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Japan Don't Care: New Pokemon Film Debuts to Franchise Low

They really need to change things up with the movies. The Lucario and Entei flicks remain the stand-outs because of how refreshing they feel compared to all the other ones.

I did like Heroes and the Diamond/Pearl trilogy as well. The other ones...not so much.
 

Boss Doggie

all my loli wolf companions are so moe
they did. they weren't in new material for years until kai, then the new movies started airing, then the new show came along to capitalize on it and here we are with it being a success.

and the DB-era comparison doesn't work because it's not the most popular time in the work's history, especially outside of japan. when talking about the pokemon show, the only human characters most people are going to know of are the ones from gen 1 because the show fell so quickly out of public consciousness afterwards.

I disagree on bringing up international stuff considering how we're specifically talking about Japan ratings.

And I'm talking about things like the blue fox and the native american, and even dead characters like TaoPaiPai.

Pokemon XY and XYZ anime is great though.O_O

Generally I feel like ignoring most drive-by stuff about XY.

There's that one guy who shitposted about Viola's fight usin in-game mechanics for crying out loud lol
 
Debuting at number three was “Pokemon the Movie: Volcanion and the Exquisite Magearna” with $3.1 million on 290,000 admissions from 366 screens. This was down 16% on the previous “Pokemon the Movie: Hoopa and the Clash of Ages,” which finished with $25 million.

As a non-expert of Pokemon, I quickly read this as "Hoopla and the Clash."

Maybe they didn't go to see it purposely because they're frustrated they still don't have Pokemon Go?
 

harmonize

Member
I disagree on bringing up international stuff considering how we're specifically talking about Japan ratings.
the first generation is still the most successful one in japan in practically every measure, i only used international since it's even more clear-cut in that instance. in japan it might not be the only ones they strictly know, but if you ask some person on the street what, say, five human characters they know most of from the pokemon anime, you'd mostly get the same five that played a part in almost every original series episode that you'd get anywhere else, with the current ones right afterwards due to their current incumbency.
 
Clearly what people want is Pokemon realism. What it would be like for trainers to actually take Pokemon and use them to brutally fight and kill their enemies.
 

Curler

Unconfirmed Member
4Ever was the last theatrical release in North America, actually. Heroes got a limited release, then went to video.

The Black and White movies (I think the Black version?) actually had a limited theatrical release as well. The Zoroark movie before it was actually free in some theaters that hosted a BW event, too.
 

Fox_Mulder

Rockefellers. Skull and Bones. Microsoft. Al Qaeda. A Cabal of Bankers. The melting point of steel. What do these things have in common? Wake up sheeple, the landfill wasn't even REAL!
Pokemon was a mistake
 

EMT0

Banned
You guys talking about a reboot be it soft or hard are on the right track. As is the idea of shifting the target audience back to be 10-12,that will hopefully make the show more palatable to older fans.

Here's my compromise idea; Ash after winning in Kalos goes back to Pallet, meets Gary, and Gary drops that he's going to Poke Hawaii both to do research and to test himself against the gyms. The two quickly get competitive about it and decide that they'll both bring out the big guns in order to beat the other to the punch. Both bring back a full squad of favorites but liberally make use of swap ins from back home, constantly cross paths for explosive battles using both old and new Pokemon, and the show hops between Gary and Ash while mostly skipping or cutting fluff episodes, leaving them as implied. They should both be notably older now, late preteens to early teenager ideally. Ash has to stop being sold as some static blob to market the Anime with. Desperately so. There's no permanent growth, so people don't get attached and thus drop the show once the things they liked and stuck around for end, it's as simple as that. Cut some of the fluff, bring back some nostalgia, and play with the delivery of the plot.

I will say tho, Gary is so overhyped it hurts and I bet his image would break within a few episodes of the above.
 

dity

Member
You guys talking about a reboot be it soft or hard are on the right track. As is the idea of shifting the target audience back to be 10-12,that will hopefully make the show more palatable to older fans.

Here's my compromise idea; Ash after winning in Kalos goes back to Pallet, meets Gary, and Gary drops that he's going to Poke Hawaii both to do research and to test himself against the gyms. The two quickly get competitive about it and decide that they'll both bring out the big guns in order to beat the other to the punch. Both bring back a full squad of favorites but liberally make use of swap ins from back home, constantly cross paths for explosive battles using both old and new Pokemon, and the show hops between Gary and Ash while mostly skipping or cutting fluff episodes, leaving them as implied. They should both be notably older now, late preteens to early teenager ideally. Ash has to stop being sold as some static blob to market the Anime with. Desperately so. There's no permanent growth, so people don't get attached and thus drop the show once the things they liked and stuck around for end, it's as simple as that. Cut some of the fluff, bring back some nostalgia, and play with the delivery of the plot.

I will say tho, Gary is so overhyped it hurts and I bet his image would break within a few episodes of the above.

Sounds boring as all hell. Just battles? No thanks. That's not the nostalgia for me.
 

EMT0

Banned
Sounds boring as all hell. Just battles? No thanks. That's not the nostalgia for me.

It's not like I wrote out a plot. The Pokemon Anime can be summarized as a combination of battles and fluff each episode. If the fluff wasn't both rampant and poor then I imagine they'd quickly go from disliked to being the most beloved of episodes. Plot and character development is usually slipped in subtly while nobody's looking.
 

casiopao

Member
I disagree on bringing up international stuff considering how we're specifically talking about Japan ratings.

And I'm talking about things like the blue fox and the native american, and even dead characters like TaoPaiPai.



Generally I feel like ignoring most drive-by stuff about XY.

There's that one guy who shitposted about Viola's fight usin in-game mechanics for crying out loud lol

Lol. There is those kind of people huh. I mean, all the gym battle in XY have been great. Not to mention Ash growth with all his friends is also nice to see. Ash full team right now is even more hype. I had never seen such complete Ash team here.

He is going to win this Kalos League i will bet on it this time and it will break all the old tradition about Pokemon anime for sure.^_^
 
Lol. There is those kind of people huh. I mean, all the gym battle in XY have been great. Not to mention Ash growth with all his friends is also nice to see. Ash full team right now is even more hype. I had never seen such complete Ash team here.

He is going to win this Kalos League i will bet on it this time and it will break all the old tradition about Pokemon anime for sure.^_^

His Battle Frontier team was my favorite of his, mainly because he basically would call in the best of his previous teams
 

Boss Doggie

all my loli wolf companions are so moe
the first generation is still the most successful one in japan in practically every measure, i only used international since it's even more clear-cut in that instance. in japan it might not be the only ones they strictly know, but if you ask some person on the street what, say, five human characters they know most of from the pokemon anime, you'd mostly get the same five that played a part in almost every original series episode that you'd get anywhere else, with the current ones right afterwards due to their current incumbency.

well that's a given, the fad exists in Japan too

but at the same time, you wouldn't really pull in old fans to watch is all I'm saying

All those movies are trash. They need to just make more Pokemon Origins style stuff.

Sorry I don't want the movie to rush out important spectacles and details for pointless shit, with a character that is much worse than BW Ash.

You guys talking about a reboot be it soft or hard are on the right track. As is the idea of shifting the target audience back to be 10-12,that will hopefully make the show more palatable to older fans.

Here's my compromise idea; Ash after winning in Kalos goes back to Pallet, meets Gary, and Gary drops that he's going to Poke Hawaii both to do research and to test himself against the gyms. The two quickly get competitive about it and decide that they'll both bring out the big guns in order to beat the other to the punch. Both bring back a full squad of favorites but liberally make use of swap ins from back home, constantly cross paths for explosive battles using both old and new Pokemon, and the show hops between Gary and Ash while mostly skipping or cutting fluff episodes, leaving them as implied. They should both be notably older now, late preteens to early teenager ideally. Ash has to stop being sold as some static blob to market the Anime with. Desperately so. There's no permanent growth, so people don't get attached and thus drop the show once the things they liked and stuck around for end, it's as simple as that. Cut some of the fluff, bring back some nostalgia, and play with the delivery of the plot.

