Pokémon Special/Headscratchers

Red's Pika defeating Brock's Onix.
- Actually, Onix was in the air at that point of time, and in many Pokemon adaptions, Ground types can't become immune to the effects of electricity if they're not touching the ground.
- Maybe it was dumb luck.
- There's also Pika defeating the Rhydon in Mt. Moon and beating Giovanni's Ground type Pokes with it too.
  - The Rhydon was defeated when the cave ceiling fell, it wasn't technically Pikachu defeating him, but more like winning Red and Misty time to escape.
  - For Giovanni. there is actually a pretty good reason: the electricity had been supercharged. Which, in the Special series, pretty much guarantees a win. The bigass explosion that happened afterwards probably did something too.
  - I think the battle ended immediately after the trainer gets knocked out. It happens multiple times.
Orm's Shuckle and Hoppip disappeared after he fell to his death.
- - After receiving the direct explosion and falling off, Sird's Persian and Starmie disappeared.
  - After getting knocked out Lt. Surge's Voltorbs and Magnemites disappeared.
  - After being frozen, Red's other pokemon that received the combined Ice, Fighting, and Ghost attack miraculously disappeared.
  - After the dex holders got turned to stone, Pika, Chuchu, and Mewtwo disappeared on the scene.
    - Pika and Chuchu weren't hit by the attack, and they turn up in Emerald's Chapter. Mewtwo immediately started chasing Sird as she tried to flee the scene.
- And also Red's Fingerless Gloves. They're supposed to be insulated and protects Red from electricity, unfortunately being fingerless should defeat such purpose.
  - They might be skin tight, so at the most only his fingers are getting the hell shocked out of them, but the rest of his hand is protected. That theory may not have a lot of credibility in real life, but hey, this is Pokemon.
    - Well think back to the Yellow chapter. Super Nerd made an insulated body suit that went over his skin from a piece of Red's glove. It was clear and we needed an establishing panel to know he was wearing it. And in RGB the entire room that Red was battling Lt. Surge in was being electrified, and despite the fingerless gloves and short sleeves, Surge wasn't being hurt. So maybe the gloves aren't actually fingerless at all, maybe the fingers are just clear. It makes some sense that Lt. Surge just stylized his insulation gear to match a look that was comfortable to him. And yeah, it's never been said that this is the case, but it was never said that it wasn't.
The names. Is it supposed to be a coincidence that a lot of 'chosen' kids just happen to have absurd names with a color or gem theme?
- Yeah, but it's a whole lot more obvious to us English-speakers, as names such as "Reddo" and "Gurin" probably don't stick out as much among names such as "Kasumi" and "Takeshi".
  - Sure they do. Just because they're pronounced with a "Japanese accent" (i.e. transliterated to Japanese phenoms) doesn't make it any less weird that the kid down the block is named Daiyamondo.
  - There's other people in the original Japanese with weird/Western names too. It's just that they're less likely to spot the otherwise obvious Theme Naming.
- To be fair Red, Blue, Crystal, Ruby and Pearl are all normal names, albeit Ruby and Pearl are girl's names and a Blue is a boy's name that normally drops the e anyway, and while much rarer, this troper has met a couple girls named Green. I used to have the fan theory that "Green" was the girl's last name, since Green is a common last name. Of course that was before I was aware of the name switch. On the other hand, everyone I've ever talked to, regardless of gender would LOVE to be named Gold, Silver or Platinum.
  - Also bare in mind that Ruby and Sapphire, whose parents are friends, are hinted to be named after their birthstones.
  - Besides those, Sapphire, Diamond and Emerald are also girl's names, although very rare(except Emerald, which is fairly common)
- Also, it's at least implied that "Yellow" isn't her real name.
  - Diamond can be a boy's name as well (i.e. Prince Diamond, I think, from Sailor Moon). This troper spazzed out in fangirlishness when she realized it means 'bright protector' for boys, further emphasizing her extreme liking for commonershipping (and scarfshipping).
As said on Fridge Horror, is the series currently in an Alternate Universe? Ruby said they encountered a "time slip" and "arrived in a slightly different future" where presumably everything turned out fine.
