Discover Top Posts Tagged with #coordinator kenny

Okay, let's be honest, if you wrote Harley and Kenny interacting, you'd give them the exact same dynamic. Original screenshot below⬇️

(And yes, I did have to make Kenny look like someone told him idiots are hard to hypnotize; if you were 13 and a grown(?) man threw himself onto your back butt first, would you be able to lift him with no problem?)

#pokemon #pokemon anime #pokeani #coordinator harley #coordinator kenny #disney primos #a little bit bad #my art #screenshot redraw

I just wanna say thank you for the "good idea Kenny" post. It started something with me and my friends. All because I showed one of them that image. Somehow, it evolved into... the Kenny cult. We worshipped Kenny. We started an entire club based around Kenny. We WERE Kenny. I'm pretty sure Drew would have been beyond done with all of us. Because Kenny. Kenny got the attention and not him.

...Yeah, it really happened, it was disturbing, it was awesome, and we can't ever look at Kenny in the same way again. Without saluting him and hailing him as our king. So, yeah. That's all I wanted to say...

I need you to understand that this is my favorite ask I have ever received. It left me with questions. It left me with reverence. It left me curious and awestruck and slightly concerned about my legacy on the internet. To think, I started this blog to shitpost with like 6 or 7 friends and now here we are, a year and a half-ish later and almost a thousand posts later with a KENNY CULT (?????????). Genuinely a this-blog heritage post in the making, right after 'shuckle' and 'pee'. real ones remember pee.

Feel free to tell me more, please. This is glorious.

#pokemon #pokeani #anipoke #pokemon kenny #coordinator kenny #ask #not an edit

My blog is a safe-space for Kenny.

He's my favorite companion rival. I think he's a fun coordinator. A natural underdog, he has an interesting lineup of Pokémon and even manages to have his own win episode.

#pokemon anime #coordinator kenny #trainer kenny #pokemon ani #anipoke

i have some thoughts on trans girl kenny.

#coordinator kenny #kenny pokemon #coordinator zoey #coordinator dawn #appealshipping #penguinshipping #<< one sided by proxy #my art

The Kenny discourse

I was thinking about character dynamics with Ursula, but since I have been watching a lot of Diregentleman, I decided to focus on Dawn’s other antagonistic rival, our Diamond boy Kenny. I already have a bunch of ideas on how to use him in the fic largely as a foil for Conway and Leona. But this will be more of a metafictional-speculative discussion of our boy, because I have lots of brainworms related to him. Most of these have been stuff we discussed back in Serebii and Bulbapedia forums, so you can sort of see this as the Kenny fanon bible.

*First and foremost, Kenny was screwed with a bad hand in his conception. He is meant to be amalgamation of Gary, game Barry, and Drew.

**His parallels with early Gary are obvious, he has a Water starter, he is always one step above Dawn, he actually evolves his Pokémon, he is an Alakazam (whic is one of Gary’s large number of Pokémon caught for sake of his grandad in Johto arc), and he is a boisterious idiot. The problem is of course he does not have an horde of adoring fans, nor any natural charisma that would be attractive to anyone besides Dawn.

However, most importantly he is not the main rival of Dawn’s contest arc. When Gary was Ash’s rival in the OS, he was the Big Chungus. Even though he loses early on the Kanto League, much like how Kenny loses in the Appeals Round of Sinnoh GF, you have no illusions of Gary missing after Orange Islands filler. With Kenny, you can’t be so sure, since Dawn’s hasn’t won against Zoey to our knowledge.

**His parallels are with Drew are more superficial, but they are there. Even though Zoey is clearly designed to be a lesbian from the start (as seen her settei/character sheet), Kenny is clearly meant to be a possible romantic interest for Dawn, and they actually work decently. The big problem is not Zoey’s homosexuality here, but Pearlshipping. As you know, after High Touch, the central relationship in Dawn’s life becomes his relationship with Ash (and to lesser extent Brock).

This means Kenny’s character arc cannot be fulfilled if his goal is indeed Dawn (even though that wasn’t initially his goal, but we’ll discuss that later), because Ash exists, and if Ash exists, Dawn will always choose him as long as show runs because marketing. And since we haven’t seen any reference for any of Dawn’s rivals in her future appearances except technically Ursula with Dawn’s battle poses in BW and her style, we are presumed to assume both Kenny and Zoey were ultimately unimportant.

