SPOILERS! General Pokémon Anime Discussion

11pikabro said:
This month's PokéToon is "The Cozy Warm Slugma House." We're at 5 out of 6 shorts released now.
It's a grandparents' house full of very functional Pokémon, namely a shy Slugma that acts as the heat source for...everything!
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  • 0:00: So already this one is a marked improvement above the others. Why? It has English Closed Captioning (including using the Pokemon's English names)! Curious if they decided to do that after other Youtube channels reuploaded & added their own closed captioning. "Oh, yeah, the international audience is probably watching these as well and would want to understand what's being said".
  • 0:30: Ah yes, a kid's first thought when going over to see their family which have a pet: "Oh it's been a while since we last saw you!" "Where is/are (pet's names)!?".
  • 0:56: Slugma be like "Eh, it's a living". Also note the PokeFlute and Shell Bell for a point I'm going to make later on.
  • 1:20: Geez, are Shell Bell's normally that huge?
  • 1:42: Now this short has all sorts of neat little ideas for alternate uses for Pokemon, this being the first: using a Slugma as a heat source of the entire house. And it's not just cartoonishly sitting in the fireplace, no, the house has an (likely heatproof) venting system all throughout it and even outside for Slugma to travel through to provide heat where needed. A wise decision being I don't think a wooden house would be standing very long if Slugma had to travel through the house.
  • 2:04: Well that's embarrassing, being both out sped and hidden from by a Slugma. Does Anna not notice the heat & light emanating from the lower vent boxes?
  • 2:23: Minccino be like "I JUST cleaned the stairs". Oh, and another obvious use for a Pokemon: Minccino keeping the house dusted and swept.
  • 2:41: And using the spider Pokemon to create silk for knitting is also a fun idea. Though, unfortunately, what grandma didn't realize is that all of them ran out of PP for Spider Web a few layers ago, Sticky Web would be too sticky, so Spinarak & Araidos switched to using Toxic Thread and Joltic to using Electroweb.
  • 3:00: Now Haxorus brings up two subtle storytelling. The first is the obvious alternate use for, chopping firewood. The second, when you also take into account the other Pokemon in the house and the PokeFlute and Shell Bell lying on the fireplace, that it seems to indicate that either one or both grandparents were Pokemon trainers. I can't imagine Haxorus being a common family pet, the animated media always pushing the idea that Dragon-types are hard to train and you gotta be a strong trainer to do so.
  • 3:45: Oh yeah, if Slugma doesn't keep moving it hardens. Guess if you're going to use a Slugma heating system you'd kind of need to build an entire vent system for it just to move around in or else it dies.
  • 3:56: Does Slugma really get any nutritional benefits from eating berries? Like, feels like it would be getting as much enjoyment munching on some charcoal.
  • 4:46: Oh, yeah, that's not creepy at all, two giant spiders hanging from the ceiling right above the foot of your bed.
  • 4:50: Oh, right, since Slugma has to be constantly moving that means it can't sleep either. So throughout the entire night Anna and her grandparents (and their Pokemon) has it always watching around the house, never (fully) blinking. So guess it also works as house security.

And that's pretty much the end, Anna having made friends with Slugma (and I also guess the rest of her grandparent's Pokemon but obviously they're not as good as Slugma). I am of two opinions of this short. One the story level, it's okay if nothing special. I like they put the spotlight on an underappreciated Pokemon, in this case Slugma. Concept and design-wise Slugma and Magcargo aren't bad Pokemon, but they're Typing and stats just don't mesh well severely holding it back. Hence, it's not that marketable. However that's where this short signs with a world building aspect showing, at least in the Pokemon world, there's more a Pokemon can do than just battle and compete against one another. Slugma heating the house, Minccino sweeping, spider Pokemon providing silk to sew, Haxorus chopping wood, Pokemon have all sorts of talents either part of their design or from Moves they learn to make life easier. And, since these are Pokemon, it's another way to get close and bond with them as they're helping you and you're taking care of them, not that different from a trainer's role really. So this gets a A from me.
 
Don't have the screenshots and I'm a bit late to saying this but next week Ash will be partaking in another World Coronation Series match and his next opponent is gonna be Volkner.

It'll be so cool seeing them face off yet again since their gym battle back in DP was epic, and hope this one delivers good!

Sinnoh folk like myself are thriving rn!
 
ScraftyIsTheBest said:
Don't have the screenshots and I'm a bit late to saying this but next week Ash will be partaking in another World Coronation Series match and his next opponent is gonna be Volkner.

It'll be so cool seeing them face off yet again since their gym battle back in DP was epic, and hope this one delivers good!

Sinnoh folk like myself are thriving rn!
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Here's the Japanese commercial for it:
As a refresher, during Ash's Gym Battle with Volkner, Volkner used Jolteon, Electivire, and Luxray.
Here Volkner looks to have swapped out Jolteon for Rotom-Fan (though at first I thought Gengar was attacking a Rotom Drone for some reason, lol).
Also, Ash brought his Z-Ring with him. It has the Pikashunium Z in it cause Ash take the phrase "fighting fire with fire" literally.
 
ScraftyIsTheBest said:
Sinnoh folk like myself are thriving rn!
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Well there are of course remakes and new games for DP coming out in a few months, it's not a surprise the current saga suddenly turned into a Sinnoh shilling series. :bloblul:

But yeah the same thing happened when FR/LG came out (May got a Bulbasaur, later Squirtle, then the Battle Frontier was set in Kanto), then when HGSS came out (the whole Lyra arc in DP, Dawn got a Cyndaquil, Jasmine showed up), then ORAS during XY (Steven returned after a 10 year hiatus, they did the Groudon/Kyorge and Rayquaza arc properly in those Mega Evolution specials that they messed up a decade prior in the Magma/Aqua finale), and Shota/Sawyer had a Sceptile as his main pokemon, and even Let's Go Pikachu/Eevee coming out in 2018 prompted another return for Misty/Brock during the SM series.

All the DP themed eps we've been getting lately aren't a surprise for long term fans, we'll probably continue to get regular Sinnoh themed eps every so often through January of next year when the Arceus game comes out too.
 
BTW, did anyone else feel it a bit strange that there was this competition being held in Alola yet none of the Alola crew showed up? Like, I imagined the reason we held off going to Alola because that should be a "problem" as there's no reason not to have the Alola crew pop-in cause they're all in Alola and really have nothing to do. And surely Ash would call them saying "hey, dropping by Alola to compete in this desert Pokemon catching competition!". Like, at the very least give a quick montage of each of the Alola crew members giving an excuse why they can't show up.
 
So I got to watch today's episode of Ash vs. Volkner. It was a wonderful battle, and Volkner proved himself to be as strong as ever, living up to his reputation as Sinnoh's strongest Gym Leader, and I won't spoil the details but it was awesome to watch, and seeing Ash go out with a bang with Pikashunium Z was quite a sight to behold. This was one of the best battles of the World Coronation Series yet imo, and after the Iris battle this one turned out to be even more awesome. An awesome debut to Ash's Ultra Class series of battles, and a worthy first victory in the Ultra Class.

Another awesome part of this episode is that nowadays we see Goh watching Ash's World Coronation matches and he was also in the stands and rooting for Ash all the way through, so glad to see their friendship has come so far!

And lo and behold, as it turns out, Cynthia is also partaking in the World Coronation Series and is in the Master Class herself! So even though now Ash has beaten the strongest Gym Leader in Sinnoh, he's still got a legion of top class Trainers ahead of him: good ol' Bea will likely be up again soon, the strongest Gym Leader in Galar, Raihan, awaits, and of course, the trio of top class Champions Lance, Cynthia, and of course Leon are all at the top of the Master Class awaiting Ash! This is getting exciting for Ash: will be be able to reach the Master Class, and if so, will be able to beat even the the likes of Cynthia and maybe Leon? I eagerly look forward to what the rest of this series has in store.
 