- Piggybacking on this, are we to assume there is another "timeline" where Norman, Steven, and Courtnet are all still very much dead? Oh, hey, Fridge Depression, haven't seen you in awhile...
- You want Fridge Horror? Ruby and Sapphire were sent to an alternate timeline where everyone lived through the crisis and using legendary Pokemon doesn't automatically kill you, which we can assume is the main canon universe. And in this universe, Ruby and Sapphire are being celebrated for what they've done which is at least a little different from what they did in their own timeline. Oh and everyone has a counterpart in the new/main canon universe... So what happened to the new timeline's original Ruby and Sapphire? And also using legendary Pokemon in the original timeline slowly kills you, remember that's why Steven and Norman died in the first place. And with the Kanto trio using the legendary bird trio and the Johto trio using the legendary beast trio at the end of the GSC Chapter, this also explains why the original Dex Holders didn't show up during a worldly crisis... They died.
  - I regret posting that tidbit on Fridge Horror now. Everything's sounding so fan-wanky now...but just to be sure, was Chuang Yi's translation accurate when Ruby said that they "had arrived in a slightly different future?"
  - Why wouldn't it be? And fan wankery how? I rather enjoy the idea of the existance of this dark alternate world that might come back to haunt Ruby and Sapphire.
  - "Fans make theories on the loose ends of a work that border on the ridiculous." Laconic version of Fan Wank. Just because you enjoy doesn't stop it from being silly and adding nothing of value to any discussion of the series.
  - Hmmm... Maybe actually Ruby and Sapphire doesn't go to an alternate universe, but Celebi reversed everything, including Ruby's supposed death and the other dexholders' too as being theorized.
Red's lack of family. I originally thought they were offscreen and just never referred to but it seems like he is an orphan with no relatives or family of any sort, biological or not. With whom did he grow up?
- Poliwag.
In the 2nd volume, Blue asks Red if he knows how many Pokemon there are and he replies with "There are 150!" He says this RIGHT after seeing Mewtwo being created. Mewtwo was being created by Team Rocket and Blaine, so it's safe to assume that no one else in the world knows of its existence besides them and Red, who had no idea what it was. How can people say there are 150 known species of Pokemon when only 149 are known since Mewtwo's secret?! And it can't be Mew, because Blue says Mew's the Phantom 151st Pokemon. IJBM, a lot.
- To be fair, the games also took Mewtwo being the 150th for granted despite it being at most an urban legend to the general populace; Poke Spe's case is only slightly worse.
- Mostly it was done to coincide with the games, the general consensus of gamers of the time was that there was only 150, the 151st is meant to match up to the games, where Mew was so sectet not even Nintendo knew about it, and the manga is mostly intended for fans of the game. Storywise... Slip of the tongue on Red's part maybe? I mean he does have a hard time keeping things together around Blue in the early chapters.
- To be fair, Blue was from Johto and even had her Snubbull at that point, though it's never shown until Yellow. It's likely that Red was talking about a few Johto species.
In the RBY series, Professor Oak goes to the Pokemon League because he wants justice for Blue stealing his stuff. Okay, that's fine, but going on to humiliate her in front of the entire audience and using her phobia against her? On a ten-year old? That's taking it a little far, especially when Oak didn't do anything to stop Team Rocket from stealing lots of Pokemon earlier in the same series.
- Well, he didn't use a giant bird, just a puny spearow. And after that he was mostly kind to her.
  - Except that he didn't go to "get justice" for Blue stealing his stuff; he wanted to test her to make sure she was a good enough trainer and person to give a pokedex to. He'd been very worried over her going missing years ago and probably felt betrayed when she showed up again years later only to steal from him, so he had to make sure she knew that stealing was wrong and that she wasn't a potential Team Rocket criminal.
Where did they get Red's hair design from? It's obviously not based off his game counterpart, or any other trainer.
- They probably just wanted to differentiate him from Ash. A lot of the other Dex Holders do have slight alterations from the characters they're based on.
  - His is unusual though. Plus Pokespe just came out a few months after the anime, and Red from the games does look different from Ash (except in Zensho).
  - game!Red's first hairstyle looked very similar to Ash's.
- "Very similar"? Ash has the exact same hair style as him.
