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Shigeru/Gary as a rival

Araragi-hakase

QUEEN NICKI DOMINATE
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Do you think Shigeru/Gary was an interesting rival for Satoshi/Ash? How do you feel about his character development and choice to pursue being a scientist?


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to get here, you had to go through some dark times
maybe you should offer a blanket to the monster that sleeps nearby
(the answer to this riddle can be found on the pedia)
 
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Yay, Gary's got a thread! Yeah this guy is my all time favorite rival. If there is one thing that he can do like nobody else, its getting under Ash's skin and exposing his rashness, which then makes him a better trainer. He's got the swag attitude- a very good representation of Blue, but underneath his arrogance he shares the same drive as Ash; to be the very best! From the funny wisecracks to the actual friend he turned out to be later, its layers like these that separate good characters from generic jerky antagonists.

I thought it seemed a little interesting, but wholesomely unrealistic that he decided to become a researcher so early. We're talking about a guy who grew up wanting to be a Pokemon master and had competition for that goal from Ash that made him want it harder than ever. The whole "grandfathers footsteps" route should be more of a temporary hobby, something for him to clear his head until he sees Ash out there gaining success and figures; who's he kidding, he still wants to beat that Ashy boy to the coveted Pokemon Master title! Its just a matter of time...
 
I've always thought Shigeru was a great rival for Satoshi. He was the perfect arrogant jerk for the anime; he really had a way of digging under Satoshi's skin with his snide remarks and egotistical attitude. I also enjoyed how he matured into becoming a Pokémon researcher, though I like to imagine he still battles on the side now and then.
 
Gary is the best rival for Ash, and for the anime!

I don't think he should have been a researcher (or at least he should have just had it as a side hobby while still pursuing his goal to be a Pokemon Master), for all the reasons Bluelatios already stated.
 
Gary made perfect sense as Ash's first rival. Arrogant to a fault, but far more well-versed in the basics of Pokemon (to be expected, considering who his grandfather is) than the rookie Ash was. Always one step ahead, and always making Ash look second-rate. There was even some character development. I don't know if it was ever mentioned on the show, but I always thought that the events of the Indigo League served as a "wake up call" for him to train harder and, thusly, he matured a bit more. The Gary of the Kanto-era and the Johto-era were certainly much different.

I feel like I’d have liked the rivalry more if the show actually bothered to use Gary more than once in a while, or developed the rivalry with Ash in any interesting way. In the Kanto-era, every appearance was pretty much the same thing: arrive, taunt Ash with his superior knowledge of Pokemon, impress everyone else, and leave. The two hardly battled - which wouldn’t have been a problem had they found other ways to have the two compete or even interact, but they didn’t (for comparison’s sake - Ash and Paul battled several times, they competed in the Pokeringer finals, Paul’s Torterra taught Ash’s Grotle how to fight within the limitations of its new body, they were forced to battle as a team in a tournament, etc.). In the Johto-era, even as Gary’s attitude towards Ash does change, the guy was hardly around up until the League. As a rival, Gary just felt half-assed and it’s hard for me to really find anything compelling about him.

That said, the focus the two got in the Johto League was great and tells me that had the writers bothered spending some more time on it, the rivalry could have been much better. Ash vs. Gary was one of the best battles the series had seen up to that point, was and I loved the Charizard vs. Blastoise climax (it all comes full circle; Charizard, the Pokemon that cost Ash the Indigo League, now wins him his most significant battle yet - shows how far Ash had come, even back then).

As far as his decision to become a researcher goes, I guess it all comes back to just how little focus Gary received over the course of the series, the Johto episodes especially. I do like that he was written out. The character had nowhere else to go as a rival, and his departure fit with the idea that Advanced Generation would be a new start. The problem was that decision came out of nowhere and just felt like a clumsy reason to get him out. Had this been alluded to at all at any point during the Johto-era, even if just once, I would have liked it more.
 
