Who is Ash's worst rival in Unova

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Originally Posted by Shinneth

This is no contest; the honor of being the worst goes to Trip.

Not only is he the worst of Ash's Unova rivals, but I'd argue he's among the worst of Ash's rivals period. That includes his League-exclusive rivals. I think only the likes of Casey, Tobias, and MAYBE Ritchie are worse than Trip. Everyone else is better by a mile.

Let's just face it; he does not have anything going for him. His level of progression makes no sense because he's a fucking newbie. Imagine how awful the Pokemon series would've been if Ash defeated a trainer vastly more experienced than him in his very first trainer battle. How cheap it would be if Ash had a full team of six Pokemon (possibly more) within 10 episodes, with all of them well-trained, having nary a problem with their newb of a trainer and no initial personality clashes, in addition to at least half the team having evolved once already (Pidgeotto doesn't count since Ash caught it in that form, and the Caterpie line is supposed to evolve quickly)? It's no less cheap or lazy for this to happen with Trip.

Trip made an awful first impression as a huge-ass Gary Stu (which only mellowed out once Trip started losing tournaments), as well as visually showing us that the staff did not put more than 5 minutes into designing his character; they just color-reversed Paul and made small adjustments from there and huzzah, brand new character. It doesn't help that the first bits of info we got on Trip before BW aired (from the people who work directly with the show itself, no less!) was that he was literally called the "Shinji-like rival". He isn't exactly like Paul, of course, but it's easy to see why people would use such words to describe their first impression of him. First impressions are very important; that Trip made a very bad first impression (as well as a bad second impression later on) still reflects poorly on him today.

Most importantly, there's really nothing to Trip. They gave him a camera gimmick, but it's very forgettable, bland, and was relevant all of one time in this series so far. He has a catchphrase, but it's a boring and stupid catchphrase that Trip often contradicts anyway, so it's pointless. The only remotely unique thing about Trip is that he's a xenophobe, as he calls Ash a hick pretty much every time they meet, but that too is dull and can't even be used to its full potential because Trip knows nothing of the world outside of his own region, so he's the one who comes off as an ignorant jackass every time he claims Kanto is the boonies. They tried to implement something with him involving Alder, but it's honestly nothing special. Trip is just one kid of several who got to meet Alder and become inspired by him to become a strong trainer and one day battle and defeat him. It would've been fun if they sort of acknowledged that Trip is an idiot with his head stuck up his ass for expecting Alder to honestly remember him for all the five minutes they spent together years ago, but nope, that too was passed up on. And rather than being persistently bitter over the whole thing, they just have Trip walk away from him mid-episode. They do nothing interesting at all with Trip finally losing battles, either. You'd think arrogant newbies would be a bit more torn up/bitter after losing, ESPECIALLY to people they underestimated like a fool (Bianca; again, that contradicts his whole "basics" thing), but nope, he just brushes it off as if nothing happened and leaves immediately afterwards. Nothing comes of it, nothing is foreshadowed, nothing is built up on, which is why it will be so very underwhelming if Trip actually wins the upcoming tournament. They've just done NOTHING interesting with his character at all, and Trip barely has anything unique to call his own. His personality is some odd-ass mix of Paul, Gary, and Drew's, his camera gimmick is just Todd Snap 2.0... only new thing he really brought was the xenophobia.

Worst of all, Ash's motivation to battle Trip does not differ from any CotD trainer he's fought in the entire series. With Gary there was a childhood backstory to go by that set him apart from other trainers, and with Paul there was a clash of philosophies of their opposing training methods that was represented by Chimchar, who was trained by both of them. And Paul served as a consistent inspiration for Ash to keep pushing himself throughout the series, taking his training seriously. With Trip, Ash has nothing to prove to him. Because Trip got DEM victories against Ash already and has yet to lose to him, Trip has nothing to prove to Ash, either. Trip's already realized Alder is not the perfect idol he once believed to be, so I don't see what Trip is supposed to get out of being defeated by the Champion, considering he got jack and shit out of being defeated by Cilan and Bianca. Defeat apparently does not faze this newb, so what's the point? What's the point of Ash defeating Trip in the League, for that matter? With Gary and Paul there were strong, developed storylines backing these inevitable victories so that they actually meant something; Ash clearly gained something significant by defeating them. What will Ash defeating Trip mean? That... Kanto is not the boonies? Woo? Only way Ash will probably convince Trip of that is if he uses his Kanto team against his xenophobic rival, and really... there's an easier way of proving Trip wrong here: by actually sending the little snot to Kanto and see how well he fares in a region that isn't his home turf.

