How do you feel about the way the Pokeathlon and Musicals were handled in the anime?

[Cybersai]

Is it just me, or did the writers purposely give as little screentime to these new sidequests as they possibly could? Its almost as if the writers purposely sabotaged them in the anime.

Back in DP, the Pokeathlon only gets 1 episode, and even then the first 10 minutes of the ep were spent on "preparing" for it rather than in the actual Pokeathlon events. And even then it was lackluster.

In BW, the actual Musicals gets a grand total of 2 minutes of screentime, which consist of nothing more than the pokemon dancing on stage with Ash and Oshawott quickly getting pulled into the event. While 1 more episode seems dedicated to the Musicals, its just helping a trainer train for them, in which the actual musical will again probably only be 5 minutes at most at the end of the episode.

Why do you think the writers purposely gave as little screentime to the Pokeathlon and Musicals as possible? After the huge promotion of Contests in the anime that lasted 8 years, they really did purposely give as little screentime to these new sidequests as possible.

 

[Moe]

Re: How do you feel about the way the Pokeathlon and Musicals were handled in the ani

I think that's simply because more could be done with contests in the anime. If the anime contests were as procedural and dull as the ones in the games, they'd have only got a single episode too - but the writers took the time to develop out the concepts of the contest battle and move combinations - things that both aren't in the games.

The Pokeathlon in the games is genuinely a fun minigame, but I think the equivalent to that in the anime are the episodes about things like Pokeringer, where there is a more developed event taking into account the differences in that the Anime has. An episode to promote a game's feature is about all you could really do with the Pokeathlon directly.

As for musicals, it is hard to develop that into an anime competition - they seem to be just entertainment without judging of prepared musical acts, which rightfully sits as just a side part of the episodes. I also can't see how they could do a similar amount of anime-exclusive development of the broad concept. A Pokemon version of Unova's Got Talent?

 

[Cybersai]

Re: How do you feel about the way the Pokeathlon and Musicals were handled in the ani

Well as said, the Contests were fleshed out in the anime. Had the Contests in the anime been exactly like the game ones, where all that happened is you would see a bunch of appeals one after the other, I gather they would have bombed in the series and been scraped early into the Hoenn saga. Its only because they revamped them for the anime and changed so much about it that it became a storyline for the series.

If they actually put effort into the Pokeathlon or Musical, it could have been a decent subplot. Its odd that the writers purposely gave them as little screentime as possible though, almost as if they brush them under the rug after they show them once.

 

[Moe]

Re: How do you feel about the way the Pokeathlon and Musicals were handled in the ani

I just can't see there being much more to develop with either of them. The Pokeathlon's need in the anime is replaced by the generic one-day competitions they find in Animexclusive Town, with the associated COTD and the development of one of Ash's Pokemon (like Bayleef in that Extreme Pokemon episode) - there's no need to then add to the anime an Olympics like event that squishes all these episodes into one event, much less the mini-arc that it would take to do them justice.

Musicals have the problem of being in the shadow of Contests - ditching Contests for better or worse gave BW a different atmosphere. To do that and then try and expand on Musicals only reminds viewers about what a terrible replacement for Contests they are in the games, and means you get more comparisons between the two. Just like how the Pokeathlon is like a bunch of random filler episodes, Musical-like events have been in the Anime before, like the Politoed episode or even that Ditto house - they don't really have much potential for anything more than occasional fillers.

 

[Cybersai]

Re: How do you feel about the way the Pokeathlon and Musicals were handled in the ani

Which makes me think that any other sidequest from the games will get minimal treatment. Anything that falls under battling, like the Battle Frontier, would be done by Ash, but anything else...even the Pokemon Ranger gimmick, is only given one-off episodes.

 

[Moe]

Re: How do you feel about the way the Pokeathlon and Musicals were handled in the ani

I was certainly very disappointed in the Big Stadium/Small Court in both the games and the anime. It would have been great if instead of seeing a few seconds of Iris and Ash playing Tennis, we could have seen a team of their Pokemon playing football or basketball, which would be some good character development. I really do like the episodes that allow Pokemon to just have some fun, something we get too few of (and next to none in BW).

 

[Cybersai]

Re: How do you feel about the way the Pokeathlon and Musicals were handled in the ani

The Ping Pong tournament back in DP was a good example of a sports related event made into tournament. Although that ep is generally hated because of Ambipom's release, the actual ping pong part of it was decent.

 

[Eitarou]

Re: How do you feel about the way the Pokeathlon and Musicals were handled in the ani

The Pokéathlon was handled horribly in the anime.

We only saw three events, and they looked completely stupid.

What was the point of the goggles and the headