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The problem with Misty is that she is actually too perfect for Ash/as a character (some would say mary sue), the original plan was for her to share the lead character role with Ash but as it turned out fans liked Misty more, the problem with this was that Satoshi Kojiro's favorite character was Ash (Ash = Satoshi in Japan and is based on Satoshi) and began to hate Misty for her popularity so she was replaced by weaker characters and has been ever since, the one exception to this is Iris who was a strong and determined character as well and could have been a worthy opponent to Misty, however, Iris was not popular in Japan due to institutional racism (debate continues whether Iris is white, mexican or black although in parts of Japan there are people with darker skin, though Iris is most likely hispanic as her clothing and love of dragons as well as connection to nature), but Iris was quickly replaced by Serena who is to date the least likely to stand up to Satoshi, the common argument/agreement is that Misty will return when Satoshi relieves control of the story to the writers, who would like for Misty to return as a regular/main character perhaps even replacing Ash as most people agree his character is stale
