>>53997233That's an understandable gripe. My guess is that that they didn't want her overshadowing Ash as a battler, even if she lost to him every time they fought, aside from the Contest at the end of Battle Frontier. It's also just a matter of the writers learning everything with May and taking it to make Dawn's arc better. Plus, May had a whole second Contest run that Dawn didn't. You have to balance the time somehow.
I don't have the numbers to back this up, but my gut feeling is that May ended up getting more one-off episodes dedicated to her. While she had to share time with Max, that often led to neat filler episodes that showed her off as a character, even if it wasn't substantial. Off the top of my head, the haunted house episode, the Swablu episode, the Sharpedo episode, and the time travel episode with Meowth. Plus the Manaphy movie. I really can't complain too much about how much screentime she got.
I think the only thing I really regret about May's trajectory is just that she couldn't do more in later series because of her VA getting sick. It's a tragedy. I would've liked to see what she was up to in Johto and beyond. I think we have to assume she just went back to Hoenn, based on her background appearances in JN.
>Besides that Dawn's actual pokemon were out of their balls and seen a lot more.I'll say something nice about XY, since I often compare it unfavorably to AG or DP. This is something I really really loved that DP started, just Pokemon being out of their balls more often and showing off their characters, outside of the seasonal episode where they all get split up with TR. XY did it more consistently, and showed off different dynamics between the Pokemon that weren't Ash's (The love/buddy quadrilateral with Clemont's Bunnelby and Chespin, Serena's Pancham and Eevee being a huge one).
>>53997262Just in case it wasn't clear, I was being 100% sincere when I said that. I'm genuinely impressed with your ability to keep going with them.
