I was talking about the Pokémon Adventures manga specifically. When people say "the manga", they are talking about Pokémon Adventures.
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Unpopular opinions
- Thread starter antemortem
- Start date
My love hate relationship for the rs arc is immense and im not even gonna touch my hate hate relationship with oras but my entire unpopular opinion is that the relationship between ruby n sapphire pretty much set rs to be doomed from the start, because kusaka cannot write romance and he is really bad with Writing Women. Also I think sapphire should have been the main character and im saying this as like ruby fan number one in the world
Bro evolved crobat only to Have flavour of having évolution of the pokemon the grunts Have.
Still haven't finished FRLG cuz by then I got bored and realized remakes would tire me, but I agree about the horrid shafting of Sapphire, as much as I liked seeing Ruby actually grow
It was so numbingly obvious they didn't know what to do with her. She randomly is feral first chapter, then drops that immediately and does basic campaign stuff. Most you have is her helping Wattson, then after Ruby's entire char arc she's back to help stop big bad without much of her own personal struggle
It hurts more too cuz the fucking NPCs get development as they become aware of Team Aqua's manipulation of media (which speaking of, love that Archie was actually competent). Even Wally gets more stuff, directly having his sickness addressed (though from what I heard Em drops him hard for an OC...)
Honestly wouldn't be surprised this is why Gen 4 Dawn is a grumpy stuck up protag while Barry/Lucas are just sidekicks, but it doesn't matter. Hareta manga > Gen 4 Adventures
Its so bad. its genuinely so bad she gets NOTHING all she does is basic barebones protag stuff like 3 times, no character development and then gets shoved in the stupid aircar lol.
I also personally am glad he went for oc but thats because I think emerald is The Best dexholder in the manga, while wally was more of a plot contrievance than a character to me. He's kinda just there because they had to add wally since hes the other main rival, and just does whatever the plot needs him to do to.
This is cringe to admit also but this arc has lived in my head for so long i actually started writing a rewrite for myself of it LOL. my brain decided to never let it go so now im suffering the consequences
The Pokemon Chronicles show had the potential to be better than the mainline Pokemon show but never got to realize it. It was a great idea, I just think they decentralized it just a little too much. I'm imagining a show that, instead of random one-off stories of old friends, seasonally follows a couple fan favorites inside the regions' infrastructures (research and lecturing academics/ gym leaders, nurses, officers) to build toward a collective season-long narrative. The traveling trainer is great to discover new worlds, but let's take a beat and actually live in those worlds for a bit.
Season 1 - Follows Misty, Prof. Oak/Tracy, and Casey as a visiting trainer as they deal with some of the longer ramifications of Ash's adventures. Things like providing a support network for and protection for Mewtwo's new community against poachers, researching and dealing with changed migratory patterns after movie events that dramatically effected populations, etc... Let's organize Gym Leaders and have region-wide Officer conferences, and more.
Season 2 - Let's get tropical with a scientific research team consisting of Gary, Blaine, and one of Professor Ivy's triplet assistants, all put together to study some on-going phenomena taking place in the Seafoam Islands, the Orange Islands, and the Whirl Islands. Maybe it's even a precursor plot Team Aqua in Hoenn.
Season 3 - Head to Johto and open with a 5-7 episode end-of-academy/what comes next storyline for a new Nurse Joy (w/ Miltank), Officer Jenny (w/ Teddiursa), and a Pokemon Ranger, followed by their special assignment under a Mr. Pokemon-led task force to investigate some new Pokemon mystery and possible illicit criminal activity leading to Mt. Silver.
So on and so forth. As the show catches up to regions, cycle back through. What if Ritchie settles down at one of the Pokemon Academies as a teaching assistant and takes his misfit students to throwback locations for field trips as they learn to be better trainers and eventually take on the intramural Junior Pokemon League tourney put on by the academies? What if Brock gives Sudowoodo, the wannabe tree, to his brother Forrest who wants to find more like Rock-types that fit an off-type vibe (Lileep/Anorith, Shuckle, Corsola, Relicanth etc...) and Prof. Oak sends him to Gary in Hoenn to assist in his research in collaboration with Devon, where they're joined by now-10yo Max who hopes to train under Gary/in his home region of Hoenn to begin his studies towards being a Professor?