Wow, finally a thread for Gary! Gary was definitely the most interesting out of all of Ash's rivals. He clearly managed to make a great impact in whatever little amount of focus he got.
He was perhaps the only rival who not only got under the skin of Ash but also managed to annoy all the little kids watching the show. (I mean this in a good way obviously). I still remember, as a little kid watching the kanto episodes, I was like 'Ash, you have to beat that Gary now!' every time he came on the screen. The episode used to become ten times more interesting for me the moment Gary used to make a cameo.
I think the Johto saga would have been more interesting if they would have given more episodes to Gary and used his rivalry with Ash to it's full potential. But then again, I am glad that Gary didn't appeared much in Johto. Brock and Misty had to face loads of criticism for their performance in Johto and I would never want that sort of a thing to happen to Gary. At least with his limited appearances, people kept looking forward for his next appearance, didn't called him 'stale' etc.
I loved the Silver Conference episodes of course, and really liked the way the writers added more depth to Gary's character and developed his relationship with Ash.
As for his decision to become a researcher, I guess that was pure lazyness on part of the writers. I hate how they make characters follow in the footsteps of their mother/father/grandpa/any random ancestor just for the sake of it. They could have just shown that he goes off to train to some different place (like what they did during the OI), and should have brought him back when they had some better story arc for him or had improved their own writing skills. And if they really had to make him a researcher, I guess dedicating an episode or perhaps a couple of scenes to it wouldn't have hurt either.
Besides, I feel that he could have easily continued as a rival for the AG saga as well. Because firstly, Ash didn't exactly had a central rival throughout the saga and secondly, Misty was the only character getting replaced. Brock and TR were still continuing to Hoenn with Ash, so I don't think anyone would have found it to be the least bit odd if Gary would have been brought to Hoenn as well.
I have always felt that the Johto league should have happened something like this-
Ash defeating Ritchie and entering the top 8 (as we never saw him defeat Ritchie ever, and that's something I would have really loved to see)
Ash getting beaten by Gary in the next round (just to show how much Gary has improved since the Indigo league)
Of course, Ash would have gotten his revenge by defeating Gary in the Hoenn league, and maybe then Gary could take the decision of becoming a reasearcher.
While Ash would be busy battling with the frontier brains, they could have shown Gary spend time with his Grandpa in Pallet Town and develop a love towards pokemon researching.
And after that he could have gone to Sinnoh to that lab where he currently stays and the rest you know. Eh, at least that's how I would have loved to see his character take shape.
Lastly, one more thing that I love about Gary...he got to face super fucking Mewtwo in the anime! I mean sure he lost (who wouldn't?), but still that's one of the things that makes him special for me.
 
Before Best Wishes came around, Shigeru was my least favourite pokemon character. I liked that since I don't hate Shigeru. I've always struggled to see Shigeru as a character though. His personality trait was that he's arrogant. To me, one trait is not a character, especially if it's the sort of trait you'd expect a character of that position to have, Shigeru being a rival and all. For the rest, he was pretty much a series of gags. (Gags that never felt like they could live on off screen.) Now, Kanto was very gag based (though not always in a good way) so that isn't too surprising. I think that a large amount of why I never hated Shigeru was that the show never pretended that he was anything all that special: his scenes were always short and to the point. Sometimes they were also enjoyable.

For his DP personality, I enjoyed how much he made Hikari stand out and actually feel that he bounced of her better than he ever did with Satoshi. I think a large part of that was that it was surprising: it wasn't rival behaviour for the sake of rival behaviour. The gag with Hikari wasn't any better or any worse than the ones in Kanto, however it was more surprising and therefore left more of an impact on me. I'm really glad he became a researcher for that reason alone. That said, I also think that it gave him a bit of development which at least made him feel like a character.
 
I liked Gary and find him to be Ash's second best rival.

Gary was the perfect rival for Ash in the beginning. He was always one step ahead of him and one of Ash's main goals was to eventually beat him, which he actually ended up doing. What I really enjoyed most about their rivalry was that it never felt too one sided. While Gary was faster than Ash and caught more Pokémon and won gym battles before Ash did, Ash had seen more Pokémon than Gary and developed unique battling styles with the ones he had.

I thought Ash's interactions with Gary were good. They picked on each other from time to time and was basically just a simple childhood rivalry. Gary was rude, but never an outright asshole like Paul and Trip were at times. His Pokémon were also pretty cool and pretty powerful. The only problem was that we really didn't get to see much of them, but I didn't find any of them boring at all.

