The merging of the contest plots

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FabuVinny

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It has to happen. Not any time soon, but at some point it makes sense that Hikari, May and their rivals will merge into one big contest storyline. The most likely way this would happen is if the group visit Johto but any post-Sinnoh saga could work. (May, Drew and Harley should rightfully have 5 ribbons each by that point but maybe they are waiting for the Grand Festival.)

A big Grand Festival between the lot of them would be great, especially as a big farewell if the writers ditch contests for a new subplot in Generation V (which solely depends on what Game Freak decides to do with the games.)

With Hikari only getting started there's still plenty of development to be done on her side but I just want to see when Drew and Nozomi discover they have the same farewell wave. :-D
 
I think if we were going to see Contests go bai-bai for another concept in the games/anime, Pokemon Rangers would have been what did it.

Can't really imagine anything else coming up to do it as almost anything that doesn't fall into battling with Pokemon or protecting them pretty much falls under contests.

Hikari vs May at some point is a certain must though. Mind you, I'm rather disappointed that May and Misty never had a battle - would have been a nice touch.
 
That would work for what I'd like to see. (After Sinnoh, the group goes to Johto, Hikari for Contests and Ash for a Battle Frontier-type run through the Colosseums from PBR)
 
It's going to be a "The Princess and the Togepi" series of episodes except longer . . The gang runs into May, Max and Drew and YAY BIG REUNION! Can't wait for that. Ahhhh!
 
That would be intresting if the gang all meet with May/Drew/Harley maybe? And have them all including Hikari and Nozomi enter them. I wouldn't mind seeing some thing like that for an episode. Than for a send off of Hikari maybe May could ask Hikari if she wants to join her to travel with and enter in many different contests together.
 
This idea meets with my approval!! :D :D

If nothing else, Harley and Jessie need to meet up again. But mainly, I want to see Hikari interact with May/Drew. (love-triangle? plz?)

Ash journeying through Johto for a Battle Frontier-esque mini-arc would be the best way to do it, I imagine, unless everyone goes to the Sevii Islands or something. Actually, maybe both sets of characters meeting up in a different region would be better... the Johto Grand Festival would have to take place around the same time as the Shinou League, so even if Ash went to Johto straight after finishing up in Shinou, we'd hardly have any time until the GF started. And it's not like Hikari and Nozomi could enter the Johto GF without any ribbons. It would have to be a different tournament, but in that case, why would May/Drew/Harley stick around when they've already done Johto?

I can see the appeal of Hoenn being the next destination. The BF set a precedent for revisiting an old region, it would give us an opportunity to see Max again, and there's something appropriate about returning to May's home region when the BF was a return to Ash's home region. However, there's no marketing reason to use Hoenn, so scratch that idea.

I guess another possibility is that there will be no filler saga after DP. What could happen is that the Shinou and Johto GFs are a kind of joint-affair, and Hikari and May plus rivals end up entering it together. But that would mean that May, Drew, Harley and Soledad would all be rushed in at the last minute and would either be turned into last minute rivals for Hikari, or steal the spotlight from her entirely. Either way, it wouldn't be good.

I have to wonder, though, what happens if the new region comes and the contests are still the big secondary quest. Especially if Hikari gets bumped for yet another female co-ordinator sidekick. Will we end up with a really huge crossover ten years down the line?

Even without adding in a ton of new characters, I think an issue with all the existing co-ordinators entering the same GF is the hierarchy. As it currently stands, the order of strength is something like Soledad > Drew/May > Harley > Nozomi > Hikari. By the time we're done with the Shinou GF, Hikari and Nozomi could have switched around and/or maybe even surpassed Harley, though probably not May or Drew. But if Hikari's still the main character for all of this, how's it going to work when she's competing against all the AG co-ordinators? Drew, Harley and Soledad are May's rivals, not Hikari's; is she going to temporarily 'steal' them away from May? Will they not appear at all, having gone somewhere else? Or will May be the main character for substantial portions of the story?
 
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GameFreak has done all they can with Contests in D/P. Its fairly obvious that even if Contests return in the 5th gen, they'll also have some new sidequest in it to make the 5th gen look fresh.

The writers are already pushing it with two coordinators in a row, three coordinator girls in a row would be overkill. Between May and Hikari the writers will have done all they could with the Contest arcs, and the only reason they're getting away with doing a second coordinator is because Hikari's story is going down a different path than May's went.

