Category Archives: Pokemon

My Impressions of Poppy and Tinkaton (Pokémon Masters EX)

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I’ve been out of Pokémon Masters EX for a while. But this morning, I learned from Serebii’s site that a new sync pair dropped, which is characterized by a combination of cuteness and overwhelming force.

Some might find such qualities mismatched, but such a combination of attributes appeals directly to my sensibilities, which could probably be called the most normal thing about me. So, I opened the app for the first time in months, and saw that I only had enough gems to run the x11 gacha three times. With a 2% draw rate for each of the 33 attempts I’d make, it was a roll of the dice. But it worked out with the 3rd x11 scout.

This time around, I scouted a character before even knowing the character’s kit. I’ve been through this enough times that I had learned from the pattern: the power creep had long since hit this game like a monster truck, so the newest character was probably the best by a long shot.

If Poppy and Tinkaton are not the best, then they are sure close. Their slap-you-in-the-face power can be likened to that of Steven and Deoxys or Erika and Leafeon, and certainly far beyond my first OP sync pair, Leon and Charizard.

Let’s give this kit a look, starting with the stats:

Yes, I already unlocked the EX outfit. What she’s supposed to do with that Sp. Atk, I don’t know, as her attack moves come off her physical attack. She’s got the glass cannon thing going for her, which is just fine, because you’ll place her behind two bulky support characters. Probably Red and Snorlax and Leaf and Eevee. Which go great with just about any attacker.

Here’s the move selection:

You could probably guess what Play Rough and Thunder Wave do. Play Rough will be the move you fall back on after your initial catastrophic barrage. There’s two moves I want to focus on, here:

The main setup move, which instantly cranks Tinkaton’s Attack stat to max, and makes the next move free. That’s gotten to be a standard convention for these OP characters. But now for her attack move:

A move only available each time Tinkaton uses a different move, which is slightly inconvenient, but with a catastrophic 450 power. While I’m not as impressed as I once was with such huge numbers (I’ve seen what power creep does to games like this), it’s still to be appreciated just how enormous this attack is. You do get to use this immediately after using the setup move, which means it can come off a maxed attack, for free.

Looking at passive abilities, she gets a couple good ones. For one thing, her stats can’t be lowered, so that increased Attack and whatever other stat boosts she gets from her allies isn’t going anywhere. This also ruins any strategy an opponent may try that depends upon lowering an opponent’s stats, but that doesn’t happen in this game very often. Speaking of, she also lowers an opponent’s Defense by two stages if her use of Thunder Wave is successful against them. Which is great if you want to slammify an opponent even harder.

But here’s the passive skill that I want to put the spotlight on:

So, on top of all that, her attacks are going to be critical hits. Unless the opponent is immune to those, for whatever reason. Assuming that critical hits work in this game like they do in other Pokémon games, this means that the attacks will do 1.5x damage, and ignore opponent’s defensive stat boosts. Because, you know, this kit needed even more irresistible power.

Reading Poppy and Tinkaton’s kit is like seeing that a character has a lot of damage potential, and as you continue reading, each ability the character possesses increases the damage potential further, for reasons that are simple and straightforward, and only require minimal setup, if any.

Basically, if a kid wanted to design a character who they wanted to win because they do a lot of damage, they’d come up with a kit like this. Except they’d probably also attach missiles and laser beams. Or is that just me?

If you’re interested, here’s Poppy’s character tags:

“Fancy” does not mean “nice”.

For those participating in her event, she can gain access to an exclusive Lucky Skill that brings down an opponent’s defense if they’re already paralyzed and survive an attack that Tinkaton uses against them. This sync pair is the total package.

And what’s more, at 6* EX, her sync move hits all opponents. Standard for an attacker sync pair, but hits a bit different considering the force behind it.

At this point, it’s clear why this game doesn’t have a direct PVP element. If it did, then most battles between players would come down to which ones can wipe out the other before the other can even make a move. This being the case, Pokémon Masters EX depends on in-game opponents to provide players with satisfying challenges. And it does okay at this with event battles.

Like with most RPGs, the objective of battles in Pokémon Masters EX is to lower the opponents HP to zero, before they do the same to you. Poppy’s kit shows that she’s very effective at this, and can accomplish it in a highly straightforward manner, with little in the way of elegance.

This sync pair may be diminutive in stature, but if you respect power (and admire cuteness), then it’ll quickly become a favorite. In my opinion, it’s definitely worth pulling.

