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I have quite literally never recalled an instance where they've explicitly put a Pokémon with Ash's party and labelled it as a new companion (and same with Gou), and literally modified footage voiceovers to switch around who would capture whom in SM. In SM people saw the posters or premise and jumped to conclusions while JN used deliberate misleading at times. Eevee's speculation didn’t have a base at all imo.What? It absolutely was done throughout SM. Just off the top of my head: There was one that led people to believe that Rotom would be leaving, one where it was implied Sophocles might catch Minior, one where we thought Lana would catch a Dewpider, and there were tons of theories about who would get Eevee just based on the previews. And that’s just SM. This is not some new thing in JN and frankly I really have not noticed it being done more often, either.
Some of the fake-outs are also pretty obvious. Of course Pikachu was never going to evolve or leave. Of course the Alola Crew weren’t going to suddenly become mainstays on the show. People have always taken short summaries and/or screenshots and ran with them. Again, this isn’t new.
Rotom and Sophocles don’t really count for me because the plot literally relies on these being fake outs. It’s meta in that sense. The main cast was mislead along with us. JN has done nothing of the sort in the episodes people deem "misleading". Who did even think Alola crew would become a mainstay in JN?
I guess you might have a point but I’m definitely noticing it more in JN. I'm guessing that theybe admitted that clickbait is a part of their promotion strategy changes my view, and of course, the extremely deliberate modification of media during Farfetch'd/Sobble. That sort of thing is borderline inpredecented. The Mr. Mime incident also sticks out since it’s border lining on a retcon to not bother to use reserves. For all intents and purposes most people thought Delia owned Mr. Mime before that.
If I had to summarise my thoughts:
Has anime tried to use misleading to generate hype before? Yes
Has it happened in other series? Yes
Is it more prominent in JN in my opinion, and the incidents more glaring or "high stakes"? Also yes.
JN has by far put in the most effort for these fake outs and have admitted to utilising the viral culture to generate clicks and views. Case in point: Starting the series with the Pikachu episode which has been otherwise irrelevant. And again, I don’t remember if any other series has deliberately mixed up voice recordings and swapped around Pokémon in the dedicated party section of each character before.
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