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Controversial opinions

Having competitions does tend to help give characters' goals more structure though. That's a big reason why May and Dawn worked so well because they had a goal that required the writers to focus on them more often and ideally would show them becoming stronger over the course of their respective series. It isn't the only way to have well written female leads, but I think the female leads with a competition based goal generally were better than the ones without them. Putting aside my issues with Iris and BW on the side for a moment, I can't really see how Iris' Dragon Master goal was that good. This is mainly because they were quite limited on Dragon types in Unova for a large portion of BW, so there were fewer Pokemon she could have caught to actually help her with her goal.

Lillie overcoming her PTSD was good. I actually preferred episodes dealing with that issue than their attempts to adapt her storyline from the video games. Video game Lillie and SM Lillie were two different characters, so I think forcing elements of the former's storyline into the anime was a poor choice. Slowly becoming a better trainer was okay, but I think the long gaps between her focus episodes didn't really help in making things like Snowy defeating a Salamence in the Alola League or even getting pass the preliminary round particularly believable for me. That being said, I think that both Chloe and to a lesser degree Lillie are good examples of how the female leads can have good writing without being involved in a competition related to their goal. But I also still miss having the anime having more focus on the female lead and the female lead being more proactive in general. That's a big reason why it feels like the anime lost something important when Contest were removed and they still haven't found something else to make up for that loss. It definitely doesn't help that both SM and Journeys are seriously lacking in more proactive female battlers in general as well.
Tbf Iris seems bigger battler than all other pokegirls and last one who was so active in battles, tournament arcs and other things shown that, but BW bad writing didn't let her goal more fleshed out most likely because of them scrapping original script, she could've got more dragon type like Deino and evolve it, had battle with other dragon users and improve her ability as a dragon trainer.

SM isn't much focus on battle and had large cast with only 3 seasons so Lillie didn't have as much focus as May and Dawn and I had no hope from Chloe as well as she is side character, if Lillie was a sole female character of the group she maybe get more focus and get close to May and Dawn level, I want to see Pokegirls being more unique rather than having same goal and do same thing of past pokegirls all the time, they could've different kind of competition not just contests.

I don't see any problem with Salamence when it already take super effective damage from Kiawe's Turtonator and get KO'd by 4x super effective move, Lillie most likely battle some weak trainers like her to get pass battle royal.
 
Tbf Iris seems bigger battler than all other pokegirls and last one who was so active in battles, tournament arcs and other things shown that, but BW bad writing didn't let her goal more fleshed out most likely because of them scrapping original script, she could've got more dragon type like Deino and evolve it, had battle with other dragon users and improve her ability as a dragon trainer.

I wouldn't really say that Iris was a bigger battler than all of the other girls. Despite ending up as the Unova Champion, I don't recall her battling that much more often than May or Dawn. She battled more than most of the other girls though. I just don't know how well they could have made use of her goal even with more Dragon types, especially when they went from having Iris look like a rookie trainer to this super gifted Dragon Master in training extremely fast.

Pokemonfan5 said:
SM isn't much focus on battle and had large cast with only 3 seasons so Lillie didn't have as much focus as May and Dawn and I had no hope from Chloe as well as she is side character, if Lillie was a sole female character of the group she maybe get more focus and get close to May and Dawn level, I want to see Pokegirls being more unique rather than having same goal and do same thing of past pokegirls all the time, they could've different kind of competition not just contests.

Considering that we haven't seen Contests in well over a decade, I don't really see the issue of bringing Contests back. I don't think that's going to happen anytime soon sadly, but having a third coordinator in the cast when they haven't had one in ages doesn't really sound like a bad idea. I can understand wanting the female leads to be more unique, but I don't think having the same goal would necessarily be a bad thing. May and Dawn's storylines are drastically different despite both being Coordinators. Contests were drastically different between AG and DP too.

Plus, I can't really think of anything else the anime could do in regards to giving the girls their own competition to take part in. They already tried with Showcases and those were basically a poor man's version of Contests appeals. There isn't too much from the past few generations for the anime to adapt as something for the girls to do either. If they could find a different kind of competition that would be engaging and allow for some good character moments/development for the female leads, then that would be great, but I'm just not sure if they could do it if Showcases are any indication of what they can come up with without having something from the games to adapt. Not to mention they don't really seem interested in having the girls be more battle active in the past few series either.

Pokemonfan5 said:
I don't see any problem with Salamence when it already take super effective damage from Kiawe's Turtonator and get KO'd by 4x super effective move, Lillie most likely battle some weak trainers like her to get pass battle royal.

