Is May a disappointment?

[Pokemay]

I think May's age and level of development are a central aspect off her character, even in the games. I also think the general high quality of her character (being a much better insert for players than Brendan) is why adding female protags to Pokemon was less controversial than that change in some other franchises. And I know Crystal did it first, but that was a re-release/definitive release. I never played Gen 3 when it came out, didn't play anything between Gen 1 and Gen 5, and going back and replaying all of them, May is tied with Red for me as the best player character in the entire series. She's just the perfect kid for a coming of age story. Her whole design is based around this. She's an elementary school girl because that's the audience they're trying to rope in, having already got the boys with Gen1/2. Compared to other female protags (and Brendan) she's very competent, capable, and non-feminine. Just like you can imagine Red carrying all his items around in his giant pockets, she's got a pack around her waist. She's prepared. Brendan has no such bag and a perpetual stupid look on his face. So May is more like Red than Brendan, but they didn't want her to be a total tomboy, hence the overdeveloped feminine figure. Since there's no character dialogue, most of this is conveyed by things other characters say, but everyone May meets is impressed by her skill as a pokemon trainer. She's constantly prying adults out of horrible jams, and it doesn't feel out of place because, just like Red has that hyper-competent cocky look on his face, May just LOOKS like she's older and more confident than her age would imply, and it just fits the story telling in RSE so well.


May is one of the only female characters I have no difficulty self-inserting as. I couldn't self-insert as Brendan if my life depended on it. To me, she's the default RSE protagonist. I wouldn't change anything about her. Perfect execution of what they were trying to do.

 

[-PokemonBattleFanatic-]

@Bendicion

 

[skynerel]

I’m confused, the title seems to imply you are talking about anime May, but your post talks more about May in the games. Regardless, in terms of whether you like her or not, it’s subjective, but in terms of character development in the anime she was a clear improvement over the previous girl. She got to work for her own goal along Ash, rivals who pushed her character to develop and episode returns in DP perfectly showcasing her growth as a character. The previous girl (Misty) was just a cheerleader/coach for Ash and pretty much just followed Ash around doing very, very little to advance her goals. It wasn’t until she departed from the show that she got some serious development like getting over her fear of Gyarados and taking care of the gym.

In the games May’s dialogue doesn’t seem to be nothing overtly special, she was just okay.

In conclusion, she wasn’t a disappointment to me.

 

[Ransei]

I find May to be the most interesting rival in the series for how hard she fluctuates between battles. The first battle has her at around neutral difficulty, then she builds up into the most difficult rival fights in the series, then falls into the easiest rival battles in the series all through the course of one game. She wasn't primarily interested in battling. She was just trying to help her father with fieldwork and dex research while seeing if she could beat you and as soon as she knew she couldn't she just kinda gave up. I was disappointed by her final teams being incomplete but at the end of the day she still has notable battles going on throughout parts of the game, which is more than what I could say about most rivals.