- I don't think it's that different. It's just three spikes in the front with bangs added. He's not too different from the in game sprite anyway.
- After seeing scans of the first Pokemon 4koma manga, which is drawn by various artists with various versions of Red, it seems all they did was comb his hair down and add bangs.
Did Red's morals change quickly? By the time he met Blue he hated people who stole Pokemon, but wasn't he doing the same in the first chapter with the Rockets?
- When did Red ever steal Pokemon? When he tried to catch Nidorino and Mew, they were wild so free game, and when he was in the lab, he was just looking around. He never had any intention to steal anything ever.
- He picked up all those Pokemon that the rockets dropped, unless they were empty balls.
  - Those were his empty balls he brought to catch Mew with.

What happened to the originals artist art style between Yellow and Gold-Silver? I heard she was sickly, but how did it turn from such nice artwork to a nice but very simple style?
- I heard her sickness affected her wrist directly. Apparently she is now better and posts art on her website. No idea if she ever illustrated for another manga, though she does do doujinshi.
..What's with Kris's mom?
- Eh, I've seen weirder.
Doesn't the Kanto trio seem a bit.. Apathetic? An Arbok is sliced in half, it's insides all over the floor and it presumed dead, yet Red just mutters how Blue is cool.
- It was trying to kill them, they were defending themselves (it's not their fault Koga's Arbok has such a shitty defense), and they had just been chased around by (rotting) zombie Pokemon. Anybody in that situation wouldn't exactly be thinking straight. Though I'd say a less justifiable reason is that it's early in the manga, the world hasn't been well set-up yet and Pokemon are still treated more-or-less like animals.
  - An animal tries to kill me, and someone blows its head off. I wouldn't mutter how awesome that guy is, I'd freak out about the animal being killed in such a manner.
  - So you'd rather be killed? Okay then.
- Turns out the Arbok wasn't dead anyway.
- You're talking about trainers want their Pokemon to be able to do exactly what Blue had done. In that mindset, yeah, it would be justified to think that person was impressive.
So Giovanni spent the last decade or so creating Team Rocket into order to get the most powerful psychic pokemon (Mewtwo and Deoxys) to track down his long lost son... reasonable. But why didn't he just ask Morty?
- Dude, he's the leader of Team Rocket. I can think of a million reasons why Giovanni wouldn't do that.
  - Adding on to that, the book never said that he created Team Rocket to find Silver. In fact it probably existed before Silver was even born considering Giovanni wanted him to be part of it. So a lot of the things Team Rocket did were genuinely evil deeds, finding his son was the secondary objective. And for all we know he may have asked Morty but Silver wasn't just kidnapped, he was taken off the ground by a Ho-oh and taken to the Mask of Ice's hideout, and since Pryce was the Mask of Ice, he probably prepared for Morty anyway.
- Silver was kidnapped by Ho-Oh, Morty's been trying his whole life without success to find Ho-Oh. That might have something to do with it.
Ruby, who can't be more than six, fights off the Salamence that was attacking him and Sapphire. It wanders off to trash the lab, freeing Rayquaza. Instead of just telling the truth about the incident Norman covers for Ruby, which forces him to postpone his gym leader ambitions and leave his family for years and blaming Ruby for not defeating it fully. Good God, why didn't you just tell the truth? The kid deserves a medal for fighting off a psudolegendary with a Ralts, Skitty and Poochyena.
- Would you want to risk having your personal life probed for training a child on how to fight with Pokemon at Leader caliber well below the legal training age? Norman didn't feel it was worth the risk to face such a probe, and didn't want to drag the Birches down with him by association.
- Children younger than the age of consent have been seen with Pokemon, but almost purely as pets - while Yellow had a Rattata during the RGB arc (caught for her by Red, and she was nine at this time), she wasn't seen fighting with it until her arc was underway.
- The "legal age" thing seems to be more about being allowed to travel on your own(Or an Excuse Plot for the games) since every character has had pokemon well before getting their starter(Yellow got a Rattata on screen, for example).
  - And again, what would be worse?: "My kid saved his and his friend life because he illegally knows how to fight" or "My kid and his friend are dead".
- Then again, while the games start with you receiving your first pokémon, all protagonists so far have had pokémon well before getting their starter and pokedex.
