Ash vs May

[RememberingGOODPokemon]

Just curious but is there a reason why May, who didn't know anything about pokemon when she first met Ash, won 5 out of 7 contests (which should be a lot harder to win than a gym battle)? It wouldn't be as bad either but when she won 2 of her first 3 tournaments you didn't even see her train at all. Just think the jump she made was a little unrealistic (even for pokemon). Thoughts?

And with May making a huge jump in a short amout of time, if I remember right Ash earned 4 out of his first 5 by being a good, kind kid. And Ash really didn't become a great trainer until around the 7th gym badge he got. (Back in Kanto

 

[Karamazov]

I never thought that Contests were harder than Gym battles - they were small mini-tournaments that relied on creativity in appeals, and battles against locals and regular people. At least with Gym Battles, they've been certified by the League to test people through rigorous battles.

And I don't think training should be a big part. May's learned about different Pokemon, moves, abilities and her own strengths over her adventure, even in filler episodes. Contests themselves act as training for the Grand Festival. All of that should have prepared her to at least hold her own in Contests.

 

[Hidden Mew]

I never thought that Contests were harder than Gym battles - they were small mini-tournaments that relied on creativity in appeals, and battles against locals and regular people. At least with Gym Battles, they've been certified by the League to test people through rigorous battles.

And I don't think training should be a big part. May's learned about different Pokemon, moves, abilities and her own strengths over her adventure, even in filler episodes. Contests themselves act as training for the Grand Festival. All of that should have prepared her to at least hold her own in Contests.

I think that Contests are harder than Gym battles in the sense that you only get one chance to win a specific Contest. If a trainer loses a Gym battle, they can just try again multiple times to get it. If a Coordinator loses a Contest, then they have to travel to another one and there's only a certain number of Contests before the Grand Festival. I think that having some training prior to the Contests is a better idea since it makes the victory more believable than if they learn from watching others in different episodes.

I think that the writers at the time weren't quite sure how to show May's progression in a more believable manner. This was the first attempt at creating a sidequest to go along with Ash's Gym badge quest, so they weren't able to get it quite right the first time around. I don't think it helped that they had two Contests arcs for May when they never tried this before. In retrospect, May probably would have benefited more with just a single Contest arc like Dawn had. She would have lost a couple of more Contests and had a more believable start.

It's actually similar to how they started with Ash since as the first series, they weren't sure how to handle the battles, so they had him win by luck or helping out the Gym leaders. I think that May's Contest victories got a bit more believable as the series progressed, although I haven't seen a lot of AG in ages, so I may be mistaken. I can forgive some, not all, of the flaws in May's Contest arc since this was their first attempt at making a more active female lead and they were able to learn from their first attempt, which benefited Dawn a lot in DP. While I still prefer May over Dawn, Dawn does have a much more believable Contest arc for the most part and staying in one region for the whole series allowed for them to have her lose more Contests than if they had to give her two Contest arcs.

 

[Karamazov]

I think that Contests are harder than Gym battles in the sense that you only get one chance to win a specific Contest. If a trainer loses a Gym battle, they can just try again multiple times to get it. If a Coordinator loses a Contest, then they have to travel to another one and there's only a certain number of Contests before the Grand Festival.

Didn't Dawn try the Hearthome Contest twice? I could be wrong, though, since I think I missed the first time she battled. But every Contest varies in opponents, usually varying in skill. You could run into amateurs or Champions, and from what I've seen, you'll running into amateurs and rivals more often than not. Granted, Contests have something over Gyms: with different opponents, you have more variety. Whereas Gyms have one type, allowing you to strategize more ahead of time. (But then again, with Contests, you'll have seen how the person performs in previous rounds.)

And I do think training is very important and would show how hard a character works. May definitely should have worked harder. However, I also think that you don't need training to make every win believable. Most of May's wins seemed pretty legit to me when I was a kid. As a kid, it all seemed very believable (aside from Combusken's battles, because that thing was lucky to ever see the light of day most of the time.)

I don't think it helped that they had two Contests arcs for May when they never tried this before. In retrospect, May probably would have benefited more with just a single Contest arc like Dawn had. She would have lost a couple of more Contests and had a more believable start.

