Thread: Which is better: DP or BW?

Being a more active character =/= character development. Of course Dawn got tons more screentime than Iris, but that's just because her role was different.

I can watch any random DP episode out of order and Dawn's personality feels exactly the same in any of them. The only thing that showed her growth was her pokemon and skill in contests, but personality-wise she didn't change.

Originally Posted by Gliscor'd

Being a more active character =/= character development.

Maybe, but it makes sense that the starring character who gets lots of focus will also get more development than characters that are just sidekicks and barely gets anything

I can watch any random DP episode out of order and Dawn's personality feels exactly the same in any of them.

Because a person's personality doesn't need to change randomly for no reason at all 0__o she had lots of development and so on... she's not supposed to be a different person
You can say what you said about ANY character in Pokémon (and almost any other cartoon/story/whatever) not just Dawn
So please stop saying random lies and ridiculous things and try to pretend they're facts when you know very well it's all wrong

Originally Posted by Gliscor'd

Being a more active character =/= character development. Of course Dawn got tons more screentime than Iris, but that's just because her role was different.

I can watch any random DP episode out of order and Dawn's personality feels exactly the same in any of them. The only thing that showed her growth was her pokemon and skill in contests, but personality-wise she didn't change.

I think that you're ignoring most of the points that have been brought up. I don't think that people were claiming that being a more active character is the same thing as character development either, although that certainly does help give a character more development. Dawn was a co-star, so she naturally got more screentime than a sidekick character like Iris.

While I agree that Dawn's personality didn't change, I don't think that means she was a static character like Iris currently is. She did receive growth. Even if was just her skills as a Coordinator, it was still growth and she was making progress towards her goal, most of which was pretty believable. I don't think you can say the same thing for Iris. She has not shown any believable growth as a trainer and she is nowhere closer to her goal of becoming a Dragon Master. And I still don't think that their different roles have anything to do with the lack of development for Iris. Like I mentioned before, they could easily showcase some growth for Iris through Axew's development, training it more often and actually letting it battle often enough to where the victories would be believable and show some sense of progression for both Iris and Axew.

Just because Dawn's personality didn't change during the course of DP doesn't put her in the same boat as Iris in terms of development. At least Dawn had overcome her confidence issues as a result of her losing streak by this point in DP. Iris really hasn't had to overcome anything. Her problems are resolved for her by the writers, her victories are handed to her with cheap DEM moments like with Axew learning Outrage. Iris is in a much worse state than Dawn ever was in regards to development. Even though Dawn didn't change personality-wise, she was on track with her goal and was active in reaching her goal. Iris is still stuck in the same position she was in the first episode of BW. She hasn't learned anything new during the journey thus far to become a better Dragon Master in training, hasn't helped Axew actually become stronger and more capable of battle and hasn't really shown a desire to reach her goal. Iris says that she wants to be a Dragon Master, but she never does anything to actually help her get there.

Originally Posted by Piplup

Because a person's personality doesn't need to change randomly for no reason at all 0__o she had lots of development and so on... she's not supposed to be a different person
You can say what you said about ANY character in Pokémon (and almost any other cartoon/story/whatever) not just Dawn
So please stop saying random lies and ridiculous things and try to pretend they're facts when you know very well it's all wrong

Other than Brock (ignoring his DP decline), that's not true at all.

Everyone noticed Ash's personality matured into AG and DP, (ignoring what BW did to him), and it was character growth. Everyone noticed Misty's temper and violence essentially died down during Orange and Johto. May changed considerably from early Hoenn throughout AG and gained more confidence and became a tougher character. Even Jessie and James had slight changes to their personalities from Kanto-DP, (again ignoring what BW did). You can say the same for the rivals like Gary and so forth.

I think the only characters whose personalities never grew or changed was Tracey (obviously), Max (I suppose), Brock later on and Dawn. I don't know about Iris and Cilan till they leave the show and we see what they did with them fully.

Originally Posted by Gliscor'd

Other than Brock (ignoring his DP decline), that's not true at all.