- Well, Ruby did ruin an experiment that the Association was banking on to eventually save the world. Somebody was going to have to pay, and Norman figured he could take it rather his five year old son.
  - This. Not only would Ruby have likely faced some serious consequences, but Norman would probably have been in much hotter water than he already was. Consider being a gym leader is a position of great responsibility. What could be worse than letting it be known that you taught a 5 year old that kind of fire power, then let two of them loose (unsupervised, to boot) in an area with that powerful of Pokemon? That's not to say 'letting the experiment escape due to negligence' is much better, but it's not as bad.
    - Raltses, Skitties and Poochyenas aren't particularly powerful, and in game, at least, there are trainer Classes that are FAR younger than the ten years(Ninja Boy, Tuber, School Kids, Poke Kids and Twins) and we have seen many children with pokemon in the manga proper, so it's not conclusive which is the "legal" age to let kids train pokemon(Unlike the anime and games, none of the kids get their starter in a ceremony or anything like that). The "letting the kids in an are with powerful pokemon" doesn't hold much water either, as technically speaking, any low level pokemon can be dangerous to any human, they had incredibly bad luck. If either Ruby or Norman suffered "serious consequences" for Ruby fighting for his life, they could have easily turned it around, at least giving them bad reputation. (And just running away didn't guarantee that the Salamance wouldn't want to go after them)
- Age has nothing to do with this issue. Like it was said before, the whole problem was that for all intents and purposes, Ruby doomed the world.
  - But not on purpose. What were they going to say? "You have to be punished because a Salamence you fought to save your life and your friend's accidentally broke into our lab and freed Rayquaza".
  - If someone accidentally screwed over the world, you think the government's going to care whether or not it was an accident?
    - Real life? No, they won't. Fiction yes, unless it's an explicit crapsack world, which this one is far from being. And it's not like they "doomed" the world, they just screwed a project the government had going on. Furthermore, any good lawyer(Or any people with high charisma) could have turned the case into very bad reputation for the project, as they had imprisoned a one-of-a-kind pokemon(A big no-no in this pokemon world), gave priority to a project that MIGHT be useful instead of the live of two little children, and blamed them for something that could have happened anyway(Any pokemon strong enough could have come rampaging on the lab, which seemed pretty insecure if that was all it needed to set Rayquaza free)
  - The project was explicitly supposed to eventually save the world. Steven made it clear that he and the Association had been expecting for quite some time that someone was out to awaken Kyogre and Groudon for destruction, hence them starting the project and constructing the submarine. I think the government would be pretty pissed if anything happened to it. The actual Ruby/Sapphire arc shows that the crisis could not have been stopped without Rayquaza, and Norman was almost too late in awakening it. If they had it on hand the entire time, a lot of damage could've been avoided. Also, all Norman could figure out from the damage was that Ruby was responsible for the Salamance's wounds, not that it nearly killed his son. (For whatever reason, it doesn't look like Ruby told anybody.) Furthermore, nobody in Pokespe has a problem with capturing legendaries for non-evil purposes. Finally, Salamance is an pseudo-legendary. Not too many things can stand up to one, especially an enraged one.
- The real question here is why anyone had to take a fall at all. If Norman was willing to lie to cover for his son anyway, why not just lie and say that the wild Salamence must have been injured by another wild Pokemon and thus went on a rampage?
  - Norman was able to tell what attacked the Salamance by observing its wounds. I guess by covering up for Ruby, nobody else would bother to do so.
- Maybe Norman didn't want his six year old kid to be chosen as a potential wielder of the orb that would control Raquazya. He might have been afraid that the scientists would try to make Ruby absorb the green orb, because if they want the orb to be of any use, they have to find someone to absorb it. Since you also have to be strong of mind or risk insanity, they probably don’t want to risk any of their own personnel, and there’s no one else who could try. If they found out about Ruby – and were desperate enough – they might actually decide to recruit Ruby for orb-absorption and hold the whole “rampaging salamance broke our lab – your fault” card over their heads – something Norman would probably NOT be willing to risk, no matter how improbable it may be. As a result, he takes on the blame for the attack so that there will be absolutely no reason to look at his six year old kid to potentially save the world and/or be driven crazy trying.
