Bulbapedia talk:Project Anime

Welcome to Project Anime!
Welcome to the talk page for Project Anime. This is the place to ask general questions about improving Bulbapedia's anime content, or proposing new ideas for the project as a whole. Please remember to sign all comments with ~~~~ and don't forget to be nice!
Talk Archives: One

Anime characters and Trainer's Pokémon

I'm starting this thread because Maverick Nate commented on the discord conversation and talked about being discussed in an environment where it can be debated more exclusively focused on the issue. Will the rules for Trainer Pokémon and relevant characters in the anime(s) remain the same? More mainly I ask because of pages like these here:

• User:BigDocFan/Leon's Charizard
• User:Hikaru Wazana/Diantha (anime)

Another case, the part that I think is important to be evaluated would be Friede's Charizard

• User:CuteSylveon42/Friede's Charizard

Whereas Friede appears to fall into the main character category, Charizard appears to be a notable Pokémon.

As up to the present moment, Horizons has been completely different from what we had before, will this new series receive its own rules or will the ones we had in Ash's anime still be maintained? Since I'm only trying to follow the standards adopted in the pages of the manga characters for this series.--Hikaru Wazana (talk) 13:56, 25 June 2023 (UTC)

I think most everyone has agreed that Leon's Charizard is notable enough for its own page. I think there's an additional problem that more than one draft exists: User:HygorBH/Leon's Charizard, so it's less simple than just moving the draft into the mainspace at this point.

I think there's something to be said about providing some consistency with more of these main characters like Diantha. What that consistency is, however, is certainly a big question that not everyone is going to agree with. With any hard and fast rule, there are going to be exceptions that are made worse by that rule. I think a character like Winona or Lenora benefits from having her anime content on the base page, since they are really just a glorified characters of the day, but I can certainly see why a Korrina (anime) does have one. My biggest personal holdup for having more pages is what it does to the base page. Like, this section on Korrina's page is not doing a very good job of providing even a summary of Korrina in the anime. If we could find a way to ensure that the main pages aren't made significantly worse by having a separate more focused page, I think I'd be able to look past my personal concerns a bit better.

Maybe the character pages in general need some sort of refresh. At this point in time, I really only have very loose general ideas of what that might look like, but I'd hate to lose the comprehensive feel that I believe the current method is trying to go for. I was thinking about maybe each person character page has a section near the top that summarizes like, one or two signature Pokemon, that would be an interesting change. I think that would do much better for Friede's Charizard or Amethio's Ceruledge, personally. Many characters are missing that general overview of who this person is within the franchise that I think would be helpful. ^Maverick_Nate 04:22, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

I agree when you say that there is a character that it doesn't make sense to send the content of its page to a separate page. Marnie for example, unfortunately it is.

My "problem" with some situations is that I think some elements of the Project Anime should be isolated from the rest of the "Project Games" or "Manga", the main anime and Pokémon animations become big enough to be a universe unique to the franchise. An example is Pokémon Concierge which will be a TV series completely unrelated to the games. And if there isn't a kind of focus, a lot of things get lost along the way.

But yes, I also think it's good to have a balance so as not to harm the pages of these characters in games. I've been analyzing those ideas of Templates at the top of each page that would divide a character by media and I don't know if this is a good solution either.--Hikaru Wazana (talk) 14:48, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

Organizational improvements in response to Horizons

In response to recent new information regarding Pokémon Horizons: The Series, these are the top level organizational improvements that have been discussed lately that seem pertinent to plan out the details for making them happen. (I will go from largest category and work my way inward.)

The following improvements have already been discussed at length and are generally thought to be necessary. Relevant counterarguments can still be presented below, just please be very clear about what points are being talking about. Once we get some of these moves and splits taken care of, we can address specific content decisions on a per article basis on the relevant talk pages, but for now, let's just try and make sense of the mess we've found ourselves in.

• 1) Problem: Pokémon anime is trying to both be a specific page about Pokémon the Series and a general page about Pokémon animation.

Solution: Move Pokémon anime to Pokémon the Series to maintain the page history, rewrite Pokémon the Series to only detail Ash's adventure from The Beginning through Journeys with any relevant sub content, rewrite the anime page to be about all Pokémon animation (as it is named here) similar to Pokémon manga.

Implications: Movies are separated on Pokemon.com, and it's probably a wise decision to create something separate in order to keep appropriate focus for these pages.

