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Preview Pocket Monsters the series (2019)

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I don't think that it's absolutely guaranteed for them to run into previous traveling companions, but it might be at least somewhat plausible given the setup and how most of them are traveling around different regions anyway. It might be more likely depending on which areas they arrive to in each region. I don't expect that they'll go back to Alola for awhile. They'll want to focus on other regions first and having more time away from Alola would make the return more noteworthy for fans too, but it would be really difficult, if not just convoluted, for Ash to not run into any of the SM characters that he knows whenever they go back.
 
I just realized if the first episode is retold by Pikachu's point of view, then chances are we might not get to see Gary at all D:

But seriously. We're back at Kanto. If there's going to be some time spent at Pallet Town or Kanto in general, I hope they spare some time to give Gary some appearance. The travelling companions are good and all, but Misty and Brock came back in Alola, and Gary is just shoved away. He's Oak's grandson and Samson Oak's grand nephew. I can't believe there wasn't a single Gary Oak cameo up till now even when there were so many opportunities.

But still, I really hope Gary makes an appearance, as tribute to the very first rival, Ash's childhood friend and Oak's grandson.
 
I think a lot of you are underestimating the ability for them to just totally ignore stuff that they shouldn't. Just because it isn't a reboot doesn't mean they aren't going to ignore important characters from the past. The fact that they stress Satoshi is 10 again makes me think they aren't really interested in acknowledging his past accomplishments. Making strong arguments based on evidence and circumstance can all go to nothing if the writers just decide to ignore continuity when they feel like it and accept it when they want a quick nostalgia boost [so basically I don't disagree with any above arguments for continuity, I just think that logic can easily not matter and I think we have seen that some in the past]. That being said, I still obviously really hope that this is a continuity driven series, I just feel like it is becoming less likely the way they are promoting it.

I find myself absolutely HATING Go. He doesn't seem even remotely interesting to me, I think his goal seems like a pile of nonsense that could become really annoying and hypocritical and a lot of other things, he seems overly similar to Ash in personality (which strikes me as a total waste), but more than anything else I am just so frustrated that they finally have an official "co" protagonist, and they chose to make it another boy. I am trying really hard not to scapegoat him for the lack of a female lead, but I just can't imagine why they would make such a choice. After finally having an even cast (2 and 2 and 3 and 3) the last two sagas (although screen time still was never close to even in any series), I just can't believe this has happened. Even if they did rotate old protagonists (which I highly doubt) not having a female protagonist growing through the entire series is a huge loss. I have to try really, really hard to not hate Go before I see him, because I am just so upset. To me, this is easily the most disappointing news in the franchise since learning Ash was going to school (it may be even more disappointing than that was).

On top of that disappointment, it is seeming that my other greatest fears are more likely as well, that travel will be a complete afterthought and they will just show up wherever and whenever the plot demands, with no building of an adventure or journey. I realize this is something others probably don't care as much about, but to me this is a huge loss, something I really missed during SM, and seems possible will never return. I wonder if some of their "journey building" type scenes were deemed as too boring to today's audience, but without them the show is really lacking in my opinion (and really I feel like they don't take that much time out of an episode).

That all being said, I am still very excited about episode 1. After that, we'll see I guess. I am trying to remain optimistic, but so far the efforts to be optimistic have led to disappointment, which I don't see stopping.
 
I just randomly remembered the Pokemon Masters animated shorts and I'm very happy PM didn't wind up using that god awful art style like some people were expecting.
 
I think a lot of you are underestimating the ability for them to just totally ignore stuff that they shouldn't. Just because it isn't a reboot doesn't mean they aren't going to ignore important characters from the past. The fact that they stress Satoshi is 10 again makes me think they aren't really interested in acknowledging his past accomplishments. Making strong arguments based on evidence and circumstance can all go to nothing if the writers just decide to ignore continuity when they feel like it and accept it when they want a quick nostalgia boost [so basically I don't disagree with any above arguments for continuity, I just think that logic can easily not matter and I think we have seen that some in the past]. That being said, I still obviously really hope that this is a continuity driven series, I just feel like it is becoming less likely the way they are promoting it.

