Have Battles Lost Their Touch?

[Sai]

Early DP Paul was a bit stronger than end of AG Ash. That's basically where they were at the time. Neither had won a league, so since this discussion is about Garchomp, it makes sense it would be stronger than his entire team back then. There's no reason why people should be using Garchomp defeating early 2007-era DP Paul as an example for Garchomp now.

All we know is Paul never won a league in Kanto/Johto/Hoenn either, since he wasn't a league winner when we first met him. So he apparently lost 3 leagues that we have no backstory on.

 

[-PokemonBattleFanatic-]

Early DP Paul was a bit stronger than end of AG Ash. That's basically where they were at the time.

There's no evidence of early DP Paul being stronger than AG/BF Ash unless we assume he had other reserves that were on par with his Torterra and just weren't shown and used on screen.Otherwise going off what he had the time he'd be below BF Ash.

His Weavile never impressed me outside of it's speed,not much to go off with Murkrow besides it's battle against Cynthia's Garchomp.Elekid,Chimchar,Ursaring,Gliscor and Ninjask were all newly caught in Sinnoh.It's unknown how long he had Lairon,Hariyama and Nidoking.

 

[Soniman]

Seems like there was a mass talent exodus after XY and the battle quality has been declining since. I’ll be honest I find most SM battles besides Ash vs Misty, Guzma, Kukui, and Gladion to be rather forgettable and dull, heck Ash vs Hau is a perfect example of the type of battle JN’s would be known for (which is kinda telling seeing how most people also hate that match)

Now I don’t need every battle to be XY levels of fluid and dynamic, heck I loved plenty of pre-XY battles before then, the loss of the 3D camera was a big loss but good battles can exist without it. But when we get Ash’s first victories against an E4 and Champion and I can’t feel all that excited about it because both battles suffered from a mix of stiff, slow animation, terrible animation, lack of impact or dynamic angles, inept strategy writing I feel like something is terribly wrong with production. Journeys as it is right now is trying its best to not come apart at the seams with its constant breaks and unprecedented FOUR clip shows so even its best battles aren’t free from these many issues, it’s almost shocking the Cynthia match ended up being “pretty good” and not a total disaster.

And I feel the lack of talent is also a big thing, feels like the only good battle animator we’ve had consistently was old reliable Iwane (and it’s not surprise his work for Volkner and Visquez ended making those the most solid battles) and the only kinda competent battle writer being Tomioka, but both these talents are only one expert in their respective field and shouldn’t be the only ones expected to carry a never ending anime on their backs. I dunno where the rest of the talent has gone but they need to get them back

 

[Turbo]

It's a mix of factors
I don't think they've “lost their touch” or gotten “worse”
But you can tell there's a difference in approach

I think the key things are

• Anime getting gamified
• Scaling back the “power” of the Pokemon
• Overall Direction and handling of animation

For the gamified point, over the years ever since OS the anime has been slowly but surely make the anime fall more in line with the games, from treating type matchups consistent, to the 4 move limit
I think however that gamifying has reached the point where the battle even resemble the RPG aspect of Pokemon
Like the regular going back to their starting position and I can even argue the “HP” thing that normally Pokemon don't take a s lot of hits in the games but in the anime they would regularly take a range from two hits to like 20 hits in a battle
So I think when the anime mimics the games makes battles look different and more “static” naturally
(granted I think other Pokemon media handle the game logic better like Origins but I think within the anime context it makes more sense than Origins)

For the power point, I just mean the overall power scaling of Pokemon, like before I could believe Pikachu with a full power Thunder could destroy a building (exaggerating but not really) but now I don't think the anime would do that anymore
And I don’t think its necessarily nerfing because technically everyone gets nerfed but it just falls more into the shift that Pokemon are now more equivalent to pets and other animals and not necessarily a fantasy world of pocket monsters that could destroy the world if not tamed (you see the shift more in SM)
So when compared to previous series everything looks weaker/slower/smaller etc