Relevant userspace drafts: User:Boblers/Pokémon anime; User:Boblers/Pokémon the Series; User:TrainerSplash/Pokémon animation; User:SaturnMario/Pokémon the Series (series), User:Boblers/Pokémon movie

• 2) Problem: The wiki currently references Ash's story as the main series or the anime on many, if not most, of anime relevant pages, even though the "main series" will now be Pokémon Horizons: The Series.

Solution: Future-proof all references to call the medium by its name: i.e. Pokémon the Series, Pokémon Origins, Pokémon Concierge, Pokémon Horizons: The Series, instead of giving precedence to any one or another. Additionally, scale the naming of sections something similar to the following

==In animation==

===Pokémon the Series===

====The Beginning====

====Diamond & Pearl====

====Journeys====

===Pokémon Horizons: The Series===

===Pokémon Origins===

===Pokémon Concierge===

• 3) Problem: Original series is a weird amalgamation of 2 different English series and 3 different Japanese series.

Solution: Split the page to follow the English language definition, as that's what makes the most sense for an English language encyclopedia following primarily English language sources. Update any references accordingly.

Implications: the EP Epicode will no longer make sense for EP117-EP274. Solution: move those pages to GS001 to GS158.

Relevant userspace drafts:User:Maverick Nate/List of Pokémon the Series: The Beginning episodes; User:Maverick Nate/List of Pokémon the Series: Gold and Silver episodes; User:SaturnMario/List of Pokémon the Series (series) episodes

• 4) Problem: Horizons has a Season 1, so the season epicodes become problematic.

Solution: Move all seasons to their official title instead of using an epicode.

Implications: Season 23, for example, is named the same as the series: They are both Pokémon Journeys: The Series. (Solution: use the (season) parenthetical, and maybe (series))

Relevant userspace drafts: User:Evie/Anime seasons; User:Pikachu Bros./WebsiteSeason

If I missed anything, let me know. ^Maverick_Nate 14:59, 25 June 2023 (UTC)

The third topic is interesting to discuss, because clearly the "original series" has three distinct arcs; Kanto League, Orange League and Johto League.

Johto, by the way, has a lot of difference in the structure for Ash's Kanto phase. And I know this is an English language wiki, but I always consider the Japanese stuff more important than the American stuff, the anime has a lot of stuff that stayed in the country of origin or was changed to be ignored.--Hikaru Wazana (talk) 15:43, 25 June 2023 (UTC)

I do have some counterarguments. On point 2), should't both Ash'story and Pokémon Horizons fall under the "main series" label, at least from a production perspective? I think HZ can be considered a series of the anime/Pokémon the Series just like AG or SM and not something inherently separate form it, even though this time all the protagonists are different. On point 3), while the original series does indeed have three chapters in the Japanese version, they are nonetheless all part of the 1997 Pocket Monsters series so it wouldn't be inaccurate to keep a single page. On point 4), it's true that the website had "Pokémon Horizons (Season 1)" listed there, but it could simply mean that it's the first season of the HZ series. There is a good possibility that once arriving on pokemon.com they'll count it as the 26th season meaning that the current epicodes won't be obsolete.--Ricbolog1310 (talk) 21:52, 25 June 2023 (UTC)

On Points 1, 2, and 4, I completely agree. However, I don't think either of the userspace drafts for Point 4 are relevant to this discussion; they were made at a time that the season boundaries themselves were in dispute, which is an issue we have largely resolved (unless someone wants to propose having separate articles for "Pokémon the Series - Season 1" and "Pokémon: Indigo League" based on the differing definitions).

I think the title "Pokémon the Series" is a little bit tricky, because my understanding has always been that that name specifically refers to the TV series as opposed to the movies (which are titled "Pokémon the Movie: ..."). However, in the absence of a better title, I think it's perfectly fine to use.

Regarding Ricbolog1310's point: To my knowledge they have never referred to the start of a new series as "Season 1". The season Pokémon the Series: XY was always Season 17, not Season 1 of 'Pokémon the Series: XY. I still think it's a good idea to rename season articles to the season names instead of epicodes though, even if Pokémon.com decides to refer to "Pokémon Horizons: The Series - Season 1" as Season 26 (which I suspect they won't, but we'll have to wait and see).

