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Could May have won the Johto Grand Festival?

Back on topic, I believe May could have possibly won the Johto GF as she has vastly improved from her first appearance in contests. Though I'm guessing Soledad participated too, and judging by the fact that it hasn't been said how long she's been in contests for, it's possible she already had all her ribbons for Johto and probably Kanto which would explain why May doesn't mention battling her and why she didn't appear pre-GF. With Soledad being shown to be on a higher level than the others, I'm guessing May isn't quite ready to beat her, though I could be wrong as there are other coordinators to consider
 
That's like saying that there wasn't a reason to mention the concept of becoming a ''Pokémon Master''. We should just have Ash winning the Champion League and becoming a Champion, shouldn't that be good enough? For a main character, like Dawn, achieving the highst rank possible regarding the Coordinator goal would make perfect sense, since that's clearly something she loves and is 100 % dedicated to. For her to ''end'' after becoming a Top Coordinator while there actually is a higher rank to achieve seems really OOC to me considering her ambition and love for contests. So no, I'm not going to buy that.

Except becoming pokemon master was always Ash dream from very start, being justified to explore on that concept considering how its main plot which keeps his story and journey going. There is no need not to mention it, considering how its established as part of Ash character.

With Dawn it was established from start how her goal was to become top coordinator following Johanna footsteps, wanting to get out of mother shadow and prove herself to others. There was no need to explore on something else, if its not going in correlation with character goals and aspirations.It doesn't go against character either, never mentioning how she wants to be "best"either and contests were something she wasn't always 100% fixated on too. Considering how she showed interests in other careers too, such as becoming pokemon stylist.

If it wasn't for the fact that the term ''Contest Master'' had only been mentioned once with Wallace, I might would've believed what you were saying. But now, I don't. I can certainly see some Coordinators ending their carieers after that they've won the Grand Festival, quiting right there, but Dawn, Johanna and May all feel like truly ambitious Coordinators that would've wanted to reach to the top. If there truly was something like ''Contest Master'', it should at least have been mentioned once among them.

We never saw pokemon master, water pokemon master, etc in this show either but that doesn't mean such thing doesn't exist. Your point?
Dawn, Johanna and May wanted to become top coordinators and that's about it. Why to bring up this term, if it never had anything to do with their story?

Even if we are going to work under assumption "until i see, i wont believe", unlike its case with pokemon master we can say we saw contest master in person if Wallace was something to go by.

The thing is, during those years, the only thing that were in the writers mind was the Pokémon League. They didn't even think about the Champion League at that time, nor did they know how Ash should be able to achieve that ranking. However, we all still knew that there had to be something more after the Pokémon League, as Ash still wouldn't get to battle the E4 nor the Champion even though he'd win it. Here, we really don't know nothing at all. For all we know, and what I personally believe, the top is reached once you've become a Top Coordinator. You can always train and try to get stronger and better at your goal, but I don't think you would've been able to achieve a higher ranking. If so, then you'd think that after Zoey won the GF she would said something in the lines of continue training in order to enter other Contests.

And what does Ash case tell us? How writers wont expand on something or explain it, if its not important to series and character storyline or in this case wont bring it up unless character is developed enough to go on next step.

Just because we don't know much about something, doesn't mean how that doesn't exist with Wallace case implying how there exists higher level you can reach as coordinator.

Last two sentences doesn't make much sense to me either, because if you continue training and nurturing your skills you will surely be at higher level than those which stop training causing their skills to become rusty over time.
Not to mention if winning one Grand Festival basically brings you at top, than why Solidad continue traveling to Johto to compete in other contests?
Like i said winning GF of one region makes you top coordinator there and among most skilled ones in world, but definitely not best coordinator in world with there being likely required to achieve more to be referred as such.
Which makes sense imo.

I'll repeat myself; this term was mentioned once with Wallace. And with didn't get any further details about what it meant to be a Contest Master, but considering that we only got one shot of him holding the Ribbon Cup, why should we assume that he won more Grand Festivals? Can you answer to that question?

