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The pacing of the contest rivals in DP

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Cybersai

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I decided to run through the DP episode list to see how many times each contest rival (excluding Jessie, since she's in every ep), appeared. Keep in mind I don't count flashbacks or silent cameos.

Zoey: 15 episodes
Kenny: 6 episodes (although only 3 appearances, they were all two parters)
Ursula: 3 episodes
Nando: 3 episodes

Why do you think there's such a huge gap between the appearances of Dawn's rivals?

The writers made a really big deal out of Zoey, constantly showing her between almost every Gym gap, she even stayed for multiple eps like at Snowpoint or in the Wallace Cup, yet the other three rivals have only a handful of appearances.

Anyone else think they could have divided up the screentime between the rivals better?
 
Zoey's the main rival. Makes sense that she'd get the most screentime.

You could include her in the ranks of Paul and Barry. She plays the role of the interchangable 4th Party member.

The others aren't as privileged. The ranking seems drawn up smartly though. Kenny is 2nd, and then Nando and Ursula are tied.
 
I really wish Ursula was introduced much earlier in the saga. She deserved more than just a handful of episodes.
 
One must also consider what each of the characters do in their appearences, rather then just appearences alone.

With Nando, there's the gimmick of not only being a rival of Dawn's but one of Ash's as well. We might be seeing alot of him in both the Grand Festival and the Sinnoh League.

With Ursala, it makes some sense that she was introduced so late. Remember that Harley was only introduced when May was getting her fourth Ribbon as well, which could be considered late in the Hoenn saga. We don't really know how much longer DP might be so I wouldn't be totally surprised if we had a long wait for Gen V. So don't bury DP just yet. Who knows, we might come across Ursala in a non-contest setting (or at least I hope so just to see what kind of interaction takes place).
 
PDL said:
One must also consider what each of the characters do in their appearences, rather then just appearences alone.

With Nando, there's the gimmick of not only being a rival of Dawn's but one of Ash's as well. We might be seeing alot of him in both the Grand Festival and the Sinnoh League.

With Ursala, it makes some sense that she was introduced so late. Remember that Harley was only introduced when May was getting her fourth Ribbon as well, which could be considered late in the Hoenn saga. We don't really know how much longer DP might be so I wouldn't be totally surprised if we had a long wait for Gen V. So don't bury DP just yet. Who knows, we might come across Ursala in a non-contest setting (or at least I hope so just to see what kind of interaction takes place).
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I agree with everything that was said here,specially the last part.That Wynut episode,episodes where Barry(Im tired of looking up for the Eps,you know wich ones Im refering to) is a supportive character and those rare Episodes with Gary in Kanto and Jotho prove that Rivals in episodes based on non-competitive settings are automatically interesting.
 
Let's see:

Naoshi: The Robert/Saori clone. The mystical guy who rarely appears, and wins against everyone.
Urara: Harley clone. Introduced later, returns later.
Kengo: Not so important secondary rival.
Nozomi: Main rival and mentor. Obviously she would get most.
 
I still think Ursula deserved more screentime. It could also be a kind of confrontation between Pachuristu (pardon spelling) and Gabite, aswell as Ash's Gible.
 
The reason Ursula being introduced late is bothersome is because this time DP is ending and we might not be seeing these characters after this generation.

Harley got to stay for a whole second saga, Ursula's next appearance will probably be just the Grand Festival and after that she might not ever appear again.

The writers really should have divided up screentime better. Its a shame that a great character like Ursula has less appearances than someone like Kenny. :/
 
Yah, I'm not sure why Ursula got introuced late in the series, if only she was Kenny's place. She could have been a much better second rival than Kenny.
 
Yeah. Ursula felt like your typical 'Contest Rival of the Day' in her first appearance, completely with a 1-episode victory. Maybe that's all she was going to be at first. And then, for whatever reason, she was brought back. Seeing as how popularity polls for the Pokemon anime are apparently non-existent, there's no way to cite her return as being 'because the fans liked her'.

Perhaps they wanted to peg her as a late-saga rival. We haven't seen Nando or Kenny much these days.
 
The only true one-shot contest rival was Yuri with Delcatty. Everyone else was probably planned to be recurring, remember Ursula promised "revenge" on Dawn after she lost in that first contest.

The writers pretty much stopped the one-shot contest rivals. There were the most in Hoenn because the writers needed to show us what coordinators were actually like, so they showed a variety of different characters. In BF there were only two new ones, and in DP only 1.
 
Yes, that has been brought up before. They are phasing them out. There have been topics before discussing whether or not people thought this was a change for the better or for worse.

D&P probably had the perfect median. BF... not so much. 4-5 reoccuring rivals with 1-2 CotD rivals fleshes it out better than... 2 reoccuring and 2-3 one-shot rivals. (of course, D&P's extented pacing helped to flesh that out too).

Now we get a rather full compliment at the Grand Festival. Familiar faces without too much fodder in between. Much better than the instant-rivals.
 
It's not surprising at all that Ursula appeared so late... I already explained a few times why Dawn had to get friendly rivals
After she got over her confidence problems, they allowed her to get a "mean" rival like Ursula - but before that it would be stupid to give her Ursula to crush her even more than she already was... she needed support, not even more depression...
It's too bad people apparently want Dawn to be identical to May and don't appreciate the writers try to make her a character by herself rather than a clone... and it's the same Scott who hoped Dawn will be different than May that now wish she would be more similar to her...

Anyway, stop thinking too much about everything Scott... do you even enjoy the show anymore? it seems hard to enjoy when you overanalyze evertything like that
Oh and I like the idea to stop with useless one shot Coordinators... it's hard to care about a character we see once and never again, better focus on recurring characters
 
I am surprised that for a secondary rival, Kenny didn't appear anywhere near as much as we thought he would. The guy technically only has 3 appearances, and he should have been seem more.

I don't get why they don't just put Kenny in filler episodes from time to time.
 
Scott85 said:
I don't get why they don't just put Kenny in filler episodes from time to time.
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Because he's bland...

I think it's great that we've had stronger rivalries in DP's contest arc, because we have familiar face at the Grand Festival and each of the matches has more significance because there's a story behind it. None of the rivals shoud have appeared more or less IMO...
 
I must be weird,I liked all the ROTD in the Hoenn saga...then again,it is true that it was only to introduce us to contest but still...
 
Gible said:
Because he's bland...
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Then why create his character in the first place?

DP has shown that it can create great new characters, even short-lived ones like Holly and Angie.

When DP first started I thought the writers were going to do something interesting with Kenny. Sadly, it never happened. The Pikari nickname wasn't even resolved in an episode he was present for.
 
Scott85 said:
The Pikari nickname wasn't even resolved in an episode he was present for.
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Well, to me it makes sense to reveal this in Ursula's ep rather than Kenny's... Kenny likes Dawn and would never try to use her trauma to beat her like Ursula did
I doubt it'd be as interesting as it was if Kenny was there instead of Ursula in the last Contest
This is also a perfect example of how much Dawn matured since her depression days - she won't accept defeat so fast as she used to, she's doing her best to go on and win no matter what happens!
Also, at least they did show us Kenny and Leona during Dawn's flashback... it was actually a pretty detailed flashback and both of them even talked in it so it wasn't just a cameo in the background
 
Yep. It just seemed to me with Kenny's early debut way back in DP25 that he was going to be a much more important character.

I guess they felt his personality wasn't strong enough for a lot of appearances.
 
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