shoz999
Back when Tigers used to smoke.
STORY SPOILERS
So just to get this started, for those excited about Avengers Endgame, there are absolutely no spoilers of that movie. I have not seen the movie but I will spoil the ending of Avengers Infinity War and I hope many of you guys keep any potential Endgame spoilers to yourself as I'm aware it's a big pop-cultural phenomenon. Also I will be comparing Pokemon to Avengers: Infinity War, the movie. Is it dumb? Probably. Still it's a fun comparison not to ignore as Pokemon is often underestimated when it comes to storytelling and I thought it would be fun to share this old moment with you guys as not a lot of Pokemon fans are aware from a time when the internet was still finding it's place, where a chunk of Pokemon fans genuinely really did freaked out for months thinking "Things can actually go wrong." because this was something really new to the Pokemon series at the time and embodies many tropes found in Avengers: Infinity War the movie, including the shocked reaction afterwards.
So Pokemon and shocking moments. Pokemon has had it's share of shocking moments throughout all of its mediums and even uncertain too but often not in a way that kept fans waiting and wondering for a long period of time in much of the same way Avengers Infinity War has kept fans waiting for Avengers Endgame. So some Pokemon movie spoilers but the time when Ash, the main character of the anime got "killed" by Mew and Mewtwo and the time when Latios was hinted at dying were all uncertain moments when most of us were children. They were short uncertain moments but they ended swiftly when Ash came back to life or when it was confirmed that Latios really was going to die and this happened shortly in tightly-contained stories that may or may not be canon to the anime continuity, individual movies rather than long-spanning story arcs.
As of this week, Avengers Endgame will be released and I have not seen the movie yet, so again no worries about spoilers but I will talk about it's predecessor Avengers Infinity War and it's spoilers, so do be aware of that. In the ending of Avengers Infinity War, the bad guy shockingly wins and the heroes not only lose but over half their team is killed on-screen which was quite unsettling for many in the audience. This moment shocked many movie-goers, especially those who were not familiar with comic book trends, but those who were familiar with comic book trends were likely shocked what this cinematic unvierse was building up to but at the same time they thought to themselves, "Of course they're going to come back." This mindset where fans are absolutely certain that the Avenger characters will come back comes from not only Marvel but the entire comic book industry itself that started a trend of getting shock-value from fans out of killing off superheroes only for them to come back alive and it's no surprise that some fans are casually thinking, "Yeah. They're not going to kill off over half these marketable superheroes, some of which don't have sequels yet." This was a common but expected trend in Marvel but the same cannot be said when something similar happened for the Pokemon series. The Pokemon series did had it's own little "Infinity War" ending moment but unlike the Infinity War movie who is produced by a company famed for repetitively doing this trend, this was new to the entire Pokemon series and was arguably the first time where many fans were left so shocked and so uncertain waiting for the next storyline to bring answers. For a long period of time, some were genuinely thinking "things can actually go wrong". This is Pokemon Adventures FireRed & LeafGreen Chapter and Pokemon Adventures Emerald Chapter and no one was prepared for one of the greatest Pokemon stories ever told.
Some of you may know what I'm referring to. Pokemon Adventures FRLG + Emerald Chapter is considered one of the best stories Pokemon has to offer and unlike Mewtwo Strikes Back or Pokemon Heroes, this was not an individual storyline but a two-parter storyline, as in the Emerald Chapter was a continuation of the FRLG's storyline. This is very important to know as to why Pokemon fans were in great shock as no one was expecting the FRLG chapter to be one half of a bigger story. This is heavily because this is also new to the Pokemon Adventures series as previously they never really had storylines split into parts. The FRLG and Emerald chapter are Pokemon Adventures first two-part storyline and fans never realized this until how FRLG ended so abruptly on a very shocking note.
