Pokemon Contest Retcons

[Rocketshipper]

Probably the same reason that the writers decided not to have a "Pikachu vs Umbreon" showdown in the end with Gary and Ash. Whatever that reason is ^^, I don't know.

Maybe not exactly on topic, but did anyone else think right from the start that May might have been stronger than Drew? Every time I've watched Drew's first episode (forgot the number) I always thought that May would have beat him in that battle if TR hadn't interrupted. Seemed like she had just gained the upperhand when they showed up.

 

[Jo-Jo]

I got the impression she made a comeback, but didn't necessarily gain the upper hand on the strength of it. Drew completely thrashed her two eps later, at any rate.

I'm happy May never beat Roselia, but only out of favouritism.

 

[Cybersai]

Eh, I've always seen Drew as being more experienced than May. The way he hands her ass to her in their first Contest is very telling.

At the beginning of the Wynaut ep, it seemed like Beautifly and Masquerain were evenly matched. Too bad TR interrupted the battle before we saw the end. In the Hoenn GF she doesn't even get to take out a single Pokemon of his, (funny how she never used Skitty's Blizzard to try and take down Flygon...must have been something that skipped her mind), and in the Kanto GF when the timer runs out it looks like Combusken was more worn out than Absol. And then...he pretty much hands her ass to her again in "Rivals Forever," although May at least put up a great fight before going down.

One thing I liked about their battles is the writers were always careful to keep their power levels consistent with one another. May was always on the ropes when battling Drew, even in the Kanto GF. I also very much liked that she won by the skin of her teeth when the GF ended, rather than a full KO. It was much more realistic I thought.

Still would have liked to see Roselia KO'd though. At least we got to see May take down his Flygon, as a sorta comeback from the Hoenn GF.

EDIT: I see Dogasu still has no idea what the Kanto Contest arc was about in his latest episode comparison. To say the writers "got bored of the Contest arc" when they gave fans exactly what they wanted is complete bull.

Its amazing how people can miss the most simple concepts in the Pokemon anime.

 

[Rocketshipper]

Topic-Reborn!!

I just saw the Rubello town episodes the other day, and noticed two things that could be retcons, though they came rather late in the series.

1. GF rules: The characters in these episodes told May the the R1 contests use Grand Festival rules, meaning that you are required to change your pokemon between the appeal round and the battle round. Of course we learned much later that the GF had many more rules than just this (like multiple appeals and double battles), and the "changing pokemon between rounds" thing started showing up in almost every contest, not just "R1" contests.

2. What's the GF?: lol, apparently May must not have been paying attention to the announcer in her first few contests. Despite the fact that the Grand Festival had already been mentioned at least twice in earlier episodes, May still acted as if she'd never heard of the GF until the Rubello contest.

I also have to say that I think the change from having 4 fialists to 8 finalists was done in order to make it more realistic for May to reach the finals. In retrospect, it's kind of weird that a beginner like May always managed to score in the top 4 competitors in her first competitions. In the Lilycove contest (the first one to have a top 8), May's appeal ranked 8th out of the top 8 trainers, and I think it was a lot more realistic, especially considering what happened with Combusken (could she really have made top 4 after messing up the beginning of her appeal like that?)

You know, it might be interesting if at least once we had the main contest person totally screw up their appeal and not even make it to the finals.

 

[FabuVinny]

2. What's the GF?: lol, apparently May must not have been paying attention to the announcer in her first few contests. Despite the fact that the Grand Festival had already been mentioned at least twice in earlier episodes, May still acted as if she'd never heard of the GF until the Rubello contest.

That earned Drew's mocking that she's stumbling around without really paying attention.

You know, it might be interesting if at least once we had the main contest person totally screw up their appeal and not even make it to the finals.

It takes the sheer stupidity Jessie showed in the Rustboro contest for a main character not to get through the appeals. It's lost any form of suspense on me.

 

[Jo-Jo]

"What's the Grand Festival?" - ROFL. What did you think you were getting the ribbons for, May?

I agree that it was very unrealistic for May to keep making the top 4 based on her appeals. Then again, it was harder to buy her being in the top 8 (16?) for her first contest, given how prestigious they made it out to be, and how all the other co-ordinators arrived two whole weeks in advance just to practice.

 

[Cybersai]

Yeah, I always thought 8 people moving onto the battling round made more sense, especially since May messed up with some appeals at first.

Although when they do usually show skits of the random coordinators appeals, they tend not to be anything special. We mostly just see a Pokemon use water gun or whatnot, judges must not be impressed.

It takes the sheer stupidity Jessie showed in the Rustboro contest for a main character not to get through the appeals. It's lost any form of suspense on me.

And what do you mean by that? There may not be much suspense besides the screw-up appeals but its a given that May and Dawn would make it past the appeals.

Why would the writers waste making a whole Contest episode just to show them not get past the appeals and sit on the sidelines for the battle portion? It'd be a waste of an ep.

 

[Trainer Lisa]

At the beginning of the Wynaut ep, it seemed like Beautifly and Masquerain were evenly matched. Too bad TR interrupted the battle before we saw the end.

Yeah, I agree.

I wanted to see the end of that match too.


Anyway, I liked the fact that Ash was the judge for that battle and Brock was just sitting there with Max, watching the match. Hehe, they switched roles, lol. XD



I wonder though, if Ash had ever judged any Pokemon battles prior to the time in "Who, What, When, Where, Wynaut"? I'm not sure about that....

But it sure seemed like that was his first time being the referee, because they never showed Ash judge a match before (it was always Brock).

