Pokémon anime

Donald: Re, I'm not sure that's true. Most of the original fanbase was still watching when AG was airing and May was introduced. Hell, May's entire fanbase comes mostly from people who started watching in Kanto but liked May more than Misty. I very rarely see any May fan say they didn't start watching with the original Kanto arc, so besides the new little kids who were just getting into pokemon at the time, the reason May's fanbase was so huge is because she came early enough in the series.

The AG series also had the highest ratings of all the post-OS sagas in both Japan and in the U.S., (and you can look this up over at places like animenewsnetwork), so just by default far more people watched May than any of the female companions who came after. Dawn was introduced in the 10th year of the anime, and by then a large chunk of the original fanbase was getting into College or graduated High School so less of the original fans were watching.

People tend to forget the anime was still very popular way back in 2003-2005 when it aired on Saturday mornings with the 4kids dub actors no less. The Hoenn saga aired early enough in the animes lifecycle that it had a large carryover of fans from the original series. Nowadays its less the case besides hardcore fans who still around for the entire run of the show.

Anime has this weird thing where most characters are treated like they're 5 years older than they actually are.

It's probably because the window of being able to have an adventure in Japan is limited up to high school age, because College is mostly seen a joke where you party all day and then you're expected to become a Salaryman wage slave and spend every waking moment doing something work related.

Its also because of fanservice. If all the girls looked like Bonnie for example they would literally look like little kids. Instead all the girls look much older and resemble teenagers, long legs, development, etc.

Its funny, Bonnie is probably only like 2-3 years younger than Serena, yet she almost looks like she's 10 years younger. I felt the same with May and Max. Max was probably around 7-8 years old so he was only 2 years younger than May, yet May looked a good 7 years older than him.

But if you wanted to have legit Fanservice, why not make the characters 2-3 years older on average to match their personalities? The only arguments I could think of (though they are good ones) are Relatability and the Competence Zone argument raises.

Regarding your prior post: So there wasn't a dropoff during mid-Johto and the Misty exodus was less than reputation makes it? Because that's different from the impression I got from your prior posts on the subject of audience turnover. Though I must admit, the Channel Hop from Broadcast to Cable probably did drop its own share of fans; myself for one for a while. (Not The Other Darrin; for me it was all about affordability.)

The original fad of Pokemon died around 2001. The 3rd Pokemon movie completely bombed in U.S. theaters because by then the fad was over. Most childhood fads don't last beyond 3-4 years, and that's when Pokemon's initial mainstream fad status wore off.

To be honest back then I remember most people assuming the anime would end with the Johto arc, because the ratings were slipping and the anime was going into repetitive filler. Little did we know how wrong we were back then, and that the anime would go on for another 15 years after that.

Teaser Trailer for the next movie

I'm kind of wondering now if the Team Flare Arc will be going all the way to July if Zygarde is going to be in the movie.

edited 5th Oct '15 1:08:01 AM by WorldTurtle2

Since we've arrived in October, and there's still no Updated Re-release to be seen... now will you all believe me when I state Gen Vi isn't ending until 2017?!

I mean, hell, there is a retitle of "XY&Z", which is not too dissimilar to ''Best Wishes! Season 2"; unless this is the first Gen. without a third game (which I'm skeptical of), I think everyone needs to flush those oft-stated thoughts about the 20th Anniversary Year of 2016 seeing the end of one Gen. and the start of another...

Gen 5 had no third game. It had paired sequels instead, which the Team Plasma arc was loosely adapted from.

edited 5th Oct '15 8:25:00 AM by Ghostninja109

There's no guarantee they'll stick with sequels.

x3

We have over a year until 2016 is over and they've already revealed a new Zygarde forme, proving something is coming. TPCi also confirmed that Pokken isn't the only new game release coming next year, so there's that.

edited 5th Oct '15 9:33:11 AM by Karxrida

Hmm... where should we put Puni-chan in the character sheet?

Also what would be its dub name? Punipuni is the sound of squishing in Japan.

edited 5th Oct '15 9:39:12 AM by Ookamikun

The most sensible adaption would be "plushie", I think.

Let's just hope they don't name it Pewdewpie. Let's see if anyone here gets that.

... Why the fuck would they? Pewdie has nothing to do with squishing noises.

And that was a very interesting sentence I just produced.

Caellach: The fact that there was no Updated Re-release or Sequel released in 2015 would not have been evidence to disavow the Milestone Celebration by itself; given that the "Formula" was changed in Gen V, another change in Gen VI could still have been in the realm of possibility. (Personally, I thought that they'd go XY -> ORAS -> 7th Gen Start -> Z~.)

The fact that the Anime has branded it 19th Year in a way that implies that an Updated Re-release is pending, that fact has me feasting on Murkrow. Pass the Tauros sauce.

