Trivia / Pocket Monsters: The Animation

• Died During Production: It's unknown if Takeshi Shudō ever actually did work on the planned third volume, and with his death in 2010, we may never know what he had intended.
• Early Draft Tie-In: The books essentially contain Shudo's semi-official headcanons on the universe and his wants for the anime, which go against most of what is actually depicted in the final product even the early episodes (for example, the samurai from episode 4 of the original series is replaced with a generic bug catcher and ten-year olds are still treated like kids in the anime).
• God Never Said That: There is a persistent rumor that Takeshi Shudo published these books specifically to spite the higher ups of the Pokémon anime for constantly kidifying his ideas and plots. This isn't actually true; he mainly published these books to give an idea of his original vision for the series, and had a mostly amicable work relationship with those who worked on the anime. (Many of whom he worked with on previous anime series.) He mainly left because he got tired of the Strictly Formula nature the show had fallen into, and wanted to write a version that wasn't so restricted by broadcast standards. It's not dark specifically to spite the franchise overall; it's simply a more realistic take on the world of Pokémon from the view of someone who isn't a 10 year old like Ash is.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: The series is an obscure duo of Japanese-only light novels. They've never been rereleased and most likely never will be.
• No Export for You: The novels only came out in Japan.
• Self-Adaptation: The novels are based on Pokémon: The Series and were written by Takeshi Shudō, the anime's head writer.

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