Pokemon Thread

[Light Lucario]

Because we're looking back in hindsight in 20/20. Just like we saw the Brock/Tracey thing reversed, they would have very obviously done the same thing with Misty. For example if May wasn't received well or if say the contests bombed, the writers would have viewed removing Misty was a mistake, and she probably would have returned as soon as the Hoenn saga ended with May/Max leaving. And then by the time DP began, they may not have brought Dawn in because they would have thought bringing in the female lead from the games wouldn't work.

I don't think it's obvious because the situation with Brock was different, so it isn't fair to compare it with Misty's departure. It's an apples and oranges kind of comparison. I think it's more likely that they would have tried something different for Dawn instead of bringing back Misty. I'm not saying it wouldn't have been possible for them to bring Misty back for the Battle Frontier. It could have fit with celebrating the franchise's tenth anniversary at the time, but I just don't think that was really that likely to happen.

I always thought it was rather obvious Misty's very early permanent departure from the show, especially compared to how long Brock stayed, was due to how May was received. We're looking at this now in the far flung future of 2025, but you have to think of the mindset of the year 2002/2003 when this was airing, back then nobody knew how the show would be received or if people would take a liking to a new female. As you said, some people actually were very reluctant to May at first, so we had no idea what was going to happen. It's why I consider May replacing Misty to be the most important character replacement of the animes entire history, because it's what flat out convinced the writers to move on from the original trio and paved the way for all the female companions or groups that came in after. We definitely would not be seeing constant new female companions if it weren't for what May did first.

It's still ridiculous to call a five year run an early departure. She lasted for an entire series, appeared in more episodes than any other female lead to date. Misty's time in the cast was anything but short and her departure was not early. It's ironic to say that given your whole 2002/2003 mindset argument. I still don't think that May convinced the writers to move on from the original trio. That's a lot of assumption and projection of your own feelings on the writers here. We can't say for certain what the writers would have done if May wasn't received well simply because we don't have knowledge of alternate universes where things played out differently for the anime. I don't know what the writers would have done, but I don't think keeping Misty and the original trio on forever was necessarily on the table as an option. I doubt that it would have been their only choice either. It still reads as overhyping May. I'm not saying she wasn't important, but it just reads as making her a bigger deal than I think she was.

 

[CyberCubed]

I just think it was likely. You have to remember even when Hoenn was airing, since the OS lasted 275 episodes, Misty was still in like 80% of the animes episodes at that point. Hell Misty's first two cameos were AG43 and AG44, the writers brought her back only 40 eps into Hoenn in the first year for her first cameo. AG only lasted 191 eps, so it took us at least 2 years into DP to reach another 275 eps combined, making Misty in 50% of the animes episodes at that point. Then of course as we got to BW and beyond, then Misty's percentage continued to dwindle due to how long the series went on after (another 13 years) till 2023.

Instead the writers abandoned the original trio, Misty was written off, and then Brock's role continued to decline till he was written off as well. You can literally pinpoint what part of the series we were on where the writers realized Misty/Brock weren't needed to carry the show anymore, and that's why we then started to see less and less of them and then we got new groups every series.

 

[Light Lucario]

I just think it was likely. You have to remember even when Hoenn was airing, since the OS lasted 275 episodes, Misty was still in like 80% of the animes episodes at that point. Hell Misty's first two cameos were AG43 and AG44, the writers brought her back only 40 eps into Hoenn in the first year for her first cameo. AG only lasted 191 eps, so it took us at least 2 years into DP to reach another 275 eps combined, making Misty in 50% of the animes episodes at that point. Then of course as we got to BW and beyond, then Misty's percentage continued to dwindle due to how long the series went on after (another 13 years) till 2023.

I don't think that the amount of episodes Misty was in made it more plausible to bring her back if May wasn't well received. I can't say it was impossible to happen, but I don't think it as likely as you think it was. Even bringing back Misty relatively early on in AG was less about bringing her back by popular demand and more about making Togepi evolve, which really should have happened during the original series. I just find it unlikely that they would have brought back Misty back instead of doing something else. At the very least, I don't think that was their only option.

Instead the writers abandoned the original trio, Misty was written off, and then Brock's role continued to decline till he was written off as well. You can literally pinpoint what part of the series we were on where the writers realized Misty/Brock weren't needed to carry the show anymore, and that's why we then started to see less and less of them and then we got new groups every series.

