Gotta Revise 'Em All, Part 1: Splitting the Pokemon Canons (Massive Pokemon CRT)

[Ayewale]

You're putting too much weight behind early votes when counter arguments had not been made

It's as good as invalid

Countearguments have been made, it's just that the opposition refuses to agree with any of them. I mean for ***** sake, now we're out here debating if PP is a game mechanic when shop vendors sell PP Ups, npcs refer to it and it's an active mechanic in a different medium. To be frank if we can't even agree on "Pokemon can't understand human speech" when the Pokedex confirms this multiple times since generation 1, then there is absolutely no point in arguing with you guys anymore. This is the worst stonewalling I've ever seen on the wiki, and the fact that you're trying to invalidate all the prior votes because nobody agrees with your wack-ass arguments is pretty much it for me.

As for a list of staff, I've got:

• Andytrenom
• Armorchompy
• JustSomeWeirdo
• Maverick_Zero_X
• Antvasima
• Colonel_Krukov
• Moritzva
• As of recently, Agnaa (congrats again on the promotion)
• I believe Hoppington expressed his support too.
• Executor seems to agree somewhat.

I'll try to write an explanation post later. Lecture coming up shortly.

 

[Sniper670]

Here's what I said about pp

Yes. But it's minor and is not referenced much. In fact in anime its almost nonexistent. Its literally just arbitrary numbers indicating stamina

I don't remember saying it's game mechanics


Pokémon not understanding human speech in games has already been debunked. I'll suggest you refrain from bringing it up

 

[Antvasima]

Has this not already been done like yesterday iirc?

Well, I think that I only linked to the counter-arguments then, not those of Ayewale.

 

[Sniper670]

Countearguments have been made, it's just that the opposition refuses to agree with any of them. I mean for ***** sake, now we're out here debating if PP is a game mechanic when shop vendors sell PP Ups, npcs refer to it and it's an active mechanic in a different medium. To be frank if we can't even agree on "Pokemon can't understand human speech" when the Pokedex confirms this multiple times since generation 1, then there is absolutely no point in arguing with you guys anymore. This is the worst stonewalling I've ever seen on the wiki, and the fact that you're trying to invalidate all the prior votes because nobody agrees with your wack-ass arguments is pretty much it for me.

As for a list of staff, I've got:

• Andytrenom
• Armorchompy
• JustSomeWeirdo
• Maverick_Zero_X
• Antvasima
• Colonel_Krukov
• Moritzva
• As of recently, Agnaa (congrats again on the promotion)
• I believe Hoppington expressed his support too.
• Executor seems to agree somewhat.

I'll try to write an explanation post later. Lecture coming up shortly.

In fact all your "Differences" has been debunked

But of course you'll ignore that

 

[Agnaa]

In your first post about it you explicitly said it was game mechanics.

 

[Antvasima]

Countearguments have been made, it's just that the opposition refuses to agree with any of them. I mean for ***** sake, now we're out here debating if PP is a game mechanic when shop vendors sell PP Ups, npcs refer to it and it's an active mechanic in a different medium. To be frank if we can't even agree on "Pokemon can't understand human speech" when the Pokedex confirms this multiple times since generation 1, then there is absolutely no point in arguing with you guys anymore. This is the worst stonewalling I've ever seen on the wiki, and the fact that you're trying to invalidate all the prior votes because nobody agrees with your wack-ass arguments is pretty much it for me.

Agreed. As far as I am concerned, this revision has been accepted, and a massive amount of stonewalling is taking place here, but I think that we may need to make it even more official given the controversy involved.

As for a list of staff, I've got:

• Andytrenom
• Armorchompy
• JustSomeWeirdo
• Maverick_Zero_X
• Antvasima
• Colonel_Krukov
• Moritzva
• As of recently, Agnaa (congrats again on the promotion)
• I believe Hoppington expressed his support too.
• Executor seems to agree somewhat.

I'll try to write an explanation post later. Lecture coming up shortly.

Thank you very much for helping out.

 

[Sniper670]

In your first post about it you explicitly said it was game mechanics.

Yes, which I promptly corrected and never used again. So why bring that up.

I didn't use that in my subsequent explanations no?

 

[Agnaa]

Strym's big debunk was posted here in page four. Here are the staff votes since then:

Agree with OP: 7 (Agnaa, Moritzva, Maverick_Zero_X, Colonel_Krukov, Andytrenom, Antvasima, AKM sama)

Disagree with OP: 3 (GyroNutz, DarkDragonMedeus, Executor_N0)

Unclear: 1 (JustSomeWeirdo against/for)

Ayewale made a response here in page six.

 

[Sniper670]

Seeing as this is a shared multiverse, I don't see how any of this should affect Arceus and the CT

 

[LephyrTheRevanchist]

Seeing as this is a shared multiverse, I don't see how any of this should affect Arceus and the CT

I think they will need a whole discussion just for themselves. But even then, they are some of the most consistent 'mons throughout all media (aside PMD for poor Dialga) so they aren't gonna be affected that much, no.

 

[Pikaman]

Strym's big debunk was posted here in page four. Here are the staff votes since then:

Agree with OP: 7 (Agnaa, Moritzva, Maverick_Zero_X, Colonel_Krukov, Andytrenom, Antvasima, AKM sama)

Disagree with OP: 3 (GyroNutz, DarkDragonMedeus, Executor_N0)

Unclear: 1 (JustSomeWeirdo against/for)

Ayewale made a response here in page six.

Ok, this has clearly been accepted even if we accept blatant stonewalling, can we PLEASE just finish this?

 

[Antvasima]

Strym's big debunk was posted here in page four. Here are the staff votes since then:

Agree with OP: 7 (Agnaa, Moritzva, Maverick_Zero_X, Colonel_Krukov, Andytrenom, Antvasima, AKM sama)

Disagree with OP: 3 (GyroNutz, DarkDragonMedeus, Executor_N0)

Unclear: 1 (JustSomeWeirdo against/for)

Ayewale made a response here in page six.

Well, I would prefer to ask Medeus and Gyro if they have changed their minds after reading Ayewale's upcoming explanation post. I much prefer to reach a consensus amongst the highest-level staff at least.

 

[Pikaman]

I guess that works, as long as we’re not trying to invite on another round of pages of discussion so two members of staff join what is already an overwhelming majority

 

[Antvasima]

Yes, agreed.

 

[Executor_N0]

Since this looks to be finishing, I'll put the last reply that I made under the Spoiler Tab. I'm going to move on from this as I need to work on Upcoming Digimon revisions thanks to Digimon Survive (And also this thread from the looks of it), but I'm mostly fine with some separation between works when there are contradictions and individual profiles for the characters.

At first, I would have thought that Species Profiles could still work mixing some stuff, but if that is accepted as something that needs to be removed I'm fine with that.

Spoiler: Long text

So, does anyone here know how Character Model Sheets are called in Japanese? They are called Setting Document Collection (設定資料集, Settei shiryōshū) and this is a good example of what I mean. When a character is designed, depending on the depth of the setting document there might be a lot of details about its inner workings that aren't represented in a show. For example, Ulforce V-Dramon X was designed by As'maria, but only a standard image that lacks some details, to the point that new setting documentation needed to be made in order for the 3D Models in a 3D game in order to respect the official setting. What is a part of not of the official settings can include things like special moves, such as the character Charismon whose official profile makes no description of how their moves work, but the setting documentation describes what those moves do and what they look like.

In certain cases, multimedia franchises do work on the premise that even though most works aren't really in continuity or have contradictions, they still should be counted as one single thing when trying to understand the world.

Let's take a look into some series that were mentioned here before as evidence that such a thing doesn't exist/isn't accepted. First, Transformers. In regards to the inner workings of the multiverse, I think that taking the "Aligned continuity family" is a good example of what I was talking about. As this was a project of creating a single solid continuity where much of the background story and rules of the universe were pre-defined in the series' bible and each product would reveal a part of that lore. However over time, those products would start to contradict each other even with the official vision being of a single continuity until it was stated that yes, while it was still just a single continuity, each product could still develop the story on its own and even contradict each other because the idea was of a single continuity, the fans could ignore the contradictions while looking into a single story, or looking for then and seeing the differences that they each had. They could work both as individual works, or also as a single story if you chose to ignore what was contradicted (Not that fans could accept that such a thing was a valid understanding after all).

So yes, contradictory individual products, but with a single overall backstory that you are supposed to ignore the contradictions to be able to look into the bigger picture that explains the world, sounds familiar? Of course, such ideas are only going to live while there's creative intent for them to continue to be valid. Talking about the larger multiverse, there were multiversal concepts that were supposed to be singular between all the products, but some products were so contradictory to that concept that it was decided to erase the overall idea of multiversal singularities in order to not have to deal with fans complaining about inconsistencies instead of just accepting that contradictions exist.

Of course, contradictions are just the main reason for why such things aren't accepted as being able to cross between different works, but that is mostly because some products go against certain logic. Taking Marvel and DC as examples, in theory, much of What IFs stories should scale to main universe stuff. If the idea is "this is the same timeline until a different event happened that resulted in a totally different future", then all the stuff from before said difference or ones that are unrelated to said difference, should still be able to valid stuff for the main universe. The problem is that the general idea of "it's a different universe" and the expectation of "this stuff doesn't count" just killed this idea for What Ifs and they are mostly disregarded as "not related at all to the main universe, even if that is the opposite of the concept itself". Sometimes those differences are explained, such as Flashpoint's "time boom" or Marvel's "the past is constantly changed by decisions made in the future" during Ultimates (I would say that having to explain why this happens is in fact a point to the opposite being the norm most of the time, but as I said, the reason for why it's not is the constant inconsistencies and common acceptance that different universe stuff shouldn't be used to the main universe).

Another generic example of this would be games with different routes that although they might end with totally different characters making totally different choices, the general world remains the same. Such as "The Witcher 2" even though has a very clear divide in two routes and various other different small choices, still is the same overall "world" and some mysteries are only solvable if you use things from both sides, even if there are some contradictions and overall impossible differences because you are supposed to not think too much on what isn't consistent, but on what is consistent.

Take Ben 10 as another example. This one is very interesting because of all of the different opinions of the staff on what "counts". But only talking about setting documentation, we know that there's a lot of background lore that is never touched by the series itself, instead, you can look at them in cards or toys, or even in comic books that even though are not really canon, the background lore that is presented can is a part of that background, for example, some elements that are introduced in the "Alien Data Files" are most likely form setting documents, as some information that is introduced there also exists in other sources like cards and official websites. Although you also have the big problem of contradictions, such as the choices in AF/UA of changing some pre-established lore and creating those contradictions, even within the same season.