Season 1 - Follows Misty, Prof. Oak/Tracy, and Casey as a visiting trainer as they deal with some of the longer ramifications of Ash's adventures. Things like providing a support network for and protection for Mewtwo's new community against poachers, researching and dealing with changed migratory patterns after movie events that dramatically effected populations, etc... Let's organize Gym Leaders and have region-wide Officer conferences, and more.
Season 2 - Let's get tropical with a scientific research team consisting of Gary, Blaine, and one of Professor Ivy's triplet assistants, all put together to study some on-going phenomena taking place in the Seafoam Islands, the Orange Islands, and the Whirl Islands. Maybe it's even a precursor plot Team Aqua in Hoenn.
Season 3 - Head to Johto and open with a 5-7 episode end-of-academy/what comes next storyline for a new Nurse Joy (w/ Miltank), Officer Jenny (w/ Teddiursa), and a Pokemon Ranger, followed by their special assignment under a Mr. Pokemon-led task force to investigate some new Pokemon mystery and possible illicit criminal activity leading to Mt. Silver.
So on and so forth. As the show catches up to regions, cycle back through. What if Ritchie settles down at one of the Pokemon Academies as a teaching assistant and takes his misfit students to throwback locations for field trips as they learn to be better trainers and eventually take on the intramural Junior Pokemon League tourney put on by the academies? What if Brock gives Sudowoodo, the wannabe tree, to his brother Forrest who wants to find more like Rock-types that fit an off-type vibe (Lileep/Anorith, Shuckle, Corsola, Relicanth etc...) and Prof. Oak sends him to Gary in Hoenn to assist in his research in collaboration with Devon, where they're joined by now-10yo Max who hopes to train under Gary/in his home region of Hoenn to begin his studies towards being a Professor?
(Warning: Major "Pokemon Fan don't find patterns" challenge failure ahead)
I don't know if this is unpopular as in disagreeable or just not widely thought of/held, but I would argue that divorced from what was done in later arcs with the characters (i.e. Lance coming back reformed for GSC and HGSS, or reveals with Yellow in the FRLG arcs), the Yellow Arc might be the "darkest" early Pokemon Special got while the Pokemon as a concept remained important to its story (see the above criticism of stuff like XY and SM arcs).
My basis here does involve the human characters in how the Elite Four are handled as antagonists: compared to organizations like Team Rocket, Magma, etc. the Kanto populace or at least big wigs are aware of the Elite Four existing but also regard them as too strong to act against without some serious prep and help. No one thinks it bizarre that one of them could beat a Champion as accomplished as Red was shown to be, even if contextually there's more at work there, and despite an obvious hatred/problem with them from the RBG arc the former Rocket Leaders (i.e. actual no-dressing-down Terrorists and Crime Bosses) and the protags arriving clearly consider working together necessary to challenge them. Maybe it's hindsight with real life molding my perspective but something seems eerily heavy and concerning about a villainous body everyone is aware of but also feels incapable of challenging bar a forced hand/Godzilla threshold.
Agatha is pretty unrepentant in essentially wiping out humanity as their goal goes, and given the flashbacks we see of a younger Lance and Lorelei, it almost gives me this impression that she fed into or conditioned their grudges to reach the point of intensity they display in that arc. Agatha is also shown getting away in a much more dignified/less broken fashion than any member save Bruno, who was mind-controlled into their cause anyway at that point. While every member is willing to kill for their cause, Agatha in particular has the most "targetted" efforts against Blue, which makes her less-sound defeat a lot more infuriating.
