Which contests do you prefer?

[Ashfangirl17]

Do you like D/P contests or AG contests?

As much as I am a fan of Dawn's character. I'd have to say I prefer May's, she meet new intresting characters on the sides and her rivals were fun and uniqe. Although some of May's winnings were cheap ones, they were still fun at the same time. Your opinion?

 

[Cybersai]

I've enjoyed both sets of them a lot, but I think I still prefer May's. The character interaction was just a lot better for the most part.

We also haven't seen how the rest of Dawn's contests play out yet. So far they've been pretty good, so I can't complain.

In general they've about the same, although I do dislike how CG-I heavy the appeals have gotten. Not to mention the clovers/hearts popping out from the Pokeball seals is a little overboard.

 

[Ashfangirl17]

Ignore the polls FYI I messed up on themXD
So you like Dawns contests than Scott? Cool.

 

[Mitchel]

So what's the question actually? I prefer the DP ones more, so I voted yes.

 

[beast2025]

I prefer the Diamond and Pearl contests!
They seem more realistic and you actually have to work to get a ribbon...

 

[absoluteIndignation]

May's contests were interesting because of the rivals. With Dawn, it's just all "Zoey Zoey Zoey Zoey kenny nando Zoey Zoey Zoey". With May, it didn't just focused too much on Drew or Harley. She also had interesting one-shot rivals (like that guy with the Dusclops pre-evolution... I forgot the name...).

As for Dawn, it's nice to see that she's not winning all her contests. It's logical that way because unlike May who won quite a lot of contests right away in Hoenn and in Kanto even though she was only a beginner, she lost a couple now.

Dawn's character development was interesting too. I was pretty annoyed of how she's so confident of her ability at first even though she hasn't even tried a contest. Just look at her now. One ribbon and with the consecutive losses, her ego was deflated greatly. But it was nice that she was able to get her confidence back up after having that match with Maylene.

Overall, I don't really know which one I prefer most. We have yet to see all of Dawn's contests. (And to my shame, I'd forgotten most of May's contests... ._.)

 

[Cybersai]

Overall, I don't really know which one I prefer most. We have yet to see all of Dawn's contests. (And to my shame, I'd forgotten most of May's contests... ._.)

Yeah, that's generally the problem with this comparison. We've only in the beginning phase of Dawn's arc, and we have no clue how the rest of her Contests will play out yet.

The other thing is, as you said, most people have forgotten some of May's Contests. As far as I know AG isn't rerun on TV anywhere, and unless you have these eps taped or online, people are going to be forgetting these older episodes. Shame, because there were a lot of really good ones too, Contests were considered the most popular addition to the show when Hoenn was airing for the first time.

Both arcs have their good and bad points, there are a lot of good moments for both. I don't know why we have to pick one or the other when I've enjoyed both arcs.

 

[Extreme]

I like the DP ones because they seem to be harder and more fun to watch.

 

[LightningTopaz]

To me, there isn't very much difference, as D/P seems to be R/S/E with suits and dresses.

Now if the D/P contests incorporated some of the game Super contest stuff (eg. Dawn on a DDR-like machine freestyling with her Pokemon for the dance contest), I might be interested

 

[Nando]

Dawn's. I find her more likeable than May, her rivals developed more thoroughly (at least in the case of Zoey), and her performances much more believeable. Keep in mind May never failed once to reach the second round and Dawn's failed twice in a row.

 

[Cybersai]

her rivals developed more thoroughly (at least in the case of Zoey),

Her rivals are developed? All of them are exactly the same now as they were in their introductions. Kenny is the only one that's remotely interesting because of the childhood connection, Nando is one-dimensional and Zoey doesn't have much depth to her either.

But of course that wouldn't be a problem if they actually had good chemistry together, which aside from Dawn/Kenny, they don't tend to have. Zoey could potentially improve if they give her a back story in the future however. Nando seems rather tacked on to be honest, so there's not much to say about him.

The character interaction in the D/P Contests is probably the worst part about them, it seems to me that the fandom is trying to add depth to characters that the writers themselves didn't give.

Keep in mind May never failed once to reach the second round and Dawn's failed twice in a row.

May always made it to the second round just barely. In nearly all the scoreboards, she was dead last to squeeze through. Her appeals never received very high marks until the Battle Frontier appeals, which made sense since she was experienced later on.

 

[Nando]

And May's rivals were all that much better? Besides Harley, Drew was nothing more than a "pretty" version of Gary, and Robert/Soledad were pretty much your typical league-only rivals transplanted into Contests, and none of them really ever got backstories until the very end of Battle Frontier when we learned so very little about Drew's past.

I also seriously doubt Dawn is going to pull anything near the number of dues-ex victories that May did. Seriously, some of May's "victories" brought back memories of Ash's gyms in Kanto.

 

[Cybersai]

And May's rivals were all that much better? Besides Harley, Drew was nothing more than a "pretty" version of Gary, and Robert/Soledad were pretty much your typical league-only rivals transplanted into Contests, and none of them really ever got backstories until the very end of Battle Frontier when we learned so very little about Drew's past.

I don't really count Robert/Solidad since they were only at the very end. Drew/May's interactions were more fun to watch than Zoey/Dawn's. There was tension between them, and when they and Harley were all together in the same episodes, the sparks really did fly.

This is, of course, not counting all the other coordinators we got in Hoenn. Grace, the Phantom (Timmy), Savannah, Kelly, Erika, Brianna and the Salaryman were all amusing characters that brought a different dynamic to the Contest arc and gave us a break from the Drew/Harley dynamic. They all brought out a different angle in the Contest arc that we would have never otherwise gotten.

That's honestly something I'm disappointed about this time, the D/P arc hasn't given us any one-shot coordinators like AG did. Hopefully I'm speaking too soon and we do get some one-shots in the future.

I also seriously doubt Dawn is going to pull anything near the number of dues-ex victories that May did. Seriously, some of May's "victories" brought back memories of Ash's gyms in Kanto.

We've only ever seen Dawn win 1 ribbon, we have to wait to see how the rest of her Contests play out. Not to mention Piplup using Bide a number of times in the Prinplup match to win sort of borders on that. Considering this isn't the games, the writers can make Piplup's bide attack as strong as they want (in D/P1 it takes out 3 Ariados in one shot), and considering Dawn uses Piplup a hell of a lot more than her other Pokemon, its honestly not that different. Piplup vs. Prinplup was a decent match, but its another case of an unevolved form beating it evolved counterpart while using Bide to bring down points.

However I do really like the D/P Contests as well, as I said in my first post I'm enjoying them, I just hope we get some good stuff in the future. After all, Contests didn't become a staple of the anime for no reason. You could arguably say Contests have taken over the entire anime, as 2 out of the 3 main girls do them and as D/P gets more episodes under its belt, the majority of the seasons in the anime will have Contests in them.

 

[Nando]

Fair enough.

Just one point about all the one-shot rivals from May's tenure: try applying the same rule to them that you have to Nando, who you say should have remained a one-shot himself. I think you find upon doing that that a lot of them were proverbial one-trick ponies too.

 

[xRubyx]

AG has Drew....so yea ;D