tbh at this point, I think it's inevitable that Serena's crush will eventually be painted over by this anime. I wish I had more hope for this show, but the AG retcon being sorta 'finalized' really takes any wind out of my sails. Unless there's a huge shift in this show at the production level itself, I don't really see them ever going back to something as 'mature' as Amourshipping.
Even then, I wouldn't be surprised if some tone-deaf exec decided to replicate Serena's popularity by demanding that yet another female companion be given a romantic subplot with Ash, rather than building up on something that already exists.
That decision won't be coming from execs. It'll be from the production team themselves, since JN has proven that they don't give a damn about shilling the current gen anymore, or pleasing anyone other than themselves and the people they deem to be the "Correct Fans".
I can at least accept retconning Serena's feelings for Ash (at least for this season) but if they have her fall for another guy then that's it. Amourshipping has sunk. There's no going back from that. At least with just retconning her feelings, some future potential director can bring up her crush on Ash and continue any potential development.
As for a new romantic subplot, I think the director and writers will have a hard time coming up with another one that can top Amourshipping. I can think of one but I doubt the writers would be competent enough to pull it off. I mean, it's not too late to introduce Leaf as a potential childhood friend that spent time with Ash when they were kids and shares the same interest
It'll probably happen once they confirm Pearl and change the kiss to a fist-bump. Or even revealing that she never kissed Ash at all.
Some japanese fans are already treating JN as a parallel universe and is disregarding it from the anime canon LMAO.
Now I really want to hear what the staff is going to say once JN is over.
I already have. And no, they probably won't say anything unless it's really ugly. And even if they do OLM and the rest of the production team will probably try and get them blacklisted from the industry.
Considering that Pokémon SV has a sudden change of artstyle in terms of character designs, I do wonder if anipoke will also adapt the changes. That would be nice and I hope to see it happen.
Let's just say some animators are not happy with the way how things are going since JN115 and they are expressing it subtly. It's Kalos league all over again.
I feel that anipoke PR right now are tone-deaf. Ever since JN115 aired, it has received a ton of backlash. They even have the audacity of posting these, lmao. I mean, just look at majority of the replies. Yikes.
I got off-topic there but to get back, at this point, my only hope for a Serena return that may be beneficial to amourshipping is by the time we are past Tomiyasu-era. Maybe I should also treat this season as a parallel universe like many people are doing
That last tweet gets worse:
It's starting to appear that all of this is being done on purpose. Fans like us are not wanted.
Well if they can retcon something like Ash Greninja then more power to the fanbase to deem the entirety of JN as non-canon I guess.
What I’m really afraid of is the writers doing irreparable damage to Ash as a character which affects the story as a whole. Then it might force them to either reboot or drop Ash unceremoniously with no resolution to his character arc whatsoever.
Making him a hyperactive imbecile that stumbles into wins by instant win buttons wasn't damaging enough? Remember the data searching debacle? They don't care about what they do to him, they'll just keep bringing him along for whatever coked up detritus they come up with.
One more weird thing here is that they still show XYZ stuff in their PR material. Newer fans would probably want to see how Ash and Alain fought (there’s probably a lot in youtube) and discover that Ash’s Greninja had a special form that isn’t present in JN.
Yeah, because they're trolling XY fans! That's all they want to do now! And the SM Stans love it, because we're the toxic ones who harass anyone in the way of our precious pairing, our overrated fan-fic frog and our toxic gary-stu Ash. Meanwhile, they love the flawed relatable child who acts like a true 10 year old (Never mind that no 10 year old I've met acts even remotely like SM Ash.), and the heartwarming family connection with his papa Kukui and his true mother Burnett.
Even newer fans are aware of Ash Greninja and even Amourshipping.
Don't forget that there are full episodes of the anime that are uploaded on the official Japanese Pokemon channel (we can't see them because it's limited to Japanese only but I can show you with a VPN). I think it was meant to celebrate the upcoming 25 years anniversary of the anime last year so they uploaded 3 episodes of each saga iirc.
Ash Greninja vs Mega Sceptile is one of the most viewed episode with 5.3 M views, it was the most viewed before the backstory episode of Pikachu as a Pichu came around.
Same for Amourshipping, the Aria vs Serena episode is uploaded (this one episode where Ash talks to Serena at night and got referenced in JN105) it got 2M views (2nd most viewed XY's episode, more views than XY EP001) and the most reviewed part is when Miette is teasing Serena.
Ash Greninja vs Sceptile
Serena vs Aria (with the most replayed part)
So... Yeah any random Japanese fan can watch these two episodes for free on Youtube. Two episodes with Ash Greninja and Amourshipping (kinda) as the focus each.
25th anniversary of the anime, nothing too deep tbh.
Doesn't matter if the people running the show hate XY with every fibre of their being and pander to those who do the same thing.
What sort of 'backlash' are we talking about here?
They are, indeed, tone-deaf as all hell.
I heard a few expressing something along the lines of doing one episode they really like, and the next is something they really don't want to work on.
They're not tone-deaf, their number one priority is to get rid of the toxic XY fans who like the wrong series and harass people including VA's and staff over writing decisions. Never mind that some of us tried to give the holy bible that is Sun and Moon a chance. But since we didn't like it, we are heretics that need to be crucified and burned at the stake for speaking or thinking such heresy!
Well ok, not really. But that's what the current "Older audience" is looking like right this second.
This is revenge in more ways than one. And while a lot of the SM cult talk I had is an over-exaggeration, what isn't being over-exaggerated is the fact that SM, JN and the PWC is the staff's revenge against the XY fans for the Kalos League reaction. And SM and JN stans are starting to live vicariously through the staff, and this hollow shell masquerading as Ash.
