Favorite main female companion

Curious to see this board's opinion

I'll go with Misty, with Iris being a close second from what I can gather of her. May and Dawn from what I saw of them I didn't even remotely like them, I'm not liking what I've heard of Serena, and for Lillie, I really don't know much about her from what I can gather about her.

I don't usually go by favorites, but in this case, it's easy to see who I like more than the others.

My favorites are Misty, May and Dawn who are clearly superior female companions who all made the first four regions plus Orange Islands and Battle Frontier amazing.

Disliked companions: Iris, Serena and Lillie. All three are awful, annoying and inferior female companions who ruined unova, kalos and alola for me.

Neutral: Bonnie who i do not dislike but i am not sure what was the point of her joining Ash since she is not a trainer. Bit like Max.

XD Serena is the best! she has style and a Eevee!

ILuvEevee said:

XD Serena is the best! she has style and a Eevee!

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That is your opinion. Not mine. She has been one of the negative parts of kalos for me.

Misty. She was the perfect foil for Ash and Brock and she was tough and strong despite her cutsie look. Her bits with Brock and Psyduck were hilarious too.

Easily Iris. Great development, fun personality and interesting dynamics with protagonists and rivals.

Dawn is well written but doesn't quite have the personality I like. Great interactions with Ash, terrible interactions with Brock.
May is nothing specular and had some pretty dubious Deus Ex wins.
Misty was fine right up until she got Togepi and then became blander than a piece of paper.
Serena I'm indifferent about. I used to not like her development but after a while I reflected and she's not as bad as I thought.
Lillie is ongoing. I'm liking what I see but I'm not calling her my favourite since she can very easily fall into writing traps by being the writers moe.

When reviewing this question, I exclude Lillie because SM is still ongoing and its unfair to lump her or any SM Female protagonist in with the other established Female protagonists who've had their time in the spotlight. When it came to judging this, I based it on three factors: Series they appeared in, shipping(each girl on that list is shipped with Ash folks), and character development.

Since I came to really like the Kalos series, Serena has the early edge. Her lead is further bolstered by the fact that Amourshipping was my favorite and in terms of character development, it took quite a bit of time for her to actually do something(which hurt her but not enough to be overtaken by Dawn who came in a close second). As such my vote goes for Serena.

In terms of ranking(with ratings):

1) Serena 27/30 10/10/7
2 Dawn 26.5/30 9.5/7/10
3) Misty 26/30 8/10/8
4) May 24/30 7/7/10
5) Iris 20/30 7/4/9

Rank #1 Misty, May and Dawn.
No rank: Iris, Serena and Lillie doesn't deserve any rank because they are so bad.

Armor Shipping remains fanfiction and has nothing to with anime.

I voted for Serena because she probably had one of the best developments ever seen in the anime with her aim to become a better Performer, and symbolising that by cutting her hair. Dawn comes a close second, since she actually did go through an arc of depression after losing two Contests in the first round.

Lillie is probably the only thing I can stand in SM right now, but somehow Mallow and Lana weren't included in the poll despite also being Ash's other female companions. Hopefully Lillie can go through enough development that can make her memorable when 7th Gen ends.

May is alright, but AG wasn't exactly the best series. Misty was a bit of a brat but I can understand why she's a fan favourite. Iris is clearly at the bottom for me, because she was nothing but a stupid brat who constantly berated Ash for "being a kid".

I like Misty more than the others. Serena comes second which is interesting because I couldn't stand her character in the beginning of XY I found her wimpiness and mooning over Ash really grating. But sometime after her meltdown (not straight away) she got less annoying. I didn't think much of May and the others.

Misty, by far. I liked that she was a tomboy, yet still had a girly side, and she also had an interesting backstory. She also loved one of my favorite types (Water). I hate that her goal had so much potential that was never utilized and how she was just thrown off the show without ever getting any real closure.

As for the other girls, Iris was a poor man's Misty (with an annoying catchphrase and none of her depth), but even that's still better than being a contest ditz. I honestly hate the anime depictions of May, Dawn, and Serena and the way that these player characters who become Champions when you play as them were all reduced into being fanservicey beauty queens. If this is how the show will always treat female player characters, then I don't want to see another one appear ever again. -_-

It's still too early for me to say anything in regards to Lillie, although I'd be pissed if she ends up in some contest/performer arc down the road. It's bad enough to shove player characters into that role, but it would be outright insulting to reduce an important NPC who has her own story and everything in the games to being another ditz doing contests.

BettyNewbie said:

Misty, by far. I liked that she was a tomboy, yet still had a girly side, and she also had an interesting backstory. She also loved one of my favorite types (Water). I hate that her goal had so much potential that was never utilized and how she was just thrown off the show without ever getting any real closure.

