Category: Human Character Questions

witchesandmushi asks:

(Not the anon, but curious regardless) If you did do a Gym Leaders series, you could do it like the anime and do two or three Gym Leaders at once, united by element or theme or region, and you could definitely talk about their anime incarnations at the same time. That way we could get your opinion on Leaders and their Gyms in nice little packets and if there did turn out to be ones who you find yourself with a lot to say about, they could have their own posts.

Hmm.  Well, to be honest the likelihood of me doing this at any point in the near-to-medium future is slim to none, but if I ever find myself wanting ideas, I’ll bear that in mind.  Could be interesting to take it as a way of doing a thematic look at different types.

Anonymous asks:

why don’t you make a gym leaders series? like, i’m not telling you to do it, it’s just cool, i think. so yeah, hi.

I suppose because I’m not convinced I would have enough to say about each one to make it worthwhile.  They don’t have anything like the screentime or character development in the games that the rivals and Champions do, so it’s hard to think of stuff to comment on.  The anime is another matter, of course, but to be honest I’d rather just write about the anime than analyse specific characters in it.

Anonymous asks:

Which of the major rivals from the anime do you like the most, and why? It can be Ash’s or one of his companions’!

Tricky… I’m not as familiar as perhaps I should be with the anime after maybe the first half of Hoenn, bear in mind, and that doesn’t help a lot.  Having said that, I’m rather fond of the anime’s portrayal of Bianca.  Most of Ash’s rivals have a way of making you want to punch their stupid smug faces in, but Bianca just makes you want to root for her… from a safe distance.  She’s basically girl Ash – headstrong, determined to succeed despite the odds, a little clueless – but with some of the same backstory stuff that makes her interesting in the games.  And her dad is awesome.

Anonymous asks:

What do you think of the comment going around the internet about James actually being the best Trainer in the anime, because he actually asks and/or invites his Pokémon to join him? What do you think that says about his character?

Well, I don’t know about best necessarily, but he definitely has a lot going for him!  We don’t actually see how a lot of his Pokémon join him, but off the top of my head, Yamask, Mime Jr., Cacnea and Inkay all come along because he shows them kindness (and Yamask is particularly interesting because it shows that James retains this trait even during the Unova series, when he and Jessie are portrayed in a much more sinister manner than at other times).  I probably see this somewhat differently to a lot of people because I think Pokémon usually choose their trainers, to an extent – the battle is a test, of sorts; ultimately Pokémon are captured when they feel they’ve found a trainer who will make them stronger.  I think the fact that James doesn’t do things this way speaks to his very unassertive personality – next to the domineering Jessie and Meowth he sometimes seems outright wimpy, but he also ends up being the closest thing their group has to a voice of reason sometimes, because he’s not so concerned with imposing his will on others.  Winning a Pokémon’s respect by defeating it in battle, as most trainers tend to do, probably seems needlessly confrontational to him.  This kind of approach sets a different tone for how he interacts with his Pokémon, because they’re not necessarily joining him to grow stronger by fighting for him; they’re joining him for more of a mutual protection/benefit arrangement.  The result is probably a degree of equality that we don’t normally see between trainers and Pokémon – though of course James is still nominally in charge.

Anonymous asks:

Which major character from the pokemon anime would you like to have on a team with you in a double battle? Who do you think they would use and what team would you have to complement theirs?

Hmm.  Tough one.  I’m tempted to say Ash, purely because I think having more Pokémon in play multiplies the amount of completely insane bull$#!t he can pull off – see his battle against Tate and Liza in Mossdeep City (if you know what I’m talking about, great, if not… well, I don’t want to spoil the surprise).  Ash thinks ‘creatively,’ and that can be a huge asset in a double battle.  Ash’s Pikachu has shown in the past that he works really well with mobile Flying-types who have the physical strength to carry him, so maybe something like Noivern?  Both of them can lay down some serious hurt from a distance, and they’re both used to a very fast-paced combat style.  Assuming we both have two Pokémon… well, Ash has a lot to choose from but when the chips are down he’ll very often call in a favour from Charizard.  Charizard is something of a one-Pokémon show, and he’ll work best with someone who is very clearly there to help amplify his own magnificence, so I’d go with a tough supporter like Bronzong (who has the added advantage of being weak to an element that Charizard can easily tank against) – just hang back, use stuff like Light Screen and Confuse Ray to protect Charizard, and watch the fireworks.

Anonymous asks:

Would you rather be a Pokemon trainer or a Pokemon ranger?

Well, to be perfectly honest I don’t think I have the constitution or physical stamina for the kind of $#!t Pokémon rangers get up to.  Trainer can be a hobby, while ranger is a job, and an extremely demanding one at that.  In terms of the relationship the two groups have with their Pokémon, though, there’s actually a lot about the rangers’ way of doing things that appeals to me – like the stress on the more temporary, favour-for-a-favour nature of their relationships with most Pokémon, and the resulting emphasis on the more personal ties they have with just one partner.  I think the rangers’ training style gets around a lot of the more ethically blurry stuff about living with Pokémon, which is probably a good thing.  It also helps that they have a formalised code of ethics about how to treat Pokémon, but that’s more to do with them being all members of a centralised organisation with a definite purpose.

Anonymous asks:

If Aphrodite were an important pkmn trainer (respected one, leader, champion, etc.) what would be her team and strategy? More over, how would you design an Aphrodite-based pokemon?

Well, “strategy,” in the vaguest possible sense of the word, would involve everything knowing Attract, and probably as many other delaying techniques as possible.  Aphrodite is not a confrontational goddess – she “fights” in the Trojan War, for instance, but in her case “fighting” is more floating around doing vaguely protective motions towards heroes she likes, taking Paris out of the battle when he’s about to get murdered by Menelaus, that sort of thing.  So lots of moves that heal, protect, delay, and so on.  Milotic is obligatory, since she’s seen as an ideal of beauty in the Pokémon world, and the Milo- part of her name is thought to be in reference to the Venus de Milo.  Cloyster makes a lot of sense, in reference to the famous Botticelli painting The Birth of Venus, which has her rising out of the ocean on a scallop shell.  Sparrows and doves are sacred to Aphrodite, and probably the closest we’ve got to that is Pidove, but I’ll take a bit of artistic license and give her an Altaria.  Swoobat, for the heart motif.  Heatmor for her husband, Hephaistos, and a big scary Fighting-type, maybe Infernape, for her lover, Ares.

As for designing a Pokémon… to be honest I’m not particularly inspired by the idea of something directly “based” on a character normally depicted in human form; I don’t really think that allows you to do anything terribly interesting.  Mechanically speaking, I think it would be really interesting to make a Pokémon that somehow tries to make Attract not suck, probably using custom abilities or moves; if I wanted to bring Aphrodite into that somehow I would probably do it by basing said Pokémon on one of her sacred animals – sparrow, dove, swan, dolphin, or maybe even her sacred plant, the myrtle, but I’m not sure that necessarily would add anything to the idea of a Pokémon that fights with infatuation.

ThatsWhatEllieSaid asks:

How do you think the government functions in the pokemon universe? I don’t think there’s ever been any reference to any higher powers in either the games or the anime.

Well, Ash and his friends do occasionally encounter local government, in the form of the mayors of a few of the towns they visit.  The mayor of Trovitopolis, in the Orange Islands, is preoccupied with reelection when they meet him in The Mystery Menace, which implies that this particular city’s government is democratic, and in the absence of any further information I would assume that this is true across the board.  To be honest, I think this is one case where, if they don’t tell us anything, it’s probably because they just assume it works the same way as it does in the real world.

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