I disagree with this. Sure, she would have gotten more losses, and we would have seen her struggle for her goals more. We got two Grand Festivals, we could see how much she grew between them. And since it's unlikely we would ever get info on her standings in Leagues outside her tenure as a main character, it was the only chance we'd get (and so far, it was the only chance we got) to see her growth. Plus, we saw two different Mays for each arc: One who went into Contests as a newbie, and one where we see her more confident and knowledged. It mirrored Ash's Kanto and Johto Badge arcs in that respect.

(Also you gave me deeper and fuller perspective on the issue. Thanks, Mewily!)

@RememberingGOODPokemon; mind if I change the title to something that accurately reflects the topic?

 

[Cybersai]

Just curious but is there a reason why May, who didn't know anything about pokemon when she first met Ash, won 5 out of 7 contests (which should be a lot harder to win than a gym battle)? It wouldn't be as bad either but when she won 2 of her first 3 tournaments you didn't even see her train at all. Just think the jump she made was a little unrealistic (even for pokemon). Thoughts?

And with May making a huge jump in a short amout of time, if I remember right Ash earned 4 out of his first 5 by being a good, kind kid. And Ash really didn't become a great trainer until around the 7th gym badge he got. (Back in Kanto

May was only around for 4 years, while Ash is around for 16+ years. Its obvious May's development was, "sped up" because she was in the anime for a shorter timeframe and the writers wanted to do all they could with her.

If you want to see a coordinator who gets her ribbons at a slower pace, you'll see that with Dawn when you get to DP.

 

[Hidden Mew]

Didn't Dawn try the Hearthome Contest twice? I could be wrong, though, since I think I missed the first time she battled. But every Contest varies in opponents, usually varying in skill. You could run into amateurs or Champions, and from what I've seen, you'll running into amateurs and rivals more often than not. Granted, Contests have something over Gyms: with different opponents, you have more variety. Whereas Gyms have one type, allowing you to strategize more ahead of time. (But then again, with Contests, you'll have seen how the person performs in previous rounds.)

I'm pretty sure that Dawn only entered the Hearthome City Contest twice. Maybe you're thinking of that Pokemon fashion contest she participated in one of the times they got to Hearthome City and the Gym was closed. Contests can be mostly filled with amateurs and rivals more than anything else, but there are still more hoops to get through to win a Contest ribbon than to win a Gym badge. There is more variety in the opponents in Contests, but that also makes it tricky since Coordinators won't have much time to train against specific opponents unless they're really familiar with the other Coordinators.

And I do think training is very important and would show how hard a character works. May definitely should have worked harder. However, I also think that you don't need training to make every win believable. Most of May's wins seemed pretty legit to me when I was a kid. As a kid, it all seemed very believable (aside from Combusken's battles, because that thing was lucky to ever see the light of day most of the time.)

I thought that her wins were believable when I first saw the episodes too, although since I haven't seen most of AG in a long time, I'm not sure if all of them are as believable as I remember.

I disagree with this. Sure, she would have gotten more losses, and we would have seen her struggle for her goals more. We got two Grand Festivals, we could see how much she grew between them. And since it's unlikely we would ever get info on her standings in Leagues outside her tenure as a main character, it was the only chance we'd get (and so far, it was the only chance we got) to see her growth. Plus, we saw two different Mays for each arc: One who went into Contests as a newbie, and one where we see her more confident and knowledged. It mirrored Ash's Kanto and Johto Badge arcs in that respect.

We did get to see how much she grew between those two Grand Festivals and that was good, but I think she would have had a more realistic start with a couple of more losses in the Hoenn arc. I think that might have been better to do than just having two Grand Festivals in the long run, especially when I don't think it hurt Dawn to only be in one Grand Festival during her run in the main cast.

(Also you gave me deeper and fuller perspective on the issue. Thanks, Mewily!)

You're welcome. ^_^

 

[Master Cyrus]

Ash at the end of Ag was as good a coordinator as May.

End of DP Ash could probably trounce her in both.

BW Ash would lose easily at both.