So the Black and White arc has begun, and with it, all the Unfortunate Implications of the Pokemon world that people have noticed since the beginning. Although we all know that Geechisu is not as benevolent as he seems, and that N was manipulated, the fact of the matter is they bring up a good point about the Pokemon world. A world where Sentient creatures are enslaved and made to battle each-other. There have been various Handwaves about pokemon enjoying battle, and wanting to be caught, etc but that can easily be twisted into Happiness in Slavery, which is a whole new set of Unfortunate Implications. So what I want to know is how the writers are really going to deal with it.
- Well, I can't speak for other canons, but in Pokespe, if you're a Pokemon, yes, you have feelings, personality, etc., but chances are, you're a dumb animal. Only "boss" Pokemon or really well-trained ones are capable of forming battle strategies. And since for the most part Pokemon enjoy battling, well, that's why they need trainers, to help them reach their fullest potential. And thus, the bonding and mutual respect. Not to mention time and time again it's hammered in all canons that you'd better treat your 'Mons right with love and kindness, or else it will bite you in the ass somehow.
  - To add to the above point, the three legendary dogs (or whateveryoucallthem) spent a good portion of the GSC chapter searching out for humans worthy to be their trainers to help Ho-Oh. Heck, even the proud Mewtwo co-operated with Red as his trainer to fight against Deoxys and Giovanni in the FRLG chapter. Proves that even very intelligent pokemon acknowledge that they perform better when they have a human trainer.
  - Each justification only creates more unfortunate implications and questions. Just don't think too much about it.
    - Yeah I was thinking the same thing. Even with Trainers treating them nice, with Pokemon supposedly loving battle, etc, it just seems like am excuse. I suppose it's impossible to fully justify the Pokemon World, no matter what they say in-universe. Although I will admit, that if the pokemon are intelligent enough to choose, and this is what they want, then maybe we're looking at it too hard. It's not like the series hasn't been deconstructed to hell and back already.
- Blue and Orange Morality, pokemon don't think like humans do
- The idea of Pokemon liking battling isn't very far out there. PEOPLE enjoy fighting, this is why we have boxing, martial arts competitions, fencing, paintball, laser tag, the Society for Creative Anachronism. People talk about animal violence in Pokemon but the Pokemon have an ability that is most common to humans. The ability to find sport in fighting. Pokemon battles are more like karate matches than say, dog fights. Further more, partnership is a recurring theme in Pokémon Special, in that the trainer and Pokemon are equals, and in all canons there's some form of cross species culture. The games put you more in control, because it's arguably easier for the player.
  - Speaking of the games, it’s known that if you’re traded a too-high leveled Pokemon, and you don’t have enough/the right gym badges, the Pokemon won’t listen to you, because it doesn’t respect you. I’ve read a fanfiction that has a historic event about the beginning of Pokemon trainers; at the start, Pokemon would fight to the point of killing each other. The first trainers and a counsel-type gathering of legendaries established the League and put down rules so that Pokemon wouldn’t fight to the death. (As well as the fact that, like humans, they rather enjoy fighting.) The badges were originally created as a token given to those who respect and care for Pokemon, for the world to see.

Why did they deem it necessary to switch around Green and Blue's names in the English version? Yes, I know that Japan got Red and Green games while the rest of the world got Red and Blue, but I doubt that keeping the name's the same would have caused as much confusion as there is now, and the fandom wouldn't be split over who should be called who. It even causes a minor plot hole when Mewtwo refers to the hero and rival as 'Firered' and 'Leafgreen'...yet in some versions his name is Blue therefore the sentence doesn't make sense!
- Well, no one knew there were going to be remakes back then. And Mewtwo's line is only one line. I'm sure Viz's version can replace it with something else.
- Speaking of this, why did Viz leave their names the way they were in the original copy? Don't they know of the plot points and such? Plus kids probably don't play the Kanto games anymore.
- It's not a plot point. It's one line that comes a long way down the road. Viz's policy is to keep the English name if the character already has one that differs from the Japanese version. (See also: Every Pokémon.) The old game titles don't matter but consistency with the character names in the first translation does.