They already abandoned the original trio before May, so I don't think that she was that key for them to not bring that trio back again. I didn't think that Brock's role declined that much. He wasn't handled perfectly, but he did have more focused episodes in both AG and DP than he did in the original series and most of them were pretty good too in my opinion. I also don't know if the writers thought that Misty and Brock were needed to carry the anime. They were the first traveling companions and the most recognizable/iconic as a result, but to say that they were needed to carry the anime is a bit of a stretch. I like the group chemistry with the main trio, but the original series rarely focused on anyone not named Ash or part of the Team Rocket trio. I doubt that they thought that they needed Misty and Brock to carry the show. That still sounds like a huge assumption and projection on your part.

We saw less and less of Misty and Brock not so much because the writers didn't think that they needed them to carry the show anymore, but more so because there were other characters for them to feature over time. We didn't even have returning characters coming back for XY, so people weren't sure for awhile if we'd get to see any older characters again.

 

[CyberCubed]

Technically if the writers knew back then Ash would be around for over 20 years, they might have gone with all new groups a lot earlier. If you think about it, every series from the 2010 decade gave Ash a new group one after the other, from Iris/Cilan, the XY cast, Sun/Moon cast, Go, etc. and each series was only 3 years long so we went through a lot of new characters in quick succession.

The older series were longer (OS was 5 years and AG and DP were 4 years), so of course the older characters were around longer. But I do think they might have done all new casts a lot earlier, especially by the time DP started they knew Ash was going to be kept around awhile, which is why I always found Brock coming back yet again to be very strange. Even if he had some good eps in DP from time to time, I always think about how the DP trio could have been better with Ash/Dawn/new male character as a new trio. I've softened my view on Brock over the years since he's now been gone a long time but back then I was really bored of him on the cast continuously for almost 13 years straight back then.

I guess it doesn't matter now though. Hell even Johto might have turned out more interesting with two new companions too, although I guess it was too early back then.

 

[Light Lucario]

Technically if the writers knew back then Ash would be around for over 20 years, they might have gone with all new groups a lot earlier. If you think about it, every series from the 2010 decade gave Ash a new group one after the other, from Iris/Cilan, the XY cast, Sun/Moon cast, Go, etc. and each series was only 3 years long so we went through a lot of new characters in quick succession.

Given that they never thought that the anime would be this successful when it first started, I don't think anyone from the staff could have had the future sight to see Ash being the protagonist for that long. Three years is still a decent length of time. It's shorter than the first three series, but I wouldn't say that we went through a lot of new characters in quick succession. I think that you're underestimating how long three years is, especially for kids watching the show. It isn't even an uncommon length for toyetic anime series. With the exception of Sevens, Yu-Gi-Oh! series have been three years long since 2008 with 5D's and they have been replacing the entire cast with every series from the start.

Three years isn't a short amount of time to handle a new group of characters either. While it isn't a guarantee by any means, it's a good amount of time to at least potentially develop a new cast of characters, flesh out new storylines and wrap things up in a satisfying manner before moving onto a new status quo with a new main cast. They obviously didn't pull this off perfectly with every series, but I don't think that the three year length for each series was necessarily a problem. It was also beyond the writers' control since they obviously would need to move onto promoting the newest games and Pokemon with each new generation.

The older series were longer (OS was 5 years and AG and DP were 4 years), so of course the older characters were around longer. But I do think they might have done all new casts a lot earlier, especially by the time DP started they knew Ash was going to be kept around awhile, which is why I always found Brock coming back yet again to be very strange. Even if he had some good eps in DP from time to time, I always think about how the DP trio could have been better with Ash/Dawn/new male character as a new trio. I've softened my view on Brock over the years since he's now been gone a long time but back then I was really bored of him on the cast continuously for almost 13 years straight back then.

I didn't mind Brock sticking around for as long as he did. He was still pretty likable, his gag in DP was actually funny again and he still had some good chemistry with the main casts he was in. The DP trio might be my favorite traveling group in the anime, so I don't think the series would have been better with a different male character. I think Brock's friendship with Dawn is really underrated. He certainly had more impact on her storyline than he did with May. He was friends with both of them, but people really acted like he was a stranger to Dawn in DP which felt pretty ridiculous. Not to mention Brock had a key role in the Team Galactic climax, which couldn't have really worked well with someone like Barry in the cast instead. I can understand not liking Brock's role in DP in a way, but I don't think that he brought the series down nor do I think it would have been significantly better with a different character in his place.