The big thing this makes me think of though is Yellow's final battle against Lance. Yellow spends a lot of the fight in her Martial Pacifist mode, defending herself but clearly hoping she can talk Lance down instead of having to fight him despite him clearly not sharing the sentiment. The fight itself almost feels like a perversion or dark take on Yellow's Empathic nature, with things like Blaine and Mewtwo able to challenge Lance if not for their link hurting the former to the point the latter stops fighting for his safety, or Giovanni displaying a brutal efficiency to match Lance in battle among the 3 Viridian trainers. A big moment on this front for me is when Yellow hears the thoughts of Lance's Dragonite, exhausted and injured to a near fatal degree but still only concerned with seeing Lance's goals through, which has two dark perspectives in Lance either ignoring or missing the state his own Pokemon is in because he's that single-minded in his plan by that point.
In the end the only way Yellow's able to stop Lance is to fight and defeat him head-on, something very contrary to how she wanted to live but that people like Blue told her wouldn't be enough against an enemy like this. Yellow outright cries at the prospect of her Pokemon evolving or changing, a process that in terms of character is very analogous to aging/maturing in the franchise as it has gone on (both with things like the anime arcs or Spin-offs like Mystery Dungeon treating your 1st-stage characters as Children). The climax of the battle requiring Yellow's team to evolve to go toe-to-toe with Lance and save everyone has a sort of "Loss of Innocence" air to it with that context, as the entire fight pushes in Yellow's face that her pacifist nature won't work and won't reach some people, only able to stop Lance by beating him down so he can't continue his plan. Compared to most arcs, while the story conflict is won, the protagonist's philosophy doesn't bear out and has to be defied if anything when pushed to the extreme. Even if Lance is less villainous in later appearances, this is less out of Yellow convincing him regardless of the fight than other matters on his mind like Lugia being controlled taking his attention (and HGSS suggests he's outright intimidated/afraid of/unbalanced by Yellow when Petrel disguises himself to get the drop on him).
I can't really think of another Pokemon plot or scenario that ends in a moral/personal failure, minor or otherwise, for the protagonist. Even with antagonists who can't be reasoned with/reformed like Ghetsis or Volo, the resolution still has them beaten because your method overcomes theirs rather than having to meet and beat them on their own level like this arc.
I don't know if this is unpopular as in disagreeable or just not widely thought of/held, but I would argue that divorced from what was done in later arcs with the characters (i.e. Lance coming back reformed for GSC and HGSS, or reveals with Yellow in the FRLG arcs), the Yellow Arc might be the "darkest" early Pokemon Special got while the Pokemon as a concept remained important to its story (see the above criticism of stuff like XY and SM arcs).
My basis here does involve the human characters in how the Elite Four are handled as antagonists: compared to organizations like Team Rocket, Magma, etc. the Kanto populace or at least big wigs are aware of the Elite Four existing but also regard them as too strong to act against without some serious prep and help. No one thinks it bizarre that one of them could beat a Champion as accomplished as Red was shown to be, even if contextually there's more at work there, and despite an obvious hatred/problem with them from the RBG arc the former Rocket Leaders (i.e. actual no-dressing-down Terrorists and Crime Bosses) and the protags arriving clearly consider working together necessary to challenge them. Maybe it's hindsight with real life molding my perspective but something seems eerily heavy and concerning about a villainous body everyone is aware of but also feels incapable of challenging bar a forced hand/Godzilla threshold.
Agatha is pretty unrepentant in essentially wiping out humanity as their goal goes, and given the flashbacks we see of a younger Lance and Lorelei, it almost gives me this impression that she fed into or conditioned their grudges to reach the point of intensity they display in that arc. Agatha is also shown getting away in a much more dignified/less broken fashion than any member save Bruno, who was mind-controlled into their cause anyway at that point. While every member is willing to kill for their cause, Agatha in particular has the most "targetted" efforts against Blue, which makes her less-sound defeat a lot more infuriating.