Mewtwo: If the girl had Venusaur, it would be Fire Red and Leaf Green.

- Yeah, the line is just a Title Drop: not anything really major to the plot. It may be a matter of personal opinion, but I think that Blue's a better name for the rival and that "Fire Red and Leaf Green" would be a better allusion to the games' male and female protagonists, not the male protagonist and the rival. So I never much liked the context of the line to begin with.
White and Black have blue and brown eyes, like their game counterparts. There goes over ten years of tradition, and for a reboot of sorts. Black would have had the same black style that all Pokemon characters have, or have been like other black eyed characters. White.. Could have had a Hyuuga approach.
- Actually, Pearl broke the tradition first by having orange eyes, a colour that has very little to do with pearls.
  - Pearls come basically in every color of the spectrum. Orange Pearls
    - Yes, but orange pearls are very rare; the average Poké Spe reader would typically associate pearls with a milky white hue. Sapphire has blue eyes, but sapphires come in a variety of different colours (or in some cases can be completely colourless) because the general perception of sapphires is a blue hue, so one would think that Pearl's eyes would be white or even light silver. They probably just wanted to keep close to canon, or they just prefer drawing coloured eyes over black and white ones.
      - In the very particular case of Diamond, Pearl and Platinum, People associate Diamond with clear gems, Pearls with milky white... balls... and Platinum is silver colored. It would be rather boring to have the three main characters of a chapter with the same white eyes, so they did a little research, and there do exist Blue Diamonds and Orange Pearls(orange is a main color of Pearl anyway, his poketch is that color) The only one who keeps the "usual" coloring is Platinum with her goldish silvery eyes.
  - Generally the idea of the characters having the same eye color as they're names is a misconception. Red for example only had red eyes on the cover of volume 6 if I recall. Before that they were brown, and on volume 23 they're magenta. And Yellow had black eyes until her appearance the cover of volume 24, in which they're Green, they have not ONCE been yellow. But this should've been obvious once we got to Crystal, because crystals aren't blue, they're clear. Crystal can't have "crystal colored eyes" because crystal doesn't have a color. While others seem to obey this they jump around and remained inconsistent. Ruby's eyes go back and forth between red and purple for example.
  - No they're brown on volume six too.
- Red has had red eyes ever since Gold. In early drawings, first gen ones, they were brown though. Yellow is an odd case. Certain colors show her with black, and others asa greenish hue of yellow. The closest color to "crystal" is blue, which Kris has.
  - You can't be close to a color if it has no color. The "closest color" to crystal is white, in that there would be no color. And Yellow's eyes aren't a greenish yellow, on both versions of the cover they're just green. And again, Red's eyes were purple on volume 23, even more so on the Japanese cover. They're on Bulbapedia if you want to see for yourself. The fact of the matter is that the idea that the Pokedex Holders have eye colors to match their names is mostly fanon.
- Well I don't think that Kusaka was going for the colors of the acctually jewels but more of the color of the box art. Lets take diamond for example. Diamond (the game's) box art was dark or navy blue and so was Dia (the character's) eyes. I think of the dexholders more as personifications of the games than an actual manga about the games. That's why Yellow and Emerald exist.

What happened to Red and the Kanto trio after the Emerald saga? Did they all just disappear? Because I think after that, it just skips right on to D/P/Pl and Bl/Wh.
- Since the D/P/Pl and B/W arcs are set in different regions than Hoenn, Johto and Kanto it's safe to assume they all just went back to their normal lives after being saved by Emerald and co.. Green went back to being a Gym Leader, Blue went back to her parents, Red went back to whatever the hell he was doing before the whole adventure began...
  - Besides, the Kanto/Johto trio didn't appear at all in the RS chapter.
- Darn. I wanted to see Red again.
  - You might in HGSS. Keep your fingers crossed.
  - Nope. Only Green is shown through flashback.

Team Galactic tells Berlitz's Dad that they've kidnapped her (They haven't), and offer the fact that they killed her bodyguards as proof. He calls her bodyguards and gets no response... and gives in immediately. Why, exactly, did he not try calling his daughter to see if she was okay? And even if he was too distraught to think of it, why did Team Galactic use a plan with such an obvious hole in it?