As for the other girls, Iris was a poor man's Misty (with an annoying catchphrase and none of her depth), but even that's still better than being a contest ditz. I honestly hate the anime depictions of May, Dawn, and Serena and the way that these player characters who become Champions when you play as them were all reduced into being fanservicey beauty queens. If this is how the show will always treat female player characters, then I don't want to see another one appear ever again. -_-

It's still too early for me to say anything in regards to Lillie, although I'd be pissed if she ends up in some contest/performer arc down the road. It's bad enough to shove player characters into that role, but it would be outright insulting to reduce an important NPC who has her own story and everything in the games to being another ditz doing contests.

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Yeah, no kidding regarding May, Dawn, and Serena. I mean, I'm sorry, but if you're just going to shove them into a contest position even when that isn't even REMOTELY required to complete the game's story unlike Pokémon Gyms, that's just downright sad and a complete waste of characters (the primary purpose of the anime after all is to market the games, and you DON'T do that if you literally overrate the contests beyond what the games show them, where they were a sidegoal at best, not even directly relevant to the story.). Heck, it doesn't even match up with the non-playable versions of themselves where they, if anything, were closer to lab assistants (May and Dawn) or even an Ace trainer (Serena). There was zero reason to even have them be just Contest/Performer types in the anime. And yeah, no kidding if Lillie gets the same treatment. If they did that to her, that would be even worse, since she actually DOES have an established and definite character arc unlike the playabe characters (and to a certain extent their rival equivalents). And don't even get me STARTED on how their own physical appearances and wardrobe were completely unbefitting for girls their age and come across as jailbait (Misty and Iris at least do come far closer to looking like actual 10 year olds). If they were 18 years or older, heck, even 16 years old, while still not good, I'd forgive it somewhat since they at least would have been closer to the age of consent, yet they WEREN'T that, they were explicitly prepubescent children.

And the whole Amourshipping thing was also annoying from the get go, from the constant teasing that never actually gets anywhere despite the hype, to the fact that her even feeling an overt crush on Ash completely conflicts with her being 10 (I may not care much for Pokeshipping one way or another myself, but at least there, it's a bit closer to how actual 10 year olds would behave compared to Serena's crush on Ash, not to mention said crush was one-sided at best, while Misty and Ash at least "reciprocated" to some extent.), right down to the fact that Serena's mere existence and the narrative's claim that she's Ash's first childhood friend outright contradicted not only Misty and Gary's existence, but even that of Molly Hale's existence as well.

Like I said, I'd rather have Misty on the show, or barring her, at least Iris. The others can go to a garbage dump for all I care, and in the case of Lillie, may be subject to inclusion if more intel comes out about her that's favorable.

Misty is number 1 in my book and she will always be the best female character that has ever appear in the anime. The other female characters are okay but Misty was much better then them put together.

Alexander18 said:

That is your opinion. Not mine. She has been one of the negative parts of kalos for me.

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They just told their opinion, what's wrong with that? No one said that this is your opinion, calm down.

I chose Dawn, with Serena being a close second. Dawn's story was more developed from the beginning, and while AmourShipping almost made me go with Serena, I didn't think her character development was as good though so I kept her at #2.

Dawn, because she had such an interesting personality compared to the others.
Serena is my second favorite because of her charecter development.
Iris is third because she had a fun personality.
There is nothing too special about Misty.
I did not like May.

Easy, that would be Dawn.

Also, where are Mallow and Lana on this poll?

weedle_mchairybug said:

Yeah, no kidding regarding May, Dawn, and Serena. I mean, I'm sorry, but if you're just going to shove them into a contest position even when that isn't even REMOTELY required to complete the game's story unlike Pokémon Gyms, that's just downright sad and a complete waste of characters (the primary purpose of the anime after all is to market the games, and you DON'T do that if you literally overrate the contests beyond what the games show them, where they were a sidegoal at best, not even directly relevant to the story.). Heck, it doesn't even match up with the non-playable versions of themselves where they, if anything, were closer to lab assistants (May and Dawn) or even an Ace trainer (Serena). There was zero reason to even have them be just Contest/Performer types in the anime. And yeah, no kidding if Lillie gets the same treatment. If they did that to her, that would be even worse, since she actually DOES have an established and definite character arc unlike the playabe characters (and to a certain extent their rival equivalents). And don't even get me STARTED on how their own physical appearances and wardrobe were completely unbefitting for girls their age and come across as jailbait (Misty and Iris at least do come far closer to looking like actual 10 year olds). If they were 18 years or older, heck, even 16 years old, while still not good, I'd forgive it somewhat since they at least would have been closer to the age of consent, yet they WEREN'T that, they were explicitly prepubescent children.