I will say tho, Gary is so overhyped it hurts and I bet his image would break within a few episodes of the above.

Gary has quit becoming a trainer.
 

JoeM86

Member
Really, this year the marketing for the movie has been absolute crap. They haven't really done much to promote it. We've had fewer trailers than usual.

It also debuted against Finding Dory and on the day Sun & Moon reservations began and Yo-kai Watch 3 came out. Granted it's the same day each year they put it out, but still that must have hurt.

To say Pokémon is dead or anything based on this is ridiculous, though. Pokémon movies have been going on for 20 years, they're not all going to be huge hits. Especially as the XY anime is the best the anime has been in a very, very long time

I've actually seen a fair bit of it! It's a fine kid's show tbh, and it's much better than other recent Pokemon series.


I'm just done with ash constantly soft rebooting his character and the anime universe in general. Origins was much more what I'd personally like. Tbh it'd be fucking FLAWLESS if we got something between origins and detective pikachu/ash Pokemon. What happens if one Charizard finds a library and gets fascinated with books and learns to speak?

Like, meowth and Sherlockchu can do it, I'd be really down with some weird blend of ideas into a new show

If you cut the anime down to 4 episodes of key points like Origins did, it'd be "flawless" too

Origins wasn't even that good. It was just the nostalgia that makes people think it was

To be fair, that was at a time where YW was declining slightly and had reached its peak.

And the second YW movie still sold way better than this Pokemon film.

I don't see your point other than trying to needlessly argue.

To be fair, Yo-kai Watch's anime ratings have dropped down to where Pokémon is now, routinely at a rating of around 3 and often not in the Top 10 weekly anime ratings lists, just like Pokémon. It has declined a fair bit. It used to be over double that, with ratings at like 5 to 6, sometimes as high as 8
 

Andrefpvs

Member
Nah, Ash got the most development and maturation of any point in the series with XY and Japan's response has been negative to that. Replacing him would probably only exacerbate the problem. They're probably just gonna revert him to his original hot-headed idiot persona like they did in BW, which was much more warmly received over there.

Wait, is this true? Because I've been really liking the direction XYZ has been following, and it would suck to see everything revert once again.
 

JoeM86

Member
Wait, is this true? Because I've been really liking the direction XYZ has been following, and it would suck to see everything revert once again.

I've not actually seen any negativity about how Ash is from the Japanese side. I think that's more a comment on the ratings not being high.
 
Nah, Ash got the most development and maturation of any point in the series with XY and Japan's response has been negative to that. Replacing him would probably only exacerbate the problem. They're probably just gonna revert him to his original hot-headed idiot persona like they did in BW, which was much more warmly received over there.

But Black and White anime was trash. They can't have Ash going from having a team that took down a Darkrai to become a joke after.

Japan's taste in Pokemon backwards
 
I think it might have helped a little if they swapped the Volcanion and Greninja event Pokemon distributions. Volcanion should have been in theatres and Greninja should have been for ticket pre-orders.

I wonder if Magaerna having a common QR code killed some interest as well? Plus you can't use Magaerna for months...

Also, I have to agree most of the movies are becoming a bit repetitive and predictable. I think I was more more excited by some of the XY(Z) fights.
 

Syntsui

Member
Pokémon as an anime/movie is trash tbh, no hype can make a person sit through that buffoonery. This news is understandable.
 

dity

Member
It's not like I wrote out a plot. The Pokemon Anime can be summarized as a combination of battles and fluff each episode. If the fluff wasn't both rampant and poor then I imagine they'd quickly go from disliked to being the most beloved of episodes. Plot and character development is usually slipped in subtly while nobody's looking.