Is Pokémon going woke?! And why isn’t Raizen concerned?

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It’s just come to the attention of the general community that The Pokémon Company has a job posting for a Director of DEI. This has resulted in concern that Pokémon has become the latest to fall prey to the woke ideology.

While it’s true that this is an unsettling development, I’m not as worried as others seem to be, for reasons that I’ll go into.

But first, I’ll go over why my fellow Pokémon fans are understandably concerned.

Wokeness degrades everything it touches. It’s concerned with the ideology rather than the quality of the product. Where it infiltrates, tokenism and virtue signaling become the order of the day. The usual consequences involve the quality of the product suffering, investors losing out on stock value, and in many cases, sales tank because customers disagree with the implementation of political ideology in a product that was otherwise less divisive.

So, if The Pokémon Company is looking for a DEI director, does that mean that Pokémon is falling to woke?

While this development is far from welcome, and may call for action on the part of the community, it does not mean that Pokémon is already a lost cause, as some might make it out to be.

For one thing, The Pokémon Company are not the main developers of the core Pokémon games. That would be GameFreak.

You might remember that Nippon Ichi Software America (NISA) was among the first companies to jump onto the anti-GamerGate bandwagon when game journalists initiated their slander campaign against gamers upset about the state of games journalism. One might imagine that Nippon Ichi Software (NIS) games turned SJW as a consequence.

But they didn’t. And here’s why: NISA doesn’t develop games. NISA is a localization company. The games were still made by NIS in Japan. The worst NISA could do is make changes to the original product in such a way which constitutes censorship, which one could get around by getting the Japanese originals and playing the games in their original languages. Whether NISA censors the games they localized or not, they must recognize that to do so would risk alienating their core audience of JRPG purists. And, as it so happens, NISA’s censorship has been minimal, if at all existent. The main issue with NISA is whether they can localize a DLC package without turning it into a buggy mess.

Knowing this, consider the fact that The Pokémon Company, which is largely a merchandising and localization company, is looking for a DEI officer. There wouldn’t be much expectation that such a person, if hired, could do much to damage the brand.

Now, I know that some might present the picture of the jacked woman from Scarlet and Violet as evidence that Pokémon has already been going the woke route:

Oh, hold on… That screen was from Pokémon Colosseum, released in 2003 (2004 in Japan and Europe). Here’s the one from Scarlet and Violet:

Aside from the fact that this is an obvious example of the cherry-picking fallacy, as there are many NPCs in SV that have many body types (the female protagonist is standing right there), it also overlooks that sometimes comically jacked characters are used for irony, particularly when they’re women. It’s also nothing new that sometimes ambiguous characters are used for humor, and for some reason, we’ve all collectively decided to overlook it when it was employed in FFVII and its remake.

Having said that, the fact that The Pokémon Company is seeking a DEI director at all is concerning. But there’s another side to this that’s not being understood: that the posting isn’t new. It was only recently discovered by the general community. Unless I’ve been misinformed, the posting is years old. Thus, the position hasn’t been filled, perhaps because The Pokémon Company wasn’t actually serious about filling it. What’s more, the posting was packed with buzzwords.

When you consider this, what it looks like to me is that the posting was formed to fill out some arbitrary checkboxes to satisfy some unsavory consultants, rather than a sincere desire to pay someone $200,000 a year to destroy a brand and piss off investors.

I know that taking a moment to look at a matter rationally might not be as fun as rushing out in some indignant rage, but it’s important that we understand the reality of the matter, so we can make more strategic moves.

Still, I know that some might see the posting, and feel tempted to flood it with joke applications and résumé’s. To this I say, don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.

Now, if you want to reach out to someone who is in an official capacity to express your concern, the best way to go about this is to make your concerns known to the Japanese company, GameFreak. While you can try to reach out to Nintendo of America or The Pokémon Company, because they are largely merchandising and localization companies, they wouldn’t have much say over how their respective parent companies are run. Basically, it’s companies like Nintendo of Japan and GameFreak that hold sway in how the products are made, and the direction that their respective merchandising companies go in.

When writing to a company in Japan, it helps to know that the culture is way different. The Japanese are far more likely to respond to respect. If you come off as entitled or condescending, they’re not likely to listen to you. Also, it might not hurt to run your message through a translator to get your message in the Japanese language. There may be someone there who can read your message in your own language, but it’s less likely. Perhaps include a disclaimer that Japanese isn’t your first language.