I'm not sure how stressing that Ash is ten means that they aren't interested in acknowledging his past accomplishments. They want to keep him ten to be appealing to kids, but that detail in itself doesn't mean that they'll brush aside everything he's done in previous series. The idea that they'll still ignore important characters from the past is unfortunately a possibility. They could easily pull a Battle Frontier with keeping the references and appearances of older characters to a minimal. Granted that was an arc and a rushed one to boot in my opinion, while this is a series, so the comparison may not be entirely fair, but they could treat the previous events and areas in a similar kind of vein. I still wouldn't put money on being a continuity driven series, but I think it is at least somewhat plausible.

sc190191 said:
I find myself absolutely HATING Go. He doesn't seem even remotely interesting to me, I think his goal seems like a pile of nonsense that could become really annoying and hypocritical and a lot of other things, he seems overly similar to Ash in personality (which strikes me as a total waste), but more than anything else I am just so frustrated that they finally have an official "co" protagonist, and they chose to make it another boy. I am trying really hard not to scapegoat him for the lack of a female lead, but I just can't imagine why they would make such a choice. After finally having an even cast (2 and 2 and 3 and 3) the last two sagas (although screen time still was never close to even in any series), I just can't believe this has happened. Even if they did rotate old protagonists (which I highly doubt) not having a female protagonist growing through the entire series is a huge loss. I have to try really, really hard to not hate Go before I see him, because I am just so upset. To me, this is easily the most disappointing news in the franchise since learning Ash was going to school (it may be even more disappointing than that was).

It's hard for me to judge too much of Go or his goal right now. He doesn't strike me as being that similar to Ash personality wise, but I can understand that impression. I can definitely understand being upset about the lack of a female lead. It also easily could have been solved if they made the co protagonist a girl instead of another boy. However, I still have hope that they'll have a female protagonist. Maybe I'm just too optimistic/hopeful, but I just can't see them limiting the female representation in the series that much for multiple reasons.

sc190191 said:
On top of that disappointment, it is seeming that my other greatest fears are more likely as well, that travel will be a complete afterthought and they will just show up wherever and whenever the plot demands, with no building of an adventure or journey. I realize this is something others probably don't care as much about, but to me this is a huge loss, something I really missed during SM, and seems possible will never return. I wonder if some of their "journey building" type scenes were deemed as too boring to today's audience, but without them the show is really lacking in my opinion (and really I feel like they don't take that much time out of an episode).

That all being said, I am still very excited about episode 1. After that, we'll see I guess. I am trying to remain optimistic, but so far the efforts to be optimistic have led to disappointment, which I don't see stopping.

Unless I missed something from the episode previews, I'm not sure how traveling will be a complete afterthought. It doesn't sound like the return to the typical traveling format, so I can understand that disappointment, especially when I missed it during SM too, but I'm not sure if traveling around the world will necessarily not provide any buildup to a sense of adventure.
 
If Satoshi is 10 it just becomes unimaginable that he has done anything more than max 2 regions of travels. An eternal 14 years old would be ok for a kids show too, but it would allow you to imagine that Satoshi as made at least A NUMBER of travels, maybe not all of them, but at least you don't have to imagine that he has travelled through japan, the us and france in some months.
 
If Satoshi is 10 it just becomes unimaginable that he has done anything more than max 2 regions of travels. An eternal 14 years old would be ok for a kids show too, but it would allow you to imagine that Satoshi as made at least A NUMBER of travels, maybe not all of them, but at least you don't have to imagine that he has travelled through japan, the us and france in some months.

Time in the Pokemon anime is weird, but I don't think that keeping Ash ten is meant to imply that all of the previous series have happened within less than a year in-universe. The events of the previous series still happen even with Ash still being ten. Time does pass in the anime, but no one ages and no one questions anything about it. It doesn't make a lot of sense admittedly, but I find that far more believable than the notion he made all of those different journeys in less than a year.
 
