Card Conundrums

[Blackjack Gabbiani]

OK, so, James collects Pokemon cards, as seen in a few episodes.

One time, we see him with a Blaine card.

Which means there's Gym Leader cards.

Which means there's Giovanni cards.

Which means there's probably the cards that tie Giovanni to Team Rocket.

Now, if I was a public figure who was secretly an evil overlord, I'd want to keep the two as distant as I could. I certainly wouldn't allow any cards to exist that would tie me to my organization before I was willing to go public with it.

So basically, do you think Giovanni would have grounds for a defamation of character lawsuit? You know, similar to how that one pirate (whose name escapes me) sued a newspaper for calling him a pirate and won?

Another thing--How could they get away with having Team Rocket sets to begin with? To say nothing of the Aqua/Magma set, and you just know they'll make a Galactic set too. I mean, wouldn't that be dangerous for everyone involved?

And how about cards of Legendaries? Now sure, a few of them are provable in that world, like Rayquaza, Lugia, and the Legendary Birds, but then you have things that no one's supposedly seen, like, oh, I donno...MEWTWO. Bill's door notwithstanding, wouldn't that be dangerous to put on a card too?

And to close--what's the story behind the Ancient Mew card? All I know is that apparently it's valuable to start a grand Collection off of, so it's clearly not the "basic promo" it is in our world. Is it *really* an ancient card? What's it made of (that can apparently survive a massive explosion)? Did ancient peoples play a game similar to our Pocket Monsters only summoning real--wait, that's a different show.

 

[Adamant]

Which means there's probably the cards that tie Giovanni to Team Rocket.

Why would there be? His position as Team Rocket boss wouldn't be known to the producers of the cards, but his (previous) gym leader occupation would, hence they can make cards featuring him as such.

And to close--what's the story behind the Ancient Mew card? All I know is that apparently it's valuable to start a grand Collection off of, so it's clearly not the "basic promo" it is in our world.

Why wouldn't it? It was just mentioned to be the item that sparked Geraldan's collection, so it being a somewhat rare promotional card isn't out of the question. If it was what he started with, it can't have been THAT impossibly rare to come across, since he wasn't collecting until after he aquired it.
The writers were just telling the kids that the mysterious card they might've been handed (I got a Moltres promo instead :-() was special enough to be the basis of the greatest pokemon collection ever, one worth spending hundred thousands of dollars bulding a giant vessel to take them around the world searching for rare, live pokemon... okay, maybe not that part.

 

[Habunake]

I'm failing to see how a harmless joke off the card game results in this level of thought.

 

[Blackjack Gabbiani]

People analyze single lines, right? Why not analyze the implications of a joke?

 

[Dogasu]

When do we ever see Kojirou with a Gym Leader card?

I honestly can't remember. Then again, there's large chunks of the series I haven't seen pre-Houen, so if it happened then, I probably haven't seen the episode.

 

[Blackjack Gabbiani]

I believe it was the first time we see him with cards. You know, the one that was changed to "pictures of himself" in English. The Marowak episode, if I recall.

 

[Dogasu]

Ah. I haven't seen that one. But I have heard about the edit.

 

[Maxim Posthumus]

Yeah, there was an edit there. But nope. It wasn't a Gym Leader card.

 

[Blackjack Gabbiani]

That's odd, I distinctly remember seeing Blaine's picture on a card at some point...

 

[Habunake]

But nope. It wasn't a Gym Leader card.

Ah, so this whole thread was pointless, just like most of Blackjack's post.

Oh, hey guys, I'll try and dig up ANOTHER in-joke from ten years ago so we can try and turn it into some super cool debate and actually act like it has some barring on things! Won't that be fun!

Remember when Ash mentioned the Minnesota Vikings! That MUST mean Ash has knowledge of American Colleges!

 

[cassius335]

He probably looked it up on Bulbapedia (what else would Wikipedia be called in that world?)

 

[Blackjack Gabbiani]

Hahaha...no.

Said card is still suspect, because it's from the Team Rocket expansion. Which makes it even more interesting. Three words--"The Boss's Way".

 

[The Big Al]

It is? I can't tell.

And Vikings are NFL, not college idiot. And it was dub added anyway.

 

[Blackjack Gabbiani]

It's this card, I found it in my binder. I can scan "Boss's Way" if anyone wants, but the important thing is that it has a closeup of Giovanni, enough to clearly identify him. And in the anime world, I'm pretty sure that would aggrivate him.

 

[The Realist™]

Yeah, there was an edit there. But nope. It wasn't a Gym Leader card.

UMMM..What is that red thing supposed to be?

 

[Blackjack Gabbiani]

I see a couple of red things. Lipstick, a rose, nail polish, and what appears to be a plastic mallet.

 

[offkilter06]

Ah. I haven't seen that one. But I have heard about the edit.

Someone is going to have to fill me in. I tried looking around online to prevent asking and looking like an idiot, but I can't find anything. What was the edit?

 

[Blackjack Gabbiani]

Apparently, they can't show products on childrens shows that you can get in real life (how Digimon Tamers and Yu-Gi-Oh! got around this, I'll never know), so to show a real card was forbidden. The dubbers put a screenshot of James in place of the card and had him say that he liked to look at pictures of himself in his spare time.

 

[offkilter06]

Ah. I remember that line. Strange.

 

[Dogasu]

Apparently, they can't show products on childrens shows that you can get in real life (how Digimon Tamers and Yu-Gi-Oh! got around this, I'll never know)

Every single card that shows up in Yu-Gi-Oh! had digital paint added to it by 4Kids. Not only to erase the Japanese text, but also to make them look different enough from the real cards that the FCC didn't mind.