News New Pokemon Anime Announcement!

[Moonbyum]

Yesterday on Twitter there was some news about the Pokemon anime news coming around involving Sword and shield anime serieson September 29th when a new Pokemon account called AnipokePR post the announcement. What do you guys think of the announcement?

 

[BigDocFan]

I prefer not to judge straight away until I hear more, it has potential

 

[MarshiyanMisutaa]

I hope this means that they'll showcase older characters from the past series.

 

[BigDocFan]

I hope this means that they'll showcase older characters from the past series.

Especially during he original series, proper and better gym battles in Kanto for example

 

[MarshiyanMisutaa]

Especially during he original series, proper and better gym battles in Kanto for example

That's not what I had in mind.

 

[Momentum]

Will this be similar to Pokémon Generations and follow multiple protagonists and not just one? That would be very cool, though it likely spells the end for Ash, at least in a recurring role.

 

[BigDocFan]

Will this be similar to Pokémon Generationa and follow multiple protagonosts and not just one? That would be very cool, though it likely spells the end for Ash, at least in a recurring role.

I think its quite possible, at least that's what I hope, just in the 20 minute format

 

[Almonds]

I'm also guessing that this might be similar to Generations or Origins, and follow other protagonists. I'm hoping they expand on it.

 

[Velvet]

I really hope that don't take Generations or Origins route.

 

[SammyW27]

I'll have to get back with you when they actually give me something to go on.

 

[Hidden Mew]

I really hope that don't take Generations or Origins route.

I'd be pretty surprised if that was the case. I don't think either Origins or Generations were particularly popular. I'll still hear some positive comments towards Origins, mainly its animation and having a different lead, but Generations was mixed at best and the Japanese versions of those shorts were uploaded well after the English versions were. I just don't think that either of those series were particularly well received or successful enough for them to change the main series so drastically.

I'm still not sure about this whole announcement. I think it could be a potentially interesting development depending on the execution, but there's virtually nothing to really go on to speculate about it. I do think it was a massive mistake to make an announcement of an announcement. Maybe it wouldn't be as bad if it was just waiting another week or two, but a whole month of people panicking over whether or not this could be a reboot is going to be tiresome. I can kind of see why that seems to be the initial reaction for a lot of fans, but at the same time, it's still reading a lot into such little vague information. Even if Ash wins the Alola League, I can't really see them wanting to replace him and I still maintain that it's far too late to replace Ash for multiple reasons.

I do kind of hope that they'll provide a different title for the series on the 29th mainly because I'm so used to shortening the other series' titles to separate them. I was already getting used to referring to this future series as SWSH and maybe I'll still do it just out of habit. That's really minor compared to the other information they really need to provide here, but that was something that came to mind for me as well.

 

[Silktree]

Just refer to the series as PM. You can private message your friends about it.

Even if Ash wins the Alola League, I can't really see them wanting to replace him and I still maintain that it's far too late to replace Ash for multiple reasons.

Can you really call the AU character a "replacement"? It's the same guy (at least as much as Ash has stayed the same over the years) with a streamlined history.

 

[IncineROAR]

I think I'm going to completely write-off the anime series, the more I think about it, I'm not really hyped at the idea for one anime series to somehow be inclusive of all 8 regions when we just endured three years and almost 140 episodes of pain that was Alola.

 

[Silktree]

I think I'm going to completely write-off the anime series, the more I think about it, I'm not really hyped at the idea for one anime series to somehow be inclusive of all 8 regions when we just endured three years and almost 140 episodes of pain that was Alola.

Even a region you disliked would be less of a pain if not featured anywhere near 100 episodes. You aren't explaining the problem.

 

[Hidden Mew]

Just refer to the series as PM. You can private message your friends about it.

I thought about that shortly after making that post. That should have been more of an obvious solution to me in retrospect.

Can you really call the AU character a "replacement"? It's the same guy (at least as much as Ash has stayed the same over the years) with a streamlined history.

I think it would still be a replacement in a sense. It would still be removing Ash's history, at least most of the Pokemon he has captured and the friends he's made over the years. Yeah, they've been pretty sparse on having references to previous series and even during the first three series, continuity was not really a high priority for them, but at least the options to reference or have characters return was there. All of that would be gone since movie Ash doesn't have the same connections, aside from Pikachu, and history as anime Ash does.

At the very least, I think that making an new series set in an AU with Ash at the main lead would feel kind of questionable decision. Why bother having the anime set in an alternate universe when Ash is still the main lead and especially when each series has still largely been stand alone? They're all set in the same continuity, but it isn't really one long story so much as multiple different series with the same lead. It made sense to go with the AU format for the movies, but I don't think that the show really needs to do that. I don't think that the continuity of the main series makes it harder for kids to jump into it and they've been able to start off with as clean of a slate as possible for quite some time now. It just makes the changes feel more moot than they really should, thus making the change itself sound kind of meaningless.

