Preview JN018: Satoshi Participates! The Pokémon World Championships!!

[P_S_B]

Is Pisces a guy or a girl? These people of Vermillion (Go and Pisces) with their eyelashes makes it confusing for me.

They have a female seiyuu, and I wouldn't necessarily expect them to have a girl voice an adult man. My suspicion is that one of the new character designers isn't very good at drawing females, because Gou's Grandmother looked quite masculine as well.

 

[lonerlotad]

What if that design/eyelash is distinct to the natives of Vermillion city? Even Go's parents have that kind of eyelash on their design?

 

[Pulsaro23]

A lady version of Lt. Surge isn't that bad a deal.

Honestly, her being nothing more than "Lt. Surge, but female" makes this worse. Not only do they have her replace him as Gym Leader of Vermilion City because the writers treat continuity like the plague, but they also give her the same personality as his, the same team as his and a Raichu that has a similar character to his? Really? If you're gonna try so hard to copy Lt. Surge, why not have Lt. Surge altogether? Or why not give her her own identity, by giving her a different personality and/or a different team, rather than make her interchangeable with Lt. Surge? Doesn't help that I find her plug-shaped ponytail to be way too ridiculous.

 

[Islander Princess]

Honestly, her being nothing more than "Lt. Surge, but female" makes this worse. Not only do they have her replace him as Gym Leader of Vermilion City because the writers treat continuity like the plague, but they also give her the same personality as his, the same team as his and a Raichu that has a similar character to his?

This is a great point. I already wasn't happy with Lt. Surge being replaced...having Pisces be a near carbon copy of him is even lamer. Why not give her a more distinct personality? A different Pokemon? She really didn't need a Raichu, and she especially didn't need a Raichu who is also a carbon copy of Lt. Surge's.

In my opinion, if you're going to create a brand new, anime exclusive character to replace a gym leader who both anime watchers and game players are familiar with, make them unique. This, quite frankly, just comes across as lazy, and it's perfectly understandable why people are getting annoyed by the series' baiting.

 

[Daren]

I think it's a little early to say Pisces' Raichu is just like Surge's. It at least seems more comedic with the scene where it sucks in it's stomach and flexes.

 

[Daenerys]

I'm willing to give Pisces' Raichu the benefit of the doubt for now, but if it does end up being Surge's Raichu 2.0 then I reserve the right to complain about it in the episode thread next week.~

What if that design/eyelash is distinct to the natives of Vermillion city? Even Go's parents have that kind of eyelash on their design?

Maybe it's Maybelline.

 

[nickdt]

What if that design/eyelash is distinct to the natives of Vermillion city? Even Go's parents have that kind of eyelash on their design?

Its a new fashion trend.

 

[Silktree]

Reminder that Pisces' signature Pokemon is Electrode rather than Raichu, and we haven't even heard her speak yet. I was initially disappointed about Pisces, but:

1. I hadn't even expected to see an old gym leader as the first opponent.
2. Anime-exclusive characters were expected, as this isn't a badge quest based on the games. I think it's cool that they created a connection to a past character instead of something random. If they actually explain where Lt. Surge is, that might add another layer to his character, which a rematch wouldn't.
3. The one gym leader I'd like to see Ash battle again is Sabrina, since he never won in the first place (at least in Erika's case the AU movie fixed that). Giovanni, too, but he isn't a gym leader anymore. Janine might be my priority, but that wouldn't be a rematch.
4. If Lt. Surge were in this episode, then Pikachu vs. Raichu would absolutely be the highlight again. There wouldn't be much point.
5. I'm pretty sure that there is going to be a flashback.

 

[BigDocFan]

One thing I like about the VA list we got was both of Pisces' known Pokemon have credited VA's which for characters of the day, we don't always get it

 

[dman_dustin]

3. The one gym leader I'd like to see Ash battle again is Sabrina, since he never won in the first place (at least in Erika's case the AU movie fixed that). Giovanni, too, but he isn't a gym leader anymore. Janine might be my priority, but that wouldn't be a rematch.

- To add to this, there's also Marlon and Drayden, that Ash never properly battled.

 

[Rocky62]

inb4 Electrode uses Self-Destruct/Explosion and Ash switches in Gengar to save Pikachu.

as tho ash would ever be that smart

 

[MarshiyanMisutaa]

Everyone's favourite american isn't there because Satoshi already defeated him, I don't see what's so bad about that.