I guess it doesn't matter now though. Hell even Johto might have turned out more interesting with two new companions too, although I guess it was too early back then.

They wouldn't have had any new characters from G/S that could have worked as traveling companions anyway. I don't think that any of the Gym Leaders could have worked and Kris wouldn't be featured until Crystal. Not to mention there still wouldn't be a lot for new companions to do. G/S didn't really give a lot for the writers to work with, especially when they didn't adapt most of the storyline from R/B in the Kanto arc. Team Rocket returning and trying to find Giovanni is a big part of the storyline, so without that in the anime, they had to ignore or rework events from the games like with the Lake of Rage two parter.

I don't think that they would have gone for a whole new cast sooner not only because of the limited options of potential traveling companions, but I think that would have been too much change at once. One of the reasons why I think that they kept Brock in AG was because they didn't want to risk changing too much all at once. I don't think that they needed Brock to carry the show, but more like they didn't want to risk turning off kids if they changed too much all at once. I also don't think any of the third or fourth generation characters could have taken his role.

 

[CyberCubed]

Horizons should be the gold standard going forward either way, considering Gen 10 is likely to have an all new cast again, but I hope they continue what they're doing.

I do hope Ash gets a movies/special eventually, hopefully so we can finally see the defeat of Giovanni/Team Rocket. I suspect it'll happen for the 30th anniversary. I don't think Ash will appear in Horizons itself.

Horizons just surprised me how good it is. It's like the best parts of DP or XY without the stuff that held them back (like Team Rocket still being around in every episode, or Brock in DP), but an all-new cast. The animation is also improved over Journey's as well, it's not quite XY level but it's inbetween the two extremes especially for the battles.

 

[Light Lucario]

Horizons should be the gold standard going forward either way, considering Gen 10 is likely to have an all new cast again, but I hope they continue what they're doing.

I do hope Ash gets a movies/special eventually, hopefully so we can finally see the defeat of Giovanni/Team Rocket. I suspect it'll happen for the 30th anniversary. I don't think Ash will appear in Horizons itself.

I don't understand the appeal of having Ash defeat Giovanni and Team Rocket as a whole. That's just never been a goal for either Ash or the anime in general. The other evil teams get defeated, but other series were bit more interested in adapting the games' storylines than the original series was. They're still loose adaptations, but they were still covering the climax of the games, which is more than I can say for their R/B adaptation. I guess Giovanni not actually properly meeting Ash until BW made people want to see them battle, but I just personally don't see the need for it. It feels more like a fan wish list than something I think that they would be interested in doing with a special or movie.

Horizons just surprised me how good it is. It's like the best parts of DP or XY without the stuff that held them back (like Team Rocket still being around in every episode, or Brock in DP), but an all-new cast. The animation is also improved over Journey's as well, it's not quite XY level but it's inbetween the two extremes especially for the battles.

I really disagree that Brock being in DP held the series back. I can understand not liking his role in the series, but it wasn't such a huge issue that he actively made the series worse. I don't think having a different male character in his role would have made the series drastically better either.

 

[Yojimbo]

4/22: A new Pokemon short film featuring Chimchar, Tepig, Pikachu, Eevee, and more was released today through the official Pokemon account on China's Weibo social media site for Global Earth Day.

7/4: "Morpeko" to Hajime no Otekake" (The First Outing With Morpeko), the first of two shorts in the "Pokémon to Kakeru Natsu Monogatari" (Summer Stories of Running With Pokémon) project for children and their families during summer vacation was posted. The shorts depict two people embarking on their own adventures with Pokémon, and their discoveries along the way.

 

[Antiyonder]

So it's not just episodes getting the official YT upload, The First Movie is also up:

 

[RoyalRubble]

Teaser for an Aardman/Pokemon collaboration coming in 2027.