Woke is coming for the things that we consider fun. It may be late in the game, considering the effectiveness of the boycotts against Bud Light and, more recently, Planet Fitness. Still, we can’t let the woke mind virus destroy the things we love. Even if the tide is turning in our favor, we can’t let up in fighting back.

Pokémon Legends Z-A just announced, but not much else out of Pokémon Presents.

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There was a Pokémon Presents today, I suppose.

I didn’t go in with high expectations, but I was somehow still disappointed. Just remembering last year, it seems like Pokémon Presents has basically come down to a bunch of announcements for some mobile games that I mostly don’t care about.

Pokémon Sleep? I tried it, and it got old after about a month. Pokémon Cafe Remix? I played it a few times, but it was basically a puzzle game with a Pokémon theme. Pokémon Unite? Did anyone really still care about Pokémon Unite a week after it dropped?

The new Pokémon TCG app looks kinda lit, but outside of that, what was there? Pokémon Go is still huge, but its announcement was yet another Pikachu with a hat. Anyone who has been playing Pokémon Go can tell you just how mundane that is. The Pokémon Horizons anime is great, so it deserves a better tie-in than to add its characters to the list of photobombs in Pokémon Go.

Here’s the Pokémon Go announcement that I want to hear: that Niantic will finally address the many problems that have plagued the game’s features since the inceptions of those features.

Instead, Niantic is probably just going to implement one flawed feature after another, not implementing fixes unless there’s an exploit that players could potentially benefit from, that they would issue a quick-fix for.

I used to really like Pokémon Masters. So I might have hoped for something that might have gotten me back into the game. Instead, they announced a new batch of variant trainers that you have to randomly pull from gachas. At this point, Pokémon Masters can be called a “try to pull your favorite waifu character from the gacha” game. Is that accurate?

The big announcement was for Pokémon Legends Z-A. That was completely unexpected. That might be exciting, but it’s not even arriving this year. Sure, it’s great that GameFreak is putting more time into their next game rather than going for the yearly scheduled Nov. 18ish release. And it’s from GameFreak and not another buggy ILCA mess, so it’s probably going to be great. And mega evolutions are coming back, so there’s that, too.

But overall, this year’s Pokémon Presents was a great disappointment. So, maybe I’ll give PalWorld a try.

Firing Off On Palworld

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Earlier this month, Palworld dropped on Steam, and since then, it’s raised some eyebrows with its resemblance to Pokémon.

I haven’t yet played Palworld, and maybe I’ll give it a try later on. It does look intriguing. This article is little more than my own opinion about the drama surrounding it, not my impression on the game.

In the Pokémon community, this game has stirred up some strong feelings, with many taking a side between supporting the game or not.

As I see it, Pokémon could use a bit of competition to stir them to improve. There have been issues surrounding Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, largely concerning performance issues, with some complaints being petty, and some being well-founded.

One of the matters concerning Palworld that has caught player’s attentions is that some of the pal characters bear a strong resemblance to Pokémon. As I see it, games like Digimon and Monster Rancher have done a lot more to ape Pokemon’s style, yet those games aren’t something that The Pokémon Company has had any issue with.

But there’s evidently something about Palworld that got their attention, as indicated by the following statement:

While one may interpret this as meaning that Pokémon is going to go after Palworld, what it comes down to is that it’s caught their attention, and they’re looking into it. Their statement that they didn’t grant the use of Pokémon assets is not a definitive statement that that Pokémon assets were used. It’s something that they intend to look into, and as the last sentence indicates, they intend to defend their copyright, if necessary.

And it might not come to that, because even though comparisons can be made between certain Pokémon and Palworld’s pals, they may be sufficiently different that no action would be needed to protect GameFreak’s copyright.

Remember that if a company doesn’t defend its copyright, they risk losing that copyright, hence Nintendo’s interest in defending Pokémon, which is the highest grossing intellectual property in human history.

Based on what I’ve seen, Palworld doesn’t infringe on GameFreak’s copyright, it merely imitates it, which wasn’t an issue when it came to similar games like Yokai Watch.

There have been comparisons made between the Pokémon characters and Pal World pals, and you may have seen some. Some of those comparisons may have been misleading, as one source of some more popular comparisons has admitted to scaling some Pal World models to make them more closely resemble Pokémon.