 

[Lightning Flame Blast]

At the very least, I think that making an new series set in an AU with Ash at the main lead would feel kind of questionable decision. Why bother having the anime set in an alternate universe when Ash is still the main lead and especially when each series has still largely been stand alone? They're all set in the same continuity, but it isn't really one long story so much as multiple different series with the same lead. It made sense to go with the AU format for the movies, but I don't think that the show really needs to do that. I don't think that the continuity of the main series makes it harder for kids to jump into it and they've been able to start off with as clean of a slate as possible for quite some time now. It just makes the changes feel more moot than they really should, thus making the change itself sound kind of meaningless

Indeed, it would be pointless to reboot it all if they were making it about an AU Ash, if not for respect to the fans, at least for practical reasons. They already have the option to, for all intents and purposes, reset him each season, so just erasing all the history he’s had and that’s stored in the viewers’ memory for the purpose of doing the same thing they’re already doing would be... to put it kindly, an unreasonable decision.

 

[Sakuraa]

I wish they would have given a bit more details about how this series will work, what with focusing on 8 different regions at once. I'm really curious as to how they plan to execute this.

As of right now, my main idea of how this could work is if the anime is going to become more like the Pokemon Adventures manga. Instead of Ash, each region would focus on the games PCs. Only instead of one continuous story across multiple volumes, it would skip to a new region in each episode. Example: Episode one focusing on Red/Blue/Green in Kanto, Episode two focusing on Ethan/Lyra/Kris/Silver, in Johto, and so on and so forth up until Episode 8 focusing on Victor/Gloria/Hop in Galar. And then return to the Kanto group for episode 9 and repeat.

Alternate idea is basically the same as above, but we instead follow Ash in Galar as the continuation of his journey. His story could follow the typical formula with a group of traveling companions, TR, etc.

Regardless of what happens, I think this series has a lot of potential mainly due to the fact that since they are focusing on 8 stories at once, we could possibly see less filler since they aren't padding only one region and one story across 100+ episodes.

 

[Silktree]

I don't think that the continuity of the main series makes it harder for kids to jump into it and they've been able to start off with as clean of a slate as possible for quite some time now. It just makes the changes feel more moot than they really should, thus making the change itself sound kind of meaningless.

Sure, there'd be no point to use an AU just for a SwSh series, but that isn't what we're getting. If the original Ash is still around, that means they'll have to explain his interest in the old regions, and possibly deal with a whopping 42 Pokemon and 14 companions in addition the new ones (if they avoid them like the plague, then it's an AU in all but name). It's much easier to make a fresh start after Movie 20 worked (and I say it as someone who didn't like it), even if the primary focus is Galar.

An alternative would be to have one protagonist per region, but I have my doubts that would be better as it would be a very disjointed experience.

 

[game3524]

I thought about that shortly after making that post. That should have been more of an obvious solution to me in retrospect.



I think it would still be a replacement in a sense. It would still be removing Ash's history, at least most of the Pokemon he has captured and the friends he's made over the years. Yeah, they've been pretty sparse on having references to previous series and even during the first three series, continuity was not really a high priority for them, but at least the options to reference or have characters return was there. All of that would be gone since movie Ash doesn't have the same connections, aside from Pikachu, and history as anime Ash does.

At the very least, I think that making an new series set in an AU with Ash at the main lead would feel kind of questionable decision. Why bother having the anime set in an alternate universe when Ash is still the main lead and especially when each series has still largely been stand alone? They're all set in the same continuity, but it isn't really one long story so much as multiple different series with the same lead. It made sense to go with the AU format for the movies, but I don't think that the show really needs to do that. I don't think that the continuity of the main series makes it harder for kids to jump into it and they've been able to start off with as clean of a slate as possible for quite some time now. It just makes the changes feel more moot than they really should, thus making the change itself sound kind of meaningless.

Because it would allow them to cash in on nostalgia while also offering up a fresh and perhaps different variation of the character.

 

[Galactic_V]

Hard to say whether I'm hyped or not as the little information we have amount to pretty much nothing than speculation only.

I've read through the main Sword and Shield anime thread and got many ideas of how this new saga could work, and something that sound plausible for me is a mix of our current formula with a little of the Side Story episodes (or Chronicles here in the West). We have a bunch of episodes with Satoshi in Galar, some with any of the older characters (companions or not) from any of the previous 7 regions and then back to Satoshi.

Another plausible theory is that he goes to the other regions for some reason every now and then (to compete in the league tournaments maybe?) and stays in them for a while.

None of those two scenarios necessarily need to be an AU, though it's also possible.