Time in the Pokemon anime is weird, but I don't think that keeping Ash ten is meant to imply that all of the previous series have happened within less than a year in-universe. The events of the previous series still happen even with Ash still being ten. Time does pass in the anime, but no one ages and no one questions anything about it. It doesn't make a lot of sense admittedly, but I find that far more believable than the notion he made all of those different journeys in less than a year.
With Burnet now being pregnant, and the fact that she'll have to appear when Alola is revisited, they need to address the passage of time in some manner (unless the anime's women have longer gestation periods? :lapras:). Having Ash still remain 10 while Burnet's child is born and grows up will only get weirder, not to mention the journeys of younger siblings like Max and Bonnie never starting. Tbh, I blame BW for all this 10 year old nonsense that for some reason they decided to embrace. Before that, his age was ambiguous though there were always signs of him growing up even if very slowly.

I don't really understand the logic in not ageing him up by a few years. Technically speaking, a 13-14 year old can have the same mindset as a 10 year old, not to mention the appeal and relatability.
 
Imo, if they were planning on eventually replacing him, he should have grown 1 year per region, so that they could send him off for gen 9. If they were planning on keeping him they should have made him an eternal 14 years old since BW and then after another decade or so an eternal 16 old and forever there.

I don't think most people, kids also, watching the show will use the "time doesn't work that way" kind of thinking. They rationalize the new satoshi as a reboot after a couple a generations of him not aging. I personally hate reboots and rationalize it as him being about 14 if if they say he's 10.

Having skipped BW i also had no idea satoshi had already been de-aged, because through the OS to XY I had seen him growing. I thought he was someething like 16. Eternal 10 is not something that was always there, as it has already been said, it started in BW, it went away, and it returned in SM.
 
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With Burnet now being pregnant, and the fact that she'll have to appear when Alola is revisited, they need to address the passage of time in some manner (unless the anime's women have longer gestation periods? :lapras:). Having Ash still remain 10 while Burnet's child is born and grows up will only get weirder, not to mention the journeys of younger siblings like Max and Bonnie never starting. Tbh, I blame BW for all this 10 year old nonsense that for some reason they decided to embrace. Before that, his age was ambiguous though there were always signs of him growing up even if very slowly.

I don't really understand the logic in not ageing him up by a few years. Technically speaking, a 13-14 year old can have the same mindset as a 10 year old, not to mention the appeal and relatability.

Well, I don't think it would be that much weirder than multiple other characters just turning ten to start their journeys while Ash remains ten himself. I wouldn't really blame BW in this case. I recall some translation of some promotional AG information or details from its website stating that Ash was still ten in that series too. I don't know if I'd be able to find that since it was so long ago, but despite how I don't think his age was stated in either AG or DP, I'm pretty sure that he was still ten. It wasn't just decided to de-age him in BW. Aging Ash would kind of feel like a meaningless change. If he acts the same way as a thirteen or fourteen year old as he does as ten year old, then I'm not sure if that would make a difference. I don't think Ash would become more relatable to people just because he'd officially be a teenager.

Imo, if they were planning on eventually replacing him, he should have grown 1 year per region, so that they could send him off for gen 9. If they were planning on keeping him they should have made him an eternal 14 years old since BW and then after another decade or so an eternal 16 old and forever there.

That really doesn't make any sense. They obviously weren't expecting the anime or the games to be that huge to where a ninth generation would even be possible, so they couldn't possibly plan for that. Not to mention I still don't think that they'll ever get rid of Ash. Keeping him ten is just easier than aging him up a few years.

BugCatcherinVF said:
I don't think most people, kids also, watching the show will use the "time doesn't work that way" kind of thinking. They rationalize the new satoshi as a reboot after a couple a generations of him not aging. I personally hate reboots and rationalize it as him being about 14 if if they say he's 10.

I'm not sure about kids, but I'm pretty sure it's been accepted that time doesn't work the same way it does for us in the Pokemon anime by people in general. If people do rationalize the series as a reboot due to Ash not aging, then that isn't really accurate. Just because Ash is still ten doesn't affect the continuity. We get kind of soft resets with each series, but those aren't the same as a full on reboot.

