pokepost #4 here... *TOP BEST/MOST IMPORTANT: CASSIDY+BUTCH *ANTAG: SHELLY, JJM, Giovanni, Namba, Zager, BGGG, Plumeria & Guzma!, Rapp/Tupp/Zipp, Colress, Malamar, & loads of the "evil"-team leaders/members *L33T 4s: Lorelei, Karen, Glacia, Malva; Flint (Bertha, Lucian, Aaron), Larry, Hassel, etc . *LEADERS: Gio!, Cissy (et. al.), Cress, Roxie, Clair, Elesa, Blaine, Surge, Koga, Pryce, Wattson, Wulfric, Clay, Piers, etc . volkner & falkner lol. the protag ones. (+larry, brassius, tulip, kofu, katy...) *CHAMP: Cynthia, Alder, etc . *BRAINS/SUBWAY: Ingo/Emmett *RELATIVES: Cress, Chili, Lusamine, Mohn, VLD *SUPPORTING: Faba+Wicke, Nanu, Jervis, Hobbes, Malva, Anella *RIVAL: Paul, Trip, Gladion, Conway, Stefan, Ursula, Georgia, Barry, Gary, Drew, Nando, Kenny *PROFS Ivy, Rowan, Elm, Magnolia/Sonia, Oak, etc. *PROTAG: Misty, Brock, Tracey, Cilan, Clemont, Bonnie, Lillie, Lana, Scrotom (Sophocles, Kiawe, Mallow) *MISC: mina, mela w/ less hilarious boots *MOVIES: Domino...
My conceptions of everybody are primarily anime-first/-based. I incorporate good game, manga, and teraleaked profile material when it makes plausible sense and doesn't incompatibly contradict 'anipoke.' It's honestly been kinda surprising to see people using the game storyline so much, even though it makes sense. I know the games come first and then the anime takes their plot and adapts it for viewing rather than playing. But man, the anime is what made me obsessed in the first place, and has always been at the center of it...from the time I got into rocketshipping, and via that discovered fanfiction, we were all mainly anime-focused. Some people obviously played the main games, but I rarely heard anyone discuss them (particularly irl.) We traded cards, we played "spinoff" games (my favorite games period remain the Stadiums and Snaps), we watched and talked about the series (along with everything connected to it) and the franchise in general. For me it's always been mostly about pokemon themselves+the show.
ReplyDeleteI remember sitting on Fred's bed playing one of the first pair of games on his Gameboy. Don't recall which, or the starter I picked. And it wasn't for dislike that I didn't get into playing the main games; my expectations were met squarely, as I'd already been through the Nintendo manual and knew exactly what it was gonna be. Still have the manual (my favorite part of which was the pokedex, like my fave parts of my myriad dog books have always been the breed sections. =D) But I guess I just didn't quite have the patience? As it started to seem too repetitive or something, I let him take back over. Idk. Pretty much except for racing games, I have always preferred to watch. Boys with controllers, me commentating and making suggestions/remarks. Less pressure, more enjoyable. YT walkthroughs allowing you to speed through an unfamiliar one and see it all at a glance. Because my thing is like: "DUDE. Just tell me the story. I just wanna know what happens, who says what. I hate the fear that I won't even get the whole story because so-and-so would've said/done *this* instead, if I'd made a different choice here or there...and ya want me to go through however many goldang tasks and missions and stuff just to get to the next 'important' part..."
Now I'm familiar with the game plots--what a blessing are Bulbapedia's quote pages, lol. Can't help feeling though, that without the series, the games on their own would kinda...not give you that much to work with/obsess over after finishing? Obviously coming from this angle I wouldn't know for sure. But the game dialog can afford to be cheesy, corny, redundant, awkwardly unnatural, caricatured, generally predictable, or whatever it might be--even more so than the anime, because it isn't even spoken (not so much as given the text-to-speech treatment, which ought to be the bare minimum in any game!!) Some players skip over it and still get the gist of what's going on sufficiently to enjoy the game. The focus is on creating fun gameplay. (Big part of which is of course battling--even a certain faction of anime fans seems to only care about the big battle episodes and arguing over who should've won and shit. Man, I like the battles all right, but I've always been way more into the character development and world-building "filler" eps and slice-of-life junk!) The anime takes the basic plot that works for a game, and fleshes it out some. It's the narrative-/storytelling-focused format.
Getting to play as a generic blank-slate protagonist doesn't help much. (And boy do I not like the idea of giving the titular words/letters to game or manga characters as their names...having to call them "Red," "Blue," "Leaf," "Silver," "Gold," "Sun," "Moon," etc., would take me right out of it...) Not to mention that the characters look and move like, well, exactly what they are: video game characters. Full animation and voicing brings them and the world to life in a much more immersive, engaging manner.
...so yeah, even though the games come first...to me the anime has always been THE primary, default canon. Easiest thing to take seriously. The games, manga, and non-canon movies can represent alternate, parallel universes that branched off of the main one and are inhabited by (sometimes very) different versions of everybody. But again, stuff from them can usually be incorporated even if it has to be tweaked and adjusted and whatnot. Lots of it informs and goes along with the anime. ^u^
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