The artsy Pokemon scenes

[Hyatt]

I'm talking about pictures like this

Spoiler

I always found it odd that no other anime had these dramatic scenes in that special medium, unless I'm mistaken. And it's odd, especially since Pokemon isn't know for having superb animation. Why would they go all out on these scenes? And it's not like they're rare, I've seen episodes with loads of them, like in that episode with that blonde lady Coco.

And what medium is it exactly?

 

[Froakie]

They probably just bumped up the shading a bit and put a photoshop filter on it.

 

[QuietDragon]

Nope, they did this in traditional animation too. They're trying to mimic the look and feel of those.

Also, I've compared screencaps of such scenes in DP, they're completely redrawn. Like the ones in the aforementioned Coco's episode. You can see a lot of subtle differences, sometimes even the proportions are different to the ordinarily coloured shots.

Plenty of old anime still do it!

Pokemon started in the nineties, but had an animation and art style more like an eighties and nineties mix.

For new, computer animated anime that is old-fashioned in art and animation style that also still do these watercolour wash-like shots, see Black Jack!

Spoiler

As you can see, it's computer animated, but the art style's classic Tezuka. x3;

Hunter x Hunter also did it during the traditional cel animation days. I don't know about after the show went digital for the OVA.

Canaria's flashback of her childhood encounter with Killua is animated entirely in this manner. Very minimal animation, but it's very nicely done.

Personally, I love these shots! Even if they obviously take a lot more time to colour in than the usual ones, I always love seeing them.

 

[PlatinumDude]

I think that the artists touched up the images with Photoshop .

 

[Adamant]

Yeah, it's done in many other series. Here's a random screencap from Gintama I had lying around:

 

[Cybersai]

Dragonball has a number of scenes like this as well. Most of which have been cut out from Kai, might I add.

 

[Argy]

Yeah, this is not that uncommon in anime. When I've seen it, it seems meant to increase the dramatic tension.

 

[Sombra29]

I also have seen it happen a lot in sports anime.Like Prince of tennis.

 

[QuietDragon]

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PastelChalkedFreezeFrame

There you go! Plenty of anime which use it are listed here.

Oh, and, of course... I'm sorry for wasting your day.