>>57772492Misty was dropped because Shudo successfully argued that Misty had the least purpose (arguably Brock is equally as purposeless as her) and self-agency. He also said that Misty was a failure as a female character because she’d always be written as just the token girl.
It’s probably why May had her own quest and character development, since Shudo actually wrote the “initial settings” for AG (which is why AG has no series constructor credit, Shudo went on sick leave in 2001 and it was assumed he would return as late as 2005 if Sonoda’s blog is any indication) and alludes to May and Max. He says that May seemed to be a better written character but then he doesn’t even know her name.
If what we know about the production process is any indication, you can tell exactly when they made that decision (spring ‘01) because that would have been when they started production on the Whirl Islands arc onwards which had more Misty focus