Having said that, I’m aware that there is something about Palworld that stirs up strong feelings among Pokémon fans, one way or another, particularly among those employed at Nintendo. There’s something about arming little critters with guns and sometimes eating them that goes against the established tone of the Pokémon franchise, and most games that plainly took inspiration from Pokémon. But that difference in tone can possibly be used to make the case that Palworld is sufficiently transformative to avoid legal trouble.

Another point of contention that has come up is that the developer of Palworld, Pocket Pair, has developed assets using AI. As I see it, this isn’t a big deal, as this is the direction that game development has been going in. In fact, as I see it, people in the future will be able to make their own games at home for personal use, by simple use of prompts. Imagine arriving home from work after a hard day, and asking your computer, “I’d like a dungeon-crawler JRPG.” Or, instead: “I liked yesterday’s game. I’d like to pick up where I left off.”

AI is already changing the way games are made, and the way things are looking, there’s more change to come. At some point, game design will become so trivial that you could just do it yourself.

While there has been many amusing takes on Palworld, you haven’t read the worst one unless you’ve seen PETA’s take:

However the situation develops, it’s already clear who the biggest losers are.

Review: Pokémon Scarlet and Violet

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Developer: GameFreak
Publisher: Nintendo, The Pokémon Company
Genre: Turn-based RPG
Rating: Everyone
Platform: Nintendo Switch

I wanted to put off writing a review for this game. I was awaiting the hypothetical update that would take care of the performance issues. After all, once the problems were patched, any review that stated them as being the main problem would quickly grow obsolete. But the only notable update that came (aside from the day one patch) took care of a fun glitch that actually benefitted players. So, it looks like this game is going to continue to stand as being too ambitious for the dated Nvidia Tegra X1 chip. Either that, or the game devs were in a hurry to push something out for a strategic release date.

For most games, performance issues are enough to kill them. But oddly, in the case of Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, that’s not the case. Somehow, the game manages to be so awesome that it overcomes the performance issues, which mainly have to do with dropped frames. Which would mainly be an issue for those who insist that their games be completely realistic, which is not much of an expectation when it comes to the Pokémon series.

Scarlet and Violet are GameFreak’s first attempt at an open-world experience for the Pokémon franchise. As one might expect, it doesn’t so much change open-world games as it does change the way Pokémon is played. Considering what we’ve been seeing out of Pokémon Legends: Arceus and Pokémon Sword/Shield, the series has been tending in that direction. Finally, the franchise has made a committed attempt at an open-world game, and it does not disappoint.

It’s a welcome change, as most Pokémon games up to this point have been strongly formulaic. Sure, some of the old tropes remain, such as that you still choose from three types for your starter, and there are still 8 gym badges to collect as part of a League challenge. However, the League challenge is only one of three main story routes, and the three culminate in a finale story, and in the case of the non-League stories, the writers really told some moving tales.

It starts out with the main character about to start his first day at an academy (the name of which varies on which version you’re playing). The academy director and a new rival direct you towards the academy, but there’s a diversion which involves the main character meeting a new legendary Pokémon, which serves as your ride Pokémon throughout the game. At the academy, you meet a bunch of new characters that will be relevant to you during the three branching stories.

Then, you’re set loose on the Paldea region, where you can take on any challenge that you want (aside from the central Great Crater, which remains off-limits until near the end). The region of Paldea is open to you, and you’re not compelled to go in any one direction. Any of the three main stories can be taken on in any order you wish, and you can put any of the three on hold at any time, either to further another storyline, or to run about and attempt to catch the Pokémon you set your sights on. Personally, I recommend prioritizing taking on the titans, since that path rewards you by increasing your mobility, enabling you to further appreciate your freedom to move about through the Paldea region.

As far as I know, the game doesn’t explicitly spell out a recommended order for its objectives. You can take on the gyms in any order you want, you can take on the Team Star bases in any order you want, and you can take on the titans in any order you want. Just be warned that the levels of most opponents don’t scale based on your progress level, so it’s possible to wander too far and end up overwhelmed by gym leaders you weren’t prepared for. But this also allows for players to, in a sense, set their own difficulties by pushing themselves as far as they care to at the game’s outset.

The core Pokémon games are, at their hearts, turn-based RPGs. Thankfully, this core aspect remains intact in the series’ conversion to an open-world experience. The overworld switches seamlessly to battle scenes by showing the battles as taking place in the overworld environment, in a manner reminiscent to Pokémon Legends: Arceus. However, Scarlet and Violet differ from Legends in that wild Pokémon battles are 1v1 affairs, with other wild Pokémon in the area looking on as spectators, which is a nice touch!