Talking about the reboot, it's also an interesting thing because, in concept, the reboot is made as "not a redo" of the original series, but as "adventures we couldn't see before", of course, it had its big differences, but it was made in the idea it was still the same Ben as before. With much of the lore in the reboot being in fact from the original series, basically, everything from the original series is valid for the reboot, and the reboot is 80% just content from the old series, including elements that were originally present in the setting documentation and used in spin-off material, being used in-story.

The big problem with a lot of multimedia franchises is the lack of consistency or just knowledge of the material being expanded. For example, the secret behind Hawkgirl in the DCAU wasn't shared with the other branches of the franchise, so many tie-in products expanded a false backstory as true, making those stories essentially impossible to coexist with what is definitely canon. But such contradictions aren't exclusive to tie-in products, as some people only see "canon" as a good guideline that can be disregarded if that means creating a better product... even when it's by making contradictions in the same continuity.

But, what about Pokémon? Well, now that I gave the entire context of how none of this is simple with the very examples that people are giving on "it's just not acceptable", let's see the statements about the series.

Form Junichi Masuda's interview with GameInformer:

So, there isn’t war in the world of Pokémon where armies of Pokémon are fighting for the ideals of their leaders?

Masuda: Long ago, there may have been wars. Actually, if you look at one of the movies featuring the character Lucario, there are maybe some hints about the past of the Pokémon world.

Speaking of the movies and consequently the TV show, do the cartoons and the movies and the video games overlap? Is that all one Pokémon world, or are they two separate universes?

Masuda: basically it’s the same place. Looking at it as a parallel world, or in some select spots being a parallel world might be more accurate.

The context is clear, they asked for a bit of information about the world of Pokémon and Masuda answered with the Lucario movie, when asked if they are separated worlds or just one Pokémon world, Masuda stated it was "basically the same places", or "some select spots being a parallel world". The idea is about it being a single basic Pokémon world that shares most of its history and elements while keeping what is different as being a part of a parallel world. Or "they are the same most of the time, but there are differences due to being parallel worlds", but within this context, Masuda implies you can take elements of one and use them in the other, as he just did in regards to the Lucario movie.

He explained more about that on his personal blog:

Did everyone see this year’s Pokemon movie? In this movie, “Mew”, a Pokemon appeared in the first series, meets ‘Lucario’ introduced in Pokemon Diamond and Pearl. Unlike encounters in the game, you might feel some distance between the two Pokemon, but I liked the way they met in the movie, as two Pokemon in a movie. This movie begins with a war scene. And what with armors for Pokemon and others, it includes settings that we at Game Freak had tough time making decisions about. At the same time though, there is no certain opponent this time, and it includes many challenging ideas while keeping the world-view of Pokemon intact. So, I like it very much. It also brings you to tears. If ‘Lucario’ will grow in such a nice way, it might become very difficult for us to try to incorporate this Pokemon in a game. (it was very hard with Lugia…) But this time I came up with ideas like ‘Let’s do this, let’s do that!’ after I saw the movie. It’s a secret… You’ll be surprised when you play! In what part of Pokemon Diamond and Pearl does ‘Lucario’ appear? As you enjoy the movie, don’t forget to keep that in mind! By the way, do you remember that thing that looks like Mew’s family tree at the beginning of the movie. That’s based on Game Freak’s confidential documents about Pokemon Diamond and Pearl . See ya.

In regards to when the different products work together or not, Masuda himself gave an example of what works or doesn't work, in another Game Informer interview:

Pokémon can only say their own name. Pikachu, for example, can only speak his name. Do they say their own name and then that's what humans decide to call them? Or do humans start calling them their names and then the Pokémon recognize that and start saying it?

Junichi Masuda: I don't really know actually. Honestly, though, that a separation of the main series RPGs from the animated series. It's the animated series in which the Pokémon are always saying their names like that. I think we decided to do that in the animated series to make it easier for audiences to understand which Pokémon it is. Maybe in that universe the Pokémon starting saying their names first and then humans went, "Oh, okay. That must be your name.s"

As you can see above, this is a very clear difference between the world of the games that aren't shared with the world of the anime. Does this mean that they are 100% different and you shouldn't cross-reference anything? Definitely no, Masuda himself was the one who first mentioned they being mostly the same world, he stated one of the differences between the two universes just complements what he stated before, there are differences between them, but the similarities far outweigh the differences. In regards to canon itself, we in fact have interviews with Detective Pikachu staff that does explain how that works. From an interview with The Verge:

For Japanese game and toy maker Creatures, which is best-known for the Pokémon trading card game and multiple series spinoffs, the outlandishness of Detective Pikachu took a lot of convincing. “We really started with the concept of making Pikachu talk,” says Hiroyuki Jinnai, the producer of Detective Pikachu, who’s worked on the Pokémon franchise with creator Game Freak for more than two decades. The goal was to surprise people and alter the perception of the franchise’s most well-known face, Jinnai adds, in celebration of Pokémon’s 20th anniversary. “We really worked hard to come up with a justification and setting to make that work.” Jinnai, who’s also helped on and off as a producer and adviser on the Pokémon anime, says Game Freak has historically been quite protective of the world it's built. Executives at the game company, which operates as an independent entity with a stake in the Pokémon license alongside Nintendo and Creatures, often stopped writers on the TV program from taking liberties with pokémon, like imbuing the pocket monsters with too many human-like qualities. “It took a lot of convincing to let us break the rules,” Jinai says. The result is an utterly bizarre and yet lovably quaint video game that will no doubt find its place in the ever-expanding Pokémon canon.

