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SPOILERS! Mysteries and Conspiracies of Pokemon
- Thread starter stage7_4
- Start date
The g-max Toxtricity poster in SM is not a toxtricity poster according to the artist who designed tox:
"GF leaves loads of hints in its games" conspiracy theorists in shambles.
"GF leaves loads of hints in its games" conspiracy theorists in shambles.
That also confirms the trend of slapping Gen n Pokémon in Gen n-1 media (e.g., the anime) died in Generation VIII.
So there's absolutely no way these two didn't have bigger roles in an earlier draft of BW, right? You're not gonna convince me that characters this intricately designed and mystical-looking with original Japanese names of, I shit you not, Goddess of Love and Goddess of Peace were always intended to have 7 combined lines total across the entire duology with no battles. Assuming I'm right, what do you think the original plan was, and why was it cut down?
To add to that, and taking into account hot much more darker N's original concept art looked, I could also see them being spanners in the works of Ghetsis's plan. Pretty much given the role as N's caregivers & guardians, they would firsthand see Ghetsis's plan unfold as he manipulates N, but not being strong enough to stop him they sit back and watch, possibly doing their best to undo mental damages Ghetsis causes (though in secret as not to have Ghetsis remove them). However, when the player enters the picture, they would see them as potentially the one strong enough to free N and even thwart Ghetsis's plans. So, as R_N said, they would appear every so often, giving tidbits of backstory about N, eventually asking the player to help save N from Ghetsis. And with that there would be plenty of opportunities where they could help the player whenever Team Plasma has or is about to show up, such as pointing the player in the right direction, helping them with a puzzle, and/or even healing their Pokemon and giving helpful items.
In addition to probably time restraints and simplifying the story where it become less darker thus N needed less soul saving, I could also see them running into a wall with what to do with their character in the later part of the story. Now an exciting idea would be Ghetsis figuring out what they were doing (possibly from one of the Sages) and after talking with the player the Shadow Triad appears around them, teleports them away, and part of the storming of Team Plasma castle would involve saving them (and in return that would give them the strength to confront both N and Ghetsis along with the player). However that would add a layer of complication to things where just having them appear to help the player & tell the rest of the story before the player's major battle with N would suffice. And in the end that's all they ever end of doing.
Another example: the war in the past in the Lucario film.
<-- This one.
WHO. FOUGHT. WHO? AND WHY?
How can I care for a plot-relevant war if you don't know who fought and why they fought!?
Well look at the armor, it's obviously Team Green Version VS Team Red Version.
Joking aside, since the Pokemon films take place in their own location not in the games, there's no way to know the "sides" unless specifically told. But, in this case, and with the Kalos War, it doesn't matter.
How can you care about a plot-relevant war? You don't, cause it doesn't matter. It happened, it's over, it's just a plot point. What matters is specific characters who were affected by the war. You're meant to care about AZ who had their partner taken away from them only to be meaninglessly killed driving them into a mad depression... and then a mad hatred. You're meant to care about Lucario who he and his partner had to act fast to prevent their kingdom from being destroyed which ended up Lucario trapped for thousands of years in a crystal staff and his partner dying (and Lucario ensure why and holding resentment toward his partner until the truth is revealed).
The Brick Piece from GSC. Quite possibly one of the most obscure, inexplicable things in any Pokemon game period.
-It serves no practical purpose other than to be sold
-Its selling price is a measly $25, 1/6 of the sell price of a Potion. Not a Hyper Potion, not even a Super Potion, a regular-ass Potion
-The only way to get it is when it's held by Machop... traded in from RBY. Again, not Machoke or Machamp or any other Pokemon, JUST Machop.
-Oh yeah, and after GSC it never appeared in anything again. Not even HGSS.
Why does this even exist???? The only things I can think of are A) it's a weird joke I don't get or B) it's intended as a reference to the in-construction house in RBY Kanto being built by Machop
-It serves no practical purpose other than to be sold
-Its selling price is a measly $25, 1/6 of the sell price of a Potion. Not a Hyper Potion, not even a Super Potion, a regular-ass Potion
-The only way to get it is when it's held by Machop... traded in from RBY. Again, not Machoke or Machamp or any other Pokemon, JUST Machop.
-Oh yeah, and after GSC it never appeared in anything again. Not even HGSS.
Why does this even exist???? The only things I can think of are A) it's a weird joke I don't get or B) it's intended as a reference to the in-construction house in RBY Kanto being built by Machop
It definitely exists purely to reference the construction zone
More surprising is they didn't make it a Machop-empowering item like how the Stick & Lucky Punch are
Oh actually my buddy ol chum Hematite gave me a proper explanation on Discord! Here, I'll copypaste it word for word...
