At the moment these character salute posts are more or less biweekly. Whether or not they’ll remain biweekly though is the question. But for this Character Salute, I’ve decided to talk about Ash’s original love interest. I am of course talking about that fiery mistress of Water Pokemon, Misty.
In the good old days before Ash started going through female traveling companions like Doctor Who, Misty tagged along with Ash as he traveled through Kanto and Johto. The two did not meet on the best of terms, as Ash’s Pikachu had ended up destroying her bike with an electrical blast. Soon after that famous incident Misty started following Ash around. In the beginning Misty claimed to be following Ash so he’d eventually pay her back for the bike that he and Pikachu ruined. But right off the bat, those of us in the audience could tell how transparent a lie that was.
I think the thing I like most about Misty is her general personality. Misty is a kind person, but boy if she doesn’t have a temper. But I rather like female characters with an attitude (which is one of the reasons why Full Metal Panic has become a favorite anime of mine). Though there were times when I found Misty’s temper to be a little much sometimes. There were a few times when Misty was chewing out Ash when I thought to myself, “lay off Misty, he’s trying his best!” or something like that.
Still, Misty’s temper is one of her more memorable qualities. And some of her little tiffs with Ash were the stuff of comedy gold. But all in all, Misty was just a colorful character. And that’s what makes her memorable. I think everyone who watched the Pokemon anime from the beginning (and likely stopped a few episodes into the Hoenn sage) fondly remember Misty’s fear of Bug Pokemon, which was often used for comic effect, and I’m sure many also remember all the times Misty punched out Brock whenever he hit on the ladies. So it’s almost a travesty that Misty ended up getting replaced by such a flat character later on.
In the Games:In the first and second-generation games and their remakes, Misty has the prominent role of being the Cerulean City Gym Leader. And of course her preferred Pokemon type in those games is the water type. In the generation one games and their remakes, Misty is the second gym leader that the player must face in order to advance. She’s fairly easy to take out, unless of course one chose Charmander as their starter. Although in my experience she’s even difficult to take out in Yellow. Usually I’d have to get Pikachu up close to level twenty before I could take her down, and I guess that could be because of Pikachu’s lackluster stats (face it, Pikachu isn’t that powerful).
In generation two, Misty is faced later on in the game after the player has beaten the Elite Four and starts traveling around Kanto. But before she can be faced, the player has to disturb Misty while she’s on a date. After that she can be fairly easily defeated if the player has any strong Electric and/or Grass-type Pokemon on their team. In HeartGold and SoulSilver, Misty can be rebottled at certain times of the week (and I really wish that was in the original games). Also from what I’ve read, Misty can be battle in Pokemon Black 2 and White 2 as part of the Pokemon World Tournament.
Unfulfilled Romance: During the old days of the Pokemon anime, it seemed like there was a romance building between Ash and Misty. That’s how it starts sometimes, first it’s friendship, and then it becomes something more. The implication of this possible love story was during the Orange Island arc. There were subtle hints of this in various episodes, and even during the second movie if you were paying close enough attention. These hints continued on even into the Johto saga.
But then at the end of the Johto sage, the hopes for this little love story coming to be were dashed when the writers decided to write Misty out of the show. They had her taking over the Cerulean City Gym from her airhead sisters and when Ash got to Hoenn she was replaced by May, who in my opinion was a flat character. Not to mention an airhead. Misty did have a few other appearances after that, but they didn’t really go anywhere. The anime basically went into stagnation and began to degrade into what it is now.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; writing Misty out of the show was one of the three biggest mistakes of the anime. The other two are not exploring Ash’s connection to the legendary Ho-Oh, and dropping the GS Ball plotline. And it is something of a tragedy that Ash and Misty’s relationship never went any further. Ah well, that’s what fan fiction is for I guess. I’ve recently been doing a little something with that myself.
So that about wraps it up for this Character Salute. I’ve already decided which character to do for next time, so stay tuned.