The overall idea is that the Pokémon world across the many different products is basically the same, it has the same inner-working rules (Also called Settings/Settei) that make up the Worldview/Sekai-kan of the Pokémon series and you are supposed to look over certain contradictions that exist due to different media having different areas where they excel or just due to the limited freedom that they sometimes have.

I need to say that some contradictions mentioned here are a bit ridiculous to be taken seriously, because if that is the case then we can't even put different games in the same "canon" due to different movepools or Pokémon Encyclopedia profiles. The profiles themselves always had limited information from what is in the setting due to gameplay limitations, but that created the standard for the series.

There was even an official "Pokémon Encyclopedia" book released at the time of Reed/Green with expanded Pokémon profiles that explained a lot more about the backstory of the series, even showing how the data on the book is discovered by researchers and including lines of texts that would be used in later products, including some of them never being used in any game profile, but still being referenced in places like the anime. In fact, Takeshi Shudo made various mentions about said book on his personal blog and even had a character in the anime reading said book, and he mentioned how much Gamefreak controlled the worldview of the series and how they checked if there was any setting contradictions (As I explained on my personal blog), even with he not really thinking this was necessary because he didn't think there was to be any connection between the games and the anime (That is, Shudo himself accepted the vision that the work as its own, while it was Gamefreak that look over by themselves to be sure that the lore was reflected in the anime and novel, although this is something that is contradicted from time to time as I gave examples before).

Even on the games themselves there are limitations that sometimes are explained in-universe or in interviews, Masuda once said that some old Pokédex have "outdated information", and need to be updated. So yes, the games are going to have some changes for various reasons, although many of them can be explained in the universe, there are those who we are mostly supposed to just take as contradictions that are just bound to happen (Again, if the contradictions themselves are a reason for not to be accepted as being in the same "scaling", then the games themselves are never going to be accepted because each game has something that contradictions the previous ones).

In general, Pokémon seems to work under the idea that while each product really is a separated universe (The games themselves are basically never 100% the same universe), they do share mostly the same background and you are supposed to look beyond the differences for each work and look into the bigger picture to get a full grasp of the Pokémon world. At least is what I got from the interviews every time they mentioned the Pokémon worldview and Masuda's interviews with gameinformer.

About the profiles themselves, I don't really have a good idea of what to do with them as I'm more into the settings/lore than the profiles themselves, so people that work more with them know more than I do.

 

[Antvasima]

Thank you for being reasonable, Executor.

 

[TheGreatMaster12]

Ayewale arguments seems to be convincing, and none of the counters have been legitimate good, just shouting ''game mechanics'' at everything that debunks their arguments, I'm now siding 100% with OP.

 

[Sero]

Still disagreeing with op here if anyones wondering, yes I have seen all 9 pages of this and I just side more with the counter-arguments

 

[Marcusbwfc]

Since this looks to be finishing, I'll put the last reply that I made under the Spoiler Tab. I'm going to move on from this as I need to work on Upcoming Digimon revisions thanks to Digimon Survive (And also this thread from the looks of it), but I'm mostly fine with some separation between works when there are contradictions and individual profiles for the characters.

At first, I would have thought that Species Profiles could still work mixing some stuff, but if that is accepted as something that needs to be removed I'm fine with that.

Spoiler: Long text

So, does anyone here know how Character Model Sheets are called in Japanese? They are called Setting Document Collection (設定資料集, Settei shiryōshū) and this is a good example of what I mean. When a character is designed, depending on the depth of the setting document there might be a lot of details about its inner workings that aren't represented in a show. For example, Ulforce V-Dramon X was designed by As'maria, but only a standard image that lacks some details, to the point that new setting documentation needed to be made in order for the 3D Models in a 3D game in order to respect the official setting. What is a part of not of the official settings can include things like special moves, such as the character Charismon whose official profile makes no description of how their moves work, but the setting documentation describes what those moves do and what they look like.

In certain cases, multimedia franchises do work on the premise that even though most works aren't really in continuity or have contradictions, they still should be counted as one single thing when trying to understand the world.

Let's take a look into some series that were mentioned here before as evidence that such a thing doesn't exist/isn't accepted. First, Transformers. In regards to the inner workings of the multiverse, I think that taking the "Aligned continuity family" is a good example of what I was talking about. As this was a project of creating a single solid continuity where much of the background story and rules of the universe were pre-defined in the series' bible and each product would reveal a part of that lore. However over time, those products would start to contradict each other even with the official vision being of a single continuity until it was stated that yes, while it was still just a single continuity, each product could still develop the story on its own and even contradict each other because the idea was of a single continuity, the fans could ignore the contradictions while looking into a single story, or looking for then and seeing the differences that they each had. They could work both as individual works, or also as a single story if you chose to ignore what was contradicted (Not that fans could accept that such a thing was a valid understanding after all).