Yes it is, you're making up ridiculous things and pretend they're facts

Everyone noticed Ash's personality matured into AG and DP, (ignoring what BW did to him),

No, it doesn't work like this... you don't compare a multipe series and 700+ eps character to a one series and about 200 eps character
Just like you asked us to compare Iris' 80 first eps to Dawn's 80 first eps, don't compare Dawn's 200 eps to Ash's 700+ eps
You can only count one series for Ash / Brock / TRio when doing this
So no, Ash didn't have any drastic personality change from the beginning to end of the original series, or from the beginning to end of AG, or from the beginning to end of DP

Everyone noticed Misty's temper and violence essentially died down during Orange and Johto.

Not really, it's just some of you and other fans' exaggerations, with maybe little tiny amount of truth that comes more from the show changing its style a little rather than "OMG SEE MISTY CHANGED PERSONALITIES!!!111"

May changed considerably from early Hoenn throughout AG and gained more confidence and became a tougher character.

Oh, so now confidence issues and becoming stronger DOES count? If so, you should count everything I said about Dawn too
You said you're talking about "personality change" and not about "character development"
You really should decide what the Johto you're talking about...

Even Jessie and James had slight changes to their personalities from Kanto-DP

Like with Ash, ignore the multiple series...
From original series OR AG OR DP's beginning to end - they didn't really have a "personality change" at all 0__o
Actually TRio are the ONLY character of all main characters in Pokémon who had a "personality change" - which only happened in BW (and also happened very randomly and ridiculously and pretty much killed their characters)


So no, you're just, once again, saying crazy things that you yourself don't believe in (do you even understand what you're trying to say?) for the sake of driving the "discussion" and raise the arguing
When you do get answer that prove your points wrong or that answer the questions you ask, like my very detailed post, you just ignore it and repeat yourself or come up with more crazy statements...

I'm still shocked you actually compared Iris to Dawn... like, seriously? you could at least think of something better than that... XD

There will be no more telling people what to do or saying that people are lying. People are very free to have opinions different from your own, and if you think someone is trolling than use the report button.

Originally Posted by Gliscor'd

Being a more active character =/= character development. Of course Dawn got tons more screentime than Iris, but that's just because her role was different.

I can watch any random DP episode out of order and Dawn's personality feels exactly the same in any of them. The only thing that showed her growth was her pokemon and skill in contests, but personality-wise she didn't change.

Dawn didn't changed much in personality sense, but its exaggeration to say how she didn't changed at all.

Compared to start of Sinnoh its noticeable how she grew from overconfident character to more humble and down to earth person not being anymore so overconfident,full of herself growing to realize how her approach toward contests an attitude was wrong bringing her loses and failures.After that she went trough depressing state learning on mistakes and growing in stronger coordinator gaining more faith in her skills when she started winning and when she finally proved to Johanna her worth.

Besides i don't see why is needed that character go through drastic personality change? Take a look at Goku from DBZ. He never changed all that much not being issues at all, with people being more interested in seeing him growth as battler rather than person.

Dawn probably received most growth and development out of all Ash traveling companions due to co-star status making huge improvement as coordinator almost winning GF on first try, catching up with her mother proving herself to everyone who underestimated her , raising solid pokemon team learning how to combine different attack strategies and put them to function together which reflected on increase of character skills and confidence as well.

Stronger you become, more confidence you get and as you continue to learn you start to be more creative and knowledgeable which is growth as well.

On other hand though Iris is developing less than Dawn did as trainer not doing much of progress toward dragon master goal and lack in Axew growth as character is not doing any better either. However ill give writers how they did some steps forward when Axew learned dragon rage and outrage which can be essentially viewed as improvement. And Iris did changed a bit over time becoming less critic toward Ash feeling more like his and Clan friends currently finally finding her place in group, and self critic as well being able to admit her own mistakes, As evidenced in episode with Excadrill where their bond was restored.

Although she definitely didn't developed enough currently.

Originally Posted by Gliscor'd

Everyone noticed Misty's temper and violence essentially died down during Orange and Johto. May changed considerably from early Hoenn throughout AG and gained more confidence and became a tougher character.

When its put that way it makes it seem like character"declined". Misty temper never died down in reality, it was only used in smaller amount. She was hotheaded a lot in OI, in Johto she showed temper several times and even in Hoenn temper was still showed to be part of character(referring to episodes with Togepi evolution, chronicles where Casey and Butch and Cassidy appeared etc).