- Then again, this is the same guy who decided to break into the room where Platinum was sleeping just so he could gloat and explain Team Galactic's secret plan, so he's probably not the sharpest knife in the drawer anyway.
- Platinum didn't carry a phone around with her, so her dad couldn't call her directly. Of course, point is still valid as how would Team Galactic know that?
  - Actually, she brought a Pokegear with her at the start of the arc (as seen in the Vs. Bidoof chapter) and she's presumably still carrying it now, considering how her mother managed to contact her at the end of the DP arc.
  - No, Platinum was using the phone in her hotel room when calling her butler. She was also the one making the call to her mother, not the other way around, and she could've made it anywhere following the events at Spear Pillar.

How do they chose their characterizations? A lot of them are a far stretch from their game personalities, it's almost In Name Only for several people. Do they just look at the designs for an hour then make a random plot that vaguely follows the games?
- Kusaka makes the personality fit his own tweaked plot, design and canon game personality damned. It helps that not even the rivals and pseudo-rivals are given much personality to begin with in the games, and he wants each character to be unique so we don't go hollering about Replacement Scrappies.
- But how does he chose the personalities? They seem almost random few relate to the games.
- Hardly anyone has personality in the games so he just does whatever he thinks would be fun and different. But where in the world do you get Wild Child from game!May and Camp Straight from game!Brendan?
- A lot of characters have personality in the games. However, it's more noticeable in the fourth and fifth gens.. Exactly. Brendan is very... He's haughty and a battler, while Ruby is..Not.
- I loved the way Kusaka characrerized Red, Green (Blue in Japan), Gold, Silver, Crystal, Diamond, Platinum, and (sort of) White. Pearl's personality is also exactly like his game counterparts'. Oddly enough, though, Blue (Green in Japan) is quite different from Gary. Aaand I can't say I'm a big fan of Ruby, Sapphire, and Black. Ruby and Sapphire's personalities just seemed like nonsense, and there's no reason for Black to be such an idiot. Don't we already have Bianca for that?
This has to do with coloring. Why do Black and White have dark tones in the uncolored manga? Their hair isn't too dark, it's barely darker then Blue's or Sapphire's, but they have the same shade as the raven haired protagonists.
- Sapphire's hair isn't that dark (more like a light tannish-gray) and Blue's hair has actually gotten lighter over the years. That said, yes, it is a bit strange why their hair isn't toned, Black's at least. Maybe it would've clashed with their hats?
  - What's with Sapphire's hair anyway? It's.. Gray in a lot of artwork.
  - Yamamoto is really inconsistent when it comes to coloring, with Crystal suffering the most from it. Her hair and jacket change colors in ever colored shot she's in.
- Kris doesn't even look like she has blue hair in Pokespe. She looks like she has black hair with blueish hints.
- Like it was said before, changes in every color shot. As of the HGSS arc, it's straight up dark blue.
- Okay, Sho4's chapter 10 included a colored shot of Black and White, and their hair is indeed a very, very dark shade of brown, darker than Blue or Sapphire's.
What's with the Artistic Age of the series? Until remakes or reappearances in the games, a lot of characters look the same age despite years passing. It's especially bad with the Pokedex gang.
- Not really. The only (main) characters who have been around long enough to have noticeable aging are the Kanto and the Johto Dex Holders, and looking over their character bio pages at serebii tells me that they had been aging, little by little over the years. Up till the third gen arcs, they all got taller, their faces lost a little baby fat, and the girls got filled out a bit more (even Yellow's got a bit of a chest in FLRG). The main problem is that with Mato's artwork in the RGB arc to the Yellow arc; she did draw them looker older when she drew normally, but half her artwork was in chibi-style so you couldn't tell anyways. As for the other recurring characters like the Kanto Gym Leaders, they were all at the age where a few years really doesn't make a difference anymore in your appearance.
What's Yellow's eye color? They look like Green-Yellow eyes, Bulbapedia describes her as Brown Eyes, and fanon has her with either Green Eyes or Eyes of Gold.
