Was Misty poorly handled and developed compared to later female leads?

[precita]

I've been rewatching the original seasons and notice how Misty gets sidelined most of the time. Any time she tries to battle or do something epic, Psyduck would come out interrupting her for the usual gag.

Outside of that most eps focus on Ash and the random filler characters they meet in every ep, so Misty and Brock are largely just treated as exposition characters commenting on whatever is happening. Most of her pokemon are underused too, and it feels like if you don't care about shipping half the appeal to her character is lost. You'd think 275 episodes would be enough to develop her but eh

Misty wasn't a beginning trainer like most of the other female companions, when she's introduced she already co-owns a Gym with her sisters and had 3 pokemon (Staryu, Starmie and Goldeen). But you wouldn't know that from the way she was portrayed.

Early rookie Kanto Ash nearly beats her as early as the 7th episode (he was on the verge of winning had TR not bust through the wall), and he only used Butterfree/Pidgeotto and didn't even have the Kanto starters yet. If he had Bulbasaur or Pikachu wanted to battle, he probably would have won easier. And then after that, Misty loses in the Giselle episode to a Graveler, and doesn't really battle much for rest of the season without Psyduck popping out of its ball to get a headache. In Orange Islands I think her only major trainer battle is the Golduck episode against Marina. Then after that there's not much in Johto till she gets Poliwhirl/Corsola.

Anyone find it weird Misty was treated as inexperienced? Half her team couldn't even battle properly unless under special conditions (Togepi, Psyduck, Goldeen, Horsea), or were underused (Starmie), etc. I know the writers didn't want her to upstage Ash, but they gave her one of the worst battle track records imagineable till the tail-end of her run.

I think the writers just didn't care. When you stop to think of it, there are only very few episodes that actually focus on Misty herself in each season she was in. For the rest of the eps she was basically sidelined with Brock.

 

[Bolt]

Misty was introduced with mystically unique setup — a Gym co-owner, an established trainer, a defined specialty — but the show rarely used any of that. Instead, she got slotted into the "comic relief + straight man to Ash" role, and the writing never let her break out of it for long.


The Psyduck gag is honestly the perfect symbol of her treatment: any time she was poised to have a cool moment, the show undercut it for humor. Compare that to May, Dawn, Serena, Lillie, etc., all of whom got long-running arcs that defined who they were as trainers and as people. Even when the writers didn’t handle everything perfectly, those characters had goals the show actively cared about.


Misty, meanwhile, was written like the series didn’t want to commit to giving her battles, or growth, or even consistent competence. Johto especially felt like the writers were just trying to keep the formula running and didn’t know what to do with the companions. Her Orange Islands moments showed she could shine when the show let her — Corsola, the Seaking comp, the Golduck episode, even her dynamic with Tracey — but those flashes were the exception, not the norm.


I don’t think the writers disliked her, but it definitely feels like they didn’t know how to tell a story with two trainers in the same party without making one take a back seat. And Misty’s personality was strong enough that fans kept her popular anyway, which probably made it easy for the show to rely on gags and banter instead of giving her real development.


Ironically, the cameos she gets in later series (SM, Journeys) treat her with way more respect as a battler than most of her original run did.


So meh, I wouldn't say Misty was “inexperienced,” but she was written like she needed to be held back to protect Ash’s spotlight. And it’s a shame, because the potential for a better-developed Water-type specialist was always right there.