 

[PF9]

I'd like several spin-offs of the main anime to be commissioned. Two I had in mind were:

1. A superhero series, featuring Gligirl and Blaziken Mask joined by several new characters.

2. A weekly Pichu Bros. series, which given numerous members of the Pichu Posse are unevolved (some of which, including the Pichu Bros. themselves, are Baby Pokemon), could partially be aimed at the preschool demographic.

 

[CyberCubed]

Fun fact: If you count strictly to the end of Ash's series, Misty is only in a little over 20% of the animes total episodes, even if you count all her cameos/returns after Johto.

Misty was a main character for 275 episodes, but then came back for about 15ish episodes sprinkled through Hoenn, SM and MPM. So even then she came close to 300 eps but a little less. It's ironic when you realize Misty was only there for like 20% of Ash's total run in the show.

 

[Yojimbo]

10/3: New short posted online titled "Megahanasenai ne Garura" (I Can't Take My Eyes Off Her, Can I Kangaskhan).



10/24: New short posted online, "Ashita mo Sirnight to" (Tomorrow With Gardevoir Too)

 

[CyberCubed]

Pokemon TV officially uploaded the last eps of Johto:



They probably plan to go through the whole anime. Hilarious this is Misty's last ep and they use a thumbnail for Hitmonchan (it's from one of those brothers who battle Misty in the ep), I thought they uploaded the wrong episode, lol.

It's hard to believe Misty's final episode aired way back in 2002 (or early 2003 for the dub), which is close to 25 years ago now. I still remember when people tried to make a big deal out of Misty leaving and thought the anime couldn't go on without her, or thought she would come back after Hoenn. Hard to believe that happened over 20 years ago and the series went on for 80% of its run without her.

Funnily enough, this was only 5 years into the anime too, it was basically the very beginning of the shows history.

 

[Light Lucario]

Fun fact: If you count strictly to the end of Ash's series, Misty is only in a little over 20% of the animes total episodes, even if you count all her cameos/returns after Johto.

Misty was a main character for 275 episodes, but then came back for about 15ish episodes sprinkled through Hoenn, SM and MPM. So even then she came close to 300 eps but a little less. It's ironic when you realize Misty was only there for like 20% of Ash's total run in the show.

I'm still not into the idea of treating the anime as one huge series spanning over a thousand episodes. I know that the dub kind of does that with the season numbers, but I don't think it really works. The story and characterizations, not just for Ash but for a lot of his friends too, doesn't really make sense if you see it in that lens. It makes much more sense to treat the anime as multiple different series, which is what the Japanese version does. Given that each series is pretty standalone where you don't need to watch what came before to follow along, I think that makes much more sense.

I also don't understand why you continue to make it sound like Misty was so short lived. Being a main character for nearly three hundred episodes is still a lot. She was part of the anime's main cast for five years, which is no short amount of time regardless of the length of the anime's future beyond her time in the cast. She also still had the longest run out of all of the female leads and she's the most recognizable out of all of them as well. I don't even like Misty that much, but trying to paint her as such a short lived character has always been rather bizarre to me.

Pokemon TV officially uploaded the last eps of Johto:



They probably plan to go through the whole anime. Hilarious this is Misty's last ep and they use a thumbnail for Hitmonchan (it's from one of those brothers who battle Misty in the ep), I thought they uploaded the wrong episode, lol.

It's hard to believe Misty's final episode aired way back in 2002 (or early 2003 for the dub), which is close to 25 years ago now. I still remember when people tried to make a big deal out of Misty leaving and thought the anime couldn't go on without her, or thought she would come back after Hoenn. Hard to believe that happened over 20 years ago and the series went on for 80% of its run without her.

Funnily enough, this was only 5 years into the anime too, it was basically the very beginning of the shows history.

Admittedly, YouTube thumnails are weird, but I think most of them tend to showcase Pokemon rather than the main cast anyway. Given that Brock came back after he was replaced, I could understand why people thought that the same would be the case with Misty, even though the reasoning behind their departures were drastically different.

Five years is still a long time. That's half a decade and like I mentioned before, she still had the longest run out of all of the female leads. To act as if Misty was a footnote in the anime is pure revisionist history. Even the idea that five years was the very beginning of the show's history is pretty ridiculous. The very beginning of the anime was, unsurprisingly, at the start of the original series. You could maybe call the entire Indigo League arc the very beginning of the show's history, but acting as if its history didn't start until Advanced Generation, the second series, is pretty ridiculous and makes no sense. None of your attempts to downplay Misty's presence in the anime make any sense.