I just find it a shame that Iris as a Unova champion came so early. Now we likely won't see any Unova Gymleader in hyperclass. Perhaps at most see Alder or his grandson.
I would have loved seeing Roxie battle again since she was such a beast in BW. Probably one of few things I loved about Best Wishes.

I wonder if the writers remember Tobias tho.
 
Sooo it would seem that in today's episode, well...

800px-Goh_and_Inteleon.png

To put it bluntly, Goh's Drizzile has finally achieved its dream and evolved into an Inteleon. The episode itself was pretty funny in the end considering it seemed so serious at first with some random person who seemed malicious and then it turned out to be an overzealous fanboy of Professor Cerise who desperately wanted Cerise to notice him.

It was a bit rushed unfort, and the arc could have been executed a bit better, but I'm glad to see Sobble finally achieve its dream of becoming an Inteleon, though granted I'd say it was still competently executed because it was clear Drizzile spent some time working towards its dream off screen and early on in the episode.

And who would've thought Inteleon would be so cool? Motherfucker turns out to be slick as hell, with a cool, suave demeanor and an absolutely smooth as fuck voice to boot. They really play a bit on some spy media tropes with Inteleon in this episode which is perfect for Inteleon being a sniper and a spy lizard. I wasn't that big on Inteleon at first even though I liked it initially (I like Rillaboom and Cinderace a bit more still) but Inteleon is slick and suave and I fucking love it after seeing it in this episode. Hearing Inteleon with such a smooth and suave voice though was surprising and not what I expected, especially seeing it look so cool and handsome even.

I would love to see Inteleon more in future episodes. If they should do one thing for sure, I'd like to see Inteleon interact with Cinderace in future episodes, since Goh's Cinderace was like a big sibling to Sobble ever since its Sobble first joined and I think now that it's an Inteleon it would be cool to see how Inteleon and Cinderace's relationship changes in the future. Especially with Cinderace's more energetic and lively personality vs. Inteleon's composed and cool personality, that would create for an interesting dynamic.

Too bad Rillaboom hasn't gotten much rep in the anime yet, I'm not counting on Grookey to evolve anytime soon personally but I'd still like to see Rillaboom get some healthy rep someday (I'm kind of leaning on and expecting the possibility that Grookey will stay Grookey, kind of like how in DP we saw Ash have both Infernape and Torterra fully evolved but Dawn's Piplup never evolved, plus Grookey itself is insanely marketable and cute so might as well keep it that way xD. I could very much be wrong though).

EDIT: Also for next week's episode, Chloe will get another episode next week! This time, just like Dawn back in DP, it seems Chloe will be meeting a doppelganger of herself who looks just like her! Let's see what happens next!
 
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Pikachu315111 said:
... So Pokemon Company, if you're brining Pokemon TV over, you should be making dubs of the Poketoons, right?... RIGHT?
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Pokemon TV as an app has already been on smartphones I think. And obviously been on the Pokemon website this entire time.

They're just putting this on switch now.
 
Speaking of PTV, is the remainder of the Diamond and Pearl series up now? If so I might go ahead and watch that

Also, what do y'all think about Goh? I've noticed that a lot of the community tends to...well, despise him, atleast on Reddit and Anipoke Youtube. Personally I think he's alright, I don't mind his character that much
 