Of course, even if that was Ash's first time, I'm glad that he knew what he was doing. It doesn't really take much knowledge or anything to judge a battle, afterall. ^^


Then again, there's the whole training thing that people had to go through, in the earlier episode "Judgement Day", which makes me wonder how the heck the writers managed to pull off something like that in a later episode, considering the fact that Ash had never judged a match before (or maybe the idea is that he has judged many battles in the past, but all of them just took place offscreen, and the writers chose not to let us know this until later on in "Who, What, When, Where, Wynaut").



Actually, now that I think about it, maybe the whole thing in "Judgement Day" was only for people who wanted to be official judges? Brock would probably qualify as an official judge automatically, considering he used to be a gym leader. So I bet that in "Who, What, When, Where, Wynaut" Ash was just acting as a judge for that day, because Brock was tired or didn't feel like doing it that day (and also, that wasn't an official battle anyway so there didn't need to be an official judge for the match). Am I right about all of this?

 

[Rocketshipper]

I forgot that the Slateport episode was a top 8, I thought Lilycove was the first. My mistake ^^.

Why would the writers waste making a whole Contest episode just to show them not get past the appeals and sit on the sidelines for the battle portion?

Because it would be different, and interesting (IMO), and realistic. And we could always watch Jessie or Nozomi in the battle round ^^.

 

[xRubyx]

We need to see more contest episodes, of ,May

 

[Arseus Ex Machina]

We need to see more contest episodes, of ,May

That's not going to happen for a loooong time!

 

[Cybersai]

Because it would be different, and interesting (IMO), and realistic. And we could always watch Jessie or Nozomi in the battle round ^^.

True, but it would seem odd not seeing the main character battle in an arc that's centered around them.

For the most part, we watch Contests to see May/Dawn battle and progress in their storylines. While we see other characters like Jessie, the rivals, and sometimes Ash/Brock in Contests, we all know the main point of them is to watch the coordinator girls.

I can see it being interesting but with Dawn's appeals already amazing since day 1 it doesn't leave much room with her to screw up. And the fact that Harley is no longer around kills that too, because when Harley tried to mess up May's appeals I could see that being a good storyline if he actually succeeded in preventing her from progressing for once. But alas, Harley is gone forever.

Come to think of that, Dawn's contest arc could use a "villain." I think that's what made May's Contest arc take off towards the end of Hoenn and BF, we always had Harley there to not only provide comedy, but also to do something that no other rival characters ever did. It was a really perfect dynamic and refreshing to have a semi-evil character and its a shame that we may never see him again. He had the best Pokemon too, Harley's Pokes were amazing.

 

[Rocketshipper]

Yeah, it probably would have worked better to have May screw up an appeals round and not make it through, unlike Hikari, who has more starting experience due to her mother. (although I think the main reason her appeals are "amazing" is because the animators went CGI crazy, and not necissarily that they're any better than the appeals we saw early in AG)

But we know that Hikari will probably have at least another loss before collecting all her ribbons; more if they have another filler saga after DP, and having her lose in the appeals round for some reason could set that necissaru loss apart from May's in AG. (hopefully they won't go for the "main character becomes over-confident and loses their battle" cliche again ^^)

 

[A Concerned Solomon]

I want Jessie to win one of these straight-out.

Still, the redshirt army which was so consistently worse than May's semi-botched appeals...I've always wondered what it means to be cannon fodder in an anime series. Does it mean that your friendships simply aren't deep enough? Do none of them have any skills at all? If the winner wins because they are good people, as seems implied, that must mean that everyone else is kind of a jerk if they're losing to a still-developing character...

 

[Cybersai]

^ Canon fodder in the anime series means you're...bland.

If Contests were real, they would be extremely difficult to get through. Each Contest has what...about 30-40 people doing appeals and only 8 of them manage to get to the battle portion.

Then think about the Grand Festival. They have anywhere from 100-200 people competing, but most of them get knocked out during the first stage appeals. Imagining how frustrating it would be that after all the hard work to earn 5 ribbons and get into the GF...and then you don't even get past the appeals because you're not good enough? The GF has two appeal stages, so the first losses has to be frustrating as hell, and then the second appeals even harder.

Sometimes while watching the Grand Festival's I think about all the background coordinators and how they wasted their time getting those 5 ribbons just to get knocked out because your appeal was lackluster. Kind of a waste of time, eh?

 

[Cybersai]

I'm bumping this thread up because there was a random Buizel appealing in the first two Sinnoh Contests if I remember correctly, and now Dawn has a Buizel.

Were they foreshadowing Dawn with Buizel all along? I guess we can expect it to pull a Tails and hover in the air for appeals.

 

[Arseus Ex Machina]

Were they foreshadowing Dawn with Buizel all along? I guess we can expect it to pull a Tails and hover in the air for appeals.

BRONZOMG! That would be funny!

 

[Habunake]

Yeah, which is why Im wondering why people said Buizel wasn't suited for Contest...(and this was before we saw it was badass)

 

[Zeta]

On a semi-related note, I do wish the writers would bring back Jigglypuff to appear in a Contest. It would be the funniest episode ever.

 

[Rocketshipper]

I think this new "Contest battles are way different than Gym Battles" kick that the writers are on now could be considered a retcon. Of course, contest battles were always a little different than gyms, what with the time limit and the points bar, but now, when one looks at Nozomi's comment during the first contest, it seems like the writers want us to believe that Gyms and Contests are SO different that a trainer shouldn't try to do both. The show never really portrayed the contests in this way during AG (Ash certainly isn't bad at contests, as we saw at the end of AG and in DP, and May's "copied from Ash" battle style certainly won her her share of matches) so this sudden emphasis on the difference between the two styles just seems uneeded and inconsistant to me.