Overall direction, outside of the choreography and such as I think that's more debatable, but we all know there have been some problems behind the scenes whether because of the pandemic or other reasons
Part is the direction/directors, like I adamantly think they changed their minds of the direction of the series like 3 times, with I think clear examples being how they handled Goh and Chloe
And I think that affects battles too because it's not like journeys has bad battles, in general people actually do like a good number of battles like the Korinna battle and the Volkner battle for example
But I think there were things that were in previous series that helped maybe save time and/or money
Reused animations
BW I think is the clearest example as they had the background with the Pokemon doing their nice animation

Whereas from my perspective they don't have nearly as many reused animations like the only one that comes to mind is Pikachu’s thunderbolt, 10MV and Lucarios mega evolution transformation

Basically it seems they are essentially making new animations for moves instead of making one solid animation and just reusing that
Because whenever we do get a new animation the results vary from being really pretty or pretty mediocre
Plus I think that saved time would just go to maybe polishing certain things like adding speed lines, motion blur etc

But yeah those are I think the key differences to battles nowadays
Gamifiying, scaling back the power, and the behind the scene direction

There's other things that play apart into peoples enjoyment
Like 3D camera, art style, and how people feel about Ash’s Pokemon in JN for example
But I'm not considering those for this topic

 

[cricketlaxwolvesbandy]

Absolutely. Part of the reason why I disliked Ash vs Cynthia part 3 was because of the animation. The slugfest between Lucario and Garchomp felt blah. Like Ash vs Kukui had really good movements and animation despite being from SM

 

[Kairyu]

IMO, the main issue boils down to the fact that we're back to ol' Iwane as the only reliable good animator again, just like in the old (pre-XY) days. If we get an upcoming action episode and he's not listed, I immediately get worried for the quality of said episode. This was never an issue in SM or XY due to the wide array of other talented animators working on the show, ready to step in and deliver amazing stuff. They seemingly have all but disappeared at this point. Left is a skeleton crew internally at OLM that can barely keep up anymore.

Then there's obviously other issues mentioned here, with how battles are written and storyboarded, coupled with general choreography, where the quality have gone down a bit. Albeit I do not give that as much weight in this context, as the actual quality of the key animation.

Finally, I am indeed high on copium that all said talent have been saved for the Leon multi-part battle.

 

[Alola]

Not only have they lost their touch, but I feel as if the frequency has notably declined as well since the end of the Kalos saga (especially when you consider companions not having battle-featuring goals like May & Dawn did). So, couple that with when we do get a proper (!) battle, and the quality is more often than not poor, and the problem becomes even more egregious.

 

[Imtnt]

It depends. There were some good battles in Jns. It feels there was on PWC a huge dif between them match ups. There was Volkner's who realy had it all checked, and there were Iris/Korina's I needed some time for myself to accept what they wrote. Others got us frustrated and weren't worthy in animation+writing.

In my opinion Pikachu & Sirfetch'd seems to be having some better battles regarding animation / pace (even though quick wins or tanking large amount of dmg isn't that awsome, and Sirfetcd is a slower pokemon so the pace is regarding).

Overall it wasn't as consistent as in other seasons, and the development was poor. Just like Lucario who got the focus in this season, and he got battles that were meh but others weren't so bad. In the m8 we should get the best battles the anime ever had in 25 years.. but it got random and not apealing plotwise, and the animation mostly poor if we compare. Though There were good moments like Cardily, Spiritomb, Pikachu.. I wouldn't say Im convinced that was a clash between highest ranked champions from how the battles were handled.

 

[Silktree]

What touch? I've never much cared for them. The last one with Cynthia was just as annoying and rigged as Ash vs. Alain.

 

[Peppermint Phoenix]

I feel like Pokémon anime battles were rarely ever that good. It feels like the writers could have used their experiences over the years to get really really good at interesting battles that use lots of Pokémon and unique tactics you can't do in a turn based game but "didn't git gud" at it because it was never their priority. It wouldn't surprise me if to many of them the filler episodes were their bread and butter. Compare that to Yugioh's one duel composer who is absolutely fantastic at his job.

 

[Daren]

It feels like the writers could have used their experiences over the years to get really really good at interesting battles that use lots of Pokémon and unique tactics you can't do in a turn based game but "didn't git gud" at it because it was never their priority.