As for the 19th movie, I strongly doubt that they'll make it the climax of the Team Flare arc. More likely, they'll have Zygarde mainly in the Anime proper, though having ZyDog in the movie would still be possible, and make Volcanion the focus Pokemon of the movie.

edited 5th Oct '15 2:43:11 PM by DonaldthePotholer

No reason they can only use it once. Remember Diamond and Pearl milked the hell out of Darkrai, having him be the main mon of a movie, and a part of the anime itself, AND be the main used mon of the final opponent of the season.

Its pretty obvious the XY anime will be a 4-year gen as a whole like AG and DP were, especially since no 7th gen game will come out till 2017.

We have at least another 2 years of Serena/Bonnie/Clemont and Ash's XY Pokemon...before the next possible reboot/restart, etc. where it starts back at square one again.

Iris will probably remain the shortest lived female companion at only 3 years because the 5th gen was short, and Misty only got the longest because Johto was combined with the first generation in the anime. Serena will likely have the same time as May and Dawn.

If we have two more years till the next gen then there is still plenty of time for Ash to get one or even two more Pokemon. Though I'd prefer one more Kalos Mon and just have him rotate through his reserves that can Mega Evolve.

So description on a future XYZ episode just got released:

Ash and friends are going to encounter a wild Quilladin.

My best guess is that Clemont's Chespin will bond with it, but it would be a heck of a swerve if Ash catches it.

Well it gets a crush on Eevee. Also the blurb considers it "Legendary Pokemon Puni-chan", heh. First time the party gets a legendary for a traveling companion.

With that said, I find it weird - aren't dexes meant to detect mons of that gen in the anime? The only time they do the "it can't detect" stuff is when it's a next gen mon, but according to XYZ 1 summary Ash's dex can't detect Puni-chan's info. I guess being a Core Cell does that?

Even though they see a wild one that doesn't prevent Clemont's Chespin from evolving in the future. The gang often sees the evolved form of one of their starters before they get one of their own.

For example a Combusken wreaking havoc in one of the early Hoenn episodes when May still had a Torchic was shown, Ash saw another trainer with a Grovyle before his evolved, (and then Tyson had a Sceptile before Ash). I also remember Angie in DP had a Monferno before Ash's.

It might take a long time for Chespin to evolve similar to Brock's Mudkip, who didn't even evolve till after the Hoenn league in early Battle Frontier.

They had Meolotta in B/W before.

We've also already seen Frogadier and Greninja on that ninja kid, but Ash's still evolved. Heck, we saw Delphox on that old guy and I think we saw a Braixen on somebody before Serena's Fennekin evolved, so maybe that's a thing this arc- show off the starter evolutions before the cast's starters evolve.

And apparently Puni-chan's english name is Squishy. I kind of love it.

I think people aren't used to Ash having a small team again because BW had Ash capture around 10 pokemon or so.

People tend to forget Ash only captured 5 pokemon in Hoenn and only 6 in DP. Hell he only got 6 Johto pokemon too. It was really only Kanto and BW he caught a lot.

My guess as to why Ash's 6th slot is remaining open is either a possible Goodra return around the league or an inevitable Mega Charizard or Sceptile appearance. I think otherwise Ash is done with captures at least till the league.

Angie from DP used a Monferno (Prof. Rowan's Summer Camp, remember), but the point stands - barring Charmeleon (and arguably Charizard, given it was an automaton) not appearing proper before Charmander's evolution; the Starters have indeed usually appeared in their evolved forms before Ash and Co. get them to evolve... OK, maybe not all evolved stages (Ash's Grotle was the first one ever seen, for example), but the trend is noticeable enough.

Adding to that, if there's a recurring character with that evolution, chances are their particular "Starter" will usually appear in a different stage to Ash's (or his companions') team members to prevent overlap: Sanpei's Frogadier was evolved to Greninja prior to his second appearance, so that Ash's could go from Froakie to Frogadier that same episode; Nikolai had a Mudkip his first appearance, and I think the second time he showed up it was Marshtomp (and Brock had caught his own between these appearances); Casey had a Chikorita her first appearance, it evolved next time she featured (granted Ash had Chikorita then, but I don't think she appeared in that particularly episode), and come her third appearance it was already a Meganium while Ash had Bayleef (Casey is arguably the trend-setter for this character type); etc. This of course made the fact that Kenny and Barry both had Empoleon when they appeared together (in fact, I think that Kenny's Prinplup's last appearance was before his first appearance alongside Barry) rather stand out; especially since they refused to evolve Dawn's Piplup even once, and it was around that time that this fact would be established in the first place - Red Herring, maybe?

Probably the reason (along with the Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain trope) that Burgandy's Dewott never evolved after the fact is the above, unwritten and (mostly) adhered-to rule... well, that and Cameron, but we prefer to just believe that Ash beat him, before he lost to Virgil like it should have been done. At least it allowed Bianca's Emboar to reach his final stage, given Ash's Tepig evolved soon after Emboar's first appearance; on the flipside, the fact Snivy never evolved still burns me up inside given they didn't even have the grace to give us another trainer with a Servine (after Trip's became a Serperior) to at least justify the fact.