Im not sure why should we get more details? Wallace was one time thing presented as contest master, to put emphasis on his position and to show how there exist stronger coordinators than Grand festival winners. Thats all there was to it, with this never being intended to play important role in show.

We don't need to know how he became contest master if such terms exists, because it was never important for May or Dawn story to begin with.

It's still the same thing. Regardless of region, it's not like everyone in Sinnoh have the same battle style. Every Coordinator you face, regardless of region, will have different and unique battle styles, but it's still just the same as the Coordinators you beat before you got into the Grand Festival. There might be a certain individual that is a somewhat of a prodigy, but even for them it should be hard to beat a Top Coordinator, who has way more experience in his/her bag and has went through so much more than the new Coordinator.

Not really, because there is no guarantee how contests will be completely same like they were in previous region., there is no guarantee how there wont be other strong coordinators from other regions which decided to go there and compete in(like Soledad example showed)making competition tougher, along with coordinators native to that region using different battling style and appeals than you had chance to experience before.

Its similar to real life and sport for example. If handball or soccer team for instance win European, Asian etc championship you could say they competed against various teams which use their own strategy but that strategy is never that drastically different to jump of from general playing style players from that continent use.

While globally speaking when entering world championship you can see clear difference in playing style between teams native to some continent, with methodology and playing style from South America soccer players being vastly different from European players.Basketball players from America using very different approach than Asian players etc.

That was just the writers experimenting with how Contests should be funccioning in general, not to mention the difference in animation too. I'm not going to buy that. After all, in AG they were still completely new to the concept of Contests, and we could see how it developed from only being mere ''throwing disk and make your Pokémon catch it'' into a sparkly performance. From AG to DP, they went through the same development. It's not like the writers purposely made the Coordinators in AG being more ''battlecentric'' than the ones in DP.

Im pretty sure by time we dive into Battle Frontier writers had enough time to improve themselves in contests, and contest battles were still notably different than they were in Sinnoh with coordinators battling style being more similar to how trainer battles.

Just like we saw different battling style trainers used in Johto, Hoenn, Unova etc there is no reason to believe how coordinators native to some region don't have different way of battling and performing appeals too.

Ash has always managed to do that, so why shouldn't she? Of course, it can always happen that she gets to face other Coordinators that've also ended up at second, third or fourth place, which might make it a bit more difficult. But I certainly can't see her being in a lower place than among the Top 8. Besides, I think she mainly came to Unova for learning new tricks for Round 1, which always has been her weakness, but even if she didn't come to Unova I still don't think she'd have much problem in the contests in Hoenn, considering how extremely little influence Unova has had on her by the looks of things.

Logical fallacy. If you win championship once that doesn't mean you will always have big success being near top. There are countless examples where top Tennis, Chess and all kind of other sport players win championship just to later on drop very early in tournament whether its because they aren't in top shape, because someone lower ranked managed to outsmart them with their tactic, because other strong player manage to surpass them etc.
Same is with pokemon world, having already examples where more advanced trainers dropped earlier than lower ranked ones. Gary example from Kanto league was especially memorable.

Difference between higher and lower ranked players , or in this case coordinators is that they will have bigger percentage of success because of being more skilled, but this in no way guarantees they will always manage to win Grand Festival or be near top.

Same goes for Dawn she was always focused more on appeals, than battling aspect of contests in Sinnoh with journey to Unova serving purpose to absorb knowledge trainers over there display trying to adjust her battling style when facing other coordinators in future.
And battle against Iris is reflection of Dawn improvement as trainer, considering how her Mamoswine managed to actually hurt Dragonite causing problems for him while Langley Beartic who was specifically trained to defeat dragon types lost easily not even slowing down yellow beast.

To Harley and Drew, yes. They are both two strong Coordinators who always has been pretty much equal to May, so having her struggle with them is only natural, as they all were on the same level to begin with.

Besides, that reminds me! Wouldn't she have mentioned Soledad too if she actually was competing in the Johto Contests? She didn't do that. Doesn't that say anything to you?

