SPOILERS! General Pokémon Anime Discussion

KaenSoul

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Dude, if Dialga had that kind of powers ingame it would be banned from AG.
Looks like is going to be a fun arc, wish they used this chance to make the male main character show up instead of blue hat Satoshi.
 

Pikachu315111

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The next little arc is the BDSP tie in

Like that they're having more fun with the space tiem duo's powers, too. Turning pokemomn back into eggs, going to alternate universes, etc
Huh, so Dialga can now reverse someone's age? That's a new power for it, before it could only stop & rewind the flow of time (and presumably also make it go faster) as well as time travel. I'm not quite sure how I feel about that, reversing/advancing someone's age feels more like a Xerneas power being the Pokemon of Life. Like the most screwy thing I see Dialga doing would be bringing younger versions of Ash & co. from their place in time into the conflict.

Though eitherway the alternate dimension stuff looks fun, curious what the difference between the dimensional counterparts are. Hopefully they don't do a "mirror world" thing cause they kind of already did that.
 
Huh, so Dialga can now reverse someone's age? That's a new power for it, before it could only stop & rewind the flow of time (and presumably also make it go faster) as well as time travel. I'm not quite sure how I feel about that, reversing/advancing someone's age feels more like a Xerneas power being the Pokemon of Life. Like the most screwy thing I see Dialga doing would be bringing younger versions of Ash & co. from their place in time into the conflict.

Though eitherway the alternate dimension stuff looks fun, curious what the difference between the dimensional counterparts are. Hopefully they don't do a "mirror world" thing cause they kind of already did that.
I mean Dialga's entire thing is time control. It makes a lot of sense to me. If you can trap someone in a time loop, send someone back in time, totally pause/break time, rewind time and just generally fuck with anything time related, it makes sense that you could localize it to a point of rewinding (or fast forwarding) someone's specific flow back to baby.

it's a classic time power!

Xerneas' life is more vague "life force" stuff. It can (hypothetically) grant life and it can add life, maybe even inspire growth, but that link to age isn't necessarily there (beyond "with more Life you can Live Longer"). It can't give so much life that you age up and presumably can't take life away at all. And if it coudl do that it'd probably be more like Yveyltal where it depletes the nebulous Life Energy to the point where you're just a stone.
 
Huh, so Dialga can now reverse someone's age? That's a new power for it, before it could only stop & rewind the flow of time (and presumably also make it go faster) as well as time travel. I'm not quite sure how I feel about that, reversing/advancing someone's age feels more like a Xerneas power being the Pokemon of Life. Like the most screwy thing I see Dialga doing would be bringing younger versions of Ash & co. from their place in time into the conflict.

Though eitherway the alternate dimension stuff looks fun, curious what the difference between the dimensional counterparts are. Hopefully they don't do a "mirror world" thing cause they kind of already did that.
Actually no, eternal youth is not the same as eternal life, which is Xerneas’s specialty. Xerneas can grant eternal life not youth, as shown by AZ in XY, since he has eternal life, but he is clearly old. In fact, a bit off topic, but there’s an Ancient Greek myth about a goddess who falls in love with a mortal and asks the olympians to grant him eternal life. They comply, but she forgets to ask for Eternal Youth, so the man gets so old that he eventually turns into a Grasshopper, which explains why we have grasshoppers.

Back on topic, disappointing that Giratina is not appearing.It always bothered me that for the Galactic Finale of DP anime, the lake guardians can successfully calm Dialga and Palkia, but in Platinum it is stated that they can’t maintain balance against both of them, which is why Giratina interferes. It just feels like a missed opportunity for me.
 
ok, they took the "everyone chibi" jokes people made about BDSP a little to serious with that trailer...

I watched the latest episode of 2020 and it was pretty entertaining. Tho the Dynamax fight was not as enjoyable. Like I enjoyed when Bea made the last Dynamax move and Lucario walking on Machamps arm, but other than that it felt underwhelming.
Honestly feel giant vs small characters fighting is pretty hard to do, there are very few instances I can really enjoy them.
 
