>>54750442Drew's great on his own because he has all of the qualities people like about Gary (the confidence, the incisive attitude, the earnest desire to see his rivals grow), but he's not such an asshole about it that you want to see him lose whenever he's not facing May. In that way, he's a lot like Zoey, who is also a really good rival character. He has his flaws with how far his attitude takes him, like when he gets aggressive in training his Absol, but for the most part he's levelheaded enough to keep himself from being a twerp. And despite his thorny (rose, symbolism, blah blah) personality, the dude's never not taking other people's wellbeing into consideration. On top of that, Drew is also great as part of the group dynamic that eventually forms between himself, May and Harley. Harley is as devil-may-care as they come, while Drew is highly-focused and competitive and May is somewhere vaguely in the middle depending on the situation. The only real downside to their dynamic is that I'd have liked to see Drew and Harley battle each other. Still, it was nice to have the female companion have an ongoing dynamic with a male rival. Drew was the shoujo antagonist/love interest in the way that Amethio looked like he would be for Liko; as great as Dawn was, her only chance was Kenny.
Anyway, Drew is without flaws. I have a hard time thinking about which episode best represents him, and the closest I can think of to a decisive victor is the one where he and May chase the Arcanine at the beginning of Battle Frontier.