BugCatcherinVF said:
Having skipped BW i also had no idea satoshi has already been de-aged, because through the OS to XY I had seen him growing. I thought he was someething like 16. Eternal 10 is not something that was always there, as it has already been said, it started in BW, it went away, and it returned in SM.

He wasn't de-aged, but rather his age was reconfirmed. Admittedly, I thought that Ash had aged during AG and DP too, but it was never confirmed as far as I'm aware of at least. It was disappointing to me initially when they confirmed that he was still ten, but I don't think it's that big of a deal either. Like I mentioned before, if Ash still acted in the same manner as a teenager like he does currently, then I don't see much of a point in aging him. I'm pretty sure only older fans are trying to rationalize how much time could reasonably pass between his different journys. I'm not sure if a lot of kids would really care about that kind of stuff. It also didn't go way in XY, although a lot of people did think he was older due to his design or the art style in general.
 
I guess one day ash will turn 11 and the birthday will become a special show. Then he'll be 11 for a couple of years.
 
I'm not sure how stressing that Ash is ten means that they aren't interested in acknowledging his past accomplishments. They want to keep him ten to be appealing to kids, but that detail in itself doesn't mean that they'll brush aside everything he's done in previous series. The idea that they'll still ignore important characters from the past is unfortunately a possibility. They could easily pull a Battle Frontier with keeping the references and appearances of older characters to a minimal. Granted that was an arc and a rushed one to boot in my opinion, while this is a series, so the comparison may not be entirely fair, but they could treat the previous events and areas in a similar kind of vein. I still wouldn't put money on being a continuity driven series, but I think it is at least somewhat plausible.



It's hard for me to judge too much of Go or his goal right now. He doesn't strike me as being that similar to Ash personality wise, but I can understand that impression. I can definitely understand being upset about the lack of a female lead. It also easily could have been solved if they made the co protagonist a girl instead of another boy. However, I still have hope that they'll have a female protagonist. Maybe I'm just too optimistic/hopeful, but I just can't see them limiting the female representation in the series that much for multiple reasons.



Unless I missed something from the episode previews, I'm not sure how traveling will be a complete afterthought. It doesn't sound like the return to the typical traveling format, so I can understand that disappointment, especially when I missed it during SM too, but I'm not sure if traveling around the world will necessarily not provide any buildup to a sense of adventure.

First of all, I'm amazed by your ability to stay optimistic (as well as your ability to moderate this nonsense thread). This reminds me of our conversation at the beginning of SM, where you said it made next to no sense for the school setting to remain for the entire series (I agree it made next to no sense, but they did it anyway) and as much as it makes no sense to not have a female lead, it really does seem like they are going to do that anyway also. Unfortunately, sometimes the pessimists wind up being right.

Like I said in my original post, I'm not trying to create a logical argument about the age, this is just the feeling I get. I agree he's been 10 all along, no aging, no de-aging, but I feel like when they emphasize Ash being 10 that it is their indication that they are more interested in looking forward than backward. OS-DP was teeming with continuity, since BW when they specifically stated Ash's age, continuity has only existed as nostalgia grabs (with the vast majority of it being Kanto based as well), not as a continuous part of the story. There was no reason to expect continuity to be dropped, but it happened in BW, now with no reason to expect them to ignore it because of the traveling to old regions, them emphasizing he's 10, and showing the beginning of his journey again, in my opinion could be a signal that they want us to focus on this series and moving forward and not to expect any of the past to be relevant. I really hope that feeling is wrong, but I just don't see any reason to feel optimistic about continuity at this point.

As for the traveling, my point is having the ease of flying (on a legendary no less...) will take away a lot of the difficulties of travel and there won't really be travel episodes like in the past, it isn't seeming like it is going to be significant journeys, but rather day trips. This could be off base, but it is certainly the vibe I am getting. And the next fear is that they could just skip the travel entirely and Ash and Go will just wind up in different places at the start of episodes, where even inter-series continuity (from one episode to the next) will be lacking. Again, this is a pessimistic jump, but I see more evidence pointing towards this than the alternative (with admittedly still little evidence in either direction).