Harley and Drew were always May main rivals with who she had disagreements and most interaction, hence being reason why she mentioned them. With Solidad there was no reason to bring her up, being enough to show her in non speaking role when watching May competing in Wallace Cup still being treated as her rival.

She was showed there, it was clearly said how she will go to Johto to continue traveling and entering contests after winning Kanto GF, so i think its very safe to say she was competing in Johto contests too.

Haha. Tobias had legendaries. Besides, as I said, the will always be a certain few individuals that are on a completely different level from you. However, it's not like Ash had won a League before that.

No, but he was showing gradual improvement with each passing region coming closer to it.

The question is, can it really be further extended to being someting like ''The Greatest Coordinator in the World''? If you win all the Grand Festivals in every region, you still might encounter other Coordinators who've done the same thing, and you still won't be the best in the world. A Top Coordinator who trains at home, without traveling to other regions, could still probably beat a ''Master Coordinator'' if he/she had fought the same level of competetion in other Grand Festivals, but I doubt that he would've had a much bigger challenge than he had in his own region's GF. Forcing a Coordinator to win that many Grand Festivals seems highly unlikely to me, as it will take like one year per region, and even when he's done he still won't be the very best. What will he have achieved? The same kind of victory as he had in his last Grand Festival? How great.

No one is forced to anything. Not all coordinators have same motivations and aspirations , not everyone want to become strongest or most recognized in world etc.
But i believe Solidad is good example herself how even when you win GF and become top coordinator of that region that wont make you top coordinator in world, and how there exists way to become something more.
Otherwise whats the point for her to travel to Johto and compete in contests to try winning another GF, if she already proved herself in Kanto?

Going by that premise its very likely that more GF you wins your name will become more spread out and recognized in world, your skills will become sharper becoming stronger coordinator than you can by wining one GF and staying in that region quitting with travels.
Who knows after May wins GF who knows maybe she follows Solidad footsteps too, wanting to become stronger and better than she already is.

I thought her story was about becoming the very best? Y'know, the best, the almighty, the numero uno. Sure, she might want to make her mom proud as well, but I doubt she's doing all of this for the sake of her mother. She LOVES contests, why wouldn't it make sense to you for her to want to achieve an even higher ranking when she's truly dedicated to contests? It does to me.

No but her mother left great deal of influence, which likely influenced Dawn decision in deciding to follow mother footsteps. And Johanna played very important role in Dawn journey through whole Sinnoh putting lot of pressure on her constantly living in shadow of parent, having to prove to everyone as top coordinator daughter until she qualified and reached finals of Grand Festival getting out of Johanna shadow.

As for career im only working with what we have,and Dawn goal was established to be top coordinator never saying she wants to be best in world.

Exactly. You just said it. If there actually was something like Contest Master, they should would've mentioned wanting to become one after they had won Grand Festival, right? I think it's nothing more than a more fancy term to make Wallace seem more surperior than he already is.

I don't think writers deliberately made up this term to make Wallace look better than he really is, nor there exist any reason to believe this.

Reason why they never mentioned this is because it wasn't important to storyline and never was intended to be.
Its also likely because if such thing as contest master can be achieved it would imply becoming strongest coordinator in world achieving mastery both in appeals and battling, with Wallace being only one which managed to accomplish that.
Which would explain all that glorification and popularity, since he is recognized as best in world.

It wasn't established.

Its self explanatory to me, not needing to be blatantly said. Wallace was definitely portrayed as strongest in world of contests out, being most famous and glorified coordinator out there with title of "contest master"being just one out of many other achievements, such as being Hoenn champion, among top water trainers in world(probably closest to water master we saw so far)etc.

Just like winning every Grand Festival in other regions won't prove anything. What if there are others who have achieved the same thing? Then you will just be one of very few, right? Is the Contest Champion League too? Nah.

Except those which manage to win several GF will surely be recognized as more successful and stronger than those which won only one GF, which could be one of reasons behind Solidad continuing to enter contests even after becoming top coordinator of Kanto. However possibility of there existing special event where top coordinators compete to determine who is best shouldn't be ruled out either.