Point 3 is where I disagree. My understanding is that the Japanese side considers the original series (just titled "Pocket Monsters" without a subtitle) to be an entire series on the same level as Pocket Monsters: Advanced Generation etc. The Kanto, Orange Islands ("Episode: Orange Islands"), and Johto ("Episode: Gold and Silver") arcs are treated as subseries. I think it's entirely reasonable to argue that the two dub series and three Japanese subseries all deserve articles on their own too, but I do not think we should replace the top-level original series article we currently have, nor do I think we should rename EP epicodes to GS. I'd like to continue that specific discussion on the talk page of original series, as I think it's going to take this conversation too far off-topic. --SnorlaxMonster 03:26, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

I fully agree on topics 1, 2, and 4. Perhaps I can help sell those points:

• 1) Animated Pokémon media has branched out a lot in recent years, yet with the current form of the "Pokémon anime" article, the TV show is drowning everything else out due to its sheer size. Re-organizing a "Pokémon animation" article would give much more visibility to these other works, and help them seem like their own, important things rather than just footnotes.
• 2) Usage of the "main series" label seems to be based on plot/world, not really production. Most pages' anime sections talk about events that happened in PTS. In that sense, given that Horizons seems to be a hard reboot, keeping PTS plot elements separate from Horizons plot elements could help avoid confusion over which events could influence future events, etc. It wouldn't make sense to associate Ash's achievements with Horizons events, if Horizons doesn't consider him to exist. If we want to present the production ties, we can do so on the post-rework "Pokémon animation" article - have a section for "TV animation", and have PTS and Horizons in their own subsections under that.
• 4) Renaming the seasons is pretty much necessary if we want to establish that PTS and Horizons are separate entities - it'd be odd to have Horizons as S26, when it's seemingly not connected to S01-S25 in terms of world and characters.

Regarding topic 3, I initially agreed - it's strange to me that we use official English titles for all PTS series except the "Original Series", even though it has official English names as "The Beginning" (EP001 - EP116) and "Gold and Silver" (EP117 - EP274). Going through with topic 3's changes would bring some consistency to how we present this - additionally, it would fit well with the Johto color scheme we're already using on EP117 - EP274's pages.

However, given what SnorlaxMonster has mentioned about the Japanese side of the Original Series, now I'm not quite sure about topic 3. --Boblers (talk) 10:43, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

Ricbolog1310, both Liko's and Ash's anime are main series.

The point is that the two as far as it turned out are independent series. Assuming that the anime from now on starts to do like the Yugi-Oh and Digimon anime, which take place in other universes, it will be important to have differences, even if they are all still the "Pokémon anime".--Hikaru Wazana (talk) 11:54, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

Personally, I think it's too early to tell. As of now, Nurse Joy is the only character from a previous series to have received an appearance in Horizons, but once more old characters start to appear it will hopefully be easier to discern whether it's indeed a hard reboot or not--Ricbolog1310 (talk) 12:47, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

I never said that Horizons is a reboot, but that it is a series without ties to the previous one (a person who started watching in HZ001, has no need to watch the previous 25 years of anime). I'm sure more characters will show up at one time or another but that's not the point of the question. And then we enter the speculation and theory area, something that makes no sense to discuss here.

The point for me is that some pages (like the Elite Four) are based on describing Ash's experiences with these characters. That kind of thing won't happen anymore. This page and the Rivals page, I was even thinking of changing the way some information is described there, by the way.--Hikaru Wazana (talk) 13:01, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

In regards to point 3, the official website started considering them 3 different Series instead of 1 starting in October 2006, almost 17 years ago! What's more, the description for Orange Islands mentions 前シリーズから、よりポケモンの世界が広がり人気となったオレンジ諸島編。, directly stating that the story continues "from the previous series". The distinctions that the official site have wanted to make since before Pokémon the Series: Diamond and Pearl are very clear, and have been for almost 2 decades? Our information does not match the information being communicated by the company, and from an accountability/factual accuracy point of view, that's incredibly concerning. ^Maverick_Nate 13:53, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

The official Japanese Twitter for has indicated several times that Kanto, OI, and Johto are one series (as can be seen here, here, here, and here. It wouldn't make any sense otherwise for the OI/Johto to be mentioned as having debuted in the 1997 anime. PokemonMasterJamal3 (talk) 11:19, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

Additionally, a split proposal for splitting the original series was already proposed and declined in the past. (Also, I mistyped some of my previous post... I meant to say "the official Japanese Twitter for the anime" and "the OI/Johto Pokémon". PokemonMasterJamal3 (talk) 11:44, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