Really, what can a third coordinator girl do that wasn't already done by May or Hikari? May had the shoujo aspect of a pretty boy who hit on her throughout all of AG and a flamboyant gay man that everyone liked, and Hikari dresses up in pretty dresses and has a lesbian for a rival. Add in all the one-shot coordinators that May had and the ones Hikari will have, and that takes up all you could do.

As much as I love Contests, after D/P ends I think Contests need a break. Since Hikari is bound to leave at the end of D/P, the 5th gen girl should do something new.

I do agree the best way to bid farewell to Contests in the main anime is to reunite all the coordinators for one final tournament together. IMO, it would be nice to see May finally win a Grand Festival if this were the case. Even if Hikari would be our main character at the moment, it would be sweet to see May and Hikari in the finals and May finally come home with the trophy. Since Hikari will only be at her second GF, while it would be May's 4th (after Johto ends and whatever the next one is), I'd like to see May's story wrapped up with her being the winner and Hikari maybe coming in second. It would be like May is the "main rival" of the saga like Richie/Harrison/Tyson while Hikari is our main character, so we'd accept Hikari losing to the more experienced coordinator and it would allow May to finally become a Top coordinator. Sorry Drew, but you'll have to settle for 4th place or something. :p

The problem with this scenario is there would be too many characters, (even if Solidad doesn't show up, there's still three rivals between the others), so we'd have to have like a 7-10 episode Grand Festival instead of the normal three-episode ones we've had until now.

It would be the best way to watch Hikari go out and see May/Drew/Harley again to boot. And Blaziken Vs. Emperte in the finals would be very, very cool.
 
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I'd love to see Hikari and May battle in a contest sometime.

I think the biggest problem that could come out of it though is deciding who would win the match, because unlike all previous cases of a main character battling a character of the day or rival, we'd have two main characters battling. Logically the more expierienced one should win, but their is also the temptation to have the "current" main character win, just because that one has the most focus put on them at that moment. You also have the added dimension of the large fanbases behind each character, which means there are a lot more people to dissapoint one way or the other.

It is one argument against creating more than one main character with the same goals; you have people who care about both characters and want both of them to reach their goal, but if the situation is that only one can achieve the goal (especially if they are competing for some exclusive title like "World's Greatest *blank*"), who takes precidence?
 
Rocketshipper said:
I think the biggest problem that could come out of it though is deciding who would win the match, because unlike all previous cases of a main character battling a character of the day or rival, we'd have two main characters battling. Logically the more expierienced one should win, but their is also the temptation to have the "current" main character win, just because that one has the most focus put on them at that moment. You also have the added dimension of the large fanbases behind each character, which means there are a lot more people to dissapoint one way or the other.
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Maybe they'll do the same thing they did with Ash Vs. May at the end of AG, and have them tie and split the ribbon.

It is one argument against creating more than one main character with the same goals; you have people who care about both characters and want both of them to reach their goal, but if the situation is that only one can achieve the goal (especially if they are competing for some exclusive title like "World's Greatest *blank*"), who takes precidence?
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True, but main characters on the group are apparently never allowed to win tournaments. As we said, since May isn't a main character anymore, perhaps her position can move into the "league rival" type character like Robert/Solidad are in and win the Grand Festival.

As long as Hikari puts up a good fight before going down, I'm sure the writers can handle it well. It would only be her second Grand Festival, compared to May's 4th Grand Festival, so there is quite a big gap between how long the two were coordinating. Normally this doesn't mean much, but May doesn't have to deal with the "main character always loses in the leagues" syndrome anymore since she's not on the cast. Hikari would still be victim to that.
 
Special multi-part episode involving May, Hikari, Drew, Harley, Soledad, Nozomi, et al for the title of World's Greatest Coordinator---a Global Grand Festival?
 
Special multi-part episode involving May, Hikari, Drew, Harley, Soledad, Nozomi, et al for the title of World's Greatest Coordinator---a Global Grand Festival?
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National. The regions we've seen are all part of the same country.

They could just as easily do a National Pokemon League episode, eventually - Ash, Gary, Richie, Harrison, Tyson, Morrison, Shinji, Casey, and Sakura all in one big tournament.
 
Zeta said:
They could just as easily do a National Pokemon League episode, eventually - Ash, Gary, Richie, Harrison, Tyson, Morrison, Shinji, Casey, and Sakura all in one big tournament.
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Yep, aside from Gary and Shinji though, most people don't really care about any of the other Ash rival characters as they're mostly one-dimensional. And since Gary isn't collecting badges anymore, he can't exactly get into a league for free.