Wallace IS a special Coordinator. Because, unlike other Top Coordinators, he's also the strongest Trainer in his region. He has been a Gym Leader once, and is now also a Champion. That is the exact reason to why he gains so much attention. If there was something like Contest Master, then surely Wallace could not be the only one out there. Then other Contest Masters should've had the same type of competition in their honor, right?

That doesn't make any sense to me.
If only reason behind glorification and hosting competitions made in his honor is because he was champion, than we would surely have competitions carrying name of other champions from other region as well.

Also like i explained before if "contest master"means best coordinator in world, since Wallace is only one which became that skilled explains why there are no other "coordinator masters"in world.
Because of that and being legend among coordinators, it makes only sense that there exist special contests made in his honor.

I'm ending this here, as this only feels like a huge waste of time by now. You haven't managed to convince me in the slightest that there is something higher than Top Coordinator, thus I'm quitting here. We will obviously not convince the other, so let's agree to disagree, shall we?

I never intended to started debate in first place, only defending my opinion when it was challenged.
Since we are starting to get of topic i agree how it would be best to end this too , so while i respect your view on this i disagree standing by what i said.

From my part im done as well.
 
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They will never say that one of Ash's traveling partners achieved his goals before him! Because of that Dawn lost against Zoey even when she was departing! and we won't see a rematch!

I would love to see her progress to the finals just she is equal to Dawn!
 
Yes, Solidad is very good, but in my opinion, she is too good. They way she battled with May in the Indigo Grand Festival in the final match was totally unfair. Her slobro and pigeot were too good and their evasive and counter attacks were unfair. I also dont understand why May was using munchlax. It was her most recent pokemon and very unreliable with metrenome and it has very little appeal contest wise. She could have used better pokemon and she could have improvised like when she was going against drew in the previous round. It also frustrated me how combusken evolved after her grand festival!!! and also its impossible to know if the grand festival has even taken place in the johto region. Plus Solidad cant win two grand festivals in a row. definately not harley cuz he isn't THAT good. Maybe May should win against the guy who won the hoenn grand festival (he had a claydol and milotic) in the final match and be a top coordinater. She deserves to win. BTW dawn totally should have lost to May in the Wallace cup. Makes absolutely no sense at all......
 
Isn't soledad also doing it? LolMay Ash had a better chance vs tobias.
 
I doubt she would have won, the main reason being that I can't see May achieving Top Coordinator status before Drew, nor could I see her defeating Solidad yet. I think if there ever were to be a special of some sort (which hahaha, as much as it pains me to say it's unlikely), either Drew or Solidad would take down May in the semifinals before facing each other in the final round.
 
Considering Solidad was shown to be far more advanced than most of the other coordinators, she probably didn't beat her. So no.

I don't see why it matters now, it's not like we'll ever find out.

I have to disagree.

May used Munchlax and Combusken against Slowbro and Pidgeot, May was clearly at a HUGE disadvantage.

With the proper combination, I do think May has a better chance a doing well against Solidad and possibly win.

Edit: Just to mention we weren't going to find out what May did because she only had 3 ribbons.
 
I can't give a straight answer to this one...

She mentioned to Ash, Dawn and Brock that she has 3 ribbons but Harley and Drew and stronger than ever and she can't seem to beat any of them. I mean not to mention the Kanto GF winner is there too...

Let's see let us count the number of times Ash has lost to a certain rival without winning in an offical battle so many as ONE time but then turns around and beats him in a league battle (cough*Paul*). I mean we could chalk this up to blind faith that even though May possibly gets her other 2 ribbons without facing Drew, Harley OR Solidad until the GF that she beats them there too.

I seriously don't think that if her and Solidad were to battle once again in the GF things would go the way they did in Kanto. I mean May might have a Blastoise by then or Delcatty. Not that it matters but I'm saying that May will be a more experience coordinator/trainer by then.

However, I could also she her NOT winning because think about it this is her first journey out alone without brother Max, Ash or Brock for guidance. So, even if she lost the GF she proves that not only is she capable enough to make it on her own. She can get all 5 ribbons by herself and compete and possibly score a high ranking by the end of the competition.