That split was before the announcement of Horizons; it would be irresponsible of us to never revisit a decision when new information changes the frame of reference. Additionally, we have also learned that the social media accounts for Pokemon don't have as strict of standards for the technical accuracy of what they post. (They don't have to send their posts through editing.) This has resulted in things like 'starter Pokemon' reappearing on English socials for the first time in 5 generations, and things like Moltres being called a Mythical Pokemon instead of a Lenedary Pokemon on a recent Japanese official instagram story. In the hierarchy of official outlets, if the official site and the official social medias conflict with their content, the official site trumps social media. ^Maverick_Nate 06:25, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

I'm still confused on what "new information" you're referring to. The SAG-AFTRA link you posted earlier on the talk page doesn't seem to show me anything in particular. I also think it's weird to act like Kanto/OI/Johto are completely separate from each other; they clearly have more similarities with each other than any other series by far (the same main characters outside of Brock being briefly swapped out for Tracey during OI, Ash wearing the same outfit the entire time, and having the same main rival for Ash... and there's also the fact that the final episode of the Johto saga started the whole trend of replacing the "To Be Continued" message with something else that has always marked the conclusion of other series). The official Japanese website also uses the exact same logo for all three (even if they're "separated"), and the fact that there is official Japanese media that has referred to them as one series as recent as 2023 makes me unconvinced that they should be considered separate series. PokemonMasterJamal3 (talk) 12:19, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

For points 1 and 2, the most recent TPCi press releases (1, 2) have been referring to both Ash's story and Horizons collectively as "the Pokémon animated series", in the same way the Japanese side has always been referring to it as アニメ「ポケットモンスター」. I think it's still possible that TPCi will consider Horizons as part of "Pokémon the Series" (seeing as Horizons also has "The Series" in its full title), so I think it's premature to limit the term "Pokémon the Series" to refer only to Ash's story arc. I think most people would still interpret "the anime" and "the main series" as referring to these series collectively (as opposed to Hisuian Snow or Twilight Wings, which are just "an animated series" as opposed to "the animated series").

For point 3, I think this only makes sense if we also follow the English numbering. As long as we're following the Japanese numbering, I think it makes more sense to keep the Japanese series divisions, which is for the most part that Kanto/Orange Islands/Johto are all 編 of ポケットモンスター（1997年）. The MPM announcement trailer, these retrospective summary trailers, and TV Tokyo are also consistent with an OS/AG/DP/BW/XY/SM/JN division, and the TPC Asia sites even number the series as 1=OS, 2=AG, ..., 6=SM, 7=JN. If we do want to split OS based on the Japanese divisions, then we should really be splitting it into Kanto/Orange Islands/Johto, not just Beginning/Gold & Silver.

For point 4, I think moving the seasons to their titles would be fine. --Abcboy (talk) 21:31, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

Revisiting point 1, it seems that the main concerns are over how/whether Ash material should be divided from Horizons material, and that we might need to wait for more official info. In the meantime, perhaps we can consider them as one large series ("Pokémon the Series") with 2 eras, like how the sample in my userspace is laid out? (this one: User:Boblers/Pokémon the Series). If we decide to actually split them later, it should be easy to do so, as they're already sectioned apart in the sample.

The split of "Pokémon animation" and "Pokémon the Series" seems to not have much opposition, however. With the recent announcements of Path to the Peak and Paldean Winds, as well as the upcoming Pokémon Concierge, it's becoming more important for us to consider this split. The samples in my userspace are pretty much ready to go, if we want to go ahead with them (these: User:Boblers/Pokémon anime (we could rename it to Pokémon animation), User:Boblers/Pokémon the Series). --Boblers (talk) 15:25, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

For point 3, I've come up with a better idea than my last decision. We could move the series' articles to "<series> (Pokémon the Series)". We could move the "original series" to "Pokémon the Series (Pokémon the Series)". The rest, we could add "(Pokémon the Series)" at the end of their pages' name. Likewise, we can move the "List of original series episodes" page to "List of Pokémon the Series: The Beginning and Gold and Silver episodes". In addition, we could move "Pokémon Horizons: The Series" to "Pokémon Horizons: The Series (Pokémon Horizons)". I think that would be a better idea. What do you say? --SaturnMario, his talk and his contributions 16:12, 22 August 2023 (UTC)