The big thing this makes me think of though is Yellow's final battle against Lance. Yellow spends a lot of the fight in her Martial Pacifist mode, defending herself but clearly hoping she can talk Lance down instead of having to fight him despite him clearly not sharing the sentiment. The fight itself almost feels like a perversion or dark take on Yellow's Empathic nature, with things like Blaine and Mewtwo able to challenge Lance if not for their link hurting the former to the point the latter stops fighting for his safety, or Giovanni displaying a brutal efficiency to match Lance in battle among the 3 Viridian trainers. A big moment on this front for me is when Yellow hears the thoughts of Lance's Dragonite, exhausted and injured to a near fatal degree but still only concerned with seeing Lance's goals through, which has two dark perspectives in Lance either ignoring or missing the state his own Pokemon is in because he's that single-minded in his plan by that point.
In the end the only way Yellow's able to stop Lance is to fight and defeat him head-on, something very contrary to how she wanted to live but that people like Blue told her wouldn't be enough against an enemy like this. Yellow outright cries at the prospect of her Pokemon evolving or changing, a process that in terms of character is very analogous to aging/maturing in the franchise as it has gone on (both with things like the anime arcs or Spin-offs like Mystery Dungeon treating your 1st-stage characters as Children). The climax of the battle requiring Yellow's team to evolve to go toe-to-toe with Lance and save everyone has a sort of "Loss of Innocence" air to it with that context, as the entire fight pushes in Yellow's face that her pacifist nature won't work and won't reach some people, only able to stop Lance by beating him down so he can't continue his plan. Compared to most arcs, while the story conflict is won, the protagonist's philosophy doesn't bear out and has to be defied if anything when pushed to the extreme. Even if Lance is less villainous in later appearances, this is less out of Yellow convincing him regardless of the fight than other matters on his mind like Lugia being controlled taking his attention (and HGSS suggests he's outright intimidated/afraid of/unbalanced by Yellow when Petrel disguises himself to get the drop on him).
I can't really think of another Pokemon plot or scenario that ends in a moral/personal failure, minor or otherwise, for the protagonist. Even with antagonists who can't be reasoned with/reformed like Ghetsis or Volo, the resolution still has them beaten because your method overcomes theirs rather than having to meet and beat them on their own level like this arc.
Boy howdy a Pokémon series not having time to develop itself properly and has to rush to keep up a schedule, where have I seen that before? /s
Joking aside, I’m guessing that the people who work on the manga just don’t have time to work in each individual arc like they used to because of time and any other issues. Like didn’t the Gen 5 manga got put in limbo for a couple years, I remember that being a thing that happened.
A couple? It was more like 10, the B2W2 chapter only finished a year or two ago.
I think that's one of those things that people love in fangames or similar, but specifically because it's not going to be a thing in any "mainline" titles and probably not be a thing in spinoffs. A hack* having you playthrough as a Magma Grunt/Silver/N/etc could be really interesting, and having an actual char for the NPCs to interact with would be nice. And I played through an Emerald Nuzlocke using codes to steal pokemon and had a blast. But GF is married(with good reason) to the idea of the "blank slate protagonist", and making the player evil just won't happen EVER in their child-friendly series. So it's safe to speculate about how fun it would be, without ever risking GF actually making it and it sucks.
*I'm sure it's been done, but I've never played anything that does this so I'm not naming anything specific.
As someone whose only knowledge of Gen 5 is second hand, Team Plasma seems like the one team actually malicious team (as in not anything from Team Skull onward) where having the player be a (former?) grunt would actually work really well. Team Rocket was the mafia, Team Aqua and Magma were environmental terrorists, Team Galactic was like a doomsday cult or something, and Team Flare were fascists, but Team Plasma had a benevolent front so convincing that half the grunts genuinely believed in it and continued to pursue that goal even after Ghetsis fell in BW1. Having the player be a member of Old Team Plasma circa BW2 doesn't seem that unworkable.