I know there is probably not (seriously not) going to be another Chronicle-like series where we get to catch up with old faces but if they did, they should really show the results of this competition.

Like Dawn saying she'll get back with Ash and crew in Unova about the Johto Wallace Cup, I doubt this will happen...

If they show that contest on TV (which I doubt) maybe May will show up at that contest and we'll get to find out how things went?
 
Any assumption that one character is better than the other is slightly faulted. Just because May lost to Dawn in one battle, which involved her least experienced Pokémon against Dawn's most experienced, with a type-disadvantage to boot, doesn't mean that May is worse than Dawn. Dawn lost by an extremely close margin to Zoey, with no clear type advantages. Trip has lost to Ash once, but that doesn't make him a worse trainer, given how many times he has beaten him, and I would say that normally Trip would beat Ash's Unova team anyday.

May could well have won Johto, if her Pokémon have advanced as much as they had between AG and DP. She might have a Blastoise, Delcatty or even some new Powerful Pokémon. She was shown to have matured a lot since AG too, and I think that she may well have won it.
 
She obviously wouldn't have won if Solidad was still there. I could have seen May making it to the finals this time like Dawn did, and putting up a better fight against Solidad, but she still would have lost.

I think its a bit of a shame that just as May was finally becoming a strong trainer and got some fully evolved pokemon.....we stopped seeing her. I always felt May had more potential in her own short spinoff series in Johto (I'd only have it last about 13 episodes, not talking about something huge here, just a short thing), and have it as that. Obviously its too late now though, her character is going the way of Misty.
 
May was seen to be much more powerful at her Sinnoh comeback (the vs Dawn match doesn't count, since the loss was intentional by the writer's part). She had a Blaziken, a Venusaur, a Wartortle. Imagine if she managed to get Blastoise/Snorlax. She also has Glaceon, which was shown pretty strong when it was still a newly-evolved Pokemon. (again, losing to a plushie for the sake of marketing and DP Contest plot doesn't count). Assuming that she was able to travel by herself around Johto and gathering 5 Ribbons, plus the fact that she always beats one more rival in each GF she enters, I really believe that she beat Solidad at the Johto GF finals, winning the thing.
 
Just because Dawn defeated May in the Wallace Cup doesn't mean that May was inferior to Dawn. Their match was ridiculously close and May was using her Glaceon, her least experienced Pokemon out of her team.
But now Dawn seems to be having more experience than May as she came in 2nd place in sinnoh grand festival in which she should've win it but the officials forgot to reduce points when her glameow's thunderbolt hurt gallade. On the other hand May didn't came 2nd place for 2 straight grand festivals. So in case of supporting between them I would definitely go for Dawn. Although some say Dawn has an inferior team than May it's all about coordinator's skills. I think Dawn mixes her combinations better and made me actually care for contests

I still think Dawn has better chances in winning the grand festival than May. As far as I've seen May's grand festival battles involved brute strength and some contest moves she should definitely need to put effort into appealing moves her Glaceon just shoots shadow ball and uses mirror coat. On the other hand Dawn is shown to find new contest appealing moves for every 10 episodes and she learns from her mistakes and her mother's experience as a coordinator she even defeated her mother's rival with a nice technique. Who would've had thought mamoswine could be used on a contest and came up till finals. Finally Dawn has truly won the sinnoh grand festival but the officials forget to reduce points for Zoey when her gallade got hit by glameow's thunderbolt because they are admiring at the the beauty of piplup and togekiss at the sky. So I thinkMay can be a future gym leader like her father but Dawn has the better chance of winning grandfestival. Dawn is the best ❤️
 
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Don't really care about all that, and you missed my point. You necro'd a thread that was dead for 6+ years, and I assume you made a sockpuppet account for that purpose alone.
Just want to point out that there is no rule against necromancing threads. People are allowed to post in threads that have been dead for years if they wish to do so.
 