So yes, contradictory individual products, but with a single overall backstory that you are supposed to ignore the contradictions to be able to look into the bigger picture that explains the world, sounds familiar? Of course, such ideas are only going to live while there's creative intent for them to continue to be valid. Talking about the larger multiverse, there were multiversal concepts that were supposed to be singular between all the products, but some products were so contradictory to that concept that it was decided to erase the overall idea of multiversal singularities in order to not have to deal with fans complaining about inconsistencies instead of just accepting that contradictions exist.

Of course, contradictions are just the main reason for why such things aren't accepted as being able to cross between different works, but that is mostly because some products go against certain logic. Taking Marvel and DC as examples, in theory, much of What IFs stories should scale to main universe stuff. If the idea is "this is the same timeline until a different event happened that resulted in a totally different future", then all the stuff from before said difference or ones that are unrelated to said difference, should still be able to valid stuff for the main universe. The problem is that the general idea of "it's a different universe" and the expectation of "this stuff doesn't count" just killed this idea for What Ifs and they are mostly disregarded as "not related at all to the main universe, even if that is the opposite of the concept itself". Sometimes those differences are explained, such as Flashpoint's "time boom" or Marvel's "the past is constantly changed by decisions made in the future" during Ultimates (I would say that having to explain why this happens is in fact a point to the opposite being the norm most of the time, but as I said, the reason for why it's not is the constant inconsistencies and common acceptance that different universe stuff shouldn't be used to the main universe).

Another generic example of this would be games with different routes that although they might end with totally different characters making totally different choices, the general world remains the same. Such as "The Witcher 2" even though has a very clear divide in two routes and various other different small choices, still is the same overall "world" and some mysteries are only solvable if you use things from both sides, even if there are some contradictions and overall impossible differences because you are supposed to not think too much on what isn't consistent, but on what is consistent.

Take Ben 10 as another example. This one is very interesting because of all of the different opinions of the staff on what "counts". But only talking about setting documentation, we know that there's a lot of background lore that is never touched by the series itself, instead, you can look at them in cards or toys, or even in comic books that even though are not really canon, the background lore that is presented can is a part of that background, for example, some elements that are introduced in the "Alien Data Files" are most likely form setting documents, as some information that is introduced there also exists in other sources like cards and official websites. Although you also have the big problem of contradictions, such as the choices in AF/UA of changing some pre-established lore and creating those contradictions, even within the same season.

Talking about the reboot, it's also an interesting thing because, in concept, the reboot is made as "not a redo" of the original series, but as "adventures we couldn't see before", of course, it had its big differences, but it was made in the idea it was still the same Ben as before. With much of the lore in the reboot being in fact from the original series, basically, everything from the original series is valid for the reboot, and the reboot is 80% just content from the old series, including elements that were originally present in the setting documentation and used in spin-off material, being used in-story.

The big problem with a lot of multimedia franchises is the lack of consistency or just knowledge of the material being expanded. For example, the secret behind Hawkgirl in the DCAU wasn't shared with the other branches of the franchise, so many tie-in products expanded a false backstory as true, making those stories essentially impossible to coexist with what is definitely canon. But such contradictions aren't exclusive to tie-in products, as some people only see "canon" as a good guideline that can be disregarded if that means creating a better product... even when it's by making contradictions in the same continuity.

But, what about Pokémon? Well, now that I gave the entire context of how none of this is simple with the very examples that people are giving on "it's just not acceptable", let's see the statements about the series.

Form Junichi Masuda's interview with GameInformer:

So, there isn’t war in the world of Pokémon where armies of Pokémon are fighting for the ideals of their leaders?

Masuda: Long ago, there may have been wars. Actually, if you look at one of the movies featuring the character Lucario, there are maybe some hints about the past of the Pokémon world.

Speaking of the movies and consequently the TV show, do the cartoons and the movies and the video games overlap? Is that all one Pokémon world, or are they two separate universes?

Masuda: basically it’s the same place. Looking at it as a parallel world, or in some select spots being a parallel world might be more accurate.

The context is clear, they asked for a bit of information about the world of Pokémon and Masuda answered with the Lucario movie, when asked if they are separated worlds or just one Pokémon world, Masuda stated it was "basically the same places", or "some select spots being a parallel world". The idea is about it being a single basic Pokémon world that shares most of its history and elements while keeping what is different as being a part of a parallel world. Or "they are the same most of the time, but there are differences due to being parallel worlds", but within this context, Masuda implies you can take elements of one and use them in the other, as he just did in regards to the Lucario movie.

He explained more about that on his personal blog:

Did everyone see this year’s Pokemon movie? In this movie, “Mew”, a Pokemon appeared in the first series, meets ‘Lucario’ introduced in Pokemon Diamond and Pearl. Unlike encounters in the game, you might feel some distance between the two Pokemon, but I liked the way they met in the movie, as two Pokemon in a movie. This movie begins with a war scene. And what with armors for Pokemon and others, it includes settings that we at Game Freak had tough time making decisions about. At the same time though, there is no certain opponent this time, and it includes many challenging ideas while keeping the world-view of Pokemon intact. So, I like it very much. It also brings you to tears. If ‘Lucario’ will grow in such a nice way, it might become very difficult for us to try to incorporate this Pokemon in a game. (it was very hard with Lugia…) But this time I came up with ideas like ‘Let’s do this, let’s do that!’ after I saw the movie. It’s a secret… You’ll be surprised when you play! In what part of Pokemon Diamond and Pearl does ‘Lucario’ appear? As you enjoy the movie, don’t forget to keep that in mind! By the way, do you remember that thing that looks like Mew’s family tree at the beginning of the movie. That’s based on Game Freak’s confidential documents about Pokemon Diamond and Pearl . See ya.

