So is it now a bit more obvious why Hilda wasn't a main character this gen?

[Cybersai]

Since Hilda isn't in BW2, that means Hilda only had what...roughly 2 years to be the star female in the game? Unlike May and Dawn, who were basically the main females for their entire generations, (aside from FRLG and HGSS), Hilda is only considered the main female for half of Gen 5 in the games.

I think if the writers knew Hilda wasn't going to be the main female for both gens, they'd have to replace her when BW2 came out, essentially bringing in 2 new girls for Gen V. Instead by going with Iris, they don't have to bother with the two game females this gen and they can be ignored.

 

[Peachy]

This is a good point. If the writers knew that Hilda would only be in the spotlight for half of this gen, I guess they didn't want to mess with her.

 

[Silktree]

That argument only works if B2W2 are going to be heavily adapted by the anime.

 

[Piplup]

It's pretty obvious that BW2 having new heroes and not the original BW ones was at least one of the reasons we didn't get Hilda on the main cast... Iris will probably stay as a Gym Leader in BW2 (probably the only Gym Leader, while Drayden will now be the Champion as I speculated before) so she'll be relevant as a Gym Leader during the whole run of this gen, unlike BW heroes which would only be relevant as heroes for BW's half of this gen... though they might still be somewhat relevant if they appear in some role in BW2

Anyway, I still hate the fact BW heroine didn't appear, since to me she's one of (if not THE) most beautiful of all female player character
BW2's heroine is also really cute and I'd love it if at least she will be able to appear in the anime - I know it's a lost case for a main cast role, but at least some 5 eps arc like Lyra got? or even just... one ep? something? anything? I'll take whatever they'll do with her over nothing at all...

Guess we'll have to wait and see about BW2's heroine, though now that pretty much kills any hope for the original BW heroine...

 

[BugMite]

I always just figured she wasn't brought into the cast because, without Contests or something similar to replace them, she wouldn't have been given a main quest (Ash of course already takes the role of challenging gyms), but instead just given a "non-main" goal (like with Misty, Brock, Iris, etc.) and with a supporting role in the group.

 

[Spindae2]

but for now we don't see Bianca either in the games! But i get it she isn't "the" main girl. But she could've been a rival at least, with so many female rivals, poor designed. Hilda is the best designed female PC ever(my opinion of course followed by leaf, new girl, lyra, dawn may) she really deserved a place in the anime. But hope does at least we never know maybe she appears.

BUT : It's clear why she didn't got main status, cause they are rushing through this very fast and I think we will get gen6 next year and with a side female quest this fast passing! couldn't survive! XD But it's the writers choice what and how to do it! I REPEAT IT'S SUCH A HUGE MISTAKE THEY DIDN'T USED HER (((((((((

 

[Hidden Mew]

I always just figured she wasn't brought in to the cast because, without Contests or something similar to replace them, she wouldn't have been given a main quest (Ash of course already takes the role of challenging gyms), but instead just given a "non-main" goal (like with Misty, Brock, Iris, etc.) and with a supporting role in the group.

I also think that was the main reason why she wasn't brought into the main cast. Without Contests or anything that they could adapt from the games to make a new sidequest, she wouldn't be able to have a battle themed journey. Given their treatment of May and Dawn, they wouldn't want a playable character from the games not being battle active. They probably knew about B2/W2 when they were planning out the series, or at least that the female character wouldn't be the same in all of the games, but that was probably minor compared to the lack of a sidequest that they could adapt in the anime.

 

[Ghetsis-Dennis]

It's theories like these why I fear Iris has a higher chance at appearing in the next SSB title for the Wii U and 3DS as one of the BW reps and a female trainer rep because of her possible attendance in both games and her performance in the anime, which is how half of the Pokemon reps got in the game in the first place. If this is the case, then I rather have an original female sidekick in the anime than Iris since pure anime/manga characters aren't allowed in SSB thus giving Hilda and Leia a better chance.

 

[Piplup]

I always just figured she wasn't brought into the cast because, without Contests or something similar to replace them, she wouldn't have been given a main quest (Ash of course already takes the role of challenging gyms), but instead just given a "non-main" goal (like with Misty, Brock, Iris, etc.) and with a supporting role in the group.

It is probably right that they want to use player character only for a starring role (Ash, May, Dawn) and never as just sidekicks (Misty, Brock, Tracey, Max, Iris, Cilan)
But if they really wanted to use the heroine or to have a girl star again, then they could continue Contests regardless of the games... they could even fuse Contests with Musical for the anime in order to still make it game-related... or they could come up with a new idea (either game based or an original anime idea) for a new plot thing the girl can do
They really COULD and at least in my opinion should've given us another girl star like Dawn... why did they make the girl a sidekick again? probably a combination of these reasons:
1) for some reason decided it's not worth it trying to appeal to girls with the anime (which is weird cause games/cards/etc surely didn't give up on girls)
2) they wanted to "remake" Kanto like how BW reference Kanto in many ways so they gave us Ash + two Gym Leaders
3) they knew the BW heroes won't be the "current" heroes for all of this gen's run

I just wonder now if gen 6's anime will continue in this way of Ash being the only star or if they'll give a female star another chance...

 

[Hidden Mew]

It is probably right that they want to use player character only for a starring role (Ash, May, Dawn) and never as just sidekicks (Misty, Brock, Tracey, Max, Iris, Cilan)
But if they really wanted to use the heroine or to have a girl star again, then they could continue Contests regardless of the games... they could even fuse Contests with Musical for the anime in order to still make it game-related... or they could come up with a new idea (either game based or an original anime idea) for a new plot thing the girl can do
They really COULD and at least in my opinion should've given us another girl star like Dawn... why did they make the girl a sidekick again? probably a combination of these reasons:
1) for some reason decided it's not worth it trying to appeal to girls with the anime (which is weird cause games/cards/etc surely didn't give up on girls)
2) they wanted to "remake" Kanto like how BW reference Kanto in many ways so they gave us Ash + two Gym Leaders
3) they knew the BW heroes won't be the "current" heroes for all of this gen's run

I like the idea of combining Contests with Musicals to give them some connections to the game, such as making Musicals the appeal round and keeping the battle format relatively the same. However, I don't think that they would have done that even if they really wanted to. The writers probably didn't want to keep a sidequest that wasn't present in the current games since it wouldn't accurately promote the new games. The female trainer couldn't be a Coordinator in the B/W games like May and Dawn could.

I seriously doubt that they thought it wasn't worth appealing to girls with the anime. The anime appealed to girls before and after Contests. One could argue not as much as when Contests were present, but the appeal for both boys and girls, with more attention on boys I think, was and still is there. I also don't really see how the cards appeal more to girls than the anime does. I think that it was something more along the lines of the second reason. B/W gave off a "back to basics" kind of vibe with the Gym and evil team being the main focuses of the games with no sidequests during or after the storyline. The Unova region itself was far away from the other four regions and only had fifth generation Pokemon. They most likely wanted this reflected in the anime with Ash being the only returning main character to emphasize the isolation the Unova region has compared to the other regions and since going back to basics for the anime would involve references to Kanto, they would want Ash to travel around with two characters that are Gym Leaders in the games, although Iris is not one in the anime. The fact that the B/W trainers wouldn't be the main ones for the whole generation was probably a factor, but probably a minor detail compared to the other reasons.

I just wonder now if gen 6's anime will continue in this way of Ash being the only star or if they'll give a female star another chance...

After seeing how the writers handled Iris, I really want them to go back to giving the female character a battle active goal in the next series. They clearly don't know how to handle a character that well without a battle active goal like Gyms or Contests, with the possible exception being Cilan, and the writing around Iris' character has been absolutely horrible. At least if they brought back Contests, or introduced some new sidequest for the female character to participate in, there would be a much better chance that the female trainer would have believable development and make decent progression in her goal. Plus, as much as I like Ash, it would be nice to not have nearly all of the significant battles in a series be either his Gym or rival battles.

 

[Piplup]

However, I don't think that they would have done that even if they really wanted to. The writers probably didn't want to keep a sidequest that wasn't present in the current games since it wouldn't accurately promote the new games. The female trainer couldn't be a Coordinator in the B/W games like May and Dawn could.

Well, that's kind of why I suggested the "combine it with Musical" thing XD
Musical in-games had some similarities to Contests... it could work... I guess they just really didn't want to have a girl star again this series

The anime appealed to girls before and after Contests.

Right, but it was aimed mostly at boys during the gen 1-2 days...
With gen 3 and especially 4 - you could see in both games and anime how they tried to appeal more to girls
It's still there in gen 5 in games but not really in the anime...
You have to admit it's weird going from equal girl star to just a sidekick girl... it's not fitting with the whole gradual improvement in the appealing to girls or the importance of the girl character

I also don't really see how the cards appeal more to girls

I referred to how in Japan they released some BW TCG card sets "for boys" and "for girls" - a first time this happened, I think... first time the TCG tries to somehow appeal to girls
So I just wonder why the games and even TCG now are trying to appeal to girls while the anime stopped doing it

I guess maybe it's just that Pokémon still generally counts as a boys thing... McDonalds toys around the world gave out Pokémon as the boys toy while at the same time gave out MLP or other things as the girls toy...
Another example is how the recent CoroCoro cover featured the game hero + rival, rather than the more logical game hero + heroine, since they probably preferred to focus on the boys...

After seeing how the writers handled Iris, I really want them to go back to giving the female character a battle active goal in the next series. They clearly don't know how to handle a character that well without a battle active goal like Gyms or Contests, with the possible exception being Cilan, and the writing around Iris' character has been absolutely horrible. At least if they brought back Contests, or introduced some new sidequest for the female character to participate in, there would be a much better chance that the female trainer would have believable development and make decent progression in her goal. Plus, as much as I like Ash, it would be nice to not have nearly all of the significant battles in a series be either his Gym or rival battles.

Totally agree with this (other than hinting Cilan is somehow treated good, he's still just a sidekick despite what anyone says and personally I find him the most boring of them... but better not get into this)
Let's hope gen 6 will be a better anime series, with the games heroine being an equal star to Ash like Dawn was, wether it's with Contests (hopefully) or with some kind of new girly plot

 

[BugMite]

Do we know how long in advance Gamefreak has plans for their next big set of games? Because unless they already knew what they were going to do a couple of years after Black & White, I don't see how the anime producers and writers could have been aware of what the third installment(s) of the current generation would bring, including who the game protagonists would be.

 

[Piplup]

It's pretty obvious they know things long before we do... I'm sure they knew about BW2, at least the main basic things like the heroes...

 

[AuraSoul93]

Good point. But it would be totally stupid if Iris wasn't the Gym Leader in BW2. Something tells me that Drayden (or however you spell his name) will be the Champion if she is Gym Leader though.

 

[Piplup]

Good point. But it would be totally stupid if Iris wasn't the Gym Leader in BW2. Something tells me that Drayden (or however you spell his name) will be the Champion if she is Gym Leader though.

Yeah, as I said before, I think Iris will be the only Gym Leader in BW2, while Drayden will be the Champion (though I also suggested Hilbert being the Champion while playing as a girl and Hilda being the Champion while playing as a boy, but I find this less likely to actually happen)
But it probably won't really affect the anime anyway, Alder is the Champion, Drayden will be the only Gym Leader and Iris will eventually leave the show in order to become the new Gym Leader or to start her training to become one in the future, it's pretty obvious...

 

[Spindae2]

When U make such realize such huge projects U must have a long term plan! !

!Probably they didn't had the designs but they had the plans to make this time jump and knowing they can't use this girl for the anime! But a better thing would be if they had introduced this Sailor Moon look a like at the start as a main companion! And than flash us with her being a Main heroine!

From the Moment they created the Ice dragon they probably had made this frozen idea! Of course I don't know the whole proces but I belive they first create the Pokes, than the region and additional storylines!

For now they probably have figured out the majority of GEN VI if there will be one! and the anime has it's plan and they know now what is going to happen till the end of BW when is who and where appearing!

AND BTW Has anyone noticed how this new girl looks a lot like SAILOR MOON! Huge fan of this ANIME! And now when I look Hilda looks a lot like SAILOR JUPITER!

Good point. But it would be totally stupid if Iris wasn't the Gym Leader in BW2. Something tells me that Drayden (or however you spell his name) will be the Champion if she is Gym Leader though.

Iris and Drayden are the main difference between B and W so I think they should be on the same position! they will probably stay the leaders of Opelucid but with improved teams!

 

[El_]

I think that they could have still had Hilda, while giving the new girl some Lyra like episodes or a small arc to herself where she briefly stays with the heroes to advertise BW2.

 

[Piplup]

this Sailor Moon look a like

I seriously can't see how everyone seem to think she looks anything like Usagi... like, the only thing close to being similar is the "odango" hair, I guess, but the BW2 heroine's "odango" style is very different looking than Usagi's, and other than that I can't see any other similarities between the two... like, seriously 0__o

 

[pokemon fan 132]

Hilda in reality never even had chance to become main character in first place. There were just too many factors going against her that would require too much effort and invest for writers to bother, when they could had just use easier way and include two gym leaders in anime again. For start there was age issue having to deage her to become suitable enough to join Ash cast, and since contests stopped existing in games there wasnt any alternative quest in games for her to do. And no musicals werent option not having enough potential to turn them in long term quest, and judging by episode which introduced them being dreadfully boring im glad this concept never became something more. Of course writers could have turn her in supporting character, but since she is representative of fifth generation, she wouldnt be getting adequate exposure and development for game protagonist.

There is also whole intention of Unova being portrayed as some sort of "new start" mirroring BW games revamp, which was possible to achieve only through drastic changes. Such as going back to OS formula, Brock being replaced, references to past being reduced to mere minimum, contests being eradicated etc.

Acknowledgment of Hilda not appearing in BW2 games was just final nail in coffin for her chances to ever become major character with 2 years simply not being enough to develop character and do much with it. And since in last few years pokemon became even more focused on game promotion than it was case before sticking more with games, i doubt they would make exception and have Hilda stay for two more years after stopping to exist in games.

After seeing how the writers handled Iris, I really want them to go back to giving the female character a battle active goal in the next series. They clearly don't know how to handle a character that well without a battle active goal like Gyms or Contests, with the possible exception being Cilan, and the writing around Iris' character has been absolutely horrible. At least if they brought back Contests, or introduced some new sidequest for the female character to participate in, there would be a much better chance that the female trainer would have believable development and make decent progression in her goal. Plus, as much as I like Ash, it would be nice to not have nearly all of the significant battles in a series be either his Gym or rival battles.

I dont think treatment of Iris immediately serves as indication how are female sidekicks going to be treated in this show.Otherwise we could say how Cilan would be treated like Brock was, instead of being handled better. It depends on character goal and how much substance writers add when introducing him to determine how much screen time he is going to get. Yes Iris isnt receiving much focus, but lets face it how much you could have expected from goal which is mainly based around Axew and its evolution to Haxorous being main reason behind starting journey in first place? Same goes for Brock or Tracey,. To be fair at very least with Iris its noticeable that writers applied their improvement by defining her goal more than it was case with her sidekick precedents, received rival as well her pokemon being explored more with their personalities being allowed to flourish.

Out of all sidekicks we had, only character whose goal imo in theory was possible to expand through similar way it was case with contests was Mistys having viable way to measure character growth . Of course not nearly as much like May or Dawn quests were, but still more than it was case with other sidekicks. However she was in anime at time when writers werent experienced much in several fields.

Right, but it was aimed mostly at boys during the gen 1-2 days...
With gen 3 and especially 4 - you could see in both games and anime how they tried to appeal more to girls
It's still there in gen 5 in games but not really in the anime...
You have to admit it's weird going from equal girl star to just a sidekick girl... it's not fitting with the whole gradual improvement in the appealing to girls or the importance of the girl character

I still doubt main motive behind inclusion of contests was in attracting female audience, but rather in promoting games and giving something new on table after ratings dropped in Johto. Pokemon was massively popular among girls both before and after contests now, with female sidekicks being liked among girls just as much as female protagonists were.

 

[Piplup]

I still doubt main motive behind inclusion of contests was in attracting female audience,

It couldn't be any more obvious than it was, especially with Dawn and the DP series' Contests...

but rather in promoting games

The Contests in games were aimed at girls too... especially in the DP games... like, seriously... a pink heart shaped "fashion box"??? Pokémon dancing with accessories? (which also carried on to BW in Musicals)

Pokemon was massively popular among girls both before

Right, Pokémon started as something aimed at boys, yet many girls liked it too, that's why Crystal added the option to play as a girl and that stayed a permament thing for all future games
That's why RS (because with Crystal it was too late to make any major changes) introduced Contests and a female star in the anime
That's why DP took the whole thing one step ahead

female sidekicks being liked among girls just as much as female protagonists were.

I never said the girl sidekicks weren't loved as much, they simply weren't very active characters and didn't play a starring role
The main star was just Ash, while AG gave female viewers an active main girl with May and DP took it another step ahead with Dawn
It IS a little weird to "go back" now with the BW series to a girl sidekick, just when it seemed every girl from now on will be a main star and get at least as much as the previous girl got if not even more...