And on my end... More hole-poking. <sarcasm>Yaaaaaaaay...</sarcasm>
>"Serena is unique because she's the most feminine of them all."
Serena's issue isn't that she's feminine. It's that, apart from her character-consuming crush on Ash, she really has nothing going for her beyond being feminine. Like she's just there to be the "safe way" of checking off the "girl" box on the toy-based (video game-based in Pokémon's case) anime characters list. There's no depth to her. And whenever she has no focus on her as a character, she's treated embarrassingly at worst, like a background character at best. If anything else, and it's a sentiment shared by a former prominent PokéTuber, Serena in the Pokémon Anime basically exists just to make Ash look good, just like how a typical Shounen heroine exists to make the typical Shounen hero look good. If that makes her "unique", the way in which she is "unique" leaves much to be desired.
>"Just because you don't like Showcases, that doesn't mean that they suck."
It's because they suck that they're not really liked by the XY anime's critics. And how are they "a more game accurate version of Contests" when, 1, they're introduced in a region that doesn't even have Contests in the games, 2, based on Idol Culture, 3, are girls-only, and 4, seem to be used to promote things that male-dominated societies feel that girls SHOULD like?
>"What's the problem in having a character that doesn't like battling?"
The problem lies not in the concept, but the execution. Like someone else here on Tumblr said, you can very much have a non-combatant, emotionally supportive girl character who is typically feminine and they can be just as interesting and compelling as the girls who are ready to punch someone in the face. But that's only if they're done well. An actually well-done example of such a character in AniPoké is Lillie. Serena, however, is NOT done well, and it's pretty much because she comes across like the kind of girl you would see being romanced by space ship captains or British spies named Jim, rather than the kind of girl you would see in real life. And it's mainly because the showrunners tried (and failed) to make her into a love interest for Ash solely because Shukishi Kanda wanted it.
>"Her personality is stronger than May's and Dawn's."
How? Genuinely curious in asking: How? Because this kind of claim is like saying that Izumi/Zoe Orimoto from Digimon Frontier has a stronger personality than Mimi Tachikawa from Digimon Adventure (the original version, though the one from the reboot isn't too shabby, either), which is a claim that I doubt that a Digimon fan would make with a straight face.
>"Serena said that she wanted to be like Ash rather than want Ash for herself."
If that was genuinely true, she wouldn't have told Ash that she'll become "a more beautiful woman" for him in the Japanese version, or that Ash "will like the kind of woman she'll become" in the English version. You see where I'm going with this, person who wrote the comments that Shitirishaterssay is talking about? Whether she left Ash or not has no bearing on this.
>"Serena losing was better handled than May."
>"I may not be able to explain this well, but *rambles about not having a goal*..."
Good for you. But your life experiences have nothing to do with how good of a character Anime Serena is. Also, "relatability" by itself doesn't make a character or work good. "Relatability" is good to have, yes. But it's not the single deciding factor in how good a character is. Superman, for example is a widely beloved comic book character, whereas Frieza is considered one of the best anime villains to ever exist. Neither one of them is "relatable".
>"It is such a mature scene."
What you consider "mature", I consider stale and derivative.
>"I never felt anything about May."
Probably because you didn't watch AG in its entirety.
>"May and Drew's relationship came out of nowhere."
And Serena's supposed "childhood friendship" with Ash didn't? Seriously. Serena's existence in the Pokémon Anime wasn't even alluded to for the 800+ episodes prior to the XY anime, but yet the show asks us to believe that Ash and Serena have known each other for a long time. Also, relationships don't always need some specific setup in order to happen. So I don't get the significance of saying that May's and Drew's relationship "came out of nowhere".
>"It didn't help that May and Drew were side characters..."
If you sincerely think that May's a "side character", then, I'm sorry, but you don't know what "side character" means.
>"There are many scenes which show that Serena understands Ash well."
If Serena actually did understand Ash well, she wouldn't be worshipping him or seeing him as the light at the end of her tunnel.
>"She tells him that he can be reckless, sometimes."
And why doesn't she do what other girls who traveled with Ash have done, and try to rein in that recklessness?
>"She states that Ash is stubborn, and won't give up a battle, even if he's sick."
Which, again, doesn't really mean much if she doesn't really do anything to reel in that stubbornness.
>"So she dresses up as him."
Which she didn't even need to do. All it did was make her look even more obsessed with Ash. It also doesn't make sense how his clothes fit perfectly on her, given that she's, 1, a girl, and 2, taller than him.
>"During the snowball scene, Serena states that Ash isn't acting like himself."
Which is literally evidence for Serena not liking Ash, but rather a shadow and a thought of Ash.
>"And helps him snap out of his BS."
By doing the one thing that you're not supposed to do to a friend who's depressed unless you're looking to speedrun ending a friendship, and getting away with it because the narrative said so.
>"You'd probably be interested in..."
I can't tell if this is the 2nd or 3rd clown that pointed to videos about Serena by RThor as "evidence" of Serena's critics being wrong, and Serena's fans being right.
>"This is from a person who is not an AmourShipper."
I'm pretty sure that nobody who treats Anime Serena like she's the best thing since sliced bread would ever NOT be an "AmourShipper".
