How would a Pokemon TCG anime work?

[shoz999]

So to my knowledge, there are four long-runners. The games, the anime, the Adventures manga and finally the TCG. (EDIT: Five long runners, forgot the Pocket Monsters manga) Out of all them, the anime is of course an anime and the games and Adventures manga are the most-talked about in getting proper anime adaptations but the TCG is often left out due to a lack of a story. The thing is it's best to describe the TCG as kind of a sandbox where you think of your own story as it's lore is very loose but it does exist and you can see it in the pictures from the futuristic sci-fi city of Gen 6 to TCG's very own region in Gen 3 to the hidden cities lost in the mountains and seas of Gen 2 to of course the TCG Island featured in Gen 1, there's a lot of things going on in the TCG's depiction of the Pokemon World.

So. How would a Pokemon TCG anime work? Essentially a card game anime centered around Pokemon.

 

[Shadao]

The appeal of Pokémon is that you have characters interact with living, sapient creatures as friends and partners. That's what the foundation was built upon.

The issue with Pokémon TCG is that doesn't really offer that kind of appeal. It would be just a tabletop game with numbers, stats and a lot of meta commentary that will fly over people's heads. You look at Yu-Gi-Oh! and see what it's remembered for these days.

And in what fashion would the Pokémon be like in this hypothetical anime? Real creatures or just cards in the real world? If it's the former, why focus on the cards instead of the real deal? If it's the later, it might as well be a Youtube series of a real-life TCG player with some added visual flare.

TCG can offer world building and lore to other Pokémon adaptations, but to consider a full-length TCG anime adaptation reminds me of Hollywood's "attempts" to adapt everything imaginable in popular culture, like the ill-fated Battleship movie.

 

[shoz999]

The appeal of Pokémon is that you have characters interact with living, sapient creatures as friends and partners. That's what the foundation was built upon.

The issue with Pokémon TCG is that doesn't really offer that kind of appeal. It would be just a tabletop game with numbers, stats and a lot of meta commentary that will fly over people's heads. You look at Yu-Gi-Oh! and see what it's remembered for these days.

And in what fashion would the Pokémon be like in this hypothetical anime? Real creatures or just cards in the real world? If it's the former, why focus on the cards instead of the real deal? If it's the later, it might as well be a Youtube series of a real-life TCG player with some added visual flare.

TCG can offer world building and lore to other Pokémon adaptations, but to consider a full-length TCG anime adaptation reminds me of Hollywood's "attempts" to adapt everything imaginable in popular culture, like the ill-fated Battleship movie.

I think it can work. It would be basically real-life players playing a Pokemon TCG card game only this happens in the Pokemon world where you can see Pokemon among the audience watching a TCG card game played on a table. Honestly though I think the real issue is the draw of the card. One of the reasons why people jokingly think that Yugi can BS his way out of anything is that card games are made that way to be taken advantage of the writers, in this case the draw of the card. If you pull a bad card, the protagonist would be in a tight situation. But if he pulls a good card, usually a game-changer without using the deck's strategy that it just seems like he won the match quickly. I suppose the hardest part though is deck-building. Pokemon is definitely one of the easier TCG's to play but it has a heavy reliance on deck-building. For example there's this popular deck centered around Ultra Necrozma or Regular Necrozma that revolves around accelerating resources from your discard pile and deck. That has a specific focus in-mind and if you were to just BS your way out of it by pulling a game-changer card that isn't recommended in the deck but is convenient for this specific situation, I can see that as kind of a problem in terms of immersion. I suppose it depends on the viewer however and their knowledge on the game.

Also when I say full anime season, I don't mean nowhere on the scale as the Pokemon anime series. I mean like 10 to maybe 40 episodes at the very most.

 

[Jeal]

So to my knowledge, there are four long-runners. The games, the anime, the Adventures manga and finally the TCG.

There is the Pocket Monsters manga, the first pokémon manga


I think it would work like Yu-Gi-Oh!, with the pokémon being holograms. The plot would be about a boy trying to win a tournament.

 

[shoz999]

There is the Pocket Monsters manga, the first pokémon manga


I think it would work like Yu-Gi-Oh!, with the pokémon being holograms. The plot would be about a boy trying to win a tournament.

Oh yeah. I forgot about Pocket Monsters.

As for the tournament idea, it could be about a boy challenging eight Club Masters who each wield different decks in the classic Gen 1 format. Although I suppose a SM take on the Club Masters wouldn't be that hard to work either.

 

[AuraChannelerChris]

Think Yu-Gi-Oh but muuuuuuuuuuuuuch less religious and nonsensical.

 

[Tsukuyomi56]

Not really sure as it can be tricky to establish a lore where the card game is the main means to conduct Pokémon battles. The cards being the way to remember the Pokemon after they all became extinct seems a bit morbid and the whole alternate/separate dimension or world could run the risk of turning the anime into a Yu-Gi-Oh! or Cardfight Vanguard clone.

 

[mehmeh1]

is pocket monsters still running anyways? I thought that manga ended in like 2016-ish

 

[Frozocrone]

Basically YuGiOh...