Sirfetch'd really deserved a win and that put a damper on the fight as a whole, but the rest of the match played out and was animated really well. Machamp vs. Lucario was good in terms of strategy despite Lucario taking a lot of damage, and was animated really well. It's probably the best animated battle so far in the current arc, the finale reminded me of Pikachu vs. Tapu Koko from SM as well.
 

Pikachu315111

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If you can trap someone in a time loop, send someone back in time, totally pause/break time, rewind time and just generally fuck with anything time related, it makes sense that you could localize it to a point of rewinding (or fast forwarding) someone's specific flow back to baby.
But, wouldn't that also rewind their memories too? Because there's a difference between de-aging and rewinding someone back to a younger self. De-aging would be just affecting a body, and I see no issue with Xerneas doing (I'll get into that), but rewinding someone back to a younger self implies they aren't making the body younger but rather hitting the reverse on that person's life up to a certain point. They're mind would go back to the moment they were rewinded to and have no memories of experiences that happened to them after that point.

Xerneas' life is more vague "life force" stuff. It can (hypothetically) grant life and it can add life, maybe even inspire growth, but that link to age isn't necessarily there (beyond "with more Life you can Live Longer"). It can't give so much life that you age up and presumably can't take life away at all. And if it coudl do that it'd probably be more like Yveyltal where it depletes the nebulous Life Energy to the point where you're just a stone.
In how I think it, Xerneas isn't adding/taking life, just manipulating the life force within someone (and this wouldn't affect their memories, at most it may effect their personality as their brain chemicals may be different). Just as Dialga can rewind you back to a certain point in your timeline, Xerneas can make the life force in your body either de-age or age up according to your biological blueprints. We've seen this with its power to inspire plant growth, it's not necessary causing life to spontaneously come about, but rather advancing the age of the seeds and possibly even propagation to create more seeds.

Yveltal's thing is removing life force and, as we see, when it does this it doesn't affect age; rather you either slowly lose the energy to live or quickly turn to stone.

Actually no, eternal youth is not the same as eternal life, which is Xerneas’s specialty. Xerneas can grant eternal life not youth, as shown by AZ in XY, since he has eternal life, but he is clearly old. In fact, a bit off topic, but there’s an Ancient Greek myth about a goddess who falls in love with a mortal and asks the olympians to grant him eternal life. They comply, but she forgets to ask for Eternal Youth, so the man gets so old that he eventually turns into a Grasshopper, which explains why we have grasshoppers.
I never said that. Immortality is different from eternal youth... and eternal youth is different from de-aging.

Also AZ didn't become immortal from Xerneas, he got it from the Ultimate Weapon. Infact, I don't think in the games or anime we've ever seen Xerneas give someone immortality. We have no idea what form Xerneas's immortality takes, for all we know if does make you ever-youthful too. But that's beside the point.

Tho the Dynamax fight was not as enjoyable. Like I enjoyed when Bea made the last Dynamax move and Lucario walking on Machamps arm, but other than that it felt underwhelming.
Machamp vs. Lucario was good in terms of strategy despite Lucario taking a lot of damage, and was animated really well.
What amuses me about this whole thing that we get to see a Gigantamax Pokemon vs a Mega Pokemon, something which can't be done in the games. Meanwhile Studio Colorido had to write an apology letter for accidentally including the Dewgong species in the Twilight Wings special series because it wasn't in Galar. Main anime unapologetically & unabashedly breaks the rules, better animated series had to apologize for a little oversight. Seems fair. :psywoke:
 
Well, look at this:


TPC actually uploaded the animatics for the First Evolution Episode, which os surprising to say the least since TPC and GF are stingy about sharing concept art for their games. And its really nice to see the hand drawn animation serve as a pre-cursor to the Digital work, with each frame being one by one. Hope they upload more.
 

ScraftyIsTheBest

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So today I got the chance to watch the latest episode in Journeys, another Chloe-centric one which I always take the chance to watch.

A fairly simple episode, surrounding a girl known as "Regina", at least in Japanese, and how she's seemingly cold and indifferent and has a Glaceon who freezes anyone who seems to be hurting Regina. Starting the episode beforehand was Goh delivering a funny presentation on Ash which got the class laughing at his well...Pokemon centric brain and how he only thinks about Pokemon. This girl named was a transfer student into Goh and Chloe's school who arrived, and Chloe really made an effort to be friends with her, with her sweet and cheerful personality allowing an otherwise seemingly stoic and cold Regina to open up and eventually try to make friends. Regina has trouble making friends beyond her Glaceon, as she was bullied when she was younger because of her resemblance to an "Ice Queen" character in a movie, and Glaceon stepped in to protect her, and has done so ever since and she has transferred in and out of schools due to being unable to make friends. Eventually she opens up about this after Glaceon exhausts itself after trying to step in to protect Regina again, and resolves to be a better friend to Glaceon and be able to stand her ground. The episode ends really nicely with Regina and Glaceon creating a little ice park for the kids to have fun for the day, which was super sweet! It was also nice to see Regina write to Chloe and see her more into battling and enjoying it, and the two definitely shared a great friendship. Hopefully we get to see her again, but time will tell!

In any case, it was a simple episode but I loved the friendship Chloe and Regina built in this episode, and it's always nice to see Chloe really go out there and forge great friendships whenever there's an episode around her.

Next episode will be another Trial Mission, and lo and behold, after a long absence, Drake of the Hoenn Elite Four will return years after his one appearance in the Hoenn anime, and this will be an underwater-centric one. One thing I am looking forward to, aside from seeing Drake again, is seeing Goh's Inteleon in action once more, and especially underwater, which will be fun: Inteleon is such a cool looking Pokemon when it's in action.
 

ScraftyIsTheBest

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Apologies for double posting but it's been a while and I watched the latest Journeys episode.

It's another Trial Mission for Goh, and this time he decides to catch a Kingdra (GOAT). It's a dangerous underwater diving mission, and along the way they meet Drake of the Hoenn Elite Four (Ash meets him a second time after a long absence), and he reveals he's also a treasure hunter when he's not doing his duties as an Elite Four member. The episode involved Goh making clever use of his Pokemon once again, which is always a treat, this time using his Inteleon underwater to capture Kingdra, with his Mantyke as a transport and also to freeze an area around Kingdra and then also have Inteleon's Snipe Shot to propel the Poke Ball towards Kingdra even underwater.

It's a simple episode, but it was fun and seeing Goh make effective use of his mons to fulfill his missions is a great thing, really nice to see him actually put those mons he catches to good use in skillful and clever ways, really showcases Goh's strengths in using his Pokemon.

And up next...the GOAT Dawn will appear once again, and we have our BDSP Winter special with Ash, Dawn, Chloe, and Goh being caught up in some space-time shenanigans involving Dialga and Palkia. Now THAT is something I am definitely looking forward to for certain! I can't wait to see Dawn reappear once again, and this time I do hope we can see a few more of her mons aside from Piplup since that was one of the few disappointments I had with her previous return even though I did enjoy that one. Nonetheless, I'm excited for the upcoming BDSP special, can't wait!
 
These eps for Wikstrom and Drake really prove a lot of the Elite 4 aren't competing in the PWC, so it explains their absence in it so to speak. At least it explains why so many Elite 4 aren't in this rather than just ignoring them since of course the writers can't feature them all.
 

Pikachu315111

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A teaser for the second half of the Evolutions shorts
So one major thing that stands out: the Kanto Story is Let's Go based!