As far as him becoming a Pokémon researcher, I felt that it was good development for him. It showed that he grew and became more mature with the desire to gain more knowledge about the Pokémon world and not just want to get stronger and win badges. Definitely great development imo.

Finally, there was wasn't anything I ever found unlikeable about Gary. Definitely still one of my favorite characters.
 
Gary worked as a first rival in the sense that he was the arrogant jerk who was one step ahead of the underdog hero. Plus, it worked to tie in with the video game character he was based off since Blue was certainly arrogant in the games as well. He was able to get under Ash's skin and his attitude did make me want to see Ash defeat him when I first watched the show. However, in retrospect, I don't think he was a good rival. Most of his Kanto appearances just boiled down to acting like he was so much better than Ash, bothering him and then leaving. He almost never battled, so it wasn't like we could see those skills that he kept boasting about. He basically talked the talked and never could walk the walk. Not battling at the Indigo League was pretty disappointing, although I could see how that turned out to be a wake up call for Gary given how he was a bit more mature in his next appearance, but I still remember how anticlimactic his first battle with Ash was. If they did compete in other things, then maybe not battling wouldn't have been so bad, but that and almost never seeing Gary battle were the major problems with the rivalry.

In Johto, Gary did show some signs of maturity in that he didn't constantly brag about himself to Ash or insult him as much as he used to, but the lack of appearances really hurt him there as well. Their full battle in the Johto League was great and easily one of the best battles in the original series. As for Gary becoming a Pokemon researcher, I always thought that came out of nowhere. They were trying to have some buildup before their battle, but it didn't work. If he had more of a presence in Johto and they had more signs about Gary enjoying studying about Pokemon more about making them battle, then maybe it could have worked out. I don't mind writing him out though. By that point, he didn't really have much room to go as a rival and certainly not enough to justify bringing him over to Hoenn. Plus, removing Ash's first rival helped to give the brand new start AG was going for, so it worked out.

I guess that Gary would be Ash's second best rival to me at this point since I'd still take him over Trip, but he wasn't quite good as a rival either. The basic role he played worked for the first rival. If he had more screentime in both Kanto and Johto, as well as actually battling to show that he could back up all of his boasting, then I think he would have turned out better.
 
Gary was a great first rival for Ash. He was snobbish, cocky, and always on Ash's case. He was one step ahead and presented a good challenge for him. Not to mention, he was presented in such a way that we wanted to see him fight with Ash to see who'd win. Was Gary really as strong as he said he was or was Ash improving? Though it seems we didn't see as much of him on the battlefield as we do with rivals today, but I appreciated them showing him in some major battles. I was disappointed that he gave up being a badass to become a researcher, though. While it does show immense maturity in his character, I can't help but miss the douche side of him.

One thing I hadn't realized until CN aired those older episodes for three weeks was that Gary got screen time in which he didn't do anything for the plot. Which I liked. He appeared in "Here Comes the Squirtle Squad" for the mere purpose of slamming a door in Ash's face and doing/saying nothing else. He was shown in the first movie having his Pokemon taken by Mewtwo, but again, nothing else. To me, that showed a true traveler on a journey, seeing him more than just interacting with Ash. He did get to do his own thing. These days, rivals only appear with a direct purpose and have some kind of mention by the main cast if not spoken to directly. I enjoyed seeing Gary on his journey, progressing (or at least moving forward as we saw Ash), even though he didn't say anything. Maybe it sounds dumb, but it really expanded him, looking back. Maybe it wasn't even intended, but I appreciate it.

Overall, I can't say much about Gary that hasn't already been said, but I would put him as Ash's second best rival. He was what a rival should be, and I still would like to see him return with that attitude some day~
 
The problem with Gary was his lack of appearances and battles with Ash. Didn't help that the only thing he did when he appeared was be a jackass to Ash.

Seriously they should of battled a few times throughout Kanto and Johto.

Those are my only complaints about him though. I liked his character developments and that he and Ash are friends now. I also find it ironic that they battle more often when he quit being a trainer lol.
 
I really like Shigeru! The way he found his future was really nice, you can really see his character development when you compare him to our protagonist that just regress every new generation.
 
Gary was a good rival & definitely more good looking than ash..he deserves more screen time and must come back..gary brock & misty are the characters whose comeback i want desperately( a longgggg comeback which would go on till the end of pokemon)
 
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