You could have a protagonist who isn't necessarily ex-Team Plasma, but at least supported their stated goals strongly enough that they released their Pokemon. The game begins as any other Pokemon game does, but instead of receiving their first Pokemon, they're starting again as a trainer. The backstory doesn't have to be fleshed out much more than that, but even with scant detail I think it could be an emotionally compelling foundation for a Pokemon story. It also basically lets the PC be any age you like, which is a nice bonus.
EDIT: unfortunately I don't really trust Game Freak to have anything interesting to say about Team Plasma given how incoherent it all got in BW and B2W2. Pretty much every conversation between an ex-Grunt and a current Grunt in B2W2 is like
Grunt: "Quit being a loser and come be evil with us again!"
ex-Grunt: "I'm sorry, but I cannot forgive the way Ghetsis treated Lord N!"
and it's super lame.
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Not me because those names are garbage.
And like. Black-Two works as a code name, which makes sense because he's an agent or whatever. But making it Lack-Two is just weird.
Lack-Two cos he lacking
Pokemon Chronicles wasn't even a thing in Japan. 4kids just compiled a bunch of standalone OVA episodes together (one from the GSC era of the anime and the rest from the RSE era) and gave them all a collective name.
I dont really see the appeal of melanistic and albino pokemon. I see this proposal every once in a while as a rare option for shinies (taking the old 1/8k rate) but having this rare special mon just look the same as every other mon seems... boring? black and white colors lose a lot of their appeal when theyre everywhere for every mon
Albino doesn't necessarily mean white. Most reptiles turn yellow, and albinism doesn't affect red or blue pigments at all.
I mean that was partially due to A) not being different except said effect and B) being bugged to be more common than the standard type.
I'm aware that albinism shows differently depending on the species (ive had albino herps), but most people want albino pokemon because they want pure white red eye shinies for every mon LOL
This is just my guess, but I imagine the desire largely comes from people who feel like Shinies have become too common or easily obtained in recent generations, and now want something more elusive to hunt or brag about. Following on from that, albino / monochrome Pokémon is just a fairly straightforward, universally applicable, and visually distinct concept for what a “rarer” version of Shinies could look like.
Yeah but it becomes an issue if the “new rarer recolor” is only available in white or black, which can become uninspiring at best. Monochrome can work, though only if it is different color of both the standard and Shiny coloring.
And looking that both Gen 8 and Gen 9 introduces a lot of shinies that barely changes from the original, I rather not that they go for introducing a rarer-than-Shiny variant, thank you.
The big issue is that you make a rarer version of something thats meant to be rare, the less rare thing will lose its value even faster than before because of the grind. Lets say you're doing a hunt where a shiny is a 1/500 and an albino is a 1/2000. You'll probably find quite a few shinies before finding a single albino, and this will make shinies even less appealing than they are now.
This happened in a much bigger scale on a pokemon clicker site im in. It's more drastic, but there to get a melanistic pokemon, it needs to roll a shiny and an albino roll at the same time. This means a lot of people who are hunting for those melanistic mons have multiple boxes filled with shinies and albinos, which makes them lose their luster Real Fast. Obviously those odds are too much, and come from the nature of the game just being a clicker pet sim, but it's not unheard in other games.
The game does make it so albinos and melans arent just pure black/white which makes them more interesting, but the pop culture of albino being pure white with red eyes is very present in peoples ideas and what they want.
Look at my albino shiinotic btw. i put him in the sludge
I think if there were to be a "rarer shiny" i'd prefer if they just made a new shiny in general instead of following an albino/melanistic pattern. Normal shiny pika is orange, epic ultra rare star pikachu is blue, something like that. Even then, the same issue as above persists and getting the wrong shiny would be an awful experience
Heh, this reminds me of a friend of mine who has done a Shiny Authentic Sinistea hunt in gen 8.
It took him over 20k encounters. 31 shinys. The 32th was authentic. He has a entire box of basically worthless shiny sinisteas that hold 0 value.
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