So that's my lengthy mumbo-jumbo on why Trip is the worst rival. Bianca may suffer some issues in terms of being a credible threat, but Donamite especially seems to be fixing that problem, and I'm hoping by the League that Bianca is shown to be a real force to be reckoned with proven when she eventually wins the Unova League :D. Otherwise, Bianca is fine. She does possess some similarities to Barry, both in behavior and design, but Bianca is a distinct enough character in her own right for that not to be a problem, and her design can't be helped because, well, she's a game character. :P

Stephan's probably my second-least favorite rival of the Unova bunch, but the only thing about him that bugs me is that stupid running gag about his name. If that weren't plaguing him I'd like him a lot better. Even without it, though, Bianca, Burgundy, Georgia, and even Luke (who I don't think counts as a rival anymore) are more interesting characters than him in pretty much every way. Donamite did wonders for his credibility, though, and it's nice that they do put at least some effort into how hard he trains with Sawk that makes him a believable threat. He obviously takes his training very seriously and he's got a good attitude, so I'm okay with him. Especially compared to Trip. :P

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Wow. This is a long rant.:ohdear: Now if I read correctly, you said that with Bianca in the Donamite threat was what was fixing her problem. Maybe with this tournament maybe this will be Trip's chance to change. There is Iris hogging the screen but I see that they might be focusing on him more than usually since he hasn't been knocked out of the tournament yet. As far as Alder goes, the writers didn't concentrate to well on Trip compared to thew games as as far as him not being a sue, him losing to only Ash is kind of painfull to watch as well.

@Caseydia I thought it was established by now that I talk too much! I-I can't help it. ._. My rambling is uncontrollable.

Anyway, the difference with Bianca and Trip for me is that Bianca's lack of threat factor is truly the only problem she had; as a character she's fine and her interactions with the group are among the strongest out of all the other secondary characters. So strong that certain episodes have convinced me that Bianca should have been the token chick of the group. :P Her only other problem is the awful running gags the writers plague her with during tournament arcs (though admittedly the Donamite stint has been much less annoying; probably helps that Bianca wasn't eliminated early on in that tournament), which I don't personally fault her for because they wear off as soon as the arcs end, unlike Stephan who is stuck with his lame running gag for eternity. There's a lot to Bianca as a character; her motivations influenced by her father, having sort of an eternal underdog status placed on her because some doubt that Bianca is able to take care of herself and she's determined to prove them wrong, and while she was a joke of a trainer for the early part of BW, she has been gradually improving and showing some competence/cleverness both in and outside of battles. That is what we call "build-up". Bianca's character has a clear direction while at the same time still used for comic relief that doesn't suck.

The same cannot really be said for Trip. His character is still bland, his "rivalry" with Ash continues to lack a foundation that would make their rivalry actually mean anything, he's shown zero emotion for losing to Cilan and Bianca in the tournaments and leaves right after, so there's been no foreshadowing or hinting that these losses affected him in any way. He continues to get more powerful, but we never are really shown how this newbie pulls it off. We see nothing more than the generic understanding between him and his Pokemon as partners.

And the Alder episode gave us absolutely no set-up for foreshadowing for future events involving Trip. Literally the only thing that changed with Trip was that he no longer admired Alder and resolved to get strong in his "own" way, whatever the hell that is. Hell, even with Stephan we got a glimpse of what his training regimen was like. Why are we supposed to take Trip seriously again...? Because the writers mandated that Ash should lose to an ignorant guy much less experienced than him? At worst, all Trip did was tie with Ash. It's not like Ash beat Alder in front of Trip's face to give him a real reason to be concerned that he'd been judging Ash wrong all this time (like how heavily it was implied for Paul when he not only lost to Ash in PokeRinger, but learned that Ash beat Brandon before the two even met).

The only thing Trip has that resembles a build-up is the fact that he got early out in the two Don Battles. But like I said, Trip offered no real reaction to losing; at least nothing that hinted to us that things would be changing big time the next time we saw him. Battling and losing against Alder will just reinforce the fact that Trip is way in over his head and needs to humble the fuck down. Maybe he'll angrily ask Alder why he changed, but we the viewers already know why, and Trip wouldn't need to ask this if he bothered sticking around for more than half the episode.

It's just a waste. I doubt this tournament will magically change Trip for the better. Not saying this is definite, but I definitely cannot see how the upcoming tournament will benefit Trip the way Donamite managed to benefit the biggest area of Bianca's weakness. And she didn't even need to win that tournament to change for the better!

Goes to show you how baffling it is that such great rivals can co-exist with some of the blandest, most uninspired rivals ever cococted in the series.

I have never really liked new trainers like much, but when they somehow give a clearly more experienced trainer a tough time in battles then that just crosses the line. Add on an unbearable personality, put it all together and you get Trip...

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Originally Posted by Callisto

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Originally Posted by ProngedDread837

Is Stephan that fat guy with the Serperior? If so, him.

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No, that fat guy with the Serperior is Trip.

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YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW MUCH I ScREAMED.

I think that the only redeeming quality of Trip are his mild quirks from time to time (randomly taking a picture in the middle of a battle, fanboying over Alder) and his face I mean look at that kawaii little thing.