0:19: Shows Elaine directly in front of Mewtwo while Green & her Mega Blastoise watching from below (though I don't see the partner Pikachu or Eevee anywhere).
0:21: In addition to another shot of Green, this time surfing on her Blastoise through the cave, in the background you can see a silhouette that looks like Trace. Now in the game Trace never went into Cerulean Cave from what we saw, the closest he got was the entrance after the player came out and he sees that we had caught Mewtwo and also informs us that a strong girl trainer he met (Green) also was looking for Mewtwo (who is inside Cerulean Cave after we catch Mewtwo). So, this implies Trace did find his way into Cerulean Cave after the player did and that's when he met and seemingly had a race through the cave with her.

Another small but neat thing I noticed is that the Kimono Girls have an Apricorn Poke Ball in their hair representing their Eeveelution: Jolteon's a Fast Ball, Umbreon's is seemingly the Moon Ball (we don't see the Ball or Umbreon itself but there's enough clues with the Kimono Girl herself that point toward it being the combination), & Vaporeon's is a Lure Ball. That just leaves Flareon and Espeon and the remaining Apricorn Balls being Heavy, Friend, Love, and Level. Flareon I'm going to say a Level Ball as it matches its colors the best and we see it's Kimono Girl trainer who is wearing an orange kimono with yellow accents. Espeon I'm going to say Friend Ball as both a reference to how it evolves and we also see a Kimono Girl in a green kimono with red accents which matches the Friend Ball.

Also looks like Hoenn's is going to be a bit flashier than it was in the game. It looks like it's going to be an animated version of the ascent of Sky Pillar where Zinnia tells the player about the history of the Weather Trio and the Draconid People. However, instead of just going up the tower with Zinnia explaining what each mural is showing, seems like the player is going to be transported into a spirit vision where she'll witness the past events first-hand. Alright, though I'm hoping they do reveal more about Zinnia's character cause that could use some delving into rather then the legends we already were told about (notably who Aster is; yes I know the Special manga have their interpretation but would like to see what a more official(?) source has to show).

OOH! That would make for a neat animated short series! Adaptation of notable moments from the Special manga. Kanto alone has some good mind screws: Elite Four being evil and wanting to kill humanity, several Gym Leaders working for Team Rocket, maybe could do something with Yellow and Viridian Forest's mysterious power thing.


TPC actually uploaded the animatics for the First Evolution Episode, which os surprising to say the least since TPC and GF are stingy about sharing concept art for their games. And its really nice to see the hand drawn animation serve as a pre-cursor to the Digital work, with each frame being one by one. Hope they upload more.
Gee, late on commenting on this!

General:
  • It's fun seeing all the little notes here and there such as listing the frame number, what background they should be using, and occasionally some notes written in Japanese. Sadly don't know what they say, probably just mentioning what's happening to give context to the scene or maybe an onomatopoeia.
  • Also interesting to see what drawings they decide to make detailed and what not; sometimes characters are just sketchy outlines to note their positioning while other times its more detailed line-work where all you need to do is color them in & add shading/lighting to look nearly like the final product.
  • Next few parts I'm just going to notice little differences shown in the storyboard but didn't quite make it into the final product.
Leon Vs Eternatus:
  • 0:17: Leon's Dynamax Band was supposed to give off some sparkles while shutting off. No big loss.
Hop & Victor Vs Eternatus:
  • 1:01: When transforming Eternatus was supposed to have a moment where the portal above it was very angular, sort of like an Ultra Wormhole but with gaps missing. Curious why they didn't go with it, maybe GF devs watch this and they told them not to include it as Eternatus isn't that directly connected to Ultra Beasts?
  • 1:05: A lot more debris was supposed to float around the entire field and also obscure the shot occasionally. No big loss there, would have been neat but guess decided wasn't worth the time or money to add in that many floating stone chunks.
  • 1:22: LOL! They colored the relics the wrong colors!
Opening:
  • 2:24: Huh, so they had most of the city rendered already (though obviously without any moving parts). Were they using a pre-existing asset? From the games? From Twilight Wings?
  • 2:31: Was supposed to be Gloria in the cab holding what looks to maybe be a Jigglypuff? In the final version was changed to a random woman holding a Toxel.
Overall a pretty neat peek into some of the storyboarding and animation planning that goes into making these series.:bloblul:
 
Yeah we kind of new the Kanto episode would be Let's Go focused, the first bit of key art was Green with her Let's Go design.