The "Infinity War" ending moment I'm talking about, and some story spoilers, is none other than the villain Sird who petrifies the main characters of Gen 1 and Silver, a Gen 2 main character, turning them into stone. No one came for their rescue, the villain got away successfully and FRLG's storyline just ended like that with a lasting memory of a picture of long-time main characters that fans grew up with, frozen in stone with shocked looks on their faces. This was really dark, arguably darker than any moment fans have witnessed previously because they knew these main characters from different adventures where the good guy always win and yet, here they were in stone. Unlike Ash Ketchum of the Pokemon movie who made it out in one piece with a satisfactory finish, it just ended after that. Like Avengers Infinity War, the villain won and the heroes fates were left very uncertain. Similarly, this sent shockwaves to the Adventures fanbase. This was a pretty big deal at the time. For the first time as a Pokemon fan, I've seen a good chunk of fans who expressed across the internet that they were actually worried that things might actually turn out wrong in a Pokemon story, that they were actually freaking out. Some fans remained calm and waited for the next storyline in hopes that it would resolve this cliffhanger only they had to wait an even much longer time then anime fans do for the anime. This wasn't like the anime, the release schedule for Pokemon Adventures is much longer. When the next storyline arrived, I recall Pokemon fans having very mixed feelings and were still quite uncertain of how the cliffhanger was going to be resolved.
Remember how I said the FRLG arc and Emerald arc is a two-parter? See some fans did think that way at the time of the waiting period but when the Emerald Arc launched, it really put that idea into great question. Kusaka the writer of Pokemon Adventures is a good storyteller and honestly, I wonder if he was trolling his fans because the way the Emerald Chapter started off was not presented as a continuation of the storyline but felt like a completely brand new storyline that seemed to have nothing to do with the abrupt cliffhanger and this had fans worried, even annoyed. This was just however one big deception, a trick as it later turns out to be revealed an actual continuation of the storyline when the main character, Emerald, reveals what his goal is, to undo the petrification of the main characters from the previous arc. However at the time of this arc's launch, fans didn't know that. A part of me kind of believes that Kusaka's intentional or unintentional trolling of his fans may have contributed some hate to the new manga-exclusive character, Emerald. It also didn't helped that Emerald was honestly pretty annoying early on in the Emerald arc for most fans which only further contributed worry and uncertainty into this story arc. Luckily people started to grew on the kid and on one curious chapter, Kusaka teased his audience of a ship crew transporting some statues from Kanto to the Battle Frontier. Suddenly anger vanished and was replaced with curiosity and later it was going to be replaced with excitement and joy.
A lot of fans didn't anticipate FRLG's abrupt ending and they weren't anticipating Emerald's arc continuation of FRLG into a huge cross-over event. What's a crossover event? This is a term not really that familiar with Pokemon because it's just that extremely rare in Pokemon. It's a comic book term where members from different individual story lines cross together into one big event that progresses all their stories forward. The Avengers movies for example is considered a "cross-over event" and for the Emerald Arc this was a similar, if not a same case. For the case of this, this storyline is not just hailed as one of the greatest Pokemon storylines but is sometimes seen as the greatest amount of fanservice you will ever see executed right as a Pokemon fan. Fans were getting hyped, real hyped when Ruby & Sapphire of the Hoenn region and Gold & Krys of the Johto region arrived, characters modeled after Brendan and May from the Gen 3 games and Gold & Krys from the Gen 2 games. Not only that but one villain that kept fans attention was the mysterious lone Guile Hideout who was unlike anything the Pokemon series has seen at the time. He was essentially a "weak" villain, not like Jessie, James & Team Rocket but more along the lines of a well-written vulnerable villain pushed into the corner with real limitations, with no access to plentiful resources, hiding and plotting within enemy territory. That was Guile Hideout and the Emerald arc gave us one of the most intimidating villains of the Pokemon series, a definition of the feeling of powerlessness that can turn any respectable man into a cruel person. However what really made him significant and intimidating that it took three generations of Pokemon trainers to actually defeat this lone villain, hence, a cross-over event like Avengers Infinity War only things ended on a much more different note.
Similar to Thanos of Infinity War who was on a "bank heist" to take the Infinity Stones to manipulate reality, the villain Guile Hideout was also on a "bank heist" to take a very world-breaking Pokemon called Jirachi, the wishmaker Pokemon that can grant any wish and Guile Hideout actually succeeds. He won or at least he thinks he won. Now I don't know how the Avengers Endgame movie is going to bring back it's dead characters. I feel that is definitely going to happen and it will be a joyous moment for Marvel fans because similarly what happens next is a joyous moment for Pokemon fans. The character Emerald befriends Jirachi and his wish to undo the petrification of the main characters of the FRLG arc previously works. Some fans saw this coming but a lot of them weren't prepare of just how much a heartwarming moment this is as Pokemon fans to see the main characters of the FRLG arc after months of uncertainty finally become free from their seemingly doomed fate. One fan I saw commented, maybe she was exaggerating or she's going a little overboard, that she actually cried a bit during that scene, tears of joy were expressed at this moment. A lot of people felt similarly, but without the dramatic tears. Many Pokemon fans were greatly in-joy of not only the main characters of FRLG becoming free but three generations of trainers coming together for the very first time. They hugged, had some short talk. However things are not over when the three generations of trainers notice Guile Hideout, realizing another threat stands before them. Right after this short reunion, fans just got to witness this huge massive iconic scene of EVERY. SINGLE. main character from all three regions using their fullest strength, duking it out together against an onslaught of berserking Pokemon. This scene got people very happy and it's iconic as it really helps cement that this is the ultimate Pokemon fanservice to surpass Metal Gear and it is still today. They of course defeat the villain and unlike the dark-dreary climax ending of FRLG, things end on a more hopeful light-hearted note depicting a bright future for the main characters.
So with explaining many of the awesome tropes, the unique circumstances and fan expressions here, I think you can understand, as dumb as this sounds, that Pokemon does has it's own "Infinity War" moments. One of the reasons why I also just wanted to explain this is that there are fans who don't think the Pokemon series can't produce great stories. These aren't haters or toxic fans but are Pokemon fans who do genuinely love the Pokemon series, perhaps more than you or I but still feel the stories just aren't on the same level as their favorite manga or anime elsewhere, or not even close. I personally think that's wrong and Pokemon Adventures is proof that great Pokemon stories can be told, especially on this scale. What do you think? Have you ever seen any other Pokemon mediums with this much fear and excitement from fans.
So just to get this started, for those excited about Avengers Endgame, there are absolutely no spoilers of that movie. I have not seen the movie but I will spoil the ending of Avengers Infinity War and I hope many of you guys keep any potential Endgame spoilers to yourself as I'm aware it's a big pop-cultural phenomenon. Also I will be comparing Pokemon to Avengers: Infinity War, the movie. Is it dumb? Probably. Still it's a fun comparison not to ignore as Pokemon is often underestimated when it comes to storytelling and I thought it would be fun to share this old moment with you guys as not a lot of Pokemon fans are aware from a time when the internet was still finding it's place, where a chunk of Pokemon fans genuinely really did freaked out for months thinking "Things can actually go wrong." because this was something really new to the Pokemon series at the time and embodies many tropes found in Avengers: Infinity War the movie, including the shocked reaction afterwards.
So Pokemon and shocking moments. Pokemon has had it's share of shocking moments throughout all of its mediums and even uncertain too but often not in a way that kept fans waiting and wondering for a long period of time in much of the same way Avengers Infinity War has kept fans waiting for Avengers Endgame. So some Pokemon movie spoilers but the time when Ash, the main character of the anime got "killed" by Mew and Mewtwo and the time when Latios was hinted at dying were all uncertain moments when most of us were children. They were short uncertain moments but they ended swiftly when Ash came back to life or when it was confirmed that Latios really was going to die and this happened shortly in tightly-contained stories that may or may not be canon to the anime continuity, individual movies rather than long-spanning story arcs.