 

[Neo Ultra Mike]

It's hard to believe Misty's final episode aired way back in 2002 (or early 2003 for the dub), which is close to 25 years ago now. I still remember when people tried to make a big deal out of Misty leaving and thought the anime couldn't go on without her, or thought she would come back after Hoenn.

Well remember this was the people had remembered what happened when Brock was replaced by Tracy in the Orange Islands, a decision the anime team totally walked back after only ONE decently short season and figured "okay seems clear you need the full trio of Ash Misty and Brock and can't just swap members of them out" not realizing "if we have characters with stronger personalities or vibes to them we can actually accomplish that" which we'd only see with how successful Hoenn was and how it did eventually lead to everyone being cycled out eventually including even Ash.

 

[SpecialColorfull]

I know discussing the plot is a bit meatier than the whole business side of the thang, but WOW, THE ENTIRETY OF POKEMON from the beggining to Johto is on Youtube, on Multi Language Video! Officially! That's about more than 255 episodes! And the channel playlist for the first season ALONE has 17 million views. I know this sounds gushy but this is just such great numbers after the miserable 55k Spongebob gets on cable!

 

[CyberCubed]

Unfortunately they also skipped all the Jynx eps, including all the ones that were dubbed. So no Holiday Hi-Jynx (the Christmas episode), they skipped the Lorelei/Prima Elite 4 ep from Orange Islands when Jynx only appears for like 30 seconds to blast off TR at the end (wtf), and they skipped "Stage Fight" from Orange Islands which was that ep with the boat show where the humans dubbed over the Pokemon speaking (since a Jynx was in that ep).

Absolutely baffling they skip eps that were dubbed and were on the older DVDs. Makes me mad.

 

[Light Lucario]

Unfortunately they also skipped all the Jynx eps, including all the ones that were dubbed. So no Holiday Hi-Jynx (the Christmas episode), they skipped the Lorelei/Prima Elite 4 ep from Orange Islands when Jynx only appears for like 30 seconds to blast off TR at the end (wtf), and they skipped "Stage Fight" from Orange Islands which was that ep with the boat show where the humans dubbed over the Pokemon speaking (since a Jynx was in that ep).

Absolutely baffling they skip eps that were dubbed and were on the older DVDs. Makes me mad.

That is consistent with how the more recent Indigo League DVD box set skipped those episodes. I think that they were skipped over when Pokemon TV was on their official website too. While I'm not in favor of banning these episodes, I also don't really find it anything to get mad about not putting them on YouTube. Aside from the Lorelei/Prima episode, these were filler episodes. They were fun filler episodes, but still not something that were important for the storyline. These episodes are still available via the original Indigo League DVD and Orange Islands box sets, so I doubt that they're going to become lost media anytime soon.

Ideally, it could have been resolved by just altering Jynx to reflect its modern design, but I don't know if they could do that with these older episodes. I think that the Japanese version did air a version of the Christmas episode with purple Jynx, but I don't know if it would be easy enough to just take the dub audio and match it with that version of the episode. It's probably pretty doable to edit these episodes at least and they certainly could afford it, but they most likely don't feel the need to do that with three episodes that are largely filler. Besides, there are worse cases of censorship in the dub's history than skipping over these episodes.

 

[CyberCubed]

There's no reason for those eps to be removed though. According to Dogasu the Japanese version actually re-colored Jynx purple in later airings, but the dub never fixed it. Skipping 3 good episodes (the Christmas ep is a classic), is absurd. And as I said, Jynx literally only appears for 30 seconds at the end of the Prima episode...and they skip an entire episode for a 30 second scene?

Remember in 2005 when May's last Hoenn Contest she battled the girl with a Jynx with her Skitty? I remember KidsWB originally skipped over those episodes and didn't air them to a later time, with people suspecting they were banned. Then they did air later, and were put into the correct order. Imagine if they skipped eps where May won her 5th ribbon? Dub fans would be confused how May went from 4 ribbons to entering the Grand Festival.

Also the fact that the writers put Jynx into major eps again says a lot. Jynx was also in that Battle Frontier filler after, which is apparently the last episode Jynx has ever been in to date...even in Japan after 20 years later.