Shipping Poll

[precita]

Literally the whole reason people liked Advanceshipping back in the day was:

1. May was hot and had huge boobs

2. People were bored of Misty and/or Pokeshipping by the end of Johto.


May was also the very first new female companion of the series, and since back then we had no clue there would be a new female lead every series, a lot of people shipped her with Ash simply on the basis that it was the first alternative to Misty in 5 years.


And before anyone asks, I know this because I came to the fandom back in 2002/2003 when the Hoenn seasons were just starting, and I remember reading everything people were saying back then. Its also why May has one of the largest followings in the fandom in general.

[Jerichi]

So I have absolutely no experience or knowledge of this, but why does everyone say May has huge boobs? I mean yeah I guess they're huge for a 10-year-old but by Anime standards I don't see how they're big.

[Talon87]

Originally Posted by Jerichi

So I have absolutely no experience or knowledge of this, but why does everyone say May has huge boobs? I mean yeah I guess they're huge for a 10-year-old but by Anime standards I don't see how they're big.

One, that she has any boobs at all automatically makes them seem huge in many people's minds. You see this in human psychology with a crapton of physical traits. You also see it in fanart with traits both physical and non-physical.

Two, reference frames. I remember when I was 12, I thought this one classmate had very large breasts. For a 12-year old girl, she probably did. But put those same breasts on a 20-year old and they'd probably seem rather small. Yet, because I thought they were big then, I remember them as being big now, and may subconsciously adjust for them to match the adult expectation of bigness. Same idea with the fictional May. Her chest may match with the chest of the biggest girl in a 10-year old boy's class, and so May is ensconced as "big chested"; then that idea, locked in, carries with him as he grows up. He always remembers May as big breasted, even though were he to see her now at 20 he wouldn't think she was.

Three, Sugimori always draws small chests. This is kind of a version of No.1 in new clothes. If you look at Sugimori's character designs, the women mostly range from literally flat as a board all the way up to a timid B cup. Because of this, you have the same phenomenon as what you have with ginormo breasts in hentai: viewers subconsciously recalibrate. You know average is B/C. You know D is large but not at all rare. So you recalibrate, mentally, subconsciously, and you say, "Alright then. Anime Lorelei's got to be a DD then. Cynthia has to be a D. Any of the non-washing boards are probably B's and C's." The same thing happens to May. Sugimori draws May as a B, but he draws all his girls as A's and B's. So that makes May "busty," because the mind subconsciously rejects the notion that not a single one of these women is above a B, and so the mind instead decides to think of Sugimori B's as actual C's (or D's, depending, though not in May's case). It's the same reason you can bust out a ruler and show that some artist drew a girl's boob as big as her head yet the reader still thinks of her as only a D cup. (Because the artist's universe has women with even more enormous breasts, and the reader associates those with larger real cup and band sizes.)

I think it's a combination of these three. Maybe plus more.

[precita]

Originally Posted by Jerichi

So I have absolutely no experience or knowledge of this, but why does everyone say May has huge boobs? I mean yeah I guess they're huge for a 10-year-old but by Anime standards I don't see how they're big.

Her chest was drawn the same size as the adult females in the show, and since she wears tight-fitting clothing, her body is a lot more visible than all the other girls.



Case in point, she's drawn bigger than Flannery in this episode. Flannery...of all people, the Hoenn female Gym leader known for her top.

The animators themselves also draw attention to it, since many scenes of the show have bizarre close-ups on May's chest when she's throwing a pokeball or battling or such. The sheer mass of May fanart out there also focuses on this most of all.

[Doppleganger]

I had no idea her breasts were that prominent. What Talon says about Sugimori is pretty true - Cynthia looks flat chested to me, but relative to other Pokemon characters she's stacked.

May is objectively stacked when you consider she's ten years old. Dawn had a more wifey personality though.

[precita]

Its also, as said, her outfit:



Her outfit is literally designed to wrap around her curves. Getting back to the topic of shipping, a large chunk of people who liked Advanceshipping a decade ago were mostly male fans who found May cute and wanted Ash to get with a girl more similar to his personality.

Of course Contestshipping was also a thing in AG, since May's rival Drew also blatantly hit on her throughout the episodes and gave her roses.

[Doppleganger]

My eyes are glued to her Pokeballs.

[satosere]

Originally Posted by Emi

I had to remind myself you are like literally 11. Anyways, a small breakdown:

-Sometimes people prefer ships that match their own sexual orientation than others. I much prefer lesbian / yuri ships over pretty much anything else.
-There is a massive underepresentation of alternate sexual orientations in cartoons. Some shows have broken this mold with outwardly bisexual or homosexual characters but by and large you see a ton of heterosexual stuff.
-Sometimes some ships have more chemistry than "canon" or popular ships.

Those are just a few of the reasons. The fact that people ship cartoon characters to begin with is probably weird but that's likely us projecting our desires for a romantic relationship on a cartoon character.

Ok first of all I'm 13 years old.
Second, well you did explain that quite well. Thanks for going to all the trouble I guess.

Yeah, when I watched the first episode of Advanced, I was quite disturbed by the fact that May says that she's 10 and she has huge boobs. Ugh. Like is that even possible? I'm 13 and I'm not even that big! Ok sorry if that disturbed you. It kind of disturbed me too...

[big bad birtha]

The poll is missing the best option.

[Slash]

The only real Ash shipping is Ash x Pokemon training. And it's canon.

Why are we even shipping Ash with people, though? He's like, 10.

May's boobs make my back hurt.

Originally Posted by Doppleganger

Dawn had a more wifey personality though.

I am quite curious to know exactly what you mean by this. Are wives supposed to act a certain specific way?