The problem is that a move like Powered Snow shouldn't be enough to take down a Salamence. Even with its four time weakness, it's the weakest Ice type moves and Snowy was never really particularly strong. Its movepool focuses more so on defensive rather than offense. If it had learned Ice Beam instead, then I think that the victory would have been easier to believe. That is a valid point on Turtonator hitting it with an effective move. I must have forgotten about that detail. Lillie is a weak trainer herself, or at least I don't think she is particularly good in battle. That isn't necessarily a bad thing when she was always more interested in trying to regain her connection to Pokemon more than anything else. It just makes the notion that she could make her way through the Alola League battle royal preliminary round more unbelievable. To be fair, I could say the same thing for most of the main cast that isn't Ash and Kiawe. They obviously were going to have the main cast get through the preliminary round and Lillie would get far enough to showcase her Z-Move with Snowy. I just think that they needed to start building up all of the characters, not just Lillie, into better trainers if they wanted all of them to make their way through the Alola League.
 
Move like Powered Snow shouldn't be enough to take down a Salamence. Even with its four time weakness, it's the weakest Ice type moves and Snowy was never really particularly strong. Its movepool focuses more so on defensive rather than offense. If it had learned Ice Beam instead, then I think that the victory would have been easier to believe. That is a valid point on Turtonator hitting it with an effective move. I must have forgotten about that detail. Lillie is a weak trainer herself, or at least I don't think she is particularly good in battle. That isn't necessarily a bad thing when she was always more interested in trying to regain her connection to Pokemon more than anything else. It just makes the notion that she could make her way through the Alola League battle royal preliminary round more unbelievable. To be fair, I could say the same thing for most of the main cast that isn't Ash and Kiawe. They obviously were going to have the main cast get through the preliminary round and Lillie would get far enough to showcase her Z-Move with Snowy. I just think that they needed to start building up all of the characters, not just Lillie, into better trainers if they wanted all of them to make their way through the Alola League.
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Like I said that Salamence already battle and take super effective damage while Snowy just finished him off, it's not like Snowy take out Salamence alone.

Also most of the Alola league competitors are very weak like Lillie so it's not surprising that all of them pass battle royal, all those strong trainers are taken out by semi finalists or Illima while we seen others battling weak trainers.
 
I wouldn't really say that Iris was a bigger battler than all of the other girls. Despite ending up as the Unova Champion, I don't recall her battling that much more often than May or Dawn. She battled more than most of the other girls though. I just don't know how well they could have made use of her goal even with more Dragon types, especially when they went from having Iris look like a rookie trainer to this super gifted Dragon Master in training extremely fast.



Considering that we haven't seen Contests in well over a decade, I don't really see the issue of bringing Contests back. I don't think that's going to happen anytime soon sadly, but having a third coordinator in the cast when they haven't had one in ages doesn't really sound like a bad idea. I can understand wanting the female leads to be more unique, but I don't think having the same goal would necessarily be a bad thing. May and Dawn's storylines are drastically different despite both being Coordinators. Contests were drastically different between AG and DP too.

Plus, I can't really think of anything else the anime could do in regards to giving the girls their own competition to take part in. They already tried with Showcases and those were basically a poor man's version of Contests appeals. There isn't too much from the past few generations for the anime to adapt as something for the girls to do either. If they could find a different kind of competition that would be engaging and allow for some good character moments/development for the female leads, then that would be great, but I'm just not sure if they could do it if Showcases are any indication of what they can come up with without having something from the games to adapt. Not to mention they don't really seem interested in having the girls be more battle active in the past few series either.

She doesn't shown doing as many battles but her skills surely shown higher as a battler, she beaten 99 trainers in a row when she was only 5-6 years old, win a tournament and participate in others too, had great battle with Drayden, writers could've done much more with her and her goal.

I didn't said May and Dawn had same story but rather had same dream, if pokegirls doing same thing than there would be nothing unique for other series, they tried with showcases but many fans was disappointed, either bring may or dawn back as permanent companion to make contests big part of new Series or do something unique.
 
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She doesn't shown doing as many battles but her skills surely shown higher as a battler, she beaten 99 trainers in a row when she was only 5-6 years old, win a tournament and participate in others too, had great battle with Drayden, writers could've done much more with her and her goal.

I don't think that's necessarily a sign of Iris good battle skills. Despite winning nearly one hundred battles before she officially became a trainer, she couldn't really train Axew or learn to get Excadrill to listen to her despite having it refuse to battle seemingly for years. That's a big reason why Iris's story never worked for me. A lot of it involves the show telling us that she is this special gifted Dragon Master in training, but not really showing evidence for that in her actual battles to back it up. I just have a hard time seeing the goal being more well written if they could have done more with it based on how it was already handled.

