Now that DP is finally over, what are your final thoughts on Dawn's character?
To be honest, I never understood what the Dawn hype was about. I enjoyed her development and funny moments, but Dawn never came off as a truly, "fresh," or "unique" character to me. So much of her character was based off things we had seen previously with both Ash and May. The parallel's with Ash were blatantly obvious, such as the Mamoswine/Charizard story, Piplup pulling a Pikachu, her having the same determination toward Contests as Ash for Gyms, etc. She was probably the most like Ash than any of the previous girls.
I honestly feel as if Dawn's personality didn't change much over the course of DP at all. While she improved in terms of contests and stopped crying, her overall personality isn't much different now than it was in the beginning of DP. You could watch an early ep of DP27 and then DP 181, and Dawn seems like the same character in both. Speaking of her personality, sometimes her dialogue seemed completely interchangeable with May's. If their voices sounded the same and you didn't look at the screen, sometimes you wouldn't be able to tell the difference between Dawn and May. And when it wasn't that, she came off as being way too similar to Ash and practically his double.
Lastly, the thing that bothered me the most about her was the character interaction. Her interactions with both the main cast and her rivals left a lot to be desired. The DP trio felt like the most forced, artificial and fake group of the shows history, and the rivalries with Zoey/Kenny/Nando were nothing to write home about.
What I liked most about Dawn is how much she battled, I liked most of her pokemon, and she had some good individual or funny moments.
The fanservice was silly. Seeing Dawn prance around in a short skirt, wearing pretty dresses, and a cheerleading outfit was obviously done to attract people to her, and it was a pretty blatant and forced attempt to be honest.
Overall I feel like she was an OK character who while going through great development, was let down by lackluster character interaction, repeating too much of Ash and May's old personality traits, and not really bringing anything truly new to the anime.
Iris in particular really does seem like a breath of fresh air, so I think Dawn was mostly used as, "filler" to bridge the gap until the writers truly had new material to work with.
To be honest, I never understood what the Dawn hype was about. I enjoyed her development and funny moments, but Dawn never came off as a truly, "fresh," or "unique" character to me. So much of her character was based off things we had seen previously with both Ash and May. The parallel's with Ash were blatantly obvious, such as the Mamoswine/Charizard story, Piplup pulling a Pikachu, her having the same determination toward Contests as Ash for Gyms, etc. She was probably the most like Ash than any of the previous girls.
I honestly feel as if Dawn's personality didn't change much over the course of DP at all. While she improved in terms of contests and stopped crying, her overall personality isn't much different now than it was in the beginning of DP. You could watch an early ep of DP27 and then DP 181, and Dawn seems like the same character in both. Speaking of her personality, sometimes her dialogue seemed completely interchangeable with May's. If their voices sounded the same and you didn't look at the screen, sometimes you wouldn't be able to tell the difference between Dawn and May. And when it wasn't that, she came off as being way too similar to Ash and practically his double.
Lastly, the thing that bothered me the most about her was the character interaction. Her interactions with both the main cast and her rivals left a lot to be desired. The DP trio felt like the most forced, artificial and fake group of the shows history, and the rivalries with Zoey/Kenny/Nando were nothing to write home about.
What I liked most about Dawn is how much she battled, I liked most of her pokemon, and she had some good individual or funny moments.
The fanservice was silly. Seeing Dawn prance around in a short skirt, wearing pretty dresses, and a cheerleading outfit was obviously done to attract people to her, and it was a pretty blatant and forced attempt to be honest.
Overall I feel like she was an OK character who while going through great development, was let down by lackluster character interaction, repeating too much of Ash and May's old personality traits, and not really bringing anything truly new to the anime.
Iris in particular really does seem like a breath of fresh air, so I think Dawn was mostly used as, "filler" to bridge the gap until the writers truly had new material to work with.
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