As of this week, Avengers Endgame will be released and I have not seen the movie yet, so again no worries about spoilers but I will talk about it's predecessor Avengers Infinity War and it's spoilers, so do be aware of that. In the ending of Avengers Infinity War, the bad guy shockingly wins and the heroes not only lose but over half their team is killed on-screen which was quite unsettling for many in the audience. This moment shocked many movie-goers, especially those who were not familiar with comic book trends, but those who were familiar with comic book trends were likely shocked what this cinematic unvierse was building up to but at the same time they thought to themselves, "Of course they're going to come back." This mindset where fans are absolutely certain that the Avenger characters will come back comes from not only Marvel but the entire comic book industry itself that started a trend of getting shock-value from fans out of killing off superheroes only for them to come back alive and it's no surprise that some fans are casually thinking, "Yeah. They're not going to kill off over half these marketable superheroes, some of which don't have sequels yet." This was a common but expected trend in Marvel but the same cannot be said when something similar happened for the Pokemon series. The Pokemon series did had it's own little "Infinity War" ending moment but unlike the Infinity War movie who is produced by a company famed for repetitively doing this trend, this was new to the entire Pokemon series and was arguably the first time where many fans were left so shocked and so uncertain waiting for the next storyline to bring answers. For a long period of time, some were genuinely thinking "things can actually go wrong". This is Pokemon Adventures FireRed & LeafGreen Chapter and Pokemon Adventures Emerald Chapter and no one was prepared for one of the greatest Pokemon stories ever told.
Some of you may know what I'm referring to. Pokemon Adventures FRLG + Emerald Chapter is considered one of the best stories Pokemon has to offer and unlike Mewtwo Strikes Back or Pokemon Heroes, this was not an individual storyline but a two-parter storyline, as in the Emerald Chapter was a continuation of the FRLG's storyline. This is very important to know as to why Pokemon fans were in great shock as no one was expecting the FRLG chapter to be one half of a bigger story. This is heavily because this is also new to the Pokemon Adventures series as previously they never really had storylines split into parts. The FRLG and Emerald chapter are Pokemon Adventures first two-part storyline and fans never realized this until how FRLG ended so abruptly on a very shocking note.
The "Infinity War" ending moment I'm talking about, and some story spoilers, is none other than the villain Sird who petrifies the main characters of Gen 1 and Silver, a Gen 2 main character, turning them into stone. No one came for their rescue, the villain got away successfully and FRLG's storyline just ended like that with a lasting memory of a picture of long-time main characters that fans grew up with, frozen in stone with shocked looks on their faces. This was really dark, arguably darker than any moment fans have witnessed previously because they knew these main characters from different adventures where the good guy always win and yet, here they were in stone. Unlike Ash Ketchum of the Pokemon movie who made it out in one piece with a satisfactory finish, it just ended after that. Like Avengers Infinity War, the villain won and the heroes fates were left very uncertain. Similarly, this sent shockwaves to the Adventures fanbase. This was a pretty big deal at the time. For the first time as a Pokemon fan, I've seen a good chunk of fans who expressed across the internet that they were actually worried that things might actually turn out wrong in a Pokemon story, that they were actually freaking out. Some fans remained calm and waited for the next storyline in hopes that it would resolve this cliffhanger only they had to wait an even much longer time then anime fans do for the anime. This wasn't like the anime, the release schedule for Pokemon Adventures is much longer. When the next storyline arrived, I recall Pokemon fans having very mixed feelings and were still quite uncertain of how the cliffhanger was going to be resolved.
Remember how I said the FRLG arc and Emerald arc is a two-parter? See some fans did think that way at the time of the waiting period but when the Emerald Arc launched, it really put that idea into great question. Kusaka the writer of Pokemon Adventures is a good storyteller and honestly, I wonder if he was trolling his fans because the way the Emerald Chapter started off was not presented as a continuation of the storyline but felt like a completely brand new storyline that seemed to have nothing to do with the abrupt cliffhanger and this had fans worried, even annoyed. This was just however one big deception, a trick as it later turns out to be revealed an actual continuation of the storyline when the main character, Emerald, reveals what his goal is, to undo the petrification of the main characters from the previous arc. However at the time of this arc's launch, fans didn't know that. A part of me kind of believes that Kusaka's intentional or unintentional trolling of his fans may have contributed some hate to the new manga-exclusive character, Emerald. It also didn't helped that Emerald was honestly pretty annoying early on in the Emerald arc for most fans which only further contributed worry and uncertainty into this story arc. Luckily people started to grew on the kid and on one curious chapter, Kusaka teased his audience of a ship crew transporting some statues from Kanto to the Battle Frontier. Suddenly anger vanished and was replaced with curiosity and later it was going to be replaced with excitement and joy.