In regards to when the different products work together or not, Masuda himself gave an example of what works or doesn't work, in another Game Informer interview:

Pokémon can only say their own name. Pikachu, for example, can only speak his name. Do they say their own name and then that's what humans decide to call them? Or do humans start calling them their names and then the Pokémon recognize that and start saying it?

Junichi Masuda: I don't really know actually. Honestly, though, that a separation of the main series RPGs from the animated series. It's the animated series in which the Pokémon are always saying their names like that. I think we decided to do that in the animated series to make it easier for audiences to understand which Pokémon it is. Maybe in that universe the Pokémon starting saying their names first and then humans went, "Oh, okay. That must be your name.s"

As you can see above, this is a very clear difference between the world of the games that aren't shared with the world of the anime. Does this mean that they are 100% different and you shouldn't cross-reference anything? Definitely no, Masuda himself was the one who first mentioned they being mostly the same world, he stated one of the differences between the two universes just complements what he stated before, there are differences between them, but the similarities far outweigh the differences. In regards to canon itself, we in fact have interviews with Detective Pikachu staff that does explain how that works. From an interview with The Verge:

For Japanese game and toy maker Creatures, which is best-known for the Pokémon trading card game and multiple series spinoffs, the outlandishness of Detective Pikachu took a lot of convincing. “We really started with the concept of making Pikachu talk,” says Hiroyuki Jinnai, the producer of Detective Pikachu, who’s worked on the Pokémon franchise with creator Game Freak for more than two decades. The goal was to surprise people and alter the perception of the franchise’s most well-known face, Jinnai adds, in celebration of Pokémon’s 20th anniversary. “We really worked hard to come up with a justification and setting to make that work.” Jinnai, who’s also helped on and off as a producer and adviser on the Pokémon anime, says Game Freak has historically been quite protective of the world it's built. Executives at the game company, which operates as an independent entity with a stake in the Pokémon license alongside Nintendo and Creatures, often stopped writers on the TV program from taking liberties with pokémon, like imbuing the pocket monsters with too many human-like qualities. “It took a lot of convincing to let us break the rules,” Jinai says. The result is an utterly bizarre and yet lovably quaint video game that will no doubt find its place in the ever-expanding Pokémon canon.

The overall idea is that the Pokémon world across the many different products is basically the same, it has the same inner-working rules (Also called Settings/Settei) that make up the Worldview/Sekai-kan of the Pokémon series and you are supposed to look over certain contradictions that exist due to different media having different areas where they excel or just due to the limited freedom that they sometimes have.

I need to say that some contradictions mentioned here are a bit ridiculous to be taken seriously, because if that is the case then we can't even put different games in the same "canon" due to different movepools or Pokémon Encyclopedia profiles. The profiles themselves always had limited information from what is in the setting due to gameplay limitations, but that created the standard for the series.

There was even an official "Pokémon Encyclopedia" book released at the time of Reed/Green with expanded Pokémon profiles that explained a lot more about the backstory of the series, even showing how the data on the book is discovered by researchers and including lines of texts that would be used in later products, including some of them never being used in any game profile, but still being referenced in places like the anime. In fact, Takeshi Shudo made various mentions about said book on his personal blog and even had a character in the anime reading said book, and he mentioned how much Gamefreak controlled the worldview of the series and how they checked if there was any setting contradictions (As I explained on my personal blog), even with he not really thinking this was necessary because he didn't think there was to be any connection between the games and the anime (That is, Shudo himself accepted the vision that the work as its own, while it was Gamefreak that look over by themselves to be sure that the lore was reflected in the anime and novel, although this is something that is contradicted from time to time as I gave examples before).

Even on the games themselves there are limitations that sometimes are explained in-universe or in interviews, Masuda once said that some old Pokédex have "outdated information", and need to be updated. So yes, the games are going to have some changes for various reasons, although many of them can be explained in the universe, there are those who we are mostly supposed to just take as contradictions that are just bound to happen (Again, if the contradictions themselves are a reason for not to be accepted as being in the same "scaling", then the games themselves are never going to be accepted because each game has something that contradictions the previous ones).

In general, Pokémon seems to work under the idea that while each product really is a separated universe (The games themselves are basically never 100% the same universe), they do share mostly the same background and you are supposed to look beyond the differences for each work and look into the bigger picture to get a full grasp of the Pokémon world. At least is what I got from the interviews every time they mentioned the Pokémon worldview and Masuda's interviews with gameinformer.

About the profiles themselves, I don't really have a good idea of what to do with them as I'm more into the settings/lore than the profiles themselves, so people that work more with them know more than I do.

your post literally has a quote saying the anime and games are parralel worlds

 

[Sniper670]

Ayewale arguments seems to be convincing, and none of the counters have been legitimate good, just shouting ''game mechanics'' at everything that debunks their arguments, I'm now siding 100% with OP.

I'm pretty sure I debunked the "differences" of which I got a reply to only one of them which I promptly debunked.