Pokemonfan5 said:
I didn't said May and Dawn had same story but rather had same dream, if pokegirls doing same thing than there would be nothing unique for other series, they tried with showcases but many fans was disappointed, either bring may or dawn back as permanent companion to make contests big part of new Series or do something unique.

I don't think that having Contests would mean that there wouldn't be anything unique for the other series. Like I mentioned before, AG and DP have pretty different takes on Contests. Using different types of Pokemon than what they gave May and Dawn could potentially have made their appeals more distinct too. Another series featuring a Coordinator in the main cast wouldn't necessarily make the series ununique when we haven't even seen a Contest for well over a decade. While there were a lot of fans disappointed with Showcases, I don't think that's why they were only featured in XY. Showcases were designed specifically with Serena in mind. We never saw a Showcase that Serena wasn't a part of or watching as an audience member. We saw how Jessie got her Contest ribbons in DP, even if most of them were brief scenes, while she got two Princess Keys off-screen. I just don't think that they were interested in doing anything more with Showcases when that goal was made for Serena.

As much as I'd love to see May and Dawn again, I don't think that it would make sense to bring either of them back as permanent companions. Their storylines are effectively done, so I don't know if bringing them back long term would be that helpful. It would honestly make much more sense to start fresh with a brand new character since they could give them their own storyline and different Pokemon for different combinations. Plus, I think we're well past the point where they could have had a permanent female companion. Not to mention I'm not sure how well that would work for fans given that they probably would be limited on how far they could go with their goal like Ash generally has been.

Doing something unique sounds easier said than done, especially when the suggestions here on what else they can do is pretty minimal. Not to mention the goals they have given the female leads since they had to remove Contests generally aren't anything to write home about. They aren't necessarily bad or that we haven't had a well written female lead since Dawn, but with few exceptions, they aren't particularly engaging or interesting goals. Being unique doesn't guarantee that it would be a good goal or executed well either.
 
Yeah, May and Dawn's stories and approach to contests are quite distinct and helps set both their characters and stories apart. For starters, May didn't actually know what she wanted to do at first and didn't even like Pokemon all that much initially, and in fact the only reason she initially went on a Pokemon journey was just because she wanted to travel and see the world and going on a Pokemon journey was the easiest and most convenient excuse for that. Dawn meanwhile already wanted to be a Coordinator from an early age thanks to her mother being a retired pro, so naturally Dawn would want to follow her footsteps. This resulted in both girls' stories having clear differences: May going into Contests completely blind meant her story dealt with the usual rookie problems of nervousness at trying out something new, making dumb mistakes out of ignorance, and though perhaps in a more indirect sense, breaking away from her family's tradition to make a name for herself (since her father is a Gym Leader, so naturally people would expect May to do something like that for her Pokemon career as well). Dawn, on the other hand, wanted to uphold her family legacy, and she was overconfident and sort of expected to excel at Contests on the first try solely by virtue of being the daughter of a skilled Coordinator, meaning that when harsh reality reared its head and showed her that she'd have to work as hard as anyone else, in a way it made her losses hit even harder, as unlike May, Dawn had shoes to fill. So yeah, I admittedly get annoyed when people criticize Dawn by saying that she's "exactly the same as May" just because she happened to have the same goal, because Dawn having the same goal as May is about where the girls' similarities end. And besides, if every other saga Ash is allowed to have an antagonistic rival that he can't beat until the very end, and nearly every saga is allowed to have an MC girl with an Eevee partner, then I don't see why multiple female companions doing Contests would be so terrible.
 
Yeah, May and Dawn's stories and approach to contests are quite distinct and helps set both their characters and stories apart. For starters, May didn't actually know what she wanted to do at first and didn't even like Pokemon all that much initially, and in fact the only reason she initially went on a Pokemon journey was just because she wanted to travel and see the world and going on a Pokemon journey was the easiest and most convenient excuse for that. Dawn meanwhile already wanted to be a Coordinator from an early age thanks to her mother being a retired pro, so naturally Dawn would want to follow her footsteps. This resulted in both girls' stories having clear differences: May going into Contests completely blind meant her story dealt with the usual rookie problems of nervousness at trying out something new, making dumb mistakes out of ignorance, and though perhaps in a more indirect sense, breaking away from her family's tradition to make a name for herself (since her father is a Gym Leader, so naturally people would expect May to do something like that for her Pokemon career as well). Dawn, on the other hand, wanted to uphold her family legacy, and she was overconfident and sort of expected to excel at Contests on the first try solely by virtue of being the daughter of a skilled Coordinator, meaning that when harsh reality reared its head and showed her that she'd have to work as hard as anyone else, in a way it made her losses hit even harder, as unlike May, Dawn had shoes to fill. So yeah, I admittedly get annoyed when people criticize Dawn by saying that she's "exactly the same as May" just because she happened to have the same goal, because Dawn having the same goal as May is about where the girls' similarities end. And besides, if every other saga Ash is allowed to have an antagonistic rival that he can't beat until the very end, and nearly every saga is allowed to have an MC girl with an Eevee partner, then I don't see why multiple female companions doing Contests would be so terrible.
And yet, despite May being just as much of a rookie as Dawn at first, she never lost in the Appeal Round, unlike Dawn. Dawn also lost five official Contests, while May only lost three during her travels with Ash.

Dawn's losses also felt more impactful for me, because they were actually part of her character growth, took multiple episodes to resolve, and overall made her feel more like a real person.
 
And yet, despite May being just as much of a rookie as Dawn at first, she never lost in the Appeal Round, unlike Dawn. Dawn also lost five official Contests, while May only lost three during her travels with Ash.

Dawn's losses also felt more impactful for me, because they were actually part of her character growth, took multiple episodes to resolve, and overall made her feel more like a real person.
This reminded me of a certain JN character who has seen almost no impactful losses so far...Hence the reason they don’t feel like a real person to me.

——
[This is actually unrelated to the above post, this was inspired by it, though, hence me including it in the same comment]
Since it’s clearly about a different character, hence a gap. Go's tendency of never facing a major setback (for the pedantic people, my definition of major is something that impacts him beyond a single episode, look at Ash's slump). His character flaws of not being able to interact properly socially, and the other things, while they’re personally relatable to me, feel conveniently manufactured to fit the needs of the episodes, since they only affect him when the plot calls for it, and then disappear after that, till the next time the plot needs Go's flaws. And ironically, these flaws never act as flaws. They actually end up helping him in episodes, like the Drizzile episode. And even more ironically, this was the series top that attempted to give its other protagonist development via a loss and slump (as mishandled as it may be), but neglected to show any equivalent for Go. Yes, he may have failed to catch one or two Pokémon, or Zapdos. But does it affect him AFTER the events of the episode? No. I think the character needs a catalyst, and their flaws to pop up in settings they are... flaws. Because a flaw isn’t a flaw if it just seems to benefit the person whenever it pops up. Show him struggling with someone other than Ash or something, instead of bringing in Ash to show "teamwork" for instance. Show him dwelling on his losses. A character isn’t entertaining if they just progress- there’s a reason Ash has been portrayed as an underdog for a significant portion of a long running series.

He could've been a much better written character if his flaws were worked upon, or he faced measurable setbacks. When I gave some thouhht to the unrelated comment above by @FinnishPokéFan92, I realised , Go doesn’t feel like a real person to me because he’s never had a constant set of flaws with him or no measurable setback. He goes full swing in his goals always. Project Mew might change that, but i need to have a look at it before making assumptions. With just a few tweaks he could be the most relatable character to me, but he won’t be due to the reasons illustrated above, at least for now. Again, one more case of wasted potential to make a character conventionally good and successful on sceeen.
 
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There's still a long way to go so I'm not ready to call Goh wasted potential just yet. Project Mew is shaping up nicely in giving him a challenge to overcome and a rival to contend with (and Gary being Gary), so we should see more compelling conflicts involving him soon.
 
This reminded me of a certain JN character who has seen almost no impactful losses so far...Hence the reason they don’t feel like a real person to me.

——
[This is actually unrelated to the above post, this was inspired by it, though, hence me including it in the same comment]
Since it’s clearly about a different character, hence a gap. Go's tendency of never facing a major setback (for the pedantic people, my definition of major is something that impacts him beyond a single episode, look at Ash's slump). His character flaws of not being able to interact properly socially, and the other things, while they’re personally relatable to me, feel conveniently manufactured to fit the needs of the episodes, since they only affect him when the plot calls for it, and then disappear after that, till the next time the plot needs Go's flaws. And ironically, these flaws never act as flaws. They actually end up helping him in episodes, like the Drizzile episode. And even more ironically, this was the series top that attempted to give its other protagonist development via a loss and slump (as mishandled as it may be), but neglected to show any equivalent for Go. Yes, he may have failed to catch one or two Pokémon, or Zapdos. But does it affect him AFTER the events of the episode? No. I think the character needs a catalyst, and their flaws to pop up in settings they are... flaws. Because a flaw isn’t a flaw if it just seems to benefit the person whenever it pops up. Show him struggling with someone other than Ash or something, instead of bringing in Ash to show "teamwork" for instance. Show him dwelling on his losses. A character isn’t entertaining if they just progress- there’s a reason Ash has been portrayed as an underdog for a significant portion of a long running series.

He could've been a much better written character if his flaws were worked upon, or he faced measurable setbacks. When I gave some thouhht to the unrelated comment above by @FinnishPokéFan92, I realised , Go doesn’t feel like a real person to me because he’s never had a constant set of flaws with him or no measurable setback. He goes full swing in his goals always. Project Mew might change that, but i need to have a look at it before making assumptions. With just a few tweaks he could be the most relatable character to me, but he won’t be due to the reasons illustrated above, at least for now. Again, one more case of wasted potential to make a character conventionally good and successful on sceeen.

They should have made Pidgeotto Gohs Dunsparce.
 
I've said many times that Black & White was the series of wasted. But honestly, so was Johto. In addition to the GS Ball, we got the Apricorn Balls that were never used (They had a perfect opportunity for Brock to use his Heavy Ball in that one Hoenn filler episode with a giant Gulpin, but instead we got another Heavy Ball out of nowhere. Would've been underwhelming, but still better than nothing. Also, Ash's Fast Ball is teased in the Master Quest opening.), Ash used his Sun Stone on a filler Pokémon, and other than Lugia (and maybe Suicune), the Legendary Pokémon of Johto were criminally underutilized. Just to name a few elements.
 
There's still a long way to go so I'm not ready to call Goh wasted potential just yet. Project Mew is shaping up nicely in giving him a challenge to overcome and a rival to contend with (and Gary being Gary), so we should see more compelling conflicts involving him soon.
Project Mew might change that, but i need to have a look at it before making assumptions
I did say that, but in my opinion many opportunists in the series have gone where they could've done something with Go, but chose to forgo it in favour of conventional success or contrived occurrences. A character can have wasted potential at a point in the series and still have upcoming potential. In view with the current JN trend, I have stopped making assumptions both positive and negative ("Don’t count your chickens before they hatch” goes both ways).

This is my assessment of the character based on what we have seen so far, and they have refused to follow onto a lot of opportunities that would solve the issues that I highlighted above. Does Go have wasted potential? Yes. Is there more potential upcoming for him? Also yes.
 
And yet, despite May being just as much of a rookie as Dawn at first, she never lost in the Appeal Round, unlike Dawn. Dawn also lost five official Contests, while May only lost three during her travels with Ash.

Dawn's losses also felt more impactful for me, because they were actually part of her character growth, took multiple episodes to resolve, and overall made her feel more like a real person.
Dawn loses in appeal round is more impactful for sure but her final 2 lost in a row was meaningless, it was just to stretch the series to complete in 4 years timeline.

May and Dawn had different problems, May was a rookie trainer with little to no knowledge about Pokemon or battles so she was so nervous in first contests that she made many mistakes, like slipped before her performance round and how she battle against Drew, or how she lost second time because of her overconfident.

While Dawn despite having more knowledge about Pokemons and battles she had different issues to overcome like she sometime had too much confidence and after losing twice in a row she lost all that and go through many things to regain it back.
 
Alright, let's talk about something more recent, episode 75 and 76 titles are revealed, I don't know If my opinion on them is controversial but still gonna say it here anyway.
For episode 75 : I hope Goh doesn't catch Darkrai.
For episode 76 : I hope Goh doesn't catch Cresselia.

Feel free to disagree with me.
 
Alright, let's talk about something more recent, episode 75 and 76 titles are revealed, I don't know If my opinion on them is controversial but still gonna say it here anyway.
For episode 75 : I hope Goh doesn't catch Darkrai.
For episode 76 : I hope Goh doesn't catch Cresselia.

Feel free to disagree with me.
Don't worry, I'm with you, though f its part of Project Mew where the team tells Goh he needs to collect like something like the Moltres feather Gary got, I'd be good.
 
Don't worry, I'm with you, though f its part of Project Mew where the team tells Goh he needs to collect like something like the Moltres feather Gary got, I'd be good.

I can see Goh being asked to collect a Lunar Wing from Cresselia but what he's gonna collect from Darkrai? Dark Void?
 
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