Anonymous asks:

Even though I believe on your argument on the whole Beartic x Dragonite question, I don’t really think that the thing about levels is possible. Principaly because the levels don’t seem to make a very big influence on the anime. One example is one of the starting episodes of the Unova series where Pikachu loses to Trip’s Snivy. (His name’s Trip right? Right) The Snivy was recently catched and I can’t really believe Pikachu would be something lower than 50 and it surely didn’t just “reset”

I agree with you in principle, but that’s a bad example. The whole context of that battle is that Pikachu’s just had his powers drained by Zekrom. He is operating at vastly diminished capacity compared to practically every other time we ever see him fight, and the games offer us no guidelines on how to simulate that.

Anonymous asks:

What do you think of Detective Pikachu for 3ds?

…I am so confused.

It’s actually kinda neat in a lot of ways, though. Like, if I have this straight, the deal with the kid is that he and the Pikachu can understand each other for reasons that are currently mysterious, and as a result they can work as a team to operate just as effectively among humans and among Pokémon. That puts them in a very unique position that could be exploited in all kinds of ways by a shrewd and discreet investigator. And that is a really interesting premise; it’s just a shame this is a fairly low-budget game and won’t have the space or the ambition to explore it fully.

…and yes, I have signed the change.org petition to get Nintendo of America to hire Danny de Vito as the English language voice actor for Detective Pikachu.

Update: No Danny de Vito ='(

Anonymous asks:

I really dislike the anime, but principally because MANY of the battles are completely inaccurate. This gets to my frustration point principally on the Unova series. I don’t remember exactly, But i THINK it was on chapter 752 that happened the biggest bullshit I’ve ever seen. (The start of the Junior cup) First of all, a Serperior beats a Darmanitan with a single solar beam (This isn’t the worst part) but THEN Iris’s dragonite just survives two ice beams from a Beartic! What do you think?

Okay, so, I think “inaccurate” is an interesting choice of words here, because it implies that battles in the anime are supposed to be a representation of something else, and that we can judge them by the closeness of that representation. Presumably you think they’re supposed to be representations of battles in the games, which I don’t believe is now the case or ever has been; I think the games and anime both represent, in different ways, the same abstract fantasy. Really, it makes just as much sense to say that the games are “inaccurate” for failing to allow for the level of tactical variety or the influence of individual personality and relationships that we see in the anime. Furthermore if this is the “biggest bullshit you’ve ever seen” then clearly you haven’t watched Solid as a Solrock; personally I expect bullshit of a much higher calibre from the Pokémon anime. But let’s run some of these numbers.

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Anonymous asks:

What’s one event in the pokemon anime that you would change if you could?

Tricky… I think anything I would want to change about the anime would involve more sweeping changes of style or worldbuilding, stuff that you can’t really get rid of by changing a single event. I mean, there are things that annoy me – like Primeape leaving Ash in the way and at the time that he did, I think was really rather misplayed – but I don’t know if any of those are worth the kind of “if you could change one thing” idea that you’re getting at. I suppose more than anything else I would want (if it counts as just “one event”) to fix the cutting off of the GS Ball storyarc, which at the time seemed like it would be really important but ultimately was just forgotten after Ash left the ball with Kurt. I’m just not sure what I would necessarily do with it…

pixel3r asks:

Wishful Thinking: The anime is getting rid of Ash, and is going to start the next generation’s anime with a totally new protagonist. And YOU have the opportunity to design them~ What sort of character do you design?

Hard to say… a lot of Ash’s existing personality traits are actually kind of useful ones for a main character to have, like it’s actually good for your main character in a fantasy world to be a little bit clueless, because the audience can learn about the world as they learn, and Ash’s enthusiasm for battling and capturing Pokémon are important for getting people to buy into the main premises of the franchise. So it’s probably good to keep those things… to an extent, anyway. But what might be different? Well, it would be nice to have the protagonist be a girl, for a change… and we could contrast Ash, who is if anything overly friendly with Pokémon he’s just met, with a character who has a bit more difficulty bonding with Pokémon, and has an initially more standoffish relationship with them, more like Gary… add a very curious, analytical bent, sort of like Red from Origins, to play into the Pokédex quest and the theme of exploration… something like that, I think.

Anonymous asks:

What do you think of the different depictions of Pokémon between the main anime and Origins? For example, the way some moves are portrayed, Pokémon cries, or even the way Pokémon are recalled into their Poké Balls.

I don’t know; the only thing I really remember noticing was that Charmander sounds like a cat being strangled for some reason. I suppose abandoning the “Pokémon say their names” convention is meant as an effort to make them less cartoony, more like real animals, and I have no problem with this. To be honest, the rest is just swirly glowy things; depictions of those change a bit between seasons of the anime as well.

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:

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:

Does it bug you when people associate anime only elements (like Pokemon speak or the player characters being ten) with the games/manga?

In a word, no. The way I see it, the games don’t do a huge amount of world-building. They’re getting better, of course, but it’s still not a task to which their format is terribly well-suited. The anime is just better at that. Obviously different writers are responsible for the two, but they ostensibly have in mind versions of the same world, and every detail is a useful one. And there’s room to fudge things too – like, maybe there isn’t a strict age limit of 10 years that applies everywhere, but pretty clearly the point is that kids can become Pokémon trainers at a fairly young age, though not without some restrictions or oversight. If something directly contradicts, sure, that’s something you have to resolve, one way or another, but there’s lots of ways you can do that, depending on exactly what the problem is. I have very little patience for the word “canon,” or any argument that surrounds it.

Inksword asks:

I thought they made the switch from clefairy because they wanted a more gender neutral pokemon and clefairy was too pink and girly? Or is that just a rumor that’s never had evidence?

Dunno. It would kind of make sense? I can’t find anything reputable online that discusses it in any detail. Most people who talk about the decision are pretty clearly extrapolating from Bulbapedia’s rather bare-bones account.