Misty became less violent, but it was because of character development gradually maturing and learning how to be more open toward others becoming more confident and sure in herself after getting over complex of feeling less worthy. Growing eventually in stronger and tougher trainer, but person as well.

One of few characters which remained equally interesting after development.

I had to honestly FORCE myself to enjoy the DP trio, and even then I had trouble. While Dawn herself was alright, I simply could not get into the trio of Ash/Dawn/Brock at all. It was so sloppily put together, as if the writers thought, "Ok, we'll just do another female coordinator without a little brother this time," and thought things would run smoothly from there.

Except for the fact that the addition of a 4th character is largely what made the Hoenn group actually work, and even Brock himself felt more involved in that group than he did in DP. The DP trio was really nothing more than Ash and Dawn supporting each other while Brock was just awkwardly observing them. Dawn and Brock were like associates rather than real friends.

Granted if Barry or something was traveling with them I liked it a lot more. On top of that the DP trio had almost no humor as a group as a whole, the funny moments came from the individual pokemon like Croagunk, Happiny, Piplup, Chimchar, Pachirisu, etc.

Even if I'm not really much of an Iris fan either, I still enjoy the BW trio overall because of the actual chemistry. It just shows how even a weak link can be more enjoyable when you're in a group that actually works.

That's just another case of different strokes, honestly. I still struggle greatly to enjoy the BW trio because one or more of the characters irritate the shit out of me, both in terms of how they interact with one another and how they are as characters. The DP trio did not set my world on fire (AG group was the best, imo), but it was much easier for me to accept because I wasn't constantly being annoyed by overplayed and unfunny antics with them. Even without much specific interaction, I'd sooner buy Brock and Dawn being friends than Iris being friends with Ash or Cilan. I at least got vibes that the DP trio enjoyed each other's company. The BW trio feels off to me because Iris can hardly go an episode without insulting one or both of her companions for no logically sound reason whatsoever. Even if it's good-natured teasing, it honestly doesn't feel like it is to me, and there's got to be a limit for groups where it does casually happen. If it happens all the goddamn time, I'm not seeing Iris bond with her companions; I'm just seeing her criticizing them, especially since anything instigated by Iris goes nowhere, is quickly dropped, and/or has absolutely no lasting impact on how the trio functions.

And I've always felt the BW trio lacks any real function. Well, with Ash and Cilan there's a function because Cilan is being inspired by Ash's journey that inspires his Sommelier goal, and Ash gets his food and occasional advice from Cilan in return. But what function is there with Ash and Iris? Nothing. He teaches her nothing, she teaches him nothing, and it's only on the extremely rare occasion that they even hang out together like actual friends would. Neither bears any real influence on the other; just arguing over stupid shit and then Iris settles down to be the generic cheering friend like everyone else and the transition is not at all natural. Pretty much the same deal with Iris and Cilan; neither of them learn nor are influenced by the other, just a handful of those early-series science vs superstition banterings that were so overhyped, and otherwise I don't see them being any closer to each other than Brock and Dawn were.

I'm not going to pretend the DP trio was amazing, because it wasn't, but if nothing else, they were easy for me to tolerate because they weren't being distracting with petty bitch-fests and that gave more time for focus on the actual episodes. In both DP and BW, I care more about the secondary characters/rivals than I do the main group. And even though Dawn had comparatively underwhelming rivals compared to her predecessor, I was still able to get into the scenarios enough to want Dawn to beat her rivals (save for Ursula). Even Kenny, the boring unlikable piece of crap he was, at least helped give me incentive to want Dawn to beat him because of how much I despised the cretin. Goes without saying that I felt the same for Ash and his DP rivals.