And the whole Amourshipping thing was also annoying from the get go, from the constant teasing that never actually gets anywhere despite the hype, to the fact that her even feeling an overt crush on Ash completely conflicts with her being 10 (I may not care much for Pokeshipping one way or another myself, but at least there, it's a bit closer to how actual 10 year olds would behave compared to Serena's crush on Ash, not to mention said crush was one-sided at best, while Misty and Ash at least "reciprocated" to some extent.), right down to the fact that Serena's mere existence and the narrative's claim that she's Ash's first childhood friend outright contradicted not only Misty and Gary's existence, but even that of Molly Hale's existence as well.

Like I said, I'd rather have Misty on the show, or barring her, at least Iris. The others can go to a garbage dump for all I care, and in the case of Lillie, may be subject to inclusion if more intel comes out about her that's favorable.

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Well put, Weedle McHairyBug. {:3}

It's pretty obvious why we ever got May in the first place. The ratings started tanking during Johto, and the show thought that it could reverse those ratings drops by bringing in a fresh piece of meat for boys to drool at. And, since May was RS' female player character, she also doubled as game promotion (even if she was in a role that barely resembled the one she had in the games).

And, since May was somehow a "success," Misty was forever left to rot in the gym, and the show has continued the cycle of dumping female characters with every new region and using them for shallow game promotion/fanservice. It's tiring and awful.

BettyNewbie said:

Well put, Weedle McHairyBug. {:3}

It's pretty obvious why we ever got May in the first place. The ratings started tanking during Johto, and the show thought that it could reverse those ratings drops by bringing in a fresh piece of meat for boys to drool at. And, since May was RS' female player character, she also doubled as game promotion (even if she was in a role that barely resembled the one she had in the games).

And, since May was somehow a "success," Misty was forever left to rot in the gym, and the show has continued the cycle of dumping female characters with every new region and using them for shallow game promotion/fanservice. It's tiring and awful.

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Yeah, it's stupid and a cheap attempt at ratings (not that it matters now, since it seems audiences in Japan have wised up to this going by how the ratings are hitting rock bottom right now, and AG actually came close to losing a huge amount of ratings and outright bombing, meaning even back then, they probably thought AG was stupid, and overall got even WORSE ratings than Johto, both on the American side and even the Japanese side of things.). I didn't like it when Heroes and West Wing pulled that kind of crap, or Supergirl, or any other franchises pulling that exact crap, do you REALLY think I'd even tolerate Pokémon doing that, ESPECIALLY given its status as a kids show? And quite frankly, I also didn't like how she outright hated Pokémon in the beginning. Well, May, if you hated Pokémon, why are you even GOING on a Pokémon Journey in the first place? Seems to downright disrespect the profession.

And yeah, I hear ya. What's worse with Misty's situation is that, thanks to the writers apparently listening to the various vocal complaints about Togepi not doing anything at all, they started fresh and barring Pikachu had entirely new Pokémon, and more than that, managed to easily kick Gym Leader butt despite being outright rookies, thus making the Hoenn Gym Leaders at least as much of a bunch of butt monkeys as Team Rocket, which likewise causes the implication that Misty's basically going to get slaughtered by the gym challengers. Probably the only ones that did well are Roxanne due to fighting Pikachu and Brawley, probably the only Hoenn Gym Leader to actually BEAT Ash (I'm not counting Norman, since I suspect they only had him win against Ash because they wanted an excuse to have Ash go to the gym after that since, technically, he's not the actual first Gym Leader).

Heck, probably the only thing that makes it even worse is their keeping Brock on, especially when he if anything has far MORE of a reason to take over the gym than Misty does, considering his family was so grossly incompetent at maintaining the gym that even Misty's Sisters look like professionals by comparison. Honestly, if I wanted to see a series for shameless fanservice and ditzy girls played humorously, I would have gone for Love Hina or even Battle Vixens, NOT go for Pokémon.

And despite all the petitions and even our warning the writers about the consequences, they outright ignored us. And they didn't even bother to allow Misty and Brock into the 20th anniversary movie, probably the ONE time having them appear DEFINITELY would have been justified. They couldn't even get Misty into that Pokémon World Conference due to skipping it altogether, despite such a thing actually BEING in the games. All we ask right now is to give Misty actual closure for her goal.

Maybe if May, Dawn, heck, even Serena were Coordinators/Performers in the games, I'd be a bit more forgiving. Heck, even having Contests/Performances be actual goals for the games directly tied to the story and leading to a happy ending and being an actual career choice in the game would have made them a bit more tolerable. As it is, though, most of us fans, either male in my case, or especially female, would literally not be able to follow them especially if we are to play the games, since we can't do contests beyond as a side quest in the games, leaving gyms the only true option to beating the game.