Fanservice could be pretty varied (and not inherently sexualized).

Even a cute girl wearing a pretty fancy dress while there is sparkle around her could be fanservice.

In itself, fanservice could be just a cute girl being cute.
Admittedly very late on this argument (and probably going to regret even getting involved), but a lot of people think Pikachu is cute (and a lot of other Pokemon), does Pikachu exist in every series merely as fan service?
 
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First of all, I'm amazed by your ability to stay optimistic (as well as your ability to moderate this nonsense thread). This reminds me of our conversation at the beginning of SM, where you said it made next to no sense for the school setting to remain for the entire series (I agree it made next to no sense, but they did it anyway) and as much as it makes no sense to not have a female lead, it really does seem like they are going to do that anyway also. Unfortunately, sometimes the pessimists wind up being right.

I appreciate that. It isn't easy to stay optimistic, or moderating for that matter. I remember that conversation as well. I was so certain that the school setting would just be a way to set up Ash's journey and that he wouldn't be that for too long. Clearly, that didn't happen. Admittedly, the Pokemon School was practically a background and it often felt like no one outside of the main cast, Professor Kukui and Samson Oak ever went there, but it was still an unexpected decision. I can understand that comparison in that regard, although not having a female lead feels much more impractical than Ash staying in primarily one area for most of SM. It's certainly possible that they may not have a proper female lead, but I try to hope for the best whenever possible.

sc190191 said:
Like I said in my original post, I'm not trying to create a logical argument about the age, this is just the feeling I get. I agree he's been 10 all along, no aging, no de-aging, but I feel like when they emphasize Ash being 10 that it is their indication that they are more interested in looking forward than backward. OS-DP was teeming with continuity, since BW when they specifically stated Ash's age, continuity has only existed as nostalgia grabs (with the vast majority of it being Kanto based as well), not as a continuous part of the story. There was no reason to expect continuity to be dropped, but it happened in BW, now with no reason to expect them to ignore it because of the traveling to old regions, them emphasizing he's 10, and showing the beginning of his journey again, in my opinion could be a signal that they want us to focus on this series and moving forward and not to expect any of the past to be relevant. I really hope that feeling is wrong, but I just don't see any reason to feel optimistic about continuity at this point.

Continuity wasn't really dropped in BW per say, but rather they just made it much less infrequent compared to the first three series. I can still understand worrying that they'll just use references for a quick nostalgia grab, but if they're willing to explore Pikachu's backstory after all these years, they might be more willing to do more with other characters.

sc190191 said:
As for the traveling, my point is having the ease of flying (on a legendary no less...) will take away a lot of the difficulties of travel and there won't really be travel episodes like in the past, it isn't seeming like it is going to be significant journeys, but rather day trips. This could be off base, but it is certainly the vibe I am getting. And the next fear is that they could just skip the travel entirely and Ash and Go will just wind up in different places at the start of episodes, where even inter-series continuity (from one episode to the next) will be lacking. Again, this is a pessimistic jump, but I see more evidence pointing towards this than the alternative (with admittedly still little evidence in either direction).

Ah that makes more sense. Flying around would potentially reduce the kind of episodes where Ash and his friends would need to setup camp for the night or travel to smaller cities and towns in between their next major destination. I can understand feeling upset about losing those kind of episodes. Depending on what they'll be traveling around for, they could start some episodes in different places. I'm not sure if that would bother me too much, but I'd have to see how it feels watching the series if they do go in that direction.

I wonder if the first two episodes will air as sneak peak previews in the dub, like they did with the first two episodes of XY and SM.

I'm positive that they will. We get a sneak peek of the newest series a few months before it starts in the dub. I'd be curious to learn what Go and Koharu's dub names are, although Go might keep his name, and what title the dub will give for the series as well.
 
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