What's real cool though is that Elaine & Trace are there. Honestly I kind of figured it'd be showing Green's attempts at getting Mewtwo or just otherwise showing a very abreviated version of her journey ending at the cavern with the joke being we all know she's not going to see Mewtwo.
 
Preview screen from the Dawn cameo shows her team:


It's the same since the end of DP so no new evolutions or captures. While I don't think Dawn really needs any new pokemon (and Buneary is one of those small and cute pokemon the writers like to keep as is so there's no reason to evolve it), it does feel funny to me her team has remained the same since the end of DP in 2010, through her BW cameo in 2012, and now in both her 2021 Journey's cameos...meaning her team has been the same for 11 years straight through 3 different Pokemon series.
 
Preview screen from the Dawn cameo shows her team:


It's the same since the end of DP so no new evolutions or captures. While I don't think Dawn really needs any new pokemon (and Buneary is one of those small and cute pokemon the writers like to keep as is so there's no reason to evolve it), it does feel funny to me her team has remained the same since the end of DP in 2010, through her BW cameo in 2012, and now in both her 2021 Journey's cameos...meaning her team has been the same for 11 years straight through 3 different Pokemon series.
I guess in the context of the Pokemon world it's only been like a week since her appearance in BW series, but still, it'd be really cool to atleast see her Quilava evolve...cause it's practically the only one that can still evolve anyways
 

ScraftyIsTheBest

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So...the Sinnoh episode was all about Barry's journey from the beginning right up to the Battle Tower where he goes to battle his father, Palmer.

The episode really shows every little part of Barry's journey crossing alongside Lucas's journey, all the way from the beginning with the Starly attack, then his first Gym Badge, then him losing to Jupiter at Lake Acuity, and then him joining Lucas at Spear Pillar to defeat Mars and Jupiter together while Cyrus is summoning Dialga, right up to Barry challenging Palmer to a battle in the Battle Tower. It's a simple episode, but it does nicely in adding a bit of depth to Barry's character and how his own journey is he wants to be strong enough to best his father: they have a tough battle but Barry ultimately prevails...with Palmer congratulating him and asking him who he aims to beat next.

Overall a solid episode, albeit a relatively simple one in terms of concept.

We see Lucas being the protagonist this time, seems they're alternating between boy and girl for each episode, with Victor, Calem, and Lucas so far with Galar (Episode 1), Kalos (Episode 3), and now Sinnoh (Episode 5), alternating with the girl being the protagonist with Selene and Hilda with Alola (Episode 2) and Unova (Episode 4). I presume this means the upcoming Hoenn episode will star May as the protagonist, then Johto will have Ethan, and then Kanto will have Elaine. Also it seems remake canon is taking priority with the last four episode as this episode showed Dialga being shown off at Spear Pillar so it's obviously not Platinum canon, given considering how BDSP's story is fiercely identical to DP's it could also be interpreted as DP canon but it can also be interpreted as BDSP canon likewise, and I presume based on the trailer the Hoenn episode is ORAS canon, Johto is HGSS canon, and Kanto is LGPE canon (this time it would seem Let's Go is taking priority over FRLG, I take it?).
 