 

[dawn dusk]

surge was measuring the potential difference between cheeks of raichu with voltmeter all of sudden
explosion.....
surge is about to die
[enter] pisces
Pisces: Dad!! What happened?
Surge : Don't worry. I have finished. My fellow mates aren't capable to maintain the gym. You are my last hope. Take care of Rai......
RIP
Edit:

 

[Panky..]

Everyone's favourite american isn't there because Satoshi already defeated him, I don't see what's so bad about that.

It's a problem because they conveniently removed him probably to avoid having him interact with Ash due to their past (outside of a small flashback at best), and replaced the original Gym Leader with what looks like a darker female clone of his with a Raichu that also looks like it's going to be similar to Surge's.

Just because he's defeated doesn't mean that he's vanished entirely. Now the question is, does Ash have to challenge the Vermillion Gym for his PWC match/ranking or just Pisces in general.

 

[MarshiyanMisutaa]

It's a problem because they conveniently removed him probably to avoid having him interact with Ash due to their past

Why would they avoid their past? It's not like there was something creepy about...

Spoiler

...ok, that was kinda creepy. But I don't see this as a reason to remove him. And if they truly want to avoid referencing him, they wouldn't mention him in the preview.

 

[MarshiyanMisutaa]

Why would they reference so much stuff from the past without actually referencing the proper source of that stuff?

They'll most likely reference the proper source of that stuff, since they already referenced Lieutenant Surge. So, it's unlike to the previous cases.

 

[Beatsy Ray]

Why would they avoid their past? It's not like there was something creepy about...

Spoiler

View attachment 131712

...ok, that was kinda creepy. But I don't see this as a reason to remove him. And if they truly want to avoid referencing him, they wouldn't mention him in the preview.

My guess is that they are okay with name-dropping or even showing past game characters, but they are trying to avoid like the plague acknowledging any actual past events from the anime (OS001 being the only exception). That's why they could show Lance as long as he didn't interact with Ash and there weren't any flashbacks. Based on that I expect Ash to vaguely show that he knows who Lt. Surge is (if he's even mentioned at all), but there won't be a flashback or reminiscing of any kind.

As for the reason, it's probably just a half thought-out notion from an executive who thinks that referencing the series' history would overwhelm a younger audience. This nonsense puts a lot of strain on the writers and limits the anime's scope severely.

 

[Panky..]

As for the reason, it's probably just a half thought-out notion from an executive who thinks that referencing the series' history would overwhelm a younger audience. This nonsense puts a lot of strain on the writers and limits the anime's scope severely.

This is something I find baffling as well. Whoever's making these decisions probably never even watched a single episode of the anime or played any of the games (one can imagine whoever it is being a greedy and fat person sitting at their desk in their VIP-style office while raining money upon themselves). A lot of common reasons like "new/target audience will be confused", "it's a kids show", "fresh start" etc. have already been debunked as nothing more than bad excuses, any person with half a mind can see that these are just fallacies that they make for some reason. Frustrating, makes you want to contact the anime staff/executives and grill them on the issue.

This issue really started with BW when you think about it, wonder what staff changed back then. OS/AG/DP were fine with the series history, no problems arose back then.

 

[Daren]

This is something I find baffling either. Whoever's making these decisions probably never even watched a single episode of the anime or played any of the games (one can imagine whoever it is being a greedy and fat person sitting at his desk while raining money upon himself). A lot of common reasons like "new/target audience will be confused", "it's a kids show", "fresh start" have already been debunked in detail, any person with half a mind can see that these are just fallacies. Frustrating, makes you want to contact the anime staff/executives and grill them on the issue.

This issue really started with BW when you think about it, wonder what staff changed back then.

Yeah, I suspect it's an executive rather than the writers--reading "behind the scenes" details I find a lot of the really odd things that happen in creative works come from above, like the Cell saga in Dragon Ball swapping villains several times.

 

[Daenerys]

This nonsense puts a lot of strain on the writers and limits the anime's scope severely.

How does not showing a character from the past put a strain on the writers? If anything it's the opposite because it gives them less work to do because now they don't have to tie that character into the present by writing a big role for him. Literally no part of this episode will be affected in a bad way just because Surge is out doing something else. The gym is still there, he's got a replacement gym leader on assignment and that's all there is to it.

But for God's sake why are people still focusing on a character who probably won't even be making so much as a cameo in the 1st place. There's a whole battle going on between Ash and Pisces that's supposed to be a big deal for Ash's new quest, yet people still want to nit-pick at the most mundane part of the episode (Lt. Surge's absence). Can't we just take a cue from Frozen and Let It Go™?