>>55512905I'd still doubt DP had any of his influence but AG definitely, especially the movies made around then being more ballsy compared to what came after.
I think he would have liked May's whole identity crisis of wanting to battle and do contests and then later on after losing the Kanto GF with her depressive spell and deciding she needs to grow into her own person by splitting with Ash. They didn't go all the way with those elements, but May's barebones character arc fits well with Shudo's worldview about coming of age and developing into your own adult. It's the opposite of what he felt about Misty since May basically found her own reason to "exist" beyond tagging along Ash and Brock.
The stuff about her father being a micro-celeb fits eerily well with the Kanto era stuff too.
Shudo wrote the initial settings of AG (basically the very basic outline of "Ash goes with only Pikachu, meets a new trainer and making TR stay) as his only contributions according to his blog. He'd personally rather have had it so Ash left entirely, though he doesn't say this in relation to AG just as a general point that the series' protagonist and themes should develop with each successive generation of kids.
Another interesting point is that Shudo said Lugia couldn't be male because a father figure would actually encourage the 3 birds to fight or even pick a favourite, only a mother could quell all her sons. He also compares Lugia to Zhuge Liang and the 3 birds to the rulers of the 3 Kingdoms from 3 Kingdoms period of China. He expressed some regrets about Delia's character which is why she appears prominently in M02+03.