Disconnection between the Pokemon Anime and Game?

[CrystaI]

The Anime was always there to promote the Game series, it follows tightly to the release date of game, and using the settings of the game world. (Though, despite that they were not that faithful in adapting the story)

In the recent months, Anime renewed the title to become Pokemon XY&Z, including the various new formes of Zygarde, making fans speculated and even believed the upcoming new game shall be called Pokemon Z, having Zygarde be the mascot and center of story.

However, the recent announcement of Pokemon Direct about the upcoming new game is GenVII Pokemon Sun & Moon (probably not exactly GenVII, as there was no further in-depth information about it), completely betray the anticipation made by the Anime.

So, one of my doubt is, as the Pokemon Anime was always aligned with the Game series in its fundamental settings, but this time it was diverged quite significantly, where that includes the inclusion of Zygarde formes and Ash-Greninja which was non-existed in game previously. Does that means Anime wanted to take its own liberty free from restriction of Game series? How will that affects the future story planning of the show? Or, it is only an one-time anticipation error of Anime, where after then they shall "correct themselves and back to the track"?

 

[Shadao]

I think XY & Z speaks more of what we are to expect from Pokémon Sun and Moon. Because those Zygarde forms (and that Ash Greninja) are simply too good to be just anime-exclusives. They have to be in Sun and Moon in some form or manner. But if that turns out to be is case, however, then I can safely say that the XY saga of the anime is superior to the XY games in terms of story, setting and characters (I made it no secret that I find Team Flare's plan to be underdeveloped and the team to be flat and uninteresting in the games).

 

[Nicolas721]

In my opinion, it's pretty obvious that there was originally a Zygarde gen 6 game that was cancelled, Zygarde plot in SM or not. So here are the possible things that happened:

1) After "Z" was cancelled, GF decided that there should be promotion for Zygarde in another game, but because the other spin-offs didn't had story (Shuffle, Rumble World, Picross) or were advanced in development (Pokken, SuperMM) they asked the anime to do it.

2)To boost the ratings, the anime decided to play Gamefreak and create their own third version in order to have something to work with.

3)Zygarde was going to be only promoted through a movie, but the anime decided to use the facts that there was going to be a Team Flare encounter and that the group was close to Terminus Cave to do a full-fleged arc about it.

We don't hae enough information now, but I think it will be something along those lines.

 

[SammyW27]

They're different mediums with different ways of doing things. So of course there's going to be a disconnection.

One thing about is that the Games' stories are often simple, shallow, and straightforward, which simply doesn't lend themselves to an animated TV show that airs new episodes week after week after week (after week) for 3-4 years.

Likewise, the Games don't have a cast of characters to work with who need to be given as much as depth and personality as the writers can (though the anime doesn't always do so such a great job of that much). Like how the Gym Leaders, supporting characters, and some villains are given more depth and personality than their game counterparts.

And to top it all off, the TV Show is held back by a series of rules and restrictions to make it more appealing to an international audience of young children (and overactive parents), that means everything has to happen a certain way & everyone act a certain way...

 

[Hidden Mew]

In my opinion, it's pretty obvious that there was originally a Zygarde gen 6 game that was cancelled, Zygarde plot in SM or not. So here are the possible things that happened:

1) After "Z" was cancelled, GF decided that there should be promotion for Zygarde in another game, but because the other spin-offs didn't had story (Shuffle, Rumble World, Picross) or were advanced in development (Pokken, SuperMM) they asked the anime to do it.

2)To boost the ratings, the anime decided to play Gamefreak and create their own third version in order to have something to work with.

3)Zygarde was going to be only promoted through a movie, but the anime decided to use the facts that there was going to be a Team Flare encounter and that the group was close to Terminus Cave to do a full-fleged arc about it.

We don't hae enough information now, but I think it will be something along those lines.

I don't know if there ever was a Z game to begin with. People in charge of the games have said that they didn't want to be predictable and a Z version would have been entirely predictable. A ton of people already assumed that Z would come out next after learning about X/Y, if not when Zygarde was revealed. When people couldn't remember its name at first, people just called in the Z Legendary Pokemon, at least in my experience. If they didn't want to be predictable, then a Z might not have ever been on the table to begin with, especially if they have been developing S/M for quite some time. Considering all of the XY movies have been focused on the newly released Legendary Pokemon, I don't think that Zygarde was going to be the main focus of a movie either.

It could be that they wanted to do something to help boost the anime's ratings, but I don't know if they would just create their own anime exclusive forms for Zygarde and Ash-Greninja. Both seem like they would be details used in future games and for all we know, it could be that they were hinting at S/M sooner., assuming that they are going to use them somehow in the upcoming games.

 

[Elementar]

I'm not sure why they would use Z if there wasn't any small plans for it. It's as though they wanted to flip everyone's expectations for the future and get more publicity through surprise.