[deoxys]

That weird feeling that you've been on UPN for longer than some of its currently active users have been alive...

I'm taking a shot tomorrow for every mention of the word "boob" "breast" and "chest" in this thread. Doubling down if "May" is in the same sentence.

this shitpost and more brought to you by another quality thread on forums dot upnetwork dot net

[Mercutio]

Meh I'm straight and the only way you could make shipping interesting to me is if you did Palletshipping. At least then you'd be being moderately socially interesting rather than purely sexualising 10 year olds.

Also why are we not talking about the intense Misty-Jessie romance?

[Doppleganger]

Originally Posted by Slash

I am quite curious to know exactly what you mean by this. Are wives supposed to act a certain specific way?

I actually don't know either way, since I never watched one iota of the anime when Dawn was featured. My knowledge of it is so bad I couldn't tell you if the gen was Advanced or DP.

I'm just going off Dawn's memetic reputation.

[Mercutio]

Dawn does not actually behave in a wifey way.

[Slash]

So, she's memetically wifey? That's... that's even more confusing. I have no idea what that's even supposed to mean.

And here I thought Brock was the one who was the memetic wife.

[precita]

You guys are confusing Dawn with Serena. Dawn's personality was similar to Ash's but she was clueless about love and just liked battling and focusing on Contests. Dawn was basically female Ash, just very girly.

Serena's entire character is based around her crush on Ash and wanting to be his wife. Almost all the Serena episodes of XY focus on her crush on Ash or being an idol performer. On top of that she's incredibly submissive to him and thinks Ash is the greatest thing ever, and constantly asks for his approval on the way she looks (if she's wearing a new outfit for example), and blushes whenever he compliments her.

Man, I feel like I'm the only one here who knows the difference in the personalities of all the main girls.

[satosere]

Originally Posted by precita

You guys are confusing Dawn with Serena. Dawn's personality was similar to Ash's but she was clueless about love and just liked battling and focusing on Contests. Dawn was basically female Ash, just very girly.

Serena's entire character is based around her crush on Ash and wanting to be his wife. Almost all the Serena episodes of XY focus on her crush on Ash or being an idol performer. On top of that she's incredibly submissive to him and thinks Ash is the greatest thing ever, and constantly asks for his approval on the way she looks (if she's wearing a new outfit for example), and blushes whenever he compliments her.

Man, I feel like I'm the only one here who knows the difference in the personalities of all the main girls.

You are so right! I totally agree.

[Rangeet]

That...is ridiculously creepy.

[Talon87]

Originally Posted by Rangeetsuper

That...is ridiculously creepy.

Or it would be if it were true. precita is exaggerating. Watch the show yourself and see, or don't and take my word for it. Serena is pretty much cut from the same cloth as Dawn only she has a canonical crush on Ash that is referenced once every three to four episodes and is the focus of only a handful of episodes. (The last "Serena Likes Ash: The Episode" episode we had was about 11 months ago.)

He calls her "overly submissive." The lie detector found that that was a lie. #maury Serena isn't the dom that Iris was but she's no more "submissive" than Dawn (past girl) or Clemont (current guy).

Of course most of Serena's episodes focus on her career goals as a Pokémon Performer. Most of Ash's episodes focus on his efforts to reach, defeat, or train up for the next gym. This is a fangless attack.

[precita]

Serena and Ash have also never gotten into an argument in 100 episodes so far. By now, Ash and all the main girls have argued or squabbled with one another, even Ash with May and Dawn.

Dawn was definitely more headstrong, confident and loved to leap into battle, even though she was girly and loved fashion, etc, she was basically treated like female!Ash. Dawn was written like an equal co-star to Ash in DP, so she got the most amount of screentime for a female lead in general.

Serena on the other hand has huge admiration for Ash, she's the most passive female lead on the cast in that she never argues and rarely takes charge, she's not a very active battler (she actually does the least amount of battling of all the main girls on the entire cast), and her role outside of her goal eps usually revolves around Ash saving/protecting her or asking Ash for his approval. She did it when she first cut her hair and got her new outfit, when she wore the Nurse Joy outfit, during her Pokevision video early in XY, when she wore her first Tripokalon dress, etc.

The girls aside from Iris, have gotten consistently more girly as the anime progressed. May was a mix of girly and tomboy, Dawn was the first overly girly female heroine but it was balanced out because she loved battling, and now Serena is the most "waifu" like of all the main girls because she loves Ash, she's extremely girly and into fashion/cooking, and she has the type of personality seen in other anime where the girl exists to be a guys love interest.

[DaveTheFishGuy]

Originally Posted by precita

You guys are confusing Dawn with Serena. Dawn's personality was similar to Ash's but she was clueless about love and just liked battling and focusing on Contests. Dawn was basically female Ash, just very girly.

This is pretty much why I only ship Ash and Dawn in a sibling-esque relationship. Always felt more like long-lost brother/sister than a romantic couple to me.

[satosere]

Originally Posted by DaveTheFishGuy

This is pretty much why I only ship Ash and Dawn in a sibling-esque relationship. Always felt more like long-lost brother/sister than a romantic couple to me.

Me too! That would seriously be so great. Dawn is a lot like Ash. And then they find out that they are long lost siblings! I would really enjoy that.

[precita]

Many people shipped Dawn with Zoey. It's basically a lesbian version of Contestshipping. Zoey was likely the series first canon lesbian character.

[Slash]

So, what I'm getting here is that a female love interest is supposed to be super stereotype "girly", submissive and always seeking the big strong man's approval, and almost her entire character exists solely for the man she's crushing on?

[satosere]

#Contestshipping4Life