If you think you can debunk it I can link it to you and you go ahead

 

[Sniper670]

1. Yes. But it's minor and is not referenced much. In fact in anime its almost nonexistent. Its literally just arbitrary numbers indicating stamina
2. That's false. GF barely has time to animate of the moves properly. I quite remember that meme where an headbutt is animated as a kick lol. One of the biggest things GF has never been good at, is animating moves lol
3. They dont. Anime works off plot inconveniences a lot of the time, but more often than not, they work just as is
4. Swift is game mechanics and can be dodged. It's literally homing attacks. Unless you want to argue it's Vector Manipulation, of which it's not
5. Ooh? But there's is. I don't see any "intelligence" here. Pokémon can speak to Pokémon, and have learned to live their lives without humans. Big deal.
6. Sure
7. Cool. You can dodge that. As I'm right. If
8. I pointed out these are just the limitations of the game being nonexistent in manga and anime. Plus, the creator of Pokémon literally says the manga is the way he envisioned the world.
9. Yes I do. What about it

^^^

 

[TheGreatMaster12]

^^^

What's your point? None of those attempts of ''debunk'' are convincing at all, is just dismissing everything that isn't in your favor as game mechanics and twisting everything to fit your narrative, like I have said before, I'm already siding with OP, and considering the overwhelming amount of support that OP arguments had, this thread would be approved sooner or later.

 

[Sniper670]

What a great way to dismiss the argument.

 

[TheGreatMaster12]

What a great way to dismiss the argument.

I don't care about your arguments, OP has already presented arguments that y'all have been unable to actually counter without twisting everything into y'all narrative.

 

[Sniper670]

I don't care about your arguments, OP has already presented arguments that y'all have been unable to actually counter without twisting everything into y'all narrative.

GF animates Headbutt as a kick

Anime animates Headbutt as headbutt

You : "This is a difference and a contradiction"

I pointed out moves in games being done differently is not an inconsistency but because several Pokémon have different physiologies for using these moves.

GF animates most of them the same, this won't work in anime

How is this, twisting into my own narrative?

 

[Agnaa]

So, does anyone here know how Character Model Sheets are called in Japanese? They are called Setting Document Collection (設定資料集, Settei shiryōshū) and this is a good example of what I mean.

This is definitely nitpicking, but since I've seen you take this approach a fair few times before, I think some nitpicks are in order. For a fair few series, I've seen then just called Setting Pictures (設定画, Setteiga), which imo fits better with the term "Character Model Sheet" due to mainly being pictures with only a few sparse details, rather than entire design documents. Plus, such design documents exist in other foreign companies as well; Pibby (Adult Swim animation) had some of its design documents leaked, Defender's Quest (western indie video game) included an excerpt from its design documents in an unlockable. I don't think this concept really needs to be explained in terms of Japanese since it seems to exist everywhere.

 

[Eseseso]

Quick question: What about pokedex entries?

I mean, some stuff like Tyranitar's High 7-A+ calc relies a lot on pokedex entries which IIRC don't really differ between the anime and games.

 

[Ayewale]

Quick question: What about pokedex entries?

I mean, some stuff like Tyranitar's High 7-A+ calc relies a lot on pokedex entries which IIRC don't really differ between the anime and games.

I mean, if the pokedex entries are all the same ten the feats stay the same by default since it's the same statement.
Although, between games pokedex entries change often.

 

[Agnaa]

If it's in both, it can be used for both.

 

[LephyrTheRevanchist]

Quick question: What about pokedex entries?

I mean, some stuff like Tyranitar's High 7-A+ calc relies a lot on pokedex entries which IIRC don't really differ between the anime and games.

This was already talked about in the thread itself.

Anything that is consistent for every medium will be shared by everyone. As such, there will be many redundancies, which means many profiles will remain almost identically to how are they now, if with updated descriptions to reflect how we aren't accepting cross-canon scaling (for example: the scaling to manga relativistic and city level feats aren't gonna be available for anime profiles).

 

[Sniper670]

Isn't all this still redundant??

Some moves are light speed iirc.... Solar Beam for example.

City level getting removed will also be redundant. Many feats are done through Pokedex entries, which will have characters scaling from there. Again, this changes nothing

 

[LephyrTheRevanchist]

Isn't all this still redundant??

Some moves are light speed iirc.... Solar Beam for example.

City level getting removed will also be redundant. Many feats are done through Pokedex entries, which will have characters scaling from there. Again, this changes nothing

As I said a couple pages a while back: Yes, this doesn't affect as much as some people believe it will. This will mainly affect legendary scaling and individual species/character profiles, as "normal" pokemon are relatively consistent thanks to the pokédex existing in virtually every media, and trainer 'mons (particularly those in the manga and anime, as well as PMD when we make/update those files) will scale to their own feats.

 

[Sniper670]

Alright then....

 

[Executor_N0]

So, does anyone here know how Character Model Sheets are called in Japanese? They are called Setting Document Collection (設定資料集, Settei shiryōshū) and this is a good example of what I mean.

This is definitely nitpicking, but since I've seen you take this approach a fair few times before, I think some nitpicks are in order. For a fair few series, I've seen then just called Setting Pictures (設定画, Setteiga), which imo fits better with the term "Character Model Sheet" due to mainly being pictures with only a few sparse details, rather than entire design documents. Plus, such design documents exist in other foreign companies as well; Pibby (Adult Swim animation) had some of its design documents leaked, Defender's Quest (western indie video game) included an excerpt from its design documents in an unlockable. I don't think this concept really needs to be explained in terms of Japanese since it seems to exist everywhere.

