Title: Re: BW 33: リグレーと未確認飛行物体!/Ligray to mikakunin hikō buttai!
Quote From: ChanceThat's very true. Shinji was a real jerk, but at least, there was some interesting writing done with him (like the Hikozaru you mentionned).
But so far, I haven't seen anything really interesting about Shootie so far, except his over-sized ego. He's not just 'selfish and looking down on Satoshi', in my opinion (though I couldn't exactly pin down what I disliked so much in him). What's more, we're quite used to rivals looking down on Satoshi, which is another reason I don't like him. So far, there hasn't been anything original about his character.
Then again, I agree I'm not being fair with Shootie, comparing him to Shinji, who had so many more episodes than Shootie.
Well, if you only take into account the first few episodes of DP and BW, Shootie has appeared in roughly the same number of episodes as Shinji had up to DP40, and also got roughly the same amount of focus (as BW23, 24 and 26 haven't aired yet, we
might be missing some of Shootie's appeareances). Even though I agree that Shootie hasn't done anything interesting enough
so far that could greatly distinguish himself from Satoshi's other rivals, if you look back into Shinji's first appearances, he didn't have anything interesting going for himself either. Except for being a jerk to his Pokémon, his character only started unfolding
after DP40 (at least the way I see it), so I guess we should just be more patient when it comes to Shootie. I think the writers will find something to make him more interesting in the episodes to come. :) Besides, it's not like they haven't tried to differentiate him a bit from the other rivals. We have seen that he also has a soft side, apart from his normal, selfish one, (he used his Hatoboh to protect Satoshi's Mamepato from the Fushide's attack and then lead them to the Central Area of Hiun City in BW22, and also helped Satoshi identify the reason why Mijumaru's Aqua Jet keeps failing in BW34) which, as far as I remember, none of the other rivals had shown so early into the series.