So we would have Ash as the King of Pokemon, the Moltres Slacker, Pokemon on Motorcycles, Pokemon in space, Pokemon in dimensions, Pokemon in the virtual world??

I admittedly don't follow YuGiOh anime anymore.

 

[shoz999]

Basically YuGiOh...

So we would have Ash as the King of Pokemon, the Moltres Slacker, Pokemon on Motorcycles, Pokemon in space, Pokemon in dimensions, Pokemon in the virtual world??

I admittedly don't follow YuGiOh anime anymore.

You forgot the part where holograms can injure people and if you lose a children's card game, you can di-I mean go to the shadow realm.

 

[AuraChannelerChris]

Scratch the nonsensical part I said.

It's going to be just as bonkers as Duel Masters.

 

[mehmeh1]

Basically YuGiOh...

So we would have Ash as the King of Pokemon, the Moltres Slacker, Pokemon on Motorcycles, Pokemon in space, Pokemon in dimensions, Pokemon in the virtual world??

I admittedly don't follow YuGiOh anime anymore.

for some reason I've never finished any yugioh series, I watch them for 100 or so episodes and then randomly drop them for no real reason, even though then I tend to watch the finale too (haven't watached vrains at all, btw)

 

[shoz999]

for some reason I've never finished any yugioh series, I watch them for 100 or so episodes and then randomly drop them for no real reason, even though then I tend to watch the finale too (haven't watached vrains at all, btw)

Would you believe me that listening to the characters explaining each and every card makes my brain go stupid? Like literally, I am not kidding. Yu-Gi-Oh is the only anime series so far to make my brain go stupid when I was a kid and later on when I'm an adult. Personally I believe instead of just randomly pulling any card they want, the card game should create a sense of immersion by actually following the deck's playstyle rather than specific cards and from there, you get a bunch of limitations and strengths that make the game much more interesting to watch. For example, a deck centered around some popular fire-types, like Entei, that literally requires you to burn through much of your deck in order to attack and this is the entire deck's playstyle. This is the focus of the deck, nothing more and nothing else.

 

[BenLee really not taken]

They can make themselves distinct from Yugioh, by dropping evil villians or save the world plot, and have the competitive spirit be the main focus. They can even focus on other aspects than just battling with cards, such as collecting rare and expensive cards or talking of Booster Packs.

 

[mehmeh1]

Would you believe me that listening to the characters explaining each and every card makes my brain go stupid? Like literally, I am not kidding. Yu-Gi-Oh is the only anime series so far to make my brain go stupid when I was a kid and later on when I'm an adult. Personally I believe instead of just randomly pulling any card they want, the card game should create a sense of immersion by actually following the deck's playstyle rather than specific cards and from there, you get a bunch of limitations and strengths that make the game much more interesting to watch. For example, a deck centered around some popular fire-types, like Entei, that literally requires you to burn through much of your deck in order to attack and this is the entire deck's playstyle. This is the focus of the deck, nothing more and nothing else.

to be fair, early/mid arc v tried to give focus to multiple archetypes and their actual strategies

 

[Twilight-Kun]

How long before a children's card game gets retconned into being the literal center of the universe, and absolutely integral to everyday life?

CARD GAMES ON POKÉMON

 

[shoz999]

How long before a children's card game gets retconned into being the literal center of the universe, and absolutely integral to everyday life?

CARD GAMES ON POKÉMON

You know... it kind of is in the TCG games lol. You see apparently the fate of the universe, or the island which is called "TCG Island", hinges on the balance of four legendary cards lol and in the sequel, Team Great Rocket comes in and kidnaps the Club Masters who apparently help protect these legendary cards lol and the only way to defeat Team Great Rocket is through you guessed it, a children's trading card game.

 

[Doppelgänger]

Saying it would be like Yu-Gi-Oh! is basically saying it would be a failure. YGO's primary purpose is to introduce, promote, and sell new card sets. The modern anime is basically reading card effects for 22 minutes. Pokemon's TCG might have undergone power creep, but not to the point that King James Bibles are being written on the card stock.

If the hypothetical anime was styled like GX, with simple gameplay and a strong focus on the character drama, it could work as a standalone show. But I don't think it would be as effective as YGO at "introduce, promote, sell" because the regular anime does that just fine and is more exciting. TCG anime also tend to be dispassionate, there was silliness in DM about "loving/respecting your cards" but they're cards so later anime tends to ignore that. That would contradict the themes the regular anime is trying to promote.

I don't see a world where a Pokemon TCG anime could exist and do what YGO does while not being redundant with the regular anime.

 

[BTS_fan]

It would not work if it was anything like Yugioh, but a TCG themed Pokemon anime that's less dramatic and complex than that might be worth watching.

 

[shoz999]

What about a slice-and-life exploration anime featuring a bunch of scientists researching on the Delta Species of the Holo region but during break and lunch times, they play the Pokemon TCG not in some virtual simulator but just a regular card game modeled after Pokemon with real competitive deck-builds as they play just to kill some time.