Firebrand said:
So what canons do you write in? Do you try to hew close to the games' rules for how things work, or do you prefer an anime-verse slant? Do you mix the canons so that you can play by whichever rules are most convenient at the time? And if you're working with a spin-off genre, do you adopt things from the other canons (and vice versa)?
Simplest way I can say it is that I work in my
own canon. The existing ones are interesting and all, but I prefer to go the extra mile that the franchise does not dare to go and put in the weight of a
history more than a story. I take various elements from the various canons and mix and blend them working on various aspects, but I ultimately don't go for a "manga feel" or for "anime physics" specifically, whatever those are supposed to mean.
For example I tend to go with "useful physics" rather than with "realistic physics" (which tend to be boring) or "anime physics" (where I sometimes get the impression it's like trying to make Pokémon battles read like early Dragon Ball Z ones). Nets you the best of everything so that a Pokémon can use their natural traits sensibly without having to be called out for extremes like "aim for the horn".
I go for the "overall the world is a nice place" storytelling of the anime where in the scale of human intervention it's the side of good that wins or that at least maintains a status quo, mixed with the simple and easy to follow mechanical structure of the games where you only have to worry about pretty much one thing at a time, but mix it all with a more long-term and realistic perspective of "Nature is Nature" where things like predation and extinction events are a thing and that is not bad, and incorporate themes, lore and mechanics from the TCG, PMD and more recently Rumble World. Am hoping to do something with Trozei and Pokken eventually too. For stuff like the tech, I tend to go mostly with what is shown as "commonplace" in the games except for the Pokéball itself where I don't go with either the games' "Pokémon are data" approach or the manga's "miniaturization" approach as I find both extremely problematic in various senses (in particular, in ethical senses). I don't really approach canon characters except that time I wrote Giovanni's Persian but when I do I tend to skirt closer to the anime, simply because there the characters have actual personalities but at the same time they are not that involved in the plots that they end up inflicting agency on things. For the lore I grab from whichever canon I find it fits better for a given subject but at the same time sprinkle things in a sparse enough universe that the lore, even if true or false to events, does not really effect things, for the time being at least.
Furthermore I like my canon to be reference-rich, not only towards Pokémon as a franchise but also towards other franchises I like, so elements and themes from things like Zelda or Final Fantasy eventually find their way adapted in.
So, going closer to icomeanon's question of "working in a canon" or "working with a canon", I'd say I work with canons. Plural.
But I am adaptable; I think I can work with plural
cannons as well!
Anime physics are definitely A Thing in my body of work.
I think what is understood as "anime physics" by different writers could make a very interesting topic of discussion on its own. I at least associate it with "aim for the horn" as stuff like using a vine to grab onto something or leap across a gap is not really anime, just how things work in any reality that is even just a bit like ours