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Little details you noticed about the Pokemon series.

shoz999

Back when Tigers used to smoke.
Discuss the little details you noticed about the Pokemon series.



Okay, so I'll start with something I thought was only in the Pokemon Adventures manga but then after looking at other mediums, this is originally from the game canon. I'm talking about the Subway Bosses expressing their personalities through their faces which I've never actually noticed before outside of the manga where they just flaunt their personalities openly.

SBT8Cp8.png

So these are the Subway Bosses featured in the Pokemon Adventures manga. Emmet, the one in the white uniform, is the cheery excited one while Ingo, the one in the black uniform, is the professional serious one and you can see it on their faces. For a while, I thought this was a detail only in the Pokemon Adventures manga until I took another look at their other appearances in the games and TCG.

305px-Subway_Bosses.png

We can see these same facial expressions in the official game art as in the manga didn't just gave Emmet & Ingo original personalities but instead were expanding upon these characteristics found in the artwork and that is just so cool. It's the same Emmet looking excited while we see the same Ingo looking serious but it's not only just in the games, it's also in the official and exclusive TCG artwork.

429px-IngoEmmetTeamUp176.jpg

You can also see these very same expressions in the exclusive TCG artwork lol only much more stylish, Emmet once again looking excited while Ingo looks all serious. I don't know about you but does the Subway Bosses remind you of the Velvet sibling from the Persona games? Anyways, pretty cool detail right?
 
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WishIhadaManafi5

To Boldly Go Where No One Has Gone Before.
Staff member
Moderator
That Professor Oak was rivals with Agatha. Kind of cool.
 

RedJirachi

Veteran member
Eelektross' sprite change. The evolutionary line has Levitate as an ability. In the Generation V games, Eelektross kind of "stands" upright on its fins. But from Generation VI onwards its animation is "swimming" like a real eel/lamprey and more obviously floating. This was probably done to make the fact it levitates clear and not just a gameplay-only element.

I think this might be why Gengar's ability was changed from Levitate to Cursed Body as well. Gastly and Haunter are ultra-light poisonous gas, without legs. Gengar is clearly standing and gets proper weight like a more tangible, solid entity. The retcon seems to be because the dev teams realized there wasn't much, if any good reason why Gengar has Levitate as it clearly isn't floating. After all, the other ghost Duskull loses Levitate upon evolving where it gets feet and stays on the ground

It's subtle, but Cyrus's localized names actually fits into the name theme of Team Galactic's command structure. His name is derived from the Sun, which while not a planet in the modern sense it is in the Classical sense. That being the wandering stars, which were the Sun, the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. The only commander who does not fit the wandering stars naming in any regard is Charon/Pluto, neither of whom were known to the Greeks and are regarded as a moon/dwarf planet. Charon/Pluto was introduced later, is more of a hanger-on, carries no respect among his peers and doesn't even have a Pokemon team. Fitting, to be named after something outside of the nomenclature and a celestial object inferior to a planet or star.

Jupiter was named Ceres in the Spanish translation, another dwarf planet, which might be a slight to how she has zero idealism or good intentions compared to her boss, Saturn(who doesn't know the full extent of the plan) or Mars(who does but approves of Cyrus' goals). On another team, the Seven Sages are all referencing colors. That is, except for Ghetsis. It's a subtle foreshadowing to how Ghetsis is far more important and knows more than he lets on by having a distinctly different theme naming of his supposed equals

Finally, there's Lysandre. As a man associated with fire, even his appearance, it seems like his ace should be a Fire type and not the Water type Gyarados. Even to show off Mega Evolution, there are Fire type Megas he could've used. But Gyarados is known as a highly destructive and aggressive creature, one of the most rage-filled Pokemon in the game, who's Dark or "evil" type upon Mega Evolution. And what is Lysandre's goals? To destroy the majority of the planet out of an insane belief he can start over and improve it. What brought him to it? Frustration and anger at the world's failing to conserve resources and not being able to find a solution. Gyarados is the embodiment of Lysandre's madness, violent goals and misanthropy
 
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shoz999

Back when Tigers used to smoke.
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Red, Green & Blue as they are called in the West.