Don't really care about all that, and you missed my point. You necro'd a thread that was dead for 6+ years, and I assume you made a sockpuppet account for that purpose alone.
As you can see I am a new member in this bulbagarden community so I've seen this thread today
So I've decided to add my thoughts that's all.
 
After all these years, i thing the contest was die forever. Sure, it back in xy but still i don't think that it is so important.

So you think Dawn can't win the Grand Festival? She is really talented. There may be haters for her but you can't underestimate anyone's skill especially main characters in anime
In reality, both she and zoey were very well there. I loved her unfriendly rival contest also. And jiesie was good also
 
But now Dawn seems to be having more experience than May as she came in 2nd place in sinnoh grand festival in which she should've win it but the officials forgot to reduce points when her glameow's thunderbolt hurt gallade. On the other hand May didn't came 2nd place for 2 straight grand festivals. So in case of supporting between them I would definitely go for Dawn. Although some say Dawn has an inferior team than May it's all about coordinator's skills. I think Dawn mixes her combinations better and made me actually care for contests

While May didn't get to the finals, she still made some good progression between the Hoenn and Kanto Grand Festivals. I don't think that Dawn has an inferior team though. If anything, I think that May's team is weaker, but a lot of that mainly comes down to how her Pokemon were handled. Dawn had a consistent team throughout DP, but May's team was changed during the Battle Frontier. I didn't mind them taking Beautifly and Skitty out of the equation for awhile since she did rely on them the most, but Bulbasaur really deserved more screentime and there wasn't a good reason to leave it behind when May ended up with only four Pokemon on her team by the end of the series. Plus, it seemed like both Munchlax and Squirtle kind of took up similar moves to Skitty with Metronome and Ice Beam respectively.

Dawn's team wasn't perfect either. She should have kept Ambipom, but if she had to get a Togekiss, I would have rather see her actually raise it from a Togepi instead of one being handed to her. Dawn's team was more fleshed out compared to May's at the very least.

LEGENDARY SSR said:
I still think Dawn has better chances in winning the grand festival than May. As far as I've seen May's grand festival battles involved brute strength and some contest moves she should definitely need to put effort into appealing moves her Glaceon just shoots shadow ball and uses mirror coat. On the other hand Dawn is shown to find new contest appealing moves for every 10 episodes and she learns from her mistakes and her mother's experience as a coordinator she even defeated her mother's rival with a nice technique. Who would've had thought mamoswine could be used on a contest and came up till finals. Finally Dawn has truly won the sinnoh grand festival but the officials forget to reduce points for Zoey when her gallade got hit by glameow's thunderbolt because they are admiring at the the beauty of piplup and togekiss at the sky. So I thinkMay can be a future gym leader like her father but Dawn has the better chance of winning grandfestival. Dawn is the best ❤

To be fair, May just evolved her Glaceon shortly before the Wallace Cup and it was still the least experienced out of all of her Pokemon in terms of Contest battles. May using brute force to win was definitely more pronounced during AG and they did eventually address that as well. She was still learning from Ash's battling style subconsciously and that was why she decided to go out on her own to develop her own style. I think that she found a better battling style suited for Contests by the time she showed up in DP, but it also helped that the writers generally had a better idea as to how to make Contest battles different from regular battles during DP compared to AG.

I wouldn't say that Dawn truly won the Grand Festival. It was close, but she still lost and I don't think that's a bad thing. As good as Dawn was during that match, Zoey always felt like she was at least a step or two ahead of her with every combination. She truly deserved to win the Sinnoh Grand Festival. I can't see May becoming a future Gym Leader. She never showed interest in becoming one compared to Max and I don't think she'd like having to battle in one place so often. May loves traveling around and while Gym Leaders are able to do that, it would be probably more limited compared to what May can do as a Coordinator. I like Dawn too, but I could see May winning a Grand Festival as well.
 
I still think Dawn has better chance in winning grandfestival. She felt more energetic during contest than may or any of her rivals and she has a great backstory to win the grand festival so that she would come out of her mom's shadow. Which she already proved on her first grand festival. So I'm still on Dawn's side❤
 
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