"Since trades from Gen I to Gen II were two-way, the held item slot had to be a section of the Pokémon data structure that would already exist in Gen I/like they couldn't just make an entirely new space for it and there was nothing completely empty in it
The space they chose to work with (probably on the grounds of being the most useless and therefore the most replaceable - something that wouldn't matter but also wouldn't be lost if you changed it in Gen II and then traded it back to Gen I) was an extra field that stored a Pokémon's catch rate even after it was caught
so anything transferred from Gen I would have a specific number based on its species (and a lot of them happened to be unique), and then new items from Gen II just had to occupy spaces you couldn't accidentally transfer from Gen I
The reason the Brick Piece exists is entirely because it was an obscure thing that would be exclusive to Machop
They needed some kind of dummy item dedicated to a Pokémon with held item 180, because it happened that there was one Pokémon (Machop) that had a catch rate of 180 and it would hold whatever item number 180 was when transferred to Gen II
Incidentally, if they existed, the Brick Piece would also be held by Makuhita, Aron, Meditite, Timburr, Sandile, Scraggy, Mienfoo, Honedge, Dedenne, Togedemaru, Clobbopus and Morpeko based on their catch rates"
Big thanks for this neato trivia :P
GSC has a handful of items exclusive to them.
Berserk Gene, of course, but also the various Teru-sama, the SlowpokeTail, the Pink Bow, and the Polkadot Bow.
- The Polkadot Bow item is a similar situation to the Brick Piece in that it can be obtained by transferring a Generation I Pokémon to GSC, in that case Jigglypuff. It also has an effect: it boosts the power of the holder's Normal-type moves by 10%, exactly like the Silk Scarf introduced in Gen III onwards.
- The Pink Bow has the same effect as the Silk Scarf and Polkadot Bow, but you can find it in multiple instances in GSC alone.
- The SlowpokeTail item can be purchased in GSC, and only in GSC. Do not confuse it with the Smoke-Poke Tail, an ingredient in SwSh.
- Why create the Silk Scarf item as a replacement for the Pink Bow?
- Why isn't there a Fairy-boosting item like the Silk Scarf and similar items?
I imagine the Silk Scarf replaced the Pink Bow because the Silk Scarf is white, which is associated with the Normal type.
Edit: thinking on it a bit more, it's worth noting that some of the colour associations with a specific type occured in gen 3, coinciding with the change to the Normal-boosting item. Normal could reasonably have been pink as much as white in gen 2 when the faces of the type were Clefairy, Jigglypuff, and Chansey. But the game they were choosing what to put as the background for the type indicators was the same game that put the focus on Linoone, Vigoroth, Zangoose, and Castform. It's also interesting that Dragon using both red and blue matches Salamence's colours.
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Honestly they should have re-introduced Pink and/or Polkadot Bow as the Fairy-type boosting item, since a fair few of the previously Normal pink Pokémon were now either partly or fully Fairy (alongside the aforementioned Clefairy and Jigglypuff lines, there’s also the Snubbull line). GF might have just forgotten about them though, leaving Fairy stuck with the Pixie Plate.
There are other notable Gen II items. two are Gen II exclusive for obvious reasons, but the other two made an unexpected reappearance recently:
-Normal Box and Gorgeous Box. These items were exclusive attached to gift Pokemon form the first internationally released Stadium Game(Stadium 1, which was known in Japan as Stadium 2) when traded to Gen II. Normal Box is attached to gift Pokemon from Round 1 and Gorgeous Box is attached to gift Pokemon from Round 2. Which one the Amnesia Psyduck has depends on the version. In the Original Japanese version, They had Normal Box. In the Internationally released version it instead has Gorgeous Box. Using them as an item adds the Silver Trophy and Gold Trophy to your list of room decorations, respectively, and if you have more than one using them will still consume them even though you get nothing out of them,
-Gold Leaf and Silver Leaf. Both are attached to a random assortment of Pokemon traded over from the Gen I games. Silver Leaf can be sold for 500 Pokedollars, while Gold Leaf can be sold for 1000. No other effects. What is interesting is that both of these items reappeared years later in Let's Go Pikachu/Eevee, among the random assortment of sellable items that can only be found from your partner Pokemon randomly picking them up. In these games both the Gold and Silver Leaf give 500 Pokedollars if you sell them.
Apply directly (and forcefully) to the forehead.
(Actually, that reminds me of a recent story I learned which even be used as the basis for this Ghost Eeveelution! Ever heard of "Darwin's Fox"? It's a species of fox which Charles Darwin sent back a specimen of while on a expedition in the Chiloe Archipelago. They were doing their survey work on San Pedro Island when they noticed an unknown fox species was watching them work. It was so absorbed in its curiosity... that Darwin was able to sneak up behind it and kill it with a pick hammer. He later wrote "This fox, more curious or more scientific, but less wise, than the generality of his brethren, is now mounted in the museum of the Zoological Society". Interestingly it's Darwin involved with this story, though he wouldn't write his world famous Origin of Species which detailed the theory of evolution until a decade or so later, he could have very well used the various fox species in South America as his example).
Eevee sure is.
Eevee sure is.
Oh... right.
I meant I wasn't sorry for making an unoriginal joke, not... that.
you will grow to be a beautiful espeon i promise you
Well, the colonies couldn't call it the Nine Years Year because that name was already taken!
I absolutely cannot see this as anything but gmax tox. Not gonna say this guy is lying but bro...............
Has anyone extracted that poster's texture so we can get a closer look?
HeartGold and SoulSilver have a somewhat obscure item called the Shiny Leaf that can be found by your walking Pokémon. Maybe they're also a reference to the Gold and Silver Leafs?
So, Pokeani bros: Did a satisfying explanation ever emerge for what this was about? I'm assuming there is no chance of this being a strange accident, in which case what's the deal? Is there truly some weird push to memory hole Ash-Greninja completely or is there a more benign explanation for why he'd be omitted from this flashback in the context of the episode it appeared in?
just seems like a retcon to me. I always thought pokemon should be liberal w those anyway
Legit the only reason I can think of for the retcon is the fact that its name and design are tied directly to Ash and someone higher up in TPC is embarrassed by that.
It's super bizarre even when taking into account the anime's kind of wishy-washy handling of continuity.
The Occam's razor explanation is that everyone in the production pipeline forgot.
Considering they recreated that shot and clearly had to use it as a reference, I highly doubt them forgetting Ash-Greninja is possible.
I don't think they forgot about it either, and I kinda doubt it's actually full-on retconned per se. Ash in the episode alluded to the Bond Phenomenon earlier when he talks about how he and Greninja would become one: how he would be like Greninja and Greninja would be like him. Also, despite Ash-Greninja being unusable in SV, the form was depicted in a mural in the games which means they still actively acknowledge its existence, and in fact may even put it into existence in a future game for all we know.
I think the issue with Ash-Greninja is that it's just a very abstract and unusual thing that is very abnormal in general and the Bond Phenomenon form wasn't the main point of the Greninja episode anyway, Lucario was the focal point, so they just decided to skate around it.
Even when the anime mentions old continuity every now and then, the thing is that the target audience is still ultimately the new kids, meaning even though Journeys is rife with old characters and fanservice, ultimately, it's still targeted towards the new elementary school kids who started Pokemon with Sword and Shield, and for these kids, Journeys/PM19 is their first season of Anipoke that they've watched. In other words, they probably haven't watched any of the older seasons.
Ash-Greninja is a very abstract and unusual transformation because it's something that is barely canon to the games. It was an anime-original idea and none of the Gen 6 games had it, and the one time it was in the games in Gen 7 it was a special event Pokemon. And not only is it something that is unusual, canonically in the anime which the games followed in SM, Ash-Greninja is a once-in-a-generation occurrence in the anime timeline's history. It's not like Mega Evolution where any individual specimen of a Mega Evolving Pokemon can hypothetically do it, Ash-Greninja was special because it was specifically Ash's Greninja who had such a power to begin with. The vast majority of Greninja have no such powers.
The "Battle Bond" Greninja you could use in SM was not just a typical Greninja, it was the Ash-Greninja. It was basically treated as a Mythical Pokemon, it was locked to one gender, it was unable to be bred, and it was banned from official competitive tournaments.
In that sense it's something that warrants a significant amount of explaining to talk about. I think they avoided both mentioning and showing Ash-Greninja in that specific episode because as I said, it's an unusual and abstract thing that is barely canon to the games, meaning most new kids wouldn't know what Ash-Greninja is or what it entails. This is further reinforced by Greninja's complete absence in Gen 8, as it's not in Sword and Shield or Legends: Arceus, and even moreso by Gen 9 with Scarlet and Violet where Game Freak decided to repurpose the Battle Bond ability to make it a more broadened and general ability, perhaps so they can assign it to other mons in the future, which given these circumstances, new kids who started Pokemon with the Switch games won't ever get to actually *see* what Ash-Greninja is all about.
As such, they basically just dodged the topic or avoided showing it so as to avoid confusing new viewers. If they had shown it, it would confuse new kids on what the hell that form was and why it looks different from what Greninja normally looks like, and especially later on when it shows up in SV where none of their Greninjas will have that power or form. It would warrant a significant amount of explaining on Ash's end to explain why his Greninja has that form. And that would take a significant amount of focus away from what the episode was really about, because it was really about Ash's Lucario and honing its aura powers and bond with Ash, getting help from Greninja because Ash and Greninja had special powers that involved their bond and fighting as one. And they had no time to focus on Greninja's unusual form when Lucario and training Lucario's power was the real focus of the episode, Ash-Greninja the form was not relevant to the story they wanted to tell with Lucario so they avoided it.
Really I think it's a matter of Ash-Greninja being abstract and unusual, barely being canon to the games in the first place, and JN still being targeted towards new kids who started Pokemon with Gen 8, and not wanting to confuse them, combined with not wanting to take away focus from Ash's Lucario who was the focus of the episode, so they basically "Broad Strokes"'d the whole thing.
I think the issue with Ash-Greninja is that it's just a very abstract and unusual thing that is very abnormal in general and the Bond Phenomenon form wasn't the main point of the Greninja episode anyway, Lucario was the focal point, so they just decided to skate around it.
Even when the anime mentions old continuity every now and then, the thing is that the target audience is still ultimately the new kids, meaning even though Journeys is rife with old characters and fanservice, ultimately, it's still targeted towards the new elementary school kids who started Pokemon with Sword and Shield, and for these kids, Journeys/PM19 is their first season of Anipoke that they've watched. In other words, they probably haven't watched any of the older seasons.
Ash-Greninja is a very abstract and unusual transformation because it's something that is barely canon to the games. It was an anime-original idea and none of the Gen 6 games had it, and the one time it was in the games in Gen 7 it was a special event Pokemon. And not only is it something that is unusual, canonically in the anime which the games followed in SM, Ash-Greninja is a once-in-a-generation occurrence in the anime timeline's history. It's not like Mega Evolution where any individual specimen of a Mega Evolving Pokemon can hypothetically do it, Ash-Greninja was special because it was specifically Ash's Greninja who had such a power to begin with. The vast majority of Greninja have no such powers.
The "Battle Bond" Greninja you could use in SM was not just a typical Greninja, it was the Ash-Greninja. It was basically treated as a Mythical Pokemon, it was locked to one gender, it was unable to be bred, and it was banned from official competitive tournaments.
In that sense it's something that warrants a significant amount of explaining to talk about. I think they avoided both mentioning and showing Ash-Greninja in that specific episode because as I said, it's an unusual and abstract thing that is barely canon to the games, meaning most new kids wouldn't know what Ash-Greninja is or what it entails. This is further reinforced by Greninja's complete absence in Gen 8, as it's not in Sword and Shield or Legends: Arceus, and even moreso by Gen 9 with Scarlet and Violet where Game Freak decided to repurpose the Battle Bond ability to make it a more broadened and general ability, perhaps so they can assign it to other mons in the future, which given these circumstances, new kids who started Pokemon with the Switch games won't ever get to actually *see* what Ash-Greninja is all about.
As such, they basically just dodged the topic or avoided showing it so as to avoid confusing new viewers. If they had shown it, it would confuse new kids on what the hell that form was and why it looks different from what Greninja normally looks like, and especially later on when it shows up in SV where none of their Greninjas will have that power or form. It would warrant a significant amount of explaining on Ash's end to explain why his Greninja has that form. And that would take a significant amount of focus away from what the episode was really about, because it was really about Ash's Lucario and honing its aura powers and bond with Ash, getting help from Greninja because Ash and Greninja had special powers that involved their bond and fighting as one. And they had no time to focus on Greninja's unusual form when Lucario and training Lucario's power was the real focus of the episode, Ash-Greninja the form was not relevant to the story they wanted to tell with Lucario so they avoided it.
Really I think it's a matter of Ash-Greninja being abstract and unusual, barely being canon to the games in the first place, and JN still being targeted towards new kids who started Pokemon with Gen 8, and not wanting to confuse them, combined with not wanting to take away focus from Ash's Lucario who was the focus of the episode, so they basically "Broad Strokes"'d the whole thing.
I think that's the whole matter here. They wanted to save themselves an explanation to new viewers... while leaving the older viewers wondering what on Earth happened.