Dawn (anime): Difference between revisions

Dawn (Japanese: ヒカリ Hikari) is a ten-year-old girl traveling through Sinnoh with Ash and Brock. Her goal is to become a great Pokémon Coordinator like her mother, Johanna. Her first Pokémon is a Piplup that she received from Professor Rowan in the first Diamond & Pearl episode.

Character

Dawn is notable for her confidence, since she is always looking towards the future rather than dwelling on her mistakes, although she has learned that this is not always enough. In the Japanese version, she often says, "Daijōbu!" Although not consistently translated in the English dub at first, she began to regularly use "No need to worry!". In a stark contrast to May's inexperience and self-doubt at the start of the Advanced Generation series, Dawn is perhaps overly confident and assured in her own strength in the beginning. Dawn is one of Ash's friends to get the most character development.

She began her journey with her Piplup and knew from the beginning that she wanted to be a Coordinator. After meeting Ash and Brock, she decided to journey with them, as their experience would likely be helpful to her. Like Ash, she is lucky enough to have seen a legendary Pokémon at the start of her journey, the projected soul of Mesprit in Following a Maiden's Voyage!. She lost her first Contest in Arrival of a Rival and ended up getting support from her mother who told her to rely on her friends. Eventually, in her second official contest, Dawn narrowly beat Kenny to gain her first ribbon.

In Dawn's Early Night, when she competed in the Hearthome City Contest, she lost in the Appeal Round, making her the first of the main characters to drop out of a contest by losing the appeal round. In Team Shocker!, she lost the Appeal Round for second time in a row. This was a big turn around in Dawn's character. Previously, she had only occasionally been seen training for contests. After this second blow to her self-esteem, she didn't know what to do and was still very upset throughout Tanks for the Memories!. After this, she began to become more focused and regained her confidence after battling Maylene in Crossing the Battle Line!. Dawn began to practice in earnest and eventually was able to break her losing streak in Strategy With a Smile! and was able to win the Wallace Cup after narrowly defeating May in the final round. Dawn has since maintained her newfound focus and humility. After learning of the next contest in Celestic Town, she became very dedicated in her training, and actually overworked her Pokémon in A Lean Mean Team Rocket Machine!. Due to her hard work, she managed to win the contest in Battling the Generation Gap!. In DP106, her Mamoswine began to disobey her after evolving, despite this, she still thought that she could train it well.

While she is the only female main character not to have a sibling, she has two childhood friends that appeared in the anime, Kenny and Leona, both of whom call her sometimes Dee Dee (Japanese: ピカリ Pikari). Dawn has prevented them from telling Ash and Brock about the reason why she has this nickname. She seems to be closer to Leona than to Kenny. Kenny functions as a rival for Dawn alongside Zoey. Zoey also functions as a semi-mentor to Dawn and helped her recover from her second loss. All three are competing for their first time in the regional contests. Leona, however, challenges Gyms. She also seemed to be childhood friends with Jun when she was little, and was very upset that he didn't remember who she was.

Dawn is much more different than any of Ash's other friends. Dawn has more concern about her appearance, as she will not show herself to Ash or Brock until she feels that her appearance is perfect. That may be a reason why she decides to sleep inside a tent while the others sleep outside. However, she has recently been seen sleeping outside with the others, such as in Tears for Fears! Every time she's going to be on camera, she needs to take a moment to brush her hair before going on. In The Bells are Singing!, Dawn revealed that she was the one to design Buneary's vest (but also admitted that her mother was the one to sew it). In Arriving in Style!, she demonstrated her talent for designing again, sketching many different dresses for the Hearthome Collection, though she rejected all of them.

Also unlike Ash's other friends, Dawn has already crossed a lot of boundaries that have previously only been held by Ash. She saw the aforementioned legendary Pokémon prior to meeting Ash, and is the first main character to own an Template:Type2 Pokémon besides Ash. Having caught Buneary, Pachirisu, and Buizel, Dawn has captured more Pokémon in her first 35 episodes that any of the other main characters, aside from Ash. She is also the first main character besides Ash to have battled a member of the Elite Four. If one counts Phione as a legendary Pokémon, then she is the first of Ash's friends to have defeated a legendary Pokémon.

She had a bicycle, but like Misty's and May's bikes, Ash's Pikachu destroyed it with its Thunderbolt. However, she did not mention this to Ash until over 30 episodes after it happened. Johanna gave Dawn one of her old ribbons from her days as a coordinator as a gift for luck. She also had a large suitcase full of dresses, but her mother made her leave it at home due to its impracticality. She also has a Contest Pass for the Sinnoh region, and her contest cry is "Spotlight!" (US), or "Charm up!" (Japan).

Like May, she has her own ending theme song, titled 君のそばで 〜ヒカリのテーマ〜 By Your Side ~Hikari's Theme~. It is the first ending of the Diamond & Pearl anime. The song is performed by グリン Grin.

Pokémon

Since starting her journey, the Pokémon that Dawn acquire tend to be cute like her starter, Piplup. However, due to still being a rookie, she may have some rough spots on how to deal with her Pokémon properly. However, she still deeply cares for all her Pokémon, especially Piplup.