A new and welcome feature is the Let’s Go mechanic, where you can send your own lead Pokémon into the overworld, and it’ll passively seek out wild Pokémon to battle, and defeat them. It’s a relatively fast way to level up your own Pokémon, putting aside that EXP points are decreased when you battle with this method. But considering that you wouldn’t be constantly switching between overworld mode and the battle scene constantly, this may still be a fast way to level up your team. Also, your Let’s Go Pokémon won’t beat up shiny Pokémon with this method. Shiny hunters, rejoice! Just be warned that this style of battling doesn’t trigger evolution, so you might want to level up the old-fashioned way at some point to trigger evolution to occur.

As fans have come to expect with each new generation of Pokémon since X and Y, Scarlet and Violet introduce a new game mechanic that makes battles in Scarlet and Violet distinct, as compared to battles in other games in the franchise: Terrastilization. It’s an act which causes Pokémon to take on a crystalline appearance. The Pokémon will change its type mid-battle, and its moves gain a boost in power, depending on the type it takes on. It’s a neat little gimmick that adds spectacle to in-game battles, and is certainly something to account for for competitive players participating in competitions that allow for it.

Aside from competitive battles, much of Scarlet and Violet’s post-game content seems to hinge on Tera Raid battles. You can find some easier ones during the main playthrough, but you’ll eventually have access to five-star raids, which pose a serious challenge to players who intend to solo them. Afterwards, players can access six-star raids, which are a lot more challenging than the raid dens in Sword/Shield. In many cases, it’ll take a team of players with specific Pokémon and specific builds to be more likely to win.

The soundtrack, by the way, is the best in the series. No question. Whether it’s the upbeat gym leader tune which is almost as good as the gym leader tune in Sword/Shield, the atmospheric environmental tunes that switches to an alternate track when mounting the ride Pokémon, the recurring leitmotif, and the bangin’ battle themes that play during a few key battles, it’s various degrees of excellent. Toby Fox’s presence may be controversial, but it’s plain that he’s a positive asset, and Pokémon’s music direction benefits huge from his input.

The game isn’t without flaws, but those mainly come down to performance issues, which make it evident that the game was rushed. Yet, this is one case where the good greatly overtakes the bad, to the point that the issues with performance are actually easy to overlook, even if they do sometimes take one out of the experience.

I suppose another complaint that one can think of is that there isn’t much of a postgame for those who aren’t terribly interested in Tera Raid battles. Because, those aside, there aren’t many post-game battles that are much of a challenge. That’s a problem that might be resolved through a future DLC package, which would be great for those who are patient and willing to spend more.

But as for the game as it is, I feel like I definitely got my money’s worth. If it weren’t for the technical issues, it wouldn’t seem out of place in the running for distinctions such as Game of the Year.

But as they are right now, Pokémon Scarlet and Violet are deserving of high recommendations, and a score of 9.5 out of 10.

But if you’re a fan of the Pokémon series, you probably already bought it. Great choice.

Ash Ketchum Finally Does It!

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Ash Ketchum from Pallet Town has finally done it! In the latest episode of the anime, Ash defeats Leon, the standing #1 trainer in all the world, in the World Coronation Master’s Eight tournament! In so doing, not only has Ash defeated the previously-undefeated Leon, the 10-year-old trainer has finally succeeded in becoming the world’s number one trainer!

It’s been a long, long journey. After all, the Pokémon anime has been running for 25 years, starting from it’s debut episode on April 1, 1997. In that time, Ash has gone from having little apparent talent or knowledge (but a whole lot of enthusiasm) to a skilled and competent trainer. You might remember if you were following along in the early episodes, but his first two gym badges were awarded to him outside of battle, and it wasn’t until his third gym challenge that he earned a badge. But since the Indigo League, Ash has developed a lot in competency. Even though it took a while.

Since starting out on his Pokémon journey, Ash has won some significant victories. Ash progressed high in the Indigo League, which was a feat, considering it was his first tournament. Ash also won against the Champion in the Orange League, and later obtained all the symbols in the Battle Frontier, a feat that impressed Scott so much that he extended Ash the offer of becoming one of the Frontier Brains (which Ash declined). It wasn’t until Ash became the Alola champion that he was ranked among the other champions.