For BW, I am given no canon reason to even want Iris to beat anybody, much less Georgia. If anything, I only want to see Georgia beat Iris' ass over and over because pretty much everything Georgia says is a totally valid point in regards to Iris. Ash has been functionally retconned from his stupidly-clever DP persona so badly that I don't think he deserves to achieve a Top 4 rank in the Unova League, or even a Top 8. His training methods, his catching mania with no rhyme or reason to what he captures opposed to a much more carefully selected DP team where they ALL had their moments to shine and had consistent personalities that made me care about them... BW Ash is really a huge insult to his DP self. The loss of scope doesn't help, either; we're going from facing a rival equal in experience to him actively challenging his beliefs to a rival who is much less experienced than him who's narrow-minded where there is no basis for the rivalry other than the reason why Ash would want to battle ANYBODY he meets regardless of the circumstances. He's slowly improving in BW, but at the pace the series is going he should be much better than he is now, and sadly nothing's going to justify his bullshit mass-captures that save for two I could not give two shits about. So the fact that I am actually inclined to NOT like a character I normally enjoy and that I actually would rather see him do worse rather than better in the League this time around really says a lot for how BW mangled Ash's character.

Even charcters in BW that I genuinely like, such as Bianca, are cursed with poor planning/writing that has damaged both their credibility and their long-term potential. DP characters in the same role had that too to a degree, but not to the extent of where I was actually dreading how the writers would handle them/screw them up like I am with the BW characters I like. Not to mention DP Gym Leaders > BW Gym Leaders, even if the latter half of BW's are an improvement over the first four. DP battles in general still kick the ass of the BW battles, even this far into the new series. Again, some areas improved and Ash appears to have less of a vendetta against type logic than he used to in BW, but it's still on the whole a far cry from the quality I was accustomed to last series.

Only thing BW truly improved over DP (besides female rivals) is Cilan, which is admittedly hard for me to explain other than... he deserved to be in a better series, honestly. He's one of the few things that make me look forward to anything in BW, but his presence alone can't atone for the rest of the stupid bullshit that happens in this series, especially in the area of the BW trio itself. Call me crazy, but I will take an underwhelming trio over one that actively makes me want to change the channel once I'm forced to listen to their retarded bickerings. That's not to say I'm totally against petty fights, but they've got to be genuinely funny, justified to be happening, and not horrendously overdone.

I'm not sure why I even wrote this other than to simply confirm that DP still kicks BW's ass in nearly every area.

Originally Posted by Gliscor'd

I simply could not get into the trio of Ash/Dawn/Brock at all. It was so sloppily put together

But seriously, what was SO awesome in any other main cast of this show? You're really exaggerating... all the different groups felt like friends
The only thing that was truly different with the DP group is that you could feel them as a family, more than just friends... and that's what made me prefer it to the others
I do realize everyone can have their own opinions, but I'd seriously want to understand what was so good in your opinion about the other groups and where's all this lots of great "interactions, chemistry and humor" that I honestly can't see

as if the writers thought, "Ok, we'll just do another female coordinator without a little brother this time," and thought things would run smoothly from there

Well, for some people like me things did worked great, even better than AG... so they weren't necessarily wrong if they thought so

Except for the fact that the addition of a 4th character is largely what made the Hoenn group actually work,

Really? I thought it only made things worse because:
1. Ash and May got all the attention as the stars, while Max and Brock had to share the leftovers... (you yourself said so - I remember you said Brock was better in DP at least partly due to not having a second sidekick to share with him this time)
2. He didn't own any Pokémon... maybe it's not THAT bad, but personally - I don't want to ever see a main character in Pokémon that doesn't have any Pokémon... it's just not right in my opinion

The DP trio was really nothing more than Ash and Dawn supporting each other while Brock was just awkwardly observing them. Dawn and Brock were like associates rather than real friends.

No, the DP group was like one big family - Ash and Dawn are the "kids", the energetic younger ones that enjoy their competetive nature, training together like best friends, acting as if they're brother and sister... Brock was the "big brother", the mature figure to the kids, who "watches over" them, takes care of them, makes food, give them advice when they need him, etc... and together with all their Pokémon they really felt the most family-like than any other group

Granted if Barry or something was traveling with them I liked it a lot more.

That's another thing, the DP group often had various friends joining them temporarily and making everything feel even better - both Zoey and Barry helped to refresh things a little and increase how fun and family-like the group felt like to me
Other groups never had this luck (well, there's Bianca in BW, but I tend to enjoy Bianca herself rather than her being with the group)

On top of that the DP trio had almost no humor as a group as a whole, the funny moments came from the individual pokemon like Croagunk, Happiny, Piplup, Chimchar, Pachirisu, etc.

