• A new LGBTQ+ forum is now being trialed and there have been changes made to the Support and Advice forum. To read more about these updates, click here.
  • Hey Trainers! Be sure to check out Corsola Beach, our newest section on the forums, in partnership with our friends at Corsola Cove! At the Beach, you can discuss the competitive side of the games, post your favorite Pokemon memes, and connect with other Pokemon creators!
  • Due to the recent changes with Twitter's API, it is no longer possible for Bulbagarden forum users to login via their Twitter account. If you signed up to Bulbagarden via Twitter and do not have another way to login, please contact us here with your Twitter username so that we can get you sorted.

Pokémon Sword and Shield anime speculation thread

Status
Not open for further replies.
Oh my gosh it's August and we still don't have a hint of what to actually expect in the upcoming saga. Like, hurry up already.

Image result for impatient gif

We still have Pokemon Masters to come out on 29th August before focusing on the news on Sword and Shield. Sad I know.
It will probably be revealed in September.
 
I suspect that we'll still get some news on the games this month, especially if they continue to release monthly trailers/updates like they have been the past couple of months, but I don't know about news for the next series. They normally wait to do that after the League, so we could possibly get something later this month, but September might be more likely. I don't think it's unusual for them to not provide information about the next series by August either. A lot of it depends on when the League arc ends and when they can announce the new cast, especially when they don't want to announce them before they're revealed for the video games.
 
I suspect that we'll still get some news on the games this month, especially if they continue to release monthly trailers/updates like they have been the past couple of months, but I don't know about news for the next series. They normally wait to do that after the League, so we could possibly get something later this month, but September might be more likely. I don't think it's unusual for them to not provide information about the next series by August either. A lot of it depends on when the League arc ends and when they can announce the new cast, especially when they don't want to announce them before they're revealed for the video games.
The League will probably end in early September.
SM136 on 25th August will probably be a Team Skull arc where they'v come to arson the Pokemon League, and thus would lead to the final confrontation of Team Skull.
 
Tbh I don't think that a lot of people here really think that Ash wearing face paint that vaguely resembled blackface was done on purpose; most of us realize that it was more than likely a very unfortunate coincidence that the writers had Ash paint his face like that in an episode featuring primate Pokemon.

Maybe, but the OP really made it seem like the Passimian Ash incident is more proof that Pokémon tends to incorporate racist stuff in their franchise (or, at least, that's what I got from her message). And I'm not making this up, she said word for word "What’s not to love about a nice racist stereotype! From Rougela/Jynx till the most recent blackface scandal, Pokemon has always taken such a nuanced and sensitive approach to black people after all.". I don't know whether she doesn't believe it's actually racist or not and, frankly, it doesn't even matter, since my problem wasn't with that. My issue was that she was using this baseless "Passimian Ash is racist" controversy to drive this false narrative that Pokémon has something against POC.
But the ganguro excuse regarding Jynx has always seemed like a really forced explanation to me given that Jynx's face was literally black with large bright lips like something out of a 19th century minstrel show, not just badly tanned like you'd see with actual ganguro girls.

Well, while I personally think that there's not that much evidence to prove that Jynx is indeed based on ganguro, I still find it more believable that she's a partial adaptation of that trend than saying that she's supposed to be a racist stereotype. The latter makes even less sense when you consider that the original Pokémon games featured creatures that were usually based on a hybridization between real life animals and (generally Japanese) legends, folklore, culture and mythology (with the exception of the straight up real life animals/hybrids of real life animals), making a racist stereotype that was mostly found in the west (as far as I'm aware) seem even more farfetched and out-of-place than it already was. Personally, I believe that she's based on the Yamauba and its modern interpretations (which would actually explain both her design and her Ice typing).
 
But the ganguro excuse regarding Jynx has always seemed like a really forced explanation to me given that Jynx's face was literally black with large bright lips like something out of a 19th century minstrel show, not just badly tanned like you'd see with actual ganguro girls.
  1. Ganguro literally means Black Face, from がん (gan, face) and くろ (kuro, black). Also, human skin tones would look weird on pokémon.
  2. Blonde hair is not something you usually find in racist caricatures of black people, but it's actually an important part of Ganguro style.
 
[SPOILER=""Leak" about the Anime on 4chan" ][/SPOILER]

I work with 2d modeling and ilustrations on Japan. Recently, my team and I have been tasked with working on a new season of the pokemon anime called Pokemon Sword and Shield. We have several pieces of artwork regarding the nee region and the script for the first 8 episodes (both of which I, unfortunately can't show). But I will leave a few rough translations and information here.
The art style is more mature, sorta like the XY series.

Ep. 1: At Last Galar!
"Satoshi and Pikachu travel to Galar with Bertha and meet many new friends!"
Ep. 3: Run, Hibanny! Run!
"Satoshi and meets Hop and his clumsy friend Hibanny."
Ep. 3: What? Manene!
"Kojiro and Manene try to persuade Horiripon into joining Team Rocket."
Ep. 7: Who will you choose, Kuiingurui?
"Satoshi and Hop meet a wild Kuiingurui and compete to get it to join their parties!"
Ep. 8: Musashi and the crybaby!
"Musashi gets annoyed at a Messon that won't stop crying! Kojiro bonds with Horiripon."

These are the episodes with most important info so far.
Ash will travel solely with Hop. Jessie and James bring some of their old pokemon back, like Mime Jr. and Yanmega.
6 new pokemon and the starters are featured during these 8 episodes;
James's Mime Jr. evolves into a joker-looking regional Mr. Mime on episode 3;
Hop explains the dynamax phenomena to Ash;
Ash catches a Yamper on episode 4 and Kuiingurui (I don't know it's english name, but it's a frog with a smiling face on it's back). on episode 7. Hop also catches a Kuiingurui, but it's a shiny one, I think. Their Kuiingurui are rivals;
Jessie catches Sobble on episode 8;
Horiripon is a hyena pokemon that follows Team Rocket around and plays pranks on them. It is very cute from the artwork.
 
It's already proven fake months ago, just wishful thinking, and I do not like the idea of it.
 
The fact that the 'leaker' actually expects us to believe that Ash would only travel with Hop and no female character is hilarious. It's the generic 'my dad works at Nintendo' type of leak too. :X3:
I agree. If that leak is real, then the anime has lost my hopes of watching it.

I'm hoping it isn't, already proven fake months ago.
 
Fake and not for him calling XY mature, but because of a couple of other things.
  1. He used both Japanese and English name (Only Bertha the western audience knows is Sinnoh E4 member Bertha, who is called Kikuno in Japanese).
  2. I doubt Mime Jr returns without foreshadowing
  3. Ash and Hop aren't gonna share a Pokemon if they are travel companions.
  4. Ash is not gonna get Yamper, because its Electric type and the Pokemon Company doesn't want another Electric type overshadow the mascot Pikachu in terms of cuteness and battle viability
  5. Team Rocket is never gonna get a starter either, since that messes with marketing for said starter, who kids will see as bad, because of Team Rocket.

And like already pointed out: This surfaced a few months ago, when the Sword and Shield anime would just have entered production and was alread confirmed fake.
 
I doubt Mime Jr returns without foreshadowing
Even though I think the leak is fake, any leak is very unlikely to reveal finer points and foreshadowing. And you’re not really going to get SwSh foreshadowing in SM.

Team Rocket is never gonna get a starter either, since that messes with marketing for said starter, who kids will see as bad, because of Team Rocket.
Mareanie and Bewear are definitely ‘not bad’ Pokemon, though. Even Mimikyu is villainous only because of its hatred of Pikachu.
 
Him calling the XY Artstyle "mature" is a dead giveaway.
No one working on animation would ever call the XY style more mature tbh. It's just more detailed, but still very "by the numbers" and childish.
 
Right, let's just forget all of the other reasonable explanations for why Jynx has black-colored skin (like the possibility that her appearance is based on Ganguro, Yamauba or even Norse mythology). And let's just ignore the context behind why Ash's face was painted black (the fact that he was trying to fit in with a troop of Passimian in order to boost their spirits). No, there's obviously no reasonable explanation for all these controversies other than racism. Absolutely no other explanation. :bulbaFacepalm:
My issue was that she was using this baseless "Passimian Ash is racist" controversy to drive this false narrative that Pokémon has something against POC.
I'm not commenting on the cause but the effect. Frankly, the original thinking behind these examples is both irrelevant and something that we'll never know. The idea that something needs to have intention to offend in order to be called racist is a fallacy. It's like saying that harassment only counts if the harasser was intending to make the object feel harassed.

But if the word racism offends you on behalf of the Pokemon francise, you can call it cultural insensitivity. I can't say I find Rougela's design or that Nagetsukesaru incident personally offensive, but I can understand why people do. Assuming good intentions, both are at best examples of not thinking implications through.

On the original topic, I find the sexualisation particularly of WOC frustrating because it contributes towards the perpetuation of this idea that WOC are 'exotic' creatures who do crazy shit in bed. People believe this crap without even realising or questioning it. If you have assumptions like this made about you all the damn time, it's hard not to feel irritated when you see more of the same. I'm not saying that it's only WOC in Pokemon who are wearing too few clothes (sexism (and that insidious paedo-type thing) existing within the franchise is a much more obvious and less controversial topic which I'm not going to elaborate again here), but there are far fewer brown-skinned women in the franchise so each one who is designed in this way makes me more cross.
 
I don't think that Ash will travel with Hop because he will most likely also be a Gym challenger. I don't think that they would have 2 Gym challengers on the main cast together because they would have to show all the non version exclusive Gyms be challenged twice, which would get repetitive after a while.
 
Here's some food for thought. In no way is this based on any official rumors so take it with a grain of salt.

One of my new co-workers at my latest job is a big anime fan, and is familiar with a lot of the genre. He tells me that contrary to popular belief, the majority of anime in general is actually aimed at kids (like Pokémon), which is why you see so many of those "magical girls" shows that take place at a school. When I talked to him about the Sun & Moon series' sudden & unexpected shift to a school environment, he speculated that this was probably done because of the direction the series has been going as a whole - the writers seem to want to have more of a focus on stuff that kids in Japan can relate to (as opposed to the classic story of a 10 year old basically running away from home and going on an adventure).

And so he predicts that the Sword & Shield anime will follow the same formula, and we'll see a selection of 4-5 Gym Leaders become Ash's new classmates & rivals in the various Galar League battles.

While I have no idea if there's any truth to this whole kid-friendly motivation or not, I remember reading somewhere that the X&Y anime was not nearly as well received in Japan as it was in America, while the reverse was true of the Sun & Moon series.
 
And so he predicts that the Sword & Shield anime will follow the same formula, and we'll see a selection of 4-5 Gym Leaders become Ash's new classmates & rivals in the various Galar League battles.
I will be as bold as I can be and say that this won't happen.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top Bottom