As a champion, Ash got to battle in the World Coronation series, where he took on (and overcame) champions such as Diantha and Cynthia, the latter of which seemed nearly indestructible when Ash first witnessed her battle. All this culminated in Ash’s battle with the world’s number one trainer, the previously undefeated Leon.

In case you’re wondering about spoilers, public screenings of Ash’s victory were displayed in public in Tokyo:

And even though the episode has only aired in Japan so far, the English-language The Pokémon Company has announced Ash’s victory on Twitter within minutes of it happening:

So no, it wasn’t realistic for you to avoid knowing this before watching the anime for yourself, especially with fans all over the world discussing it.

One question that would understandably come up is where the Pokémon anime would go from here. We already know that the anime picks up with Ash’s friend Goh, who goes on an expedition to locate the mythical Pokémon, Mew. As of this posting, we are a week away from the release of new installments of the Pokémon video games, the Pokémon Scarlet and Violet versions for Nintendo Switch. The setting for the games will be the new region of Paldea, based on the real-world locations of Spain and Portugal. If Paldea is the setting for future episodes of the anime, Ash could continue as the main character there. But as for what his goal may be, we don’t yet know, as Ash is already the world’s number one trainer. But it’s possible that future episodes may focus on new characters, such as the new protagonists Florian and Juliana.

Florian (left) and Juliana (right) as they appear in Pokémon Scarlet

As things go for the Pokémon anime, it’s when one journey wraps up that another follows close behind, and this is usually timed to occur with the release of new installments of the Pokémon games. That Pokémon’s marketing machine is well-oiled may have a lot to do with why it’s the highest-grossing intellectual property in the world’s history.

This is undoubtedly a huge day in the anime world, as Pokémon has been one of the most popular and longest-running anime of all time (this is episode #1221). But if Ash can become a Pokémon Master, and Naruto can become Hokage, then perhaps we’ll see the day that Luffy finally finds the One Piece treasure. But I’m not counting on it happening anytime soon.

Congratulations, champ! Now, what are you gonna do next?

Bulbagarden Founder Posits Theory That New Gym Leader Is Trans and Non-Binary, Gets Debunked Less Than 24 Hours Later

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It seems like with every new major media release, someone from the questionable sexuality community will come forward with speculation (often stated as fact and foregone conclusion) that a character depicted represents their favorite flavor of sexuality.

As Bounding Into Comics points out, this time around, the speculator is Liam Pomfret, the founder of Bulbagarden, who posits his theory that the newly-revealed gym leader in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, Iono, is non-binary and transgender.

Here is the promo video featuring Iono:

Upon what is Liam basing his theory? The initially ambiguous use of pronouns, and her choice of hair dye:

Image from Bounding Into Comics

One would expect the use of such flimsy inferences from an undiagnosed schizophrenic who believes that their TV is communicating secret messages specifically for them, not a Doctor of Philosophy. Our education system is fucked, isn’t it?

Because he was tripping over himself to find trans representation in a Japanese game marketed towards anyone in the family, he looked at the soft blue and pink hair (kinda looks lavender to me) and immediately thought of the trans kid flag, rather than the recurring red/blue coloration of Pokémon’s flagship games, Scarlet and Violet included.

Less than 24 hours later, Nintendo dropped supplemental promotional material concerning Iono. It’s the kind of thing that looks like it would have been released simultaneously with the promotional video that originally featured Iono, so maybe it was hastily thrown together after the fact.

The promo specifies Iono as having the feminine pronoun of “her”. Iono is female. Because we’ve already established that speculation is fun, maybe Nintendo threw this out there because they knew what Liam Pomfret was saying, and were all like “Nope. We’re not having that.”

If “Bulbagarden” sounds familiar, then you’ve been following along back when I pointed out how inappropriate it was that they used their Pokémon fan platform to soapbox about an immigration policy that they blamed on Trump (the problem was actually Obama’s fault, and Trump resolved the matter through an executive order).

This was Bulbagarden’s forum header at the time:

Fucking creepy.

And a fantastic opportunity to warn parents out there that there are some predatory actors in fan communities who use their positions in their respective communities to pressure younger members. Oftentimes, their activities involve performing “favors” over video chat. Of course, there are many ways that bad people can take advantage of children online.

That PSA aside, it can also be pointed out that there is a certain obsession with pointing to Japan’s status as a relatively advanced, orderly, and peaceful society. Oftentimes, someone on the radical left will attempt to glom onto a form of Japanese media, in a sad attempt to make the case that the Japanese are actually just like them.