In Pokemon Let's Go, Red was given Venusaur while Blue (Rival) was given Charizard and this made sense to many fans familiar with the lore. Bulbasaur being the friendly responsible one represents Red well whereas Charmander being the cool fierce one which represents Blue (Rival) well but what about female protagonist Green and the Squirtle evolution line? What's the connection between these two?

For a while, fans only had to go on with Blastoise's Pokedex entry describing it's brutal style which fits well in Blue's deceptionally scary team however in a recent interview from Ken Sugimori, he revealed that in designing the starter Pokemon, they give each Pokemon a distinctive personality such as cool, serious and funny traits being a common approach and this can be seen in the Kanto starter trio. Bulbasaur being the serious caring starter which represents Red well, Charmander being the cool hot-headed starter which represents Blue (Rival) well and finally Squirtle being the funny easygoing starter which represents fem protag's Green's characteristics well from both her game & manga appearances.
 

Pikachu Fan Number Nine

Don't Mess wit Texas
There are rarely any death references in canon work.
 

Pikachu Fan Number Nine

Don't Mess wit Texas
There hasn't been a Japanese region since Sinnoh 13 years ago
 

RedJirachi

Veteran member
At least where their tails are concerned, Smeargle's regular and shiny forms seem to flip-flop in the early generations. Gen II has the shiny have the correct green paint while Gen III has a sort of mud-red(or brown if you're less generous). Gen III's sprites are on-model, but Colosseum and XD have it backwards again. It's only from Generation 4 and onwards that the normal and shiny Smeargle are on model

Every Pokemon where you could only get a limited amount originally(mainly gift or visual encounter) or you can't catch with a Pokeball that have gender ratios, are 7 male to 1 female. The starters, fossil Pokemon, Eevee(originally only one), Snorlax(originally only two roadblocks), Togepi(originally one egg in Johto), Riolu(originally one egg in Sinnoh). With breeding introduced, it seems to be a way of still making them semi-unique due to the rarity of a female member of the species, albeit an artifact in a number of cases. Relicanth also has the ratio, likely due to it being based off a living fossil and wanting to continue the theming of the fossil Pokemon. The elemental monkeys too, likely to keep their parallel to the starters. Which is also why their hidden abilities are the regular abilities of the correspondent starter Pokemon

Continuing the theme with the gender ratio, 3 male, 1 female is almost entirely for clearly masculine Pokemon. Kadabra and Alakazam have clear moustaches as opposed to, say, Whiscash's barbel growths. The Machop and Timburr line are really burly and don't need much explanation. Makuhita is a sumo wrestler. By contrast, 3 female, 1 male Pokemon are associated with feminine traits at some point in their lives, like cuteness, love(Luvdisc) or a feminine appearance(Gothita line). Of these ratios, the Growlithe and Vulpix line don't have much reasoning behind it, but they are opposite gender ratios of one another which fits their status as counterparts of one another

Unlike previous generations, Gen 6 and onwards designs their shinies explicitly. So many have an intentional theme, though some may not be too obvious, other more so. Greninja is clearly aping ninja colorings, Slurpuff has a chocolate theme to its general dessert nature, Clauncher is colored like a real lobster(ironically blue lobsters are basically real life shinies), Helioptile has a sunburnt red for a Pokemon associated with basking in the sun and Carbink and Diancie retain a carbon-burnt rocky part of their body with the white turned into a bright color, tying into them being related