A lot of fans didn't anticipate FRLG's abrupt ending and they weren't anticipating Emerald's arc continuation of FRLG into a huge cross-over event. What's a crossover event? This is a term not really that familiar with Pokemon because it's just that extremely rare in Pokemon. It's a comic book term where members from different individual story lines cross together into one big event that progresses all their stories forward. The Avengers movies for example is considered a "cross-over event" and for the Emerald Arc this was a similar, if not a same case. For the case of this, this storyline is not just hailed as one of the greatest Pokemon storylines but is sometimes seen as the greatest amount of fanservice you will ever see executed right as a Pokemon fan. Fans were getting hyped, real hyped when Ruby & Sapphire of the Hoenn region and Gold & Krys of the Johto region arrived, characters modeled after Brendan and May from the Gen 3 games and Gold & Krys from the Gen 2 games. Not only that but one villain that kept fans attention was the mysterious lone Guile Hideout who was unlike anything the Pokemon series has seen at the time. He was essentially a "weak" villain, not like Jessie, James & Team Rocket but more along the lines of a well-written vulnerable villain pushed into the corner with real limitations, with no access to plentiful resources, hiding and plotting within enemy territory. That was Guile Hideout and the Emerald arc gave us one of the most intimidating villains of the Pokemon series, a definition of the feeling of powerlessness that can turn any respectable man into a cruel person. However what really made him significant and intimidating that it took three generations of Pokemon trainers to actually defeat this lone villain, hence, a cross-over event like Avengers Infinity War only things ended on a much more different note.
Similar to Thanos of Infinity War who was on a "bank heist" to take the Infinity Stones to manipulate reality, the villain Guile Hideout was also on a "bank heist" to take a very world-breaking Pokemon called Jirachi, the wishmaker Pokemon that can grant any wish and Guile Hideout actually succeeds. He won or at least he thinks he won. Now I don't know how the Avengers Endgame movie is going to bring back it's dead characters. I feel that is definitely going to happen and it will be a joyous moment for Marvel fans because similarly what happens next is a joyous moment for Pokemon fans. The character Emerald befriends Jirachi and his wish to undo the petrification of the main characters of the FRLG arc previously works. Some fans saw this coming but a lot of them weren't prepare of just how much a heartwarming moment this is as Pokemon fans to see the main characters of the FRLG arc after months of uncertainty finally become free from their seemingly doomed fate. One fan I saw commented, maybe she was exaggerating or she's going a little overboard, that she actually cried a bit during that scene, tears of joy were expressed at this moment. A lot of people felt similarly, but without the dramatic tears. Many Pokemon fans were greatly in-joy of not only the main characters of FRLG becoming free but three generations of trainers coming together for the very first time. They hugged, had some short talk. However things are not over when the three generations of trainers notice Guile Hideout, realizing another threat stands before them. Right after this short reunion, fans just got to witness this huge massive iconic scene of EVERY. SINGLE. main character from all three regions using their fullest strength, duking it out together against an onslaught of berserking Pokemon. This scene got people very happy and it's iconic as it really helps cement that this is the ultimate Pokemon fanservice to surpass Metal Gear and it is still today. They of course defeat the villain and unlike the dark-dreary climax ending of FRLG, things end on a more hopeful light-hearted note depicting a bright future for the main characters.
So with explaining many of the awesome tropes, the unique circumstances and fan expressions here, I think you can understand, as dumb as this sounds, that Pokemon does has it's own "Infinity War" moments. One of the reasons why I also just wanted to explain this is that there are fans who don't think the Pokemon series can't produce great stories. These aren't haters or toxic fans but are Pokemon fans who do genuinely love the Pokemon series, perhaps more than you or I but still feel the stories just aren't on the same level as their favorite manga or anime elsewhere, or not even close. I personally think that's wrong and Pokemon Adventures is proof that great Pokemon stories can be told, especially on this scale. What do you think? Have you ever seen any other Pokemon mediums with this much fear and excitement from fans.
Last edited:
