Tag: Human Characters

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:

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.

I’m the dude responsible for the “waifu” question. Sorry for not offering an explanation of the term; it had certainly occurred to me that you might be unfamiliar with it, but honestly, was it too much trouble to simply Google “waifu?” Anyways, the gist of what I was asking was, “what [human] Pokémon character (female OR male, of course) do you find most attractive?” And if you happen to be asexual and/or aromantic, then which one would you like to at least be acquainted with in real life?

I… did Google “waifu.”  It… it didn’t really help.

But yeah, um.  I’m normally into dudes but honestly it never really occurred to me to rate any Pokémon characters in terms of their attractiveness.  Since you bring it up I guess anime Cilan would be kinda chill to hang out with.  I would eventually smack him over the head with a frying pan when I got sick of his constant goddamn food puns but until then we would bake together which would be nice.

Having said that I do unashamedly ship Ash and Richie in defiance of all logic and common sense.

How do you feel about the extra characterizations in the Delta Episode (in particular Steven’s, since I remember you lamenting his lacking characterization back in your Champions series)? And what would you have done differently with the Episode?

Steven is just better-written in general in Alpha Sapphire and Omega Ruby.  Well, everyone is, really; I actually think the villains benefit the most.  To be honest, I feel Steven still comes across as more of an exposition-whore than anything else a lot of the time, but he’s at least a lot more emotive and determined.  The scene in the epilogue between him and Wallace is nice too; it gives you a sense of the burden of being a Champion, and how the position isn’t all fun and games.  Mostly what I like about Delta Episode specifically is just that Zinnia is such a cool character.  She’s the one person in the game who knows exactly what’s going on from the start of the plot to the end, and that makes her choices and priorities very curious and interesting – her willingness to orchestrate the awakening of Kyogre/Groudon by Team Aqua/Magma in order to attract Rayquaza’s attention, and damn the risks; her absolute refusal to let Steven and Professor Cozmo try their own plan to stop the meteor; her lack of concern for her own life; whatever the deal is between her and that Whismur, Aster.  She very much carries that chapter, I think.

What would I have done differently?  Hmm.  Well, two things jump out at me.  One is that Zinnia is such a pushover in the final battle at the Dragonhark Altar, which is supposed to be the game’s last big challenge for you as a player – or, rather, not that Zinnia herself is a pushover, but that Mega Rayquaza is beyond ridiculous.  If she somehow manages to defeat Rayquaza, Zinnia actually becomes very difficult, particularly her Mega Salamence, but given that Rayquaza is entirely capable of outrunning and one-shotting all of her Pokémon, that’s just not terribly likely.  I would have maybe reduced its level to 60, or introduced some extra mechanic specific to this fight that would give Zinnia a chance to stop it – like, maybe because it’s Mega Evolved for the first time in a thousand years and needs time to get used to its power, Rayquaza is under some kind of Regigigas-style Slow Start effect during this one battle?

The other thing that kind of needs work is Deoxys, who just comes completely out of nowhere.  Or… well, not out of nowhere, out of a meteor, which is where Deoxys is supposed to come from; the point is that, just after the big climactic cutscene where Rayquaza blows up the meteor, we have one more battle with this powerful legendary Pokémon who has nothing to do with anything.  Could we have had… like… some foreshadowing of this?  The meteor shower is apparently a regular thing that threatens the earth once every thousand years; does Deoxys have something to do with that?  Why?  And what does it have to do with Mega Evolution, which is apparently connected with the meteorites?  Is Deoxys somehow the ultimate source of that power?  What does any of this have to do with anything and why should we even care?  I mean, I’m happy that Deoxys is no longer event-exclusive, but you have to admit that it was more than a little ham-fisted.

Would you like to see some sort of in game content explaining the villainous team leaders’ history? For example, Ghetsis might’ve been part of a “museum” type thing where he could’ve easily located people of wisdom, of technological intellect, and legends pertaining to the Unovan legends?

I think they’ve already started to play with that kind of concept – things like Black and White 2′s Game Sync, which gave you access to a whole bunch of extra scenes with N and other characters, both major and minor.  Likewise the time-travelling Celebi event in Heart Gold and Soul Silver, although that’s not quite the same thing because it allows the player to actually get involved in past events.  I do believe there’s room for more of this, though – in particular, I think we really need to get more of Lysandre’s backstory before the sixth generation ends, because until we get a clearer understanding of what it was that drove him to breaking point he just doesn’t convey the kind of moral ambiguity they seem to have wanted with him.

Why are the female protagonists in the pokemon anime so flat? The only one that had a semblance of a personality was Misty, and she’s a b*&$&^. May and Dawn like pokemon contests, have weird hair… they’re… nice? That’s it. I can’t even describe Iris at all, she’s so boring. I never watched any of the X and Y series, so I assume that… whatever her name is, is totally flat and boring. Why bother? Where’s Brendan and plant-head to replace Ash?

To be honest I would suggest that the real problem here is that deep and complex characters are just not really a strength of the Pokémon anime in general.  I actually like Misty; I think that her more worldly, sometimes cynical attitude is a nice contrast to Ash’s unfettered idealism.  I’m not really familiar enough with the others to properly defend them, or invested enough in them to bother.

I just had a strange idea–Zinnia’s name, with its first letter Z, is probably meant to evoke Zygarde and complete the XY of the original games. At the same time, we have AZ, whose name symbolizes the beginning and the end. Z(innia) only represents the end. So, what if Aster is the A in AZ’s name? Zinnia and AZ have similarities, like how AZ is immortal in spite of himself and Zinnia has a death wish she couldn’t act on. So if an “A” character is introduced, I wonder how they’d fit.

*shrug* Dunno.  It seems like the kind of vague symbolic nonsense that they like to do, but I’m not sure what we can do with it.  That’s an interesting point about the similarity between AZ and Zinnia, though; they’re both people who have reason not to fear death, even to welcome it, which is kind of neat considering the life/death and change/stasis themes of X and Y.