What these attempts overlook is how Japan as a society got to be as advanced as it is. Japan is a heavily structured and stratified society that favors family, career, merit, and respect. To further reduce that, Japan is conservative. In fact, it’s one of the most conservative societies in the world.

Sometimes, a weeaboo pops up who thinks of Japan as being their kind of society, probably because they got ideas as to what it’s like from anime and manga. The fact is, Japan is a society of norms. If you move to Japan, you’re expected to conform to the norms. If you don’t want to, then you don’t belong in Japan. It’s as simple as that.

Red light districts aside, Japan is an advanced, peaceful, and orderly society. If your thinking is different from theirs, that might have a lot to do with it.

Iono is pretty far from the first character from Japanese media to have gotten this kind of attention. It wasn’t long ago that Shiver from Splatoon 3 came under scrutiny as possibly non-binary, but it turned out she was female. Nanachi from Made In Abyss is a frequent target of this, because author Akihito Tsukushi prefers to leave Nanachi’s sex as unknown. Or, more famously, there’s Bridget from Guilty Gear, who is male.

That’s not to say that there are no “non-binary” characters in Japanese media. However, such characters are seldom portrayed as sympathetic. But why would they, when there is something obviously wrong with their thinking?

Iono is merely a character in a work of fiction. She’s just made up, therefore nothing about her has any bearing on the reality of any matter. It doesn’t matter whether she represents anything, except maybe in the deluded thinking of those who lack the ability to parse reality without the assistance of a fictional construct. If this describes you, then you need to seek help. And get over yourself, while you’re at it.

Was the Crystal Onix Early To Terrastallizing?

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When the Dynamax phenomenon was first revealed in a trailer for Pokémon Sword and Shield, some players recalled that certain oversized Pokémon had already appeared in the first season of the anime. First was a Dragonite just a few episodes in, then a Tentacruel a few episodes after that. Later, we’d see more in the appearance of giant Alakazam, Gengar, and Jigglypuff.

While it’s not likely that a connection between the appearance of these Pokémon and the implementation of a new gameplay mechanic decades later was intended as of the time of their first appearance in the anime, it’s still fun to think that they might have factored into the thinking of Game Freak as they developed Sword and Shield.

But with the upcoming Pokémon Scarlet and Violet games, there is a new mechanic, called “terrastallization”. This makes a Pokémon take on a crystalline appearance, as well as gain a new type.

As tantalizing as it may seem, there actually is precedence for such an occurrence in the anime, decades prior. To see it, we’d have to go back to the Orange Islands. The Pokémon I’m referring to would be the Crystal Onix.

In the early days of Pokémon, the Crystal Onix captured the imaginations of fans everywhere. Not just for its dazzling appearance, but also for the fact that it seemed to resist the Water types that would normally lay an Onix out flat, but was weak to Fire moves, which they usually resisted.

As it so happens, terrastallization doesn’t just change a Pokémon’s appearance, it also changes its type to whatever Tera type that the individual Pokémon has. Based on the evidence provided, we can determine the type of the Crystal Onix, as there is only one type that resists Water but is weak to Fire, and that type is Grass!

It’s interesting to think that decades prior to the implementation of terrastallization in a main Pokémon game, there was already a similar concept shown in the anime. But what do you think? Does this look like a coincidence to you? Or might the Crystal Onix have been in Game Freak’s consideration as they were developing Pokémon Scarlet and Violet?

A New Trailer for Pokemon Scarlet and Violet Just Dropped. Here’s What I Think.

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As the graphic above taken from the latest promo trailer shows, Pokémon Scarlet and Violet are have gotten cover arts, and are available for preorder on Nintendo’s eShop, which is great for those who have already made their minds up.

But as for the promo itself, here it is:

Okay, honest opinion: I’m somewhat underwhelmed. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still looking forward to the next games. It’s that this trailer didn’t get me as excited as the first one. However, it seems my opinion isn’t the popular opinion, as typical Pokémon fans seem to be gushing over the newest promo spot. It does have it’s great qualities.

For one thing, I might be imagining it, but the character models look a lot better, particularly the outfits. I remember that the models for the Pokémon themselves looked great in the first trailer. Also, it’s great to see more natural movements for the human characters.

Speaking of human characters, we have two new professors. They both seem pretty cool, and they seem to have different themes: one is a cave woman, and the other wears a futuristic getup. Also, is that calculus on their dry-erase boards?