Come Gen 7, Alolan Raichu adopts a deep tan for a surfer Pokemon, Grimer's regular colors are its other form's shiny colors and vice versa(at least their main colors), Litten takes after the rare white tiger, Crabrawler has red boxing gloves, Sandyghast takes after black sand, Pyukumuku is green like an actual cucumber, Type: Null and Silvally have more diluted golden colors from Arceus' shiny(fitting a sort of beta artificial Arceus), Minior is black but adopts the colors of its other forms in the triangles, the pink in Jangmo-o's heart symbol is befitting of a heart, Lunala adopts the colors of the moon during a lunar eclipse, Pheromosa has black "pants" as a nod to it and Lusamine's physical similarity, Ultra Necrozma is white like pure light and the original colors of shiny Magearna are an ultra ball to its orginal colors of a Pokeball in normal form
 

AgentKallus

It's not a game Kate.
In generation 3 a Pokemon's shiny colouration is that pokemon being given the palette of another pokemon, as there was limited space on the gba cartridges for different colours so each pokemon has a palette of colours that their sprite uses, apply one pokemon's palette to another sprite and voila shiny pokemon. Sometimes you can tell which pokemon different shines use the palette of.
 

RedJirachi

Veteran member
Are there some Pokemon from Gen 2-5 who's shinies were explictly designed and not up to pallette swap? Because I can think of a handful besides the red Gyarados-the Nidoran line has the coloration of the opposite gender(though Nidoqueen is the sore thumb in the way), Voltorb and Electrode have the color of a more effective ball, Slugma looks like its lava has solidified(which is an issue when it slows down), Ho-oh is gold in color(its the Pokemon Gold mascot), similar to its anime debut, Sableye has an emerald belly gem, Spinda has a rare back pearl, Lunatone has a blue eye(aka a blue moon), Lileep and Cradily have each other's colors, Latias and Latios have the other main colors(yellow and green, combined that's also the original four colors of the Gen I games) and Volcarona is yellow like the sun it represents

Klefki's Hidden Ability is Magician, which lets it steals the held item of a Pokemon if it hits them with a move. Klefki is described as a key collector. So the ability neatly reflects its character. Each of the Pokemon with Magician were picked with thought on the user-Fennekin in its final form is literally a magician, and Hoopa is a genie(so magic) that uses its wormhole hoops to take stuff. And this continues with its counterpart ability of Pickpocket-the Sneasel line are egg thieves, and Shiftry is a visually a sinister Pokemon so crimes like pickpocketing are fitting. Not sure where the Binacle line fits though. Maybe it's because it has a lot of hands to pickpocket
 

Aduro

Mt.BtlMaster
It was pointed out to me rather than me noticing it. But if you look the first Snorlax sprite from each generation, it spent a decade and a half to stand up. Such a lazy boy.

I bet the TCG has a lot of these.
 

Sakuyamon

Well-Known Member
The Sneasel, Sudowoodo and Celebi cards from the Neo Revelation TCG set are all part of one big picture that becomes complete when you have all 3 cards.
 

Pikachu Fan Number Nine

Don't Mess wit Texas
Among Water starters, the only evolutionary line not part of Water 1 is Oshawott (which begins as an otter pup, then becomes the adult otter Dewott, then the sea lion Samurott).
 

RedJirachi

Veteran member
The Nidoran line are the first gendered Pokemon(well, besides Jynx). Nidoqueen's chest plates resemble breasts. Also, Nuzleaf, regardless of gender, has dot nipples. So yeah, this may be the only G-rated game to show female nipples
 

shoz999

Back when Tigers used to smoke.
It just hit me that Flapple's ability Hustle may be more than just a gameplay mechanic but that it literally has to "hustle", move its arms in quick haste because it's literally using apple skins to fly.
 

Leonhart

Imagineer
TwilightBlade said:
The little boy in front of Birch's home in Ruby and Sapphire looks like Max from the anime. I guess Max must've been directly based off of the kid's design because the resemblance is uncanny.

Speaking of that, I noticed that the design of the male variant of the Schoolkid trainer class in OR/AS resembles Masato (Max) and I believe one of them actually owned a Ralts, which seemed like a reference to Masato befriending Ralts in the anime.
 
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