- Volume 24 is the only colored shot of her with colored eyes. And boy is it a really ambiguous shade that's hard to identify. I'd go with greenish-yellow like you. Not everything in bulbapedia is correct, though it does strive to be. Wally is identified as a main character when the official Japanese Pokespe site, netkun, doesn't.
I'm having trouble figuring out Ruby's scar when his hat is off.. What's it supposed to look like?
- Two large gashes on the upper-right-side of his forehead. His hair hasn't grown back where he was slashed at.
Is Platinum's dad really an Overprotective Dad? Bodyguards seems a bit much, however you can't blame him for being freaked out at the thought of letting his sheltered ten year old daughter travel a region.
- Yes, he's a minor example, but considering that it's generally acceptable for kids to go out on their own in the world of Pokemon...
So...exactly how much power does White have as a "representative" of the BW agency? I'd figure her job is to simply advertise the business, find jobs, and oversee the Pokemon actors on set (a plenty big responsibility already as it sounds)...but White also looks over the finances, can take on a huge debt in the company name, and can hire people on the spot. Not to mention her efficiency in supervising the Pokemon Musical and the respect she gets from her co-workers makes me think it's not her first time being put in charge of a major project. Can't blame me for thinking she actually owns the business with all that she does.
- Okay, according to Viz's translation, she is the president and manager. She has absolute power.
Ruby mentions during the RS chapter that he's been sleeping in hotels throughout his journey. How does he pay for them?
- Prize money for winning a contest?
Bear with me here, during the Platinum Arc the title character battles through the Frontier. When she faces Hall Matron Argenta, it's Froslass against Dragonite. Dragonite uses Steel Wing, and Argenta exclaims it is a super effective attack from a dragon to an ice type... but Froslass is also a ghost type, which resists steel, making the attack neutral... Did Not Do the Research?
- Ghost does not resist steel; steel performs neutral damage against ghosts, so yes, Steel Wing is indeed super-effective against Froslass.
Is it just this troper, or is it a really lucky coincidence that the unofficial name Blue gave Silver (she only called him so because of his eyes) just so happens to be his real name? Silver didn't have his name-embroidered hankerchief back then when he was two.
- Yeah, he did have his handkerchief when he was two; it was the only thing that he had that connected him to his past after he was kidnapped. The flashback shows Blue looking at it; she decided to call him Silver because that was what was written on the handkerchief and that it matched his eyes.
If White's the same age as Black then she's 14. How is a 14 year old the manager and president of an actual agency? Doesn't Unova have any child labor laws?
- Like the rest of the Poke-world actually cares how old you are regardless of your occupation. In that case, Professor Oak should've been arrested ages ago for hiring children to go out into the world to gather information on dangerous creatures. Hell, Platinum accepted pretty fast that her "professional bodyguards" were the same age as her. It's kinda normal here; as long as you're good at it, no questions asked.
- This manga treats the Free-Range Children deal that the games put out in a more extreme manner. I simply assumed that legally, or socially, children are allowed to venture off and do adult things at a young age in this universe (or country)
Why did everyone guess Yellow was a girl just because she has a ponytail? We see a lot of male characters with long hair.
- I think it may have something to do with her hair length (It's longer than Blue's and Platinum's) and she probably just has a girlish face and personality to begin with (crying over her Ratatta evolving because it wasn't cute? Ruby is the only other character who might do that but even he doesn't cry...). Also, no other character goes through so much trouble to keep their hair hidden (remember her reluctance to take of her hat in GSC?) But to be fair...Gold did mistake Bugsy for a girl...
I'm sorry if this is a stupid question, but can someone please explain the Anachronic Order nature of Pokemon Special release? For all I know now the manga is running on three simultaneous arcs, the Platinum arc (which is not finished by a long shot), HGSS arc (nowhere to be found anywhere), and BW arc (which in itself really anachronic and barely coherent). I bet this has something to do with the weird release platform they have originally in Japan whether some chapters are released in magazines and some in tankobon volume but can someone please confirm how this works?
- Don't worry, it's not a stupid question; even people who know the situation find it confusing. I wrote an explanation for this awhile back. Here it is, I hope it helps.
How could a 5 year old Black read such lenghty, and probably word heavy, books?
- I've seen a few first graders read Harry Potter. Also, in the original Japanese, Black is a terrible speller, at least.