But other than that, he's a lot of wasted potential. I mean, the most engaged I was with his story was when he met up with Alder and it was shown that he obviously has some hero worship issues...they just...don't ever seem to be relevant to his story with Ash. He doesn't care about Ash...at all.

It's not even that Ash never won against him or that he's overpowered...he just doesn't care, and that's the biggest turn off for me. With Paul, (I'm sorry I have to compare it to him, but other rivals are also somewhat applicable) who PRETENDED not to care, we can see that Ash was always wanting to get his attention. Ash doesn't do that for Trip. He doesn't care either. So why should I?

EDIT: Oh my JALORDA I just went into a fit of laughter just randomly during work over the above quote you guys slay me X'DDDD

Out of the three rivals listed, Trip is easily my least favorite rival in BW. The idea of Ash's new rival being a rookie trainer sounded interesting. I think that if they had took it at a different angle, like maybe making Ash more of a mentor figure to Trip somewhere along the lines of Dawn and Zoey's rivalry with more interesting interactions between them, then I think it could have worked out or at least be more interesting than what we currently have. As it is, Trip is just such a dull rival. Making him so overpowered at the beginning of the series was ridiculous. I could kind of accept Pikachu losing to Trip's Snivy, despite how it doesn't make a lot of sense, just as the start of their rivalry, but they lost me when he had at least a full team of well-trained/strong Pokemon and two badges by the tenth episodes of the series. That just made him way too powerful for a new trainer. I was glad that they started to have Trip lose in those tournaments, but considering neither of those loses affected him to the point where he wanted to rethink his battle style, all those defeats did was show that he wasn't a perfect battler, despite his skills at the start of his journey. His personality is just dull and frustrating at the same time. He doesn't care about much of anything besides getting to challenge Alder, and even then that didn't seem to give him much motivation to stick around once he found out that Alder wasn't the same person he idolized for years, and he's basically a jerk for no reason, especially with insulting Ash for being from Kanto for some odd reason. Plus, he barely appears in the series, so he doesn't feel like an important figure in this series.

The rivaly itself is rather non-existent at this point. There's just no drive in either Ash or Trip to defeat the other or give this rivalry any meaning. There isn't even any motivation for Ash to battle Trip other than he just wants to every time he runs into him. That's not really the best way to build the foundation of any rivalry, let alone the supposed main one for the current series. I don't really care if Ash defeats Trip in the Unova League because there's nothing driving this rivalry that makes me want to see Ash win at the end and that's probably one of the worst, if not the main one, problems in this rivalry.

Stephan is okay, but he would be my second least favorite rival out of these choices. He's not really terrible and the screentime I've heard about with the Domite tournament sounds like it helped him out a bit, but he still comes off a bit too bland for my tastes. It also doesn't help that I'm tired of the running gag with his name. That was old when it was Butch's gag and it quickly got old here with Stephan. Still, his interactions with Ash have been pretty good and he's fairly likable, so he's an okay character for me.

I like Bianca the most of the three, but not as much as other people do. I think that she has more personality than both Trip and Stephan combined and she is the most likable out of the three, but I don't really like her ditzy personality. It honestly can make her annoying to me, especially with all of the running gags around her character, and even with the progress she's made in her journey, being used for comedic relief most of the time makes it really difficult for me to take her character seriously. Still, she does interaction with the main cast pretty well and when they aren't using her for annoying running gags, Bianca can be pretty fun. The best example of that for me would be that Fishing Contest episode where they toned down her behavior for the most part and that made me like her a bit more. She can be a fun character, so that alone makes me like her more than Trip and Stephan.

My least favourite rival? I'll give you some hints. He doesn't give two shits about whether he can beat Ash, and neither have anything to prove to one another. There are no stakes in his rivalry whatsoever. He apparently owns the anime universe's equivalent of an Action Replay. He also has the fashion sense of colour blind hipster.

And really Trip, there's a miniscule chance I might have been able to forgive all of that, if you weren't such a goddamn bore. Interact with the other characters for goodness sake! Get under Ash's skin! Do.....something other than walk away haughtily into the sunset. It's almost as though Trip doesn't even want to be on the show. In that case let's give the kid what he wants and have the writers focus on some dead grass or a wet paper bag every twenty odd episodes instead. The net result will be the same.

Why is there no delete username history button. Argh.

stephan easily, he drives me insane he's overpowered and i just hate him D:

Bianca is showing amazing development, Stephan is friendly - and I hope for more development from him.

Trip... he still looks like a mash-up of all of Ash's previous rivals. He still looks like a badly-cloned-paul to me. So I chose him as the worst.

Trip is so boring and dull and pathetic

first mistake making Ashs rival a noob and not a vet like Paul

Bianca. I mean just because she's blonde didn't mean they had to make her this annoying. I mean atleast in the games, she was more bearable.