I used that because it's what I have to work with, in this case, I used the term how it's named in Digimon Adventure 02 Documentation and similar material, which is what I have to work from. And the reason why I use those terms is that by making use of said terminology I'm able to put the importance over the nuance of those terms outside of how they are understood in the west most of the time, such as in this thread. With Digimon in particular when some material is translated without such nuance (Such as calling a material canon/non-canon while the original quote was much more nuanced) leads to a lot of problems that I need to deal with constantly (Such as Survive's current understanding because of a single interview that decided to translate Habu's commentary of Survive's Gaiden-like status in a certain way).

So if I have to deal with this subject by using Japanese terms to go outside of the automatic understanding, I prefer to do that. It doesn't help that the material I go with also puts the Japanese understanding of the worldview and setting as different and much more nuanced from how the west uses that, even if I personally also think that it's more nuanced than that vague division between west and east.

So yes, isn't much different from what there's here in the west, but the automatic understanding of it isn't in line to what I normally see when I go for interviews about the subject (Such as all the Digimon interviews and livestreams that I looked into in order to prepare the upcoming revision.

Anyway, this subject is already outside of the current status of this thread, so if you want to discuss more of this I think we shouldn't discuss that here.

 

[Antvasima]

Can you write an explanation post of the discussion and arguments so far here please?

As far as I am concerned, this revision has been accepted, and a massive amount of stonewalling is taking place here, but I think that we may need to make it even more official given the controversy involved.

Well, I would prefer to ask Medeus and Gyro if they have changed their minds after reading Ayewale's upcoming explanation post. I much prefer to reach a consensus amongst the highest-level staff at least.

We do need to decide whether the evidence for a shared multiverse is sufficiently convincing to scale Arceus and the abstract entities to all of the continuities though.

So about these issues...

@Ayewale

 

[Sniper670]

He did that already. Which we went over and Gyro and Medeus didn't come back. Plus most people(and staff) agree with the split. Even Executor_N0, although he made a point about Shared Multiverse. Which brings me to my next point

For the CT, they're consistent enough. Plus from WoG the Pokémon world is a shared Multiverse and due to the CT status as being Multiversal Constants,I believe they should not be affected by the split

 

[Antvasima]

Did he really? Can somebody quote the post in question please, so I can call for Medeus and Gyro?

 

[Sniper670]

List of differences between different Pokemon mediums:

• The concept of PP is only vaguely alluded to in the anime twice after two and a half decades.
• Movepools and movesets can widely varybetween the games, anime and manga.
  • These are listed as errors but they're still canon to the anime.
• Immunities in the anime are infamous for being circumvented a lot. There's pikachu attacking rhyhorn's horn, yeah, but there's also using steel wing to divert electricity into the ground and making yourself immune to it, flying pokemon being affected by spikes, etc.
• Moves themselves tend to work very differently from their in-game versions. Hypnosis in-game does nothing but put you to sleep, but in the anime it's capable of straight-up mindcontrolling you.
• The four-move limit (which is referenced by lots of NPCs pretty explicitly) doesn't exist in non-game mediums.
• The manga and anime just make shit up when it comes to moves.
• Moves in the game that are literally stated to be 'unable to miss' can miss in the anime/manga. You cannot dismiss this as a game mechanic, as (a) these are right in the descriptions of the move, which we generally take at face value and (b) it ignores other game mechanics like evasion and accuracy drops.
• Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Pokemon have hugely increased intelligence compared to other mediums. Not many here want to scale from PMD but still.
• Some Pokemon have different scaling chains outright due to scaling to different things. You cannot just dismiss this as 'individual mons' since some of this applies to Wild Pokemon as well.
• Legendaries in particular have dramatically different Powers, Abilities and scaling from their game or manga counterparts.
• The portrayal of levels varies quite a bit between different mediums. Bulbapedia (a trusted source) says so pretty explicitly.
• In the anime, pretty much all Pokemon are able to understand human speech perfectly. In the games, the ability to understand human speech is something noteworthy enough to put in a Pokedex; we can reasonably infer that Anime Pokemon are more intelligent overall than their in-game counterparts.
• This is off the top of my head.

I am confident that the responses to these will be dismissing it as 'oh it's just a multiverse' or 'oh it's just game mechanics'. The former doesn't invalidate the differences at all and still proves that the canons have significant differences; the latter isn't true for any of these, as everything here is either from the lore or acknowledged in in-game dialogue; it's not just 'Hurr durr Gfreak is lazy'.

Based off these changes, the anime profile/key for every Pokemon at the very least would have very different Powers & Abilities, a different intelligence rating and a strong possibility for different Attack Potency/Striking Strength. This is far more than enough grounds to split a species canon.

This.

 

[Antvasima]

No, I asked about a more thorough summary in response to that very post:

Can you write an explanation post of the discussion and arguments so far here please?

Also, can somebody list all of the staff members who helped out here earlier, so I can send a notification to all of the staff members who commented here earlier afterwards.

 

[Agnaa]

I've linked Ayewale's thorough response to that post before. It's back here on page 6.