The show does a lot of stuff you can't do in turn based games (people regularly complain about that fact). In particular Tomioka seems to be regarded both by fans and internally as the specialist at that sort of thing.

The issue is that battle choreography gets hard after a quarter century of using ideas. The amount of time a battle gets is also a factor--even the longest ones are "only" four episodes.

 

[Peppermint Phoenix]

@Daren it happens but it I'm saying trying to perfect that part of show isn't enough of a focus for us to see how great it can truly be. Personally I think three episodes is enough to an engaging full battle.

 

[cricketlaxwolvesbandy]

even the longest ones are "only" four episodes

Imagine a battle that lasts five or six episodes
Imagine if all battles had XY art style and 3D camera- make it kinda CGI like

 

[Nicolas721]

It's not a secret that The Masters 8 battles have ranged from meh to ok. They suffer from pacing issues, limited animation and weird writing choices. Also, some of the dynamism of earlier years have been lost, with things like Pokemon abilities, their body shapes, or move combinations only mattering every once in a while, and when they do we have characters commenting on how great they are for 5 minutes. Part of it comes from production issues, but it also comes from the writing itself. Tomioka is great and all but forcing him to write every PWC episode without exceptions should be tiring for both him and the crew who could also have great ideas for battles. The final fight with Tapu Koko was written by Matsui after all.

I don't think they've become completely irrelevant or boring, but they certainly need a push from the production team to work better.

 

[Imtnt]

Plus thw best battle was the one we didnt even see btween Wallace and Ash..

 

[cricketlaxwolvesbandy]

Plus thw best battle was the one we didnt even see btween Wallace and Ash..

Gag battle. Shouldn’t ever had happened. A plot device at its finest.

 

[Ash Ketchum!]

Now I don’t need every battle to be XY levels of fluid and dynamic, heck I loved plenty of pre-XY battles before then, the loss of the 3D camera was a big loss but good battles can exist without it.

I can't lie that I'm a bit jealous of the XY series. Would've loved to see Ash's old Pokemon in battle with that animation style and 3D camera.

Imagine Pokemon like Kingler, Muk, Torterra, etc benefitting from a more fluid style.

 

[Jaye]

Journey's battles have lacked spice. The Masters 8 is interesting for being strong trainer vs strong trainer, champion vs champion etc. but beyond that there's very little tension in the battles and that's down to the weak narrative. "It's a tournamment' shouldn't be the main reason characters are battling one another, but right now it's doing the heavy lifting in the story.

There's no reason Ash had to face Steven and Cynthia specifically. They could have swapped them out for any other strong trainer, generic or otherwise. There's plenty to be said about fight animation and choreo, the tactics deployed in the battles, and so on, but Ash's victories feeling a little hollow is all down to the lack of narrative weight.

The whole Cynthia wants to retire from battling thing was a last ditch attempt to give the battle some extra spice, but it flopped because Ash had no idea this was her intention and it wasn't something that came about from their relationship or interactions. It was there to make us feel bad when Cynthia lost, only she reversed the decision anyway so it didn't even matter.

Ash vs Leon wiill face similar issues. While there's been a build to it, the narrative is so basic it's hard feeling super excied about it.

 

[-PokemonBattleFanatic-]

DP's quality of battles + XY's animation would be absolute perfection

 

[Die-Hard Dragon Devotee]

It's not a secret that The Masters 8 battles have ranged from meh to ok. They suffer from pacing issues, limited animation and weird writing choices. Also, some of the dynamism of earlier years have been lost, with things like Pokemon abilities, their body shapes, or move combinations only mattering every once in a while, and when they do we have characters commenting on how great they are for 5 minutes. Part of it comes from production issues, but it also comes from the writing itself. Tomioka is great and all but forcing him to write every PWC episode without exceptions should be tiring for both him and the crew who could also have great ideas for battles. The final fight with Tapu Koko was written by Matsui after all.

I don't think they've become completely irrelevant or boring, but they certainly need a push from the production team to work better.

Although, now that we've learned how OLM lost a literal third of their staff, all of this is starting to make a lot more sense.