Yeah, remember what a humorous character May was? or how Brock and Max had these lots of funny scenes? cause I don't... care to refresh my memory?
As far as I see it, each character and each group and each series had its fair share of funny moments and humor... also, DP had Barry, so this series automatically beats all other on humor

Even if I'm not really much of an Iris fan either, I still enjoy the BW trio overall because of the actual chemistry. It just shows how even a weak link can be more enjoyable when you're in a group that actually works.

I still fail to see this "chemistry"... the BW group is so bad for me in just ANY possible way... I honestly don't see anything good about them, not as a group and not even each as a character by himself...

Originally Posted by Shinneth

I don't think he deserves to achieve a Top 4 rank in the Unova League, or even a Top 8.

I thought about that too... you know what would be awesome? if Ash totally fails in the League, like getting Top 16 (they DO love their Kanto references this gen...) and then falls into serious depression lasting a few eps (well, kind of like Dawn's depression) and eventually gets out of it and decides to train seriously from now on (and then hopefully proves himself in the next saga of the BW series)

I'm not sure why I even wrote this other than to simply confirm that DP still kicks BW's ass in nearly every area.

I think most of us here can agree on this... not that it's wrong to prefer BW for these who really prefer it, but this series really disappointed in so many ways coming right after DP...
What I will say in BW's favor - is that the animation got better (maybe it's the HD, the colors, the fact moves look good now like Iron Tail's huge improvement, or the much better evolutions, etc...) which also makes it even more of a shame there are no Contests in this series - they could benefit a lot from these animation improvements

Originally Posted by Piplup

Yeah, remember what a humorous character May was? or how Brock and Max had these lots of funny scenes? cause I don't... care to refresh my memory?
As far as I see it, each character and each group and each series had its fair share of funny moments and humor... also, DP had Barry, so this series automatically beats all other on humor

Holy cow. Somebody forgot this? Show me a scene where Dawn seduces Ash and Brock and I'll reconsider. Or I dunno, a time when Dawn, Ash and Brock do something funny together.

Originally Posted by Gliscor'd

I had to honestly FORCE myself to enjoy the DP trio, and even then I had trouble. While Dawn herself was alright, I simply could not get into the trio of Ash/Dawn/Brock at all. It was so sloppily put together, as if the writers thought, "Ok, we'll just do another female coordinator without a little brother this time," and thought things would run smoothly from there.

Except for the fact that the addition of a 4th character is largely what made the Hoenn group actually work, and even Brock himself felt more involved in that group than he did in DP. The DP trio was really nothing more than Ash and Dawn supporting each other while Brock was just awkwardly observing them. Dawn and Brock were like associates rather than real friends.

I don't think that the DP trio was sloppily put together. While it could have been better, I think it was far from being the worst traveling group in the series. At least they all felt like friends, even Brock and Dawn. They didn't make a big deal about their interactions compared to the Ash and Dawn moments, but I wouldn't say that they were more like associates than real friends. The only main difference I can see right now with how Brock interacted with May compared to his interactions with Dawn were a couple of times where they shopped together in the early stages of AG and they battled in a Contest. That doesn't feel significantly different to me. Brock supported Dawn throughout her Contest journey just like Ash did and helped her with getting Mamoswine to listen to her by teaching her how to treat sick and injured Pokemon. I also liked the addition of a fourth character in AG since it felt like a nice change of pace and Max had some nice interactions with the other characters. While I missed that when DP first started, I didn't think that was a major problem in the DP trio's chemistry.

Originally Posted by Gliscor'd

Granted if Barry or something was traveling with them I liked it a lot more. On top of that the DP trio had almost no humor as a group as a whole, the funny moments came from the individual pokemon like Croagunk, Happiny, Piplup, Chimchar, Pachirisu, etc.

While Barry was a fun character, at least after he stopped being a Paul fanboy in his initial appearance, I don't think he could have worked being in the group for the whole series. I think his behavior would have gotten too much and borderline annoying if he was around for nearly two hundred episodes. He worked much better as a reappearing rival character in my opinion. I don't really mind that the DP trio themselves didn't have humor as whole group. Most of the humor from the last group consisted of Max pulling Brock's ear like a rubber band, so I was okay with the Pokemon taking care of the humor, especially Croagunk since he actually made the Brock love daze gag funny for me again.