Pikachu315111

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The Barry episode

This one has fun framing to it, with the battle tower.
0:09: Could you have at least given the attendants different hair color & styles so they didn't look so copy & paste?
0:16: Yeah, they're totally walking down the hall, it doesn't look like they're bobbing up and down while sliding across the floor at all (well, the shot focusing on Barry's face looks alright).
0:46: Hey, Pearl has to battle through 20 other trainers first before he can face Palmer!
1:03: Not even going to say hello to your son or make some grand speech? If they excluded the bits pertaining to the player, Palmer could say his initial battle quote: "You've grown up since (Twinleaf), and most impressively, too! So, I'd like you to show me. Show me the bond you've built with your Pokémon. Show me the skill you've acquired as a Trainer!"
2:07: Dead. Better start slathering those honey trees again.
2:11: Can you not smile like a slasher killer who just claimed another victim, Palmer?
2:25: And Piplup's skull is caved in.
2:39: Skull caved in: minor inconvenience. A batch of bubbles: OHKO. Yeah that makes sense.
3:16: Are you sure that wasn't Brave Bird?
3:24: Since this isn't based on Platinum we sadly don't get a scene of Barry pestering Crasher Wake about becoming his master.
3:44: So was that implying if Prinplup aimed a little bit more to the right he would have smacked Jupiter right in the face? Well I guess that's one way to stop her if you can't beat her Skuntank. Also Barry should have an Empoleon by this point.
4:07: Huh, so that's how they captured the Lake Guardians. Just placed them in a glass container and walk away. Uxie doesn't even look phased. Just cause its eyes are always closed doesn't mean it's asleep. At the very least have it tied up or something.
4:27: Dead. Palmer I think there are kinder ways of criticizing your son's team choice.
4:33: So I guess this special is based in Diamond version. Alright, strange they didn't have it take place in Platinum. Though I guess we should be thankful all the characters don't look like Funko Pop ripoffs.
5:23: Ah, yes, Empoleon's most powerful and signature move: Go, Empoleon. Who needs Metal Claw?
5:48: I hope this facility have those self-repairing walls and floors like some of the previous specials have shown cause Barry & Palmer are making the battlefield look like swiss cheese.
6:04: "Beat next? Actually I'm gonna hang out in the Fight Area for now on and occasionally battle my Rival if they feel like showing up and talking to me". Also were we supposed to be surprise this was Palmer after Barry kept on mentioning his father over and over again?

OVERALL: It was alright. Didn't really reveal much anything we didn't know about Barry already but was nice to see parts of his battle with his father and winning in the end.

Also This episode was oddly very quiet. They already limited characters to just their game dialogue but even then, despite Barry having plenty of quotes, they left most things to just facial expressions and grunt noises. And considering this is BARRY we're talking about, it was an odd choice. Also no THUDs and I don't recall ever hearing Barry's battle theme in an episode about him.

It kind of feels like the writers didn't quite know what to do with a Barry story, or they only ever thought of it being about Barry vs. Palmer, but while writing it realized not much about Barry's role in the game really led up to him battling Palmer so sort of had to cobble a narrative together about Barry wanting to defeat his father but questioning if he was strong enough. It's still better than Lysandre's episode for the framing device being a rather important battle for the character that we never got to see, but that's really all it had going for it.
 

KaenSoul

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0:09: Could you have at least given the attendants different hair color & styles so they didn't look so copy & paste?
At this point i think there is some cloning going on and some jobs are giving to them.

The Barry episode

This one has fun framing to it, with the battle tower.
It was nice, but the battles felt too turn based this time, like the mons stand still to recieve the attacks and may try to evade them at the last moment and only really move to attack, it only works because is a 6 minute episode, Cranidos attacks, then return to his original position and only then Pipplup attack, that wasnt a intense battle, Barry.
 
For some reason the animation in the Barry short didn't seem as good as the rest of the Evolution episodes. Like the way the pokemon were moving (the Starly in the air), and during the battles with everyone...it just kinda reminded me of the main anime. Did the budget for these get cut or something? Visually the previous episodes flowed better with better animation for the attacks and the movement of battles.
 

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