Did the writers know about BW2?

[AlphaMouse]

Do you think that the writers were in synch with the game developers when they were developing BW2?

I hope that a thread like this doesn't already exist.

 

[HumanDawn]

I think that when they wrote the Kami Trio two-parter, the Therian formes weren't designed yet.

 

[Chao]

Didn't Ash's badge case feature a hole with the same shape as the Legend Badge before and was later change into a vague cloudy area?

 

[Musashi]

Didn't Ash's badge case feature a hole with the same shape as the Legend Badge before and was later change into a vague cloudy area?

That's what someone has said before.

I think they knew about BW2 when the development got more finalized. It's why things always seem to change midway through because the anime needs to adapt to the third game of the generation.

 

[YamiiDenryuu]

Didn't Gamefreak themselves not come up with B2W2 as sequels instead of double third versions until sometime late in BW's development? (I'm not sure about the exact timing.) The anime writers probably wouldn't have heard much about the sequels if Gamefreak hadn't started working on them until fairly late.

 

[97SaturnSL1]

i think the writers of the anime knew about bw2 but the kept it all hidden under the rug. to make it a "suprise" i belive they did edit a few parts such as the gym badge case thing to keep us watchers wanting more to entice to buy bw2

 

[Dogasu]

There's also the whole Iris / Shaga thing.

There's no way they were planning to have Homika be the Gym Leader Satoshi was going to get his eighth badge from when the series first started.

 

[Cybersai]

They probably did. Why would Unova be so short if they didn't know about it? There would be no other game planned to make a new saga out of.

As we can see BW2 is extending Unova's episode count, what looked to be a shorter saga is now probably going to wind up being Hoenn's length.

 

[Jukain]

132 eps? Surely you jest. If they're right about the League being soon, it'll be shorter than that. Anyway, I don't know when the whole badge case thing changed, but there is some cutoff point for where the writers became aware of BW2. The plot itself doesn't divert until after Icirrus, when they are told that Opelucid Gym is closed. There's also something about how the saga seemed to slow down between Castelia and Nimbasa, but then it returned to the previous pace. If there was a rush to get to another saga, then I don't see why because they worked B/W2 into the current saga anyway. Given how far in advance the eps are planned, it is plausible that the B/W2 stuff was already being put in by the time they were revealed to us in February. (they were at Mistralton then) I wouldn't be against them knowing about it before then, and that particular point explains nothing that I know of. For them to have known it the entire time seems ridiculous to me. People like to point to Iris, but I see it as just a coincidence and nothing more. I will buy a Dragon trainer being a prodigy, and her getting a win over Ash, although I don't think that should've happened. The Dragonite thing was within the BW2 arc, so it's plain that was supposed to mean something, but those previous things I will still take as simply being a Dragon trainer. I also just think it's an allusion and indicates nothing about Iris's fate in this saga.

 

[Leavanny Duo]

Most likely.

 

[Cybersai]

They likely had an idea early on. This is why Cheren never appeared, because they knew he was a Gym leader.

This is also likely why Iris was a main character in the first place, they knew about how big her role in the games were. I also get the feeling that if they didn't know about BW2, Dawn either might not have appeared at all or appeared earlier in the serie.s

 

[garrison-san]

The anime has ignored the existence of other game rivals previously (Wally, much to my chagrin, never appeared at all, while Silver and Brendan were restricted to fleeting cameos in specials/movies), so the Cheren thing could just be a coincidence.

I do think that the pacing of Best Wishes is pretty indicative, for all the reasons Samurott mentioned - given how fast-paced the earlier stages of the series were (at least in terms of gym battles), it's curious how things appeared to significantly slow down before the Elesa battle, then suddenly pick up again with a vengeance, as though the writers were in a real hurry to get things over with. Regardless of how long they knew about BW2 (or at least the general idea of doing a sequel, if not the full details of it) it seems likely that at this point they were (suddenly?) aware that they had a strict deadline to be working towards.