**His parallels with game Barry are more superficial, but ultimately they are the ones that stick, especially after Barry is introduced properly in the middle of DP. Much like Barry, he is a childhood friend from Twinleaf. Much like Barry, he is jumpy, often scared idiot. And much like Barry, he is an unassuming genius and his Pokémon have a “heroic” theme of sorts (compare Rapidash, Roserade, Floatzel,Heracross, Snorlax with Breloom, Alakazam, Machoke, and Floatzel)

The problem is, of course, unlike Barry he does not have an important family, and since he doesn’t have an important background, we can’t have the generational parallel that exists between Player character and Barry, and Player character’s father and Palmer. And while Kenny’s character develops, he remains thoroughly childish, not in the innocent way but in the overbearing way. Unlike game Barry, who eventually grows up to being the character with highest Leveled Pokémon up until Platinum (since he will be overtaken by Red in HGSS, the Sephiroth of the main line Pokémon franchise).

*Secondly we should discuss his parallel with Gary. That makes me wonder, since Gary screwed up in Kanto and decided to grind more seriously in Johto, leading us the first major multi-part rival fight Ash had in Johto League, would Kenny be the same? What would be her and Dawn’s rank in that final confrontation? Would Dawn actually win such a fight or lose? Her win-loss ratio with Kenny is rather even, rather the one-sided loss ratio Ash with Gary.

If she wins again Kenny but loses against somebody else at Top 2, then she would be stuck at the same rank as Sinnoh. But if she wins against Kenny at top 2, she becomes a Top Coordinator (not a “Top” Coordinator, but you know, annual championship winner, similar to Tobias, not similar to actual permanent Champions). And if Kenny wins, he would become a “Top” Coordinator. Similar issue exists with Zoey, but I might discuss that in her post.

That would raise another question, since during this point in the animé, after losing against Ash, Gary gave up on his championship goals, so would Kenny give up on coordinating? Fanon says yes, but canon says a hard no.

*Thirdly is that Kenny is show in canon to be unapologetically be serious about contests. No really. I get that it is like a common trope to kick him to the Pokémon League, but no, Kenny is shown time and time again to be actually serious about contests.

I guess people got overboard with his more physical style of contesting, but Ursula has that as well, and I don’t see anyone trying to make her a Pokémon League contestant. The “you must die for our ship/character” thing is rather stupid, especially since Kenny actually has interesting rival dynamic with Dawn (besides shipping, I mean), but yes, Kenny not only started his contest tourney before Dawn, his first major battle was against Zoey (which he lost).

As for Kenny often runs away after his losses, I guess people took it wrong way, but that is because he is a energetic idiot who wants to grind as quickly as possible, as we often see him in a training position before he meets up with Dawn and co. We don’t if this is a Ralph Bakshi sitution, where he can only do contests and not Pokémon League tourneys, since his impatient nature and battle style isn’t really fit for League-ing. Speaking of which...

*Fourthly we should talk about Kenny’s contesting. His fighting style is rather similar to Dawn’s, since he uses the techniques of his opponent against them. This often works if he is more powerful or more skillful, but if there is a major skill/stat/Level gap, it becomes an utter failure (see Zoey flashback and DP061). However, his style more sumo than Megaman, since he wants to ensure his opponents fail due to their own techniques, rather than copying their tactics like Dawn does.

This creates an interesting dynamic. Kenny must defeat Dawn using her strength, while Dawn must emulate Kenny’s attempt to use his strength against him. This means Dawn is more likely to win is she is the weaker one, but less likely to win against Kenny if she is stronger. Dawn should still ideally defeat him physically to dominate him, but metaphorically knocking him out of the ring still works enough.

Kenny’s style is also interesting since he uses general stat buffs and status moves, like Light Screen (on Alakazam), Mist (on Prinplup), and Focus Energy (Machoke). With the exception of Breloom, we don’t see a focus on moves an opponent weaker (as seen with Ursula), or generally disorient the opponent (as seen with Zoey). This seems to suggest he is more focused on his Pokémon look good, rather than making his opponent weaker. Again, since his battling style involves using the strength of his opponent against themselves, this makes some sense.

But would this work in a Gym environment? Well the general answer should be no. Since the point of Gym Battles in the animé is fighting like the Gym Leaders, or thinking outside of the box. Kenny’s fighting style might work in some Rock and Fighting Gyms like Chuck’s, but I can’t see him having success elsewhere. It is however perfect for contests, since animé contest battles are about defeating your opponent in a stylish way.

I might add more addendums to this post, but these are all the Kenny brainworms I have.

#coordinator kenny #Kenny #kengo #pokeani dp #analysis #my analysis