Chadlad50 said:
Also, what do y'all think about Goh? I've noticed that a lot of the community tends to...well, despise him, atleast on Reddit and Anipoke Youtube. Personally I think he's alright, I don't mind his character that much
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Personality wise, I think that Goh is one of the best characters we've gotten from AniPoke in a long time. He makes a great foil for Ash, and his backstory is really relatable for me as someone who went through a lot of the same things he did as a child (not being able to make friends and being unable to explain why). His goal is interesting in theory, but the writers fumbled the ball with it. I don't mind that he catches Pokemon easily; he is meant to promote Pokemon Go, after all. It's the fact that barely any of then get screentime that bothers me and many other people. AniPoke is a character-driven show, and what's so good about that is that they treat the Pokemon as characters as well. So many Pokemon have become memorable simply because the anime did such a good job fleshing them out and giving them good personalities. So seeing many of Goh's Pokemon being essentially background props is a bit underwhelming. But that's not his fault; it's the writers' fault for not knowing how to handle his goal and not letting him flesh out his captures.

From what I've seen from the Anipoke fandom, though, a lot of people completely overlook the valid flaws about Goh and his goal and hate on him simply because they believe that many of the Pokemon he's caught (mainly Sobble, Grookey, Flygon, and Absol) should have gone to Ash instead and project their disappointment over the writer's decisions onto the character. In general, a lot of the complaints about him seem to be that he's overshadowing Ash. Which I can understand, but this season does have only two protagonists, so Goh's screentime will be naturally inflated compared to characters like Cilan, Clemont, and the SM classmates who had to share their screentime and their development with Ash's other companions.

TLDR: Great character personality wise, promising goal that was handled badly by the writers, people hate on him for the wrong reasons.
 
Yeah that's basically my problem with Goh. Not a lot of his Pokemon outside of the starters (I think, I haven't seen Grookey in action yet cause I only watch it off Netflix) have that much personality, which isn't really Goh's fault per se.
 
Chadlad50 said:
Not a lot of his Pokemon outside of the starters (I think, I haven't seen Grookey in action yet cause I only watch it off Netflix) have that much personality, which isn't really Goh's fault per se.
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Some of Goh's non-starter Pokemon (don't worry, Grookey has personality and shows up a lot) have good personalities. His Dewgong, Pinsir, Darmanitan, Raichu, and Greedent are all really nice characters. But they're the exceptions to the rule.
 
Personally, I also find Goh to be very relatable. Not just in the not being able to make friends that easy but also his first episode during Goh's backstory when he was an overzealous know-it-all who was so eager to express his knowledge of Pokemon and how much he knew. I honestly see so much of myself in him it's incredible. Even his outward personality is very much similar to my own.

I think the issue with his goal is that it's nice in theory, but the main thing is that in practice there's nearly 900 Pokemon that exist now and a generation only has three-four years to have a series last, which means only 145-190ish episodes for Goh to make significant progress on his goal. And when you have so many Pokemon for him to catch, there's no way you can give every last one of them the spotlight. With other companions, their goal wasn't necessarily to catch all of them, and they have smaller, more concentrated teams of Pokemon which gives a chance for each and every one of them spotlight, with many of them having at most 6 (May and Dawn), while the likes of Iris, Serena, Lana, etc. had like 2-4 mons at most.

You can see this issue surface even in earlier series, namely BW in particular. Unova Ash had more than six Pokemon, and the result backfired: while Oshawott, Pignite, Snivy, Scraggy, and Krookodile all had laid out personalities, some of his mons like Boldore, Palpitoad, and Leavanny got the shaft and failed to see significant amounts of screen time or personality. This is an inherent issue with having so many mons, and the more mons a character has, the more likely some of them will be shafted and not receive spotlight.

That being said, Goh's dream, as established, is to catch Mew, and there's Project Mew and that team which started recently, and that aspect of Goh's dream does show some great promise from what I can see, so hopefully they can also focus on that aspect too as the series goes on.
 
Speaking of PLA tie-ins, I would absolutely LOVE it if Ash caught a Hisuian Growlithe. He doesn't have a Fire type yet, and it's just so cute and marketable. I could see his potential Hisuian Growlithe be very wary towards him, but then Ash saves it or something and it then becomes very protective and loving towards him, attacking anyone that approaches Ash in a bid to protect its "master"
 
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