Originally Posted by Gliscor'd

Even if I'm not really much of an Iris fan either, I still enjoy the BW trio overall because of the actual chemistry. It just shows how even a weak link can be more enjoyable when you're in a group that actually works.

Considering I still can't see Iris as a friend to either Ash or Cilan, I don't really see how they have actual chemistry. When the BW trio was first formed, I thought that there was chemistry between them, but then I realized it was just different due to Brock not being around, instead of actual chemistry between all three characters. In my opinion, Iris is a much bigger weak link in the BW trio than any flaws in the DP trio. She doesn't feel like she's a friend to either Ash or Cilan. She hasn't learned anything from them, or on this journey with them for that matter and most of her interactions with Ash and Cilan consist of insulting them and then suddenly becoming their supportive/cheerleading friend when they're battling. Even if it is just teasing them more so than genuinely insulting them, if that happens much more often than any genuine sign of friendship, then they aren't going to feel like friends at all. Ash and Cilan are the only part to the BW that actually works for me. Not only do they bounce off each other pretty well, which helps to make them look more like friends, they also learn from each other. Cilan sees Ash's behavior and interactions with his Pokemon, which helps him to become a better Pokemon Connoisseur, and Ash sometimes gets advice from Cilan, which can help him with his battles. If Iris was a much better written character, felt like a friend and actually had a reason to be in the main cast aside from promoting new Pokemon, then maybe I could actually like the BW trio, but if I'm only liking two out of the three people in the group, then the group chemistry isn't really there. I'd take the chemistry from the DP trio over whatever is happening with the BW trio any day of the week. At least the group chemistry actually exists among all three characters in DP.

Originally Posted by Human

Holy cow. Somebody forgot this?

So yeah, it's one funny May scene - I can find funny Dawn scenes too, like:
- DP 1 - her reactions to getting lost in search for Roawn's lab or fighting with Pip
- DP 15 - her reactions to Paul forgetting who she is
- DP 26 - when Kenny tells embarassing things about her
- Togekiss' first ep - her trying and failing to act like a princess

Originally Posted by Piplup

Originally Posted by Human

Holy cow. Somebody forgot this?

So yeah, it's one funny May scene - I can find funny Dawn scenes too, like:
- DP 1 - her reactions to getting lost in search for Roawn's lab or fighting with Pip
- DP 15 - her reactions to Paul forgetting who she is
- DP 26 - when Kenny tells embarassing things about her
- Togekiss' first ep - her trying and failing to act like a princess

This thread is starting to become into an 'AG or DP' now >.>. I'm starting to think that you're thinking that I mean that they did nothing fun. As you said:

As far as I see it, each character and each group and each series had its fair share of funny moments and humor

But the DP trio didn't have enough(at least for me), which as Gliscor'd said, made the trio not stand-out from the others as much. They did have fun together as a group(like when they went in that dressing contest where Brock won the Happiny egg), but ended up looking very generic and flat. It was missing something that made them feel like a group.

I'll never forget DP019, where Dawn, instead of asking her friends if it was a good idea to release Pachirisu due to the havoc it was causing, went on to release it instead without even mentioning it to them. She did it without thinking what her friends thought about her decision. "Oh lol. I'll just release Pachirisu. Ash and Brock will surely not object and help me find it.". They wouldn't have had to clean up her mess if she consulted them before releasing Pachirisu, which showed to me that Dawn didn't trust them.

Heck, FRIGGIN Iris feels closer to Ash and Cilan. At least when Iris had a problem, she let her friends give her advice. Like, she actually trusts Ash and Cilan. Heck she even saved Ash's life in BW03.

In all honesty I really do think the DP trio will be the least remembered group of them all by the time the series ends, if it ever does. If we had Barry in the group I think it would have been 10 times funnier due to Dawn playing off of him.

While Dawn may have had some funny moments, it didn't involve Ash/Brock at all. It was stuff like Pachirisu frizzing her hair or fretting over what dress to wear.