This listing is of Dawn's Pokémon as of the most recent Japanese episode:

On hand

Piplup	File:Dawn's Buneary.png Buneary	→ Aipom → Ambipom
Pachirisu	→ → Swinub → Piloswine → Mamoswine

Traded

Buizel

• Buizel: Traded to Ash for Aipom

Temporary

Grimer

Dodrio

Sharpedo

• Grimer: Trained during Camping It Up!
• Dodrio and Sharpedo: Used in the triathlon in One Team, Two Team, Red Team, Blue Team.

Ribbons

Sinnoh ribbons

• Floaroma Ribbon (Settling a Not-So-Old Score!)
• Aqua Ribbon (Strategy with a Smile!)
• Celestic Ribbon (Battling the Generation Gap!)
• Akebi Ribbon (DP114)

Achievements

• Unofficial contest in Borrowing on Bad Faith - Runner-Up
• Hearthome City Tag Battle Competition (Runner-up - with Conway) (Smells Like Team Spirit!)
• Hearthome Collection - Winner (Arriving in Style!)

Voice actors

Trivia

• Out of all of Ash's friends, Dawn is the only one so far to have her debut episode dedicated completely to herself. Unlike other debut episodes, Ash didn't even appear until the last 30 seconds.
• May and Misty were girls who traveled before Dawn's appearance with Ash Ketchum. Both of them have Japanese names including the katakana カ ka and dub names starting with M, so some fans believed Dawn would as well have a dub name starting with M, because she had カ in her name. However, this was revealed to be false when her English name was revealed to be Dawn, which appears to reference Pokémon Diamond, as Paul references Pokémon Pearl. "Dawn" may also be a reference to "Hikari," which means "light"--dawn is essentially the day's first light.

• Dawn is the second Coordinator that is voiced by Megumi Toyoguchi in Japanese, the first being Janet.
• She is one of two of Ash's friends who is not or part of a Gym Leader family. Tracey is probably the other. However, this is only presumed as no information is known about her father or Tracey's family.
• On the Pokémon Learning League website, her clothing has been altered so that her white undershirt has sleeves and she is wearing black stockings or tights.
• Dawn is the first Pokémon Trainer introduced as a novice to not have a Template:Type2 Pokémon be her first evolution, as Ash's first evolving Pokémon was Caterpie, and May's was Wurmple. Dawn's first evolving Pokémon was Aipom.
  • The only Pokémon on Dawn's team that have evolved so far are part of a Generation II evolution family: her Generation IV Pokémon have not evolved at all.
• She is the only main character aside from Ash to challenge an official Pokémon Gym, and the first of Ash's friends to compete in an official Gym Battle in the main series since Showdown at Pewter City and The Water Flowers of Cerulean City, where Brock battled Ash and Misty battled Ash respectively.
  • Counting side-stories, the last time anyone besides Ash or his rivals were shown challenging a Gym Leader would be The Blue Badge of Courage, where Sakura fought Misty.
    • Counting Gym Leaders of any sort (meaning, regardless of whether it was an official Gym leader or an unofficial one), Dawn's only the second main character other than Ash to do this, as Misty challenged Dorian in Just Add Water, long before Dawn ever appeared.
• When Dawn had Buizel, she had two Template:Type2s (the other being Piplup), while afterward, with Ambipom, she has two Template:Type2s (the other being Buneary). These relate to Ash's previous two female traveling partners, as Misty is a Gym Leader who specializes in Water-types, while May's father Norman is a Gym Leader that specializes in Normal-types.
• Dawn's Latin American Spanish dub actress, Gaby Ugarte, is the sister of Xóchitl Ugarte, Misty's Latin American Spanish voice actress. Interestingly, the two characters haven't met yet.
• Dawn is the second female traveling companion to battle in the third Gym of a region. She battled Maylene, the Veilstone Gym leader herself, while her predecessor, May, battled the Mauville Gym Leader Wattson's assistant, Watt.
• Dawn's Japanese name is Hikari, and her rival's is Nozomi. The Hikari and the Nozomi are two Shinkansen "bullet train" lines. The Nozomi is faster than the Hikari, possibly symbolizing that Zoey is farther along in her coordinating skills that Dawn. It should also be noted that they go the opposite direction.
• Dawn is the second main character to have a Pokémon disobey her. The first was Ash with his Pikachu, Primeape, and Charizard.
• Dawn is the only main character aside from Ash to not have her starter evolve.

Related articles

• Episodes focusing on Dawn
• Dawn (game)

External links

• Daijoubu!, the fanlisting for Dawn
• Hikari's Profile on Pokeani (Japanese)
• Hikari's Pokémon on Pokeani (Japanese)

On Bulbagarden forums

• The Dawn Club

Dawn's Pokémon
On hand:	Piplup	Buneary	Pachirisu	Mamoswine	Quilava	Togekiss
In training:	Ambipom
Traded away:	Buizel
Released:	Oshawott
Temporary:	Pikachu	Croagunk	Chimchar	Staravia	Grimer	Dodrio
	Sharpedo