The trailer shows 4 different player characters taking off in different directions, showing that as many as 4 players can interact in the same field at a time. This also shows that there will be plenty of customization options for physical features such as skin tone, hair style, and hair color. There are also a handful of clothing options, but I’m still not impressed with them. Something like a studded jacket or round shades would be cool.

The trailer also showed a few new Pokémon, including a pig-like critter named Lechonk, a new Pikachu look-alike named Pawmi, and an adorable little olive named Smoliv. Of the three, I think I like Smoliv more. Maybe because olives are tasty.

The trailer briefly shows a battle scene with the typical options. Apparently, the battles are going to be turn-based, but it’s not clear whether it’s traditional turn-based RPG fare like Pokémon has traditionally done, or something more akin to Pokémon Legends: Arceus. Between the two, I don’t have much of a preference, though Pokémon’s traditional battle formula is pretty well-tested, while the one in Pokémon Legends: Arceus still seems experimental.

After that, we see some trainers running about in environments populated by Pokémon. The environments are great as far as something stylized goes, but certain features might still need work. After all, as we’ve already seen, Pokémon fans can get pretty picky about how well the trees are detailed!

But then, we see the perspective speed along some environments, as though to take us to see some far-off features. If you would have guessed that we’d get to see some new legendaries, you’d be right:

The new mascot legendaries are named Koraidon (the scarlet one) and Miraidon (the violet one). Apparently the themes of these games are past and future.

The models for these Pokémon are pretty well-textured. Also, check out Miraidon’s eyes.

Overall, it’s not a bad trailer. I was a bit underwhelmed, but that’s just me. I suppose it’s only natural that a second trailer for a Pokémon game would reveal more about the region, lore, and characters, and save the nerdy stuff like gameplay elements for another time.

However, those gameplay elements do matter. It’s going to make a big difference, especially to competitive players, whether elements from previous games such as Dynamax, Mega Evolution, or Z-Moves make a return. So far, we haven’t seen a sign of any of that, or of a new battle mechanic.

But I suppose that a Pokémon game that allows for free exploration rather than confinement to linear routes might be a sufficient selling point for me. After all, I’ve been wanting to see this in a traditional Pokémon game for a long time, and Pokémon Legends: Arceus nearly pulled it off.

But as far as the community as a whole is concerned, it seems that GameFreak has done a great job with this new trailer. Here’s looking forward to the next one.

The Female Protagonist From Pokemon Scarlet and Violet Has Been Revealed, and I Have Thoughts

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The female protagonist for Pokémon Scarlet and Violet has just been revealed. It might be that the official art for her was revealed alongside the reveal trailer, and it flew under my radar. But however it happened, the official art for the girl is in the picture above, shown next to the boy.

My initial criticism of the boy was that he was boring and unexpressive. While the girl is cuter (as to be expected), it’s odd that she’s wearing the same outfit that the boy is. To show why this is so unusual, here is a collection of official art for the protagonists for previous games (up to X and Y):

These characters look far more interesting, and the sight of them kinda makes me want to play some of their respective games. These characters are much more colorful and expressive, and are the kind of protagonists that players would want to serve as avatars for a Pokémon experience. And because they were among the selections for previous games, they did a lot to cultivate expectations for subsequent player characters (after all, check out how many of them wear red or white headwear).

It’s because Game Freak has plenty of experience designing male and female protagonists, as well as their fashion options, that I would have expected them to be aware that males and females tend to dress way differently. As is obvious to most, there are obvious physiological and psychological differences between males and females, many of which are expressed through fashion choices. Anytime anyone attempts to dress them in similar outfits, the attempt comes off as unsettling, and a failure to properly acknowledge one of the foundational elements of their identity.

It seems I’m not the only one weirded out by the new protagonists, as artist Profitshame drew up a side-by-side comparison of these protagonists with the ones from Pokémon Sword and Shield:

I have my own theory about why the boy dresses like the girl, and it’s not just because the girl shops for him when he plays Magic: The Gathering with his buddies. I think it’s just easier to design one character instead of two. Either that, or they’re fraternal twins, like the duo gym leaders Tate and Liza.

If Scarlet and Violet are going to be like recent Pokémon games, they’ll include lots of customization options so that at least their outfits wont be so tacky. And personally, I’d prefer playing as a character that doesn’t look like the chess club punches him in the hallways.