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Reflections of the Pokemon Anime: A History and Analysis

Well, I don't have access to the manga. Nuff said. If others desire to write their own essays about something I can't get a hold of, then fine. I see the cartoon and have played the games a little. That's what I write about.
 
IIRC, there was an in-universe explanation for the white uniforms of Musashi and Kojiro at one point, dealing with their (former) status as elite agents (now long since fallen out of favour, obviously, to the point where their boss no longer even recognises or remembers them when they call). IIRC, it wasn't a special uniform for elites, but rather that they just had a bit more leeway on how much they could modify their own look because of the position they held. It's a similar matter for the agents we saw trying to capture Raikou, in their grey uniforms.

It's interesting really to see just how far Musashi and Kojiro have fallen, comparing their earlier heights (such as commanding the S.S. Anne attack) to their more recent efforts.
 
So by "feel free to add your own," you mean to this thread, right?

Because I have SO much in my mind waiting to get out..
 
It's a similar matter for the agents we saw trying to capture Raikou, in their grey uniforms.


B&B are also from a rank we rarely see. The only other agent we've seen of that rank is Tyson, and he had the same uniform Buson had.

Now, if you want to talk customizable uniforms, look at the Marauder. There's no way that's the official uniform for his rank.
 
Brock and Misty's essays have been merged: only one left!

Pokemon

Brock and Misty: The Quest for Loyalty and Love​

Loyalty
Love

Loyalty is definitely hard to come by these days. It seems like the most fickle, unused, one-sided, corrupted piece of nonsense … seconded only by love. Loyalty is bought and sold, lasting only as long as the money or, in relationships, the passion holds out. Love is so vague and so broad a concept that it seems hopeless to ever get to the most profound definitions of it.

Brock, former leader of the Pewter City Gym and currently unemployed breeder (besides his own, he never really raises pokemon, much less breeds them), had to raise his family all on his own after his mother and father split up and abandoned them (although if they left at the same time or at different times we do not know). He spends a lot of his time wooing women, with a particular obsession with Nurse Joys and Officer Jennys. Yet, only one or two of these women (one a Frontier Brain, the other a girl with an unrequited crush) seem to fall for him.

Misty, leader of the Cerulean City Gym, had to face the unrelenting teasing of her sisters, her parents are nowhere to be found (maybe the Gyrados that frightened her as a child ate them?), visitors to the gym are fickle (her gym is popular one day and unnoticed the next) … but she doesn’t seem to have as many loyalty issues as Brock might. And, like Brock, she too has had her share of crushes, from the clueless hero Goku (er, Ash), to an unofficial water gym leader (in the Whirl Islands if I remember correctly), to … most likely … Tracey Sketchit.

Both Brock and Misty have been able to outgrow their parentless beginnings, becoming pseudoparents themselves, striving to take care of those they love, from siblings to friends to pokemon. Misty became more maternal, with the addition of baby Togepi. Brock had always been parental with his siblings but now he has a baby Bonsly to nurture as well. Does the acquisition of baby pokemon betray a need for love and loyalty? After all, how many of us know women who get pregnant because they think it will make their spouses love them or stick around, or that the child can fulfill them in ways that their lovers aren’t? If true, then the fact that both of them have largely repaired their relationships with their families hasn’t helped them much. Both Brock and Misty have been very loyal to Ash and his dream, even delaying their own dreams to make sure he accomplishes his. Also, they do not have the same frequency of releasing pokemon that Ash does. They typically only really “release” their pokemon to their respective family members, which shouldn’t count as releases since they can easily return and retrieve them.

What about love, then? Are they crying out for it, since they are capable of loyalty? Brock has yet to be in a relationship that is even hinted at, unless one counts bouldershipping, which is a possibility, but we don’t see Ash reciprocating that one either. There is still the issue of what happened between him and Professor Ivy, the most likely scenario being that it was one thing to fall head over heels for someone and quite another to be in a serious romantic relationship. After all, he was much younger than Ivy, and his romantic ideas of love may have shattered when reality kicked in. Misty may have a relationship with Tracey, at least in Chronicles, but it is hard to tell, since the writers don’t seem very eager for any main character to be in love (see: Rocketshipping, which has had more off-again/on-again twists and turns than a soap opera).

Misty, at least, seems more sure of herself nowadays. She runs her own gym, has let go of her resentment of her sisters (who have done more to help her recently), has a male friend who visits her often -- she seems to be stronger and less needy of certain attachments. Brock, on the other hand, remains with Ash, never really accomplishes his own dreams (again, unless bouldershipping is canon), and still doesn’t have a girlfriend. He seems to have made peace with both his father and his mother (note that after his mother tried to give the gym a water theme and Brock made amends to her that he had caught mudkip and lotad, both water types). We shall simply have to see what destiny lies ahead for poor Brock…
 
This is the last one I am going to write. Enjoy!

Pokemon

Teams Rocket, Magma, and Aqua: World Domination​

The anime does not make it clear exactly how large the Pokemon World is. Naturally, people might assume that it is the same in terms of land-to-sea-ratio that characterizes our own world, but (and this is also the case in other animes) it is often drawn as though the area currently plotted out is the only landmass there is on a substantively smaller world. Thus, it is difficult to tell just how grandiose the goal of world domination is for the likes of the known (so far) criminal teams: Teams Rocket, Magma, and Aqua.

Teams Aqua and Magma share their chief ideology, albeit they express it with different goals. Both desire to terraform the planet for the sake of their idealized future, but Team Aqua desires a watery planet while Team Magma desires gigantic landmasses. Both see the other as fundamentally wrong and themselves as fundamentally correct. They may be similar to Wikipedia’s theocratic dominators, in the sense that they desire global domination with the help of their respective “deities”, Kyrogue for Aqua and Groudon for Magma. It is also possible that they share certain characteristics of “secret society” dominators, since the anime cannot provide reasonable evidence that these two teams are as well known or feared as Kanto and Johto’s Team Rocket. Unlike Team Rocket, (at least in the anime) Teams Aqua and Magma seem to have few business fronts and typically carry out their missions in caves or under the sea or in other remote locales. They do not seem to have as much economic presence either. In fact, it appears that both teams are simply trying to accomplish the misguided wishes of their leaders, who use their loyalty and devotion to their respective “deities” that they cannot conceive the problems that their goals engender.

Team Rocket, on the other hand, is the most secular of the teams. Their leader desires global domination in the militaristic and economic sense. Indeed, one could argue that he is the most successful of the leaders, despite chronic failures of his staff, since Team Rocket managed to spread its influence from Kanto to Johto and many islands to the south of both, while Teams Aqua and Magma have such a relatively minor jurisdiction in the Hoenn region. Team Rocket only desires profit and domination and even their attempts to catch Legendaries differ from the other teams’ efforts by focusing on making the powerful pokemon work for humans, not create a new world. Team Rocket’s success is also determined by the immeasurable amount of funding that they seem to have for all of their vehicles, clothing, weaponry, and laboratories. As such, it can be stated with some certainty that Team Rocket progresses much more than the other teams, and perhaps that is a statement (conscious or not) by the writers to denote the futility of religious-like endeavors and the (perhaps unwanted) success of purely secular goals.
 
Please note: The thread is from 17 years ago.
Please take the age of this thread into consideration in writing your reply. Depending on what exactly you wanted to say, you may want to consider if it would be better to post a new thread instead.
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