The Pokemon anime is an adventure series where the characters meet new friends, help people, and discover new Pokemon. Battles only usually happen to defeat bad guys, or to show the characters' progress (gyms and contests).

Cutting out that "fluff" also cuts out:

- Learning new moves
- Practising new strategies
- Catching and evolving Pokemon

So, the battles have less impact when you just watch them by themself. There's no build up.

If you cut the anime down to 4 episodes of key points like Origins did, it'd be "flawless" too

Origins wasn't even that good. It was just the nostalgia that makes people think it was

In the regular anime Satoshi makes use of unique techniques of his own design and uses interesting type match ups.

Red just took advantage of strong Pokemon and type advantages. Battles were just flinging moves at each other like the games, and it ends with an advertisement for mega evolutions. It looked great, but the actual content was a bore.
 

Boss Doggie

all my loli wolf companions are so moe
After seeing a youtube camrip of the "Mega Army" fight... As much as I don't really like the XY films that SUPER ROBOT WARS style fight with Ash's team (barring Goodra) fighting a "Mega Army" was pretty good. Fuck, Pikachu and Zygarde 10% even did a combination attack.

But the movies lack the stuff that made the XY series good honestly.

Yes! so good

But Origins was crap.
 

Athreous

Member
Pokemon is the same thing since 1996, I still can't understand why some ppl care about it .-.

It's the same with WoW players :D same game, same old stuff, new exp name only =p
 

21XX

Banned
The Pokemon anime is an adventure series where the characters meet new friends, help people, and discover new Pokemon. Battles only usually happen to defeat bad guys, or to show the characters' progress (gyms and contests).

Cutting out that "fluff" also cuts out:

- Learning new moves
- Practising new strategies
- Catching and evolving Pokemon

So, the battles have less impact when you just watch them by themself. There's no build up.



In the regular anime Satoshi makes use of unique techniques of his own design and uses interesting type match ups.

Red just took advantage of strong Pokemon and type advantages. Battles were just flinging moves at each other like the games, and it ends with an advertisement for mega evolutions. It looked great, but the actual content was a bore.

I was going to ask if you seriously think there's any depth in the relationships and interactions between characters on the show, but then I saw you used "Satoshi" so I kind of know what kind of super fan you may be.
 
Given that the movie revolves around two legendary Pokemon that few people care about, one in particular having an awful design, I'm not surprised. At this point the quality of the films, the characters and the plot seemingly have no impact since it's mostly all been downhill since Rise of Darkrai and the D/P/Pt region (the odd highlights being when Team Rocket weren't completely useless for a bit in B/W, and the first few episodes of X/Y) and yet the anime and movies still do well.
 

Curler

Unconfirmed Member
I was going to ask if you seriously think there's any depth in the relationships and interactions between characters on the show, but then I saw you used "Satoshi" so I kind of know what kind of super fan you may be.

Subbed watchers = "super fans"? Given that the dialog might still a bit different from the original to the dub, XY definitely has had a lot of character develop. More than any that I've ever seen on the show. If you watched XY, you would see it too. But you're only basing this on the use of a Japanese name.
 
Maybe it's time to change the MC.

Ash has sucked as a MC and as a trainer for at least 15 years. My mind boggles how they cant bring themselves to change shit around. Not that I care much about it. I stopped giving a damn about the anime around 2001 when it became clear the producers had zero interest on developing its characters and having a compelling narrative.
 
Ash has sucked as a MC and as a trainer for at least 15 years. My mind boggles how they cant bring themselves to change shit around. Not that I care much about it. I stopped giving a damn about the anime around 2001 when it became clear the producers had zero interest on developing its characters and having a compelling narrative.

so you haven't watched anything in the anime in the last uh 15 years to know how Ash is now, k
 
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