Pretty much another reason the Contest arcs are well liked, the rival characters are fleshed out so much more. Drew got more character development than Gary did, and Harley was always entertaining. They also played off May extremely well, and I hope Nozomi proves to be a good one too once we see more of her.
 
Gary: I wouldn't say he's one-dimensional. We just don't see him that much and his personality seems to change at the drop of that hat. For all we know, he could be having fantastic life-changing events and epiphanies happening behind the scenes. I would get more into him, but I haven't seen the Silver Conference, don't remember his late Kanto and Johto appearances very well, and don't really feel like his randomness deserves defending.

Richie: Yeah.

Harrison: We saw him in what? Three episodes? Eh, I don't even know what he looks like. :/ Really, though, using him as evidence for a lack of depth in Ash's rivals is like doing to the same thing Robert and May.

Tyson: Meowth-in-Boots so beats him as a character.

Morrison: He wasn't the deepest character, but he was definetly deeper than others. He was kind of like a more n00by version of Ash, but Misty's twin brother and having the ability to hold a crush (he so liked Ash, admit it).

Casey: I so love this girl. She's one of my favorite characters in all of Pokémon! :D And everyone hates her. D: She's so frantic, bizzare, and naive that it's hilarious. She also gets along with Ash well. I mean, he gave her a Pokémon for no particular reason. Aww. :D Shove off, Morrison, Ash is Casey's man! Well, he is in my crazy fantasy world. What I wish was her goal was more defined and that she would actually make some progress (why tf did she not challange Misty!?). I liked her Hoso, but I would have also liked to see her actually get into a league; she really should have faced Ash in the Silver Conference. Stupid writers and their stupid lack of focus and long-term planning...

Sakura: Blah. Everyone hates Casey but no one ever complains about this generic piece of purple hair dye.

Comparing Ash's rivals to May's rivals is pretty unfair, though. Ash's rivals are from a time where the writing isn't as up to par as it is know, where everyone's actually developed. As Shinji shows us, his rivals can have great potential. I bet ya if Ash actually had recurring rivals throughout AG (Brendan and Wally, we wanted you. :( ) the gym arc would have been just as good as the contest arc... which, again, Shinji shows us is true with the whole first D/P gym thing I've been hearing about.

...the hell did I write all this? Oh, look at the time. Half an hour til midnight. Just ignore this. :/
 
^ I said aside from Gary/Shinji. :p

Although, I did like Morrison a lot. He wasn't really a deep character, but he was funny.

Casey was nice, but Hikari does the happy-go-lucky girl much better than she did.
 
As we said, since May isn't a main character anymore, perhaps her position can move into the "league rival" type character like Robert/Solidad are in and win the Grand Festival.
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But she WAS a main character, and she'd obviously bring back a strong fanbase with her, which wouldn't be the case if she was just a normal league rival type.

I certainly hope the "main characters can't win leagues/festivals" axiom doesn't hold true forever ^^;. They've got to let Ash win a league someday, or we'll all go crazy.

Your arguments are pretty sound, and I do agree about May probably being the one who would win. I was just pointing out that having two main characters battle has the potential to create sort of a paradox with the fans ^^. We're supposed to identify with and root for the main character to suceed, but if an old main character is replaced by a new one with the same goal, and they face eachother, you end up having to betray your devotion to a character one way or the other ^^. Do you renounce all the support you felt for the old character and root for the new one, or do you go with the old one and devalue the new main character? (This Old vs New character paradox is one of the things that annoyes me about yugioh GX)
 
This Old vs New character paradox is one of the things that annoyes me about yugioh GX
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We've only got two of those, and one was against random Pegasus goons.
 
I think May vs Hikari with May winning would be the best and obvious way to go, but it raises the question of what's done with Drew and Harley. They're May's rivals, and she ought to be the one facing them, but that means that Hikari would have to be standing around watching May battle for long stretches of time. And that's without taking Soledad into account.
 
Rocketshipper said:
But she WAS a main character, and she'd obviously bring back a strong fanbase with her, which wouldn't be the case if she was just a normal league rival type.
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But after four years of D/P, May will still have a fanbase with her, but just like Misty, she'll just be a recurring character in the series. Which means she'll win. There is going to be the people that flip out when May comes back and are say "IS SHE COMING BACK ON THE SERIES!? I HOPE SO!" because that's who they've been waiting for to appear all D/P and then there will be (I'm thinking it would be the majority) the people who, when May comes back, will just say, "Oh wow! That's cool, and I like her new outfit!" but they're not going to flip out if May doesn't come back.
 
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