extremely weak reason to get him to leave, but I didn't get the impression that he was changing his goals. Although, I still think that they forgot that he was a A-Class Connoisseur and his various hobbies throughout the series, as well as his reason to leave the cast, doesn't help in that regard.
 
Whoah, whoah, whoah. Although I respect everybody's opinion, no matter how much it differs from mine, I am a little surprised to see that so many people enjoyed Cilan. I, for one, found him to be a rather annoying character, with almost every sentence of his referring to the sense of taste. I am not sure how it was in the Japanese version, but in the English dub his voice was very unrealistic (although this same travesty occurred with basically every character after 4Kids lost the rights to Pokemon.) Cilan was just very... Disappointing, and one of the many factors that made me come to the conclusion that the anime has lost its magic since its debut in the nineties. I must agree that Brock was getting stale, as well as being eclipsed in importance, but they could have done many things to refresh his character rather than replace him. I mean, we could've given the poor bloke a girlfriend, for Pete's sake! And maybe I would have been fine with his replacement, if they put a little more effort into it rather than just make some bloke attention-grabbing solely by making him act like a fruitcake! I would, however, give Brock the boot in favor of Misty. Her absence was quite disappointing, even in the Advanced Generation, when the show still had that magic.
 
He was an idiot that said too much. Its like they combined every notable NPC (fishing guru, IV checker, friendship checker, ect.) into 1 character and gave it a ton of stupid puns. He also served no purpose other than being comic relief, which was a poor choice since Oshawott did a much better job filling this role.

Cilan was there, he made a stupid pun, he waisted time. Thats all I can say about every episode of BW.
 
See the problem with Dento was that the writers literally learned nothing from Brock. They just figured that oh, we got rid of him so problem solved, lets treat Dento and to an extent Iris, the same exact way, no one will notice.

That being said, I liked him in concept and his relationship with the rest of the gang and their chemistry was refreshing to see. His other plus was that his battles where a lot more dynamic then with Brock which made them more fun to watch.

In this case though, the negatives out way the positives with both him and Iris. This isn't there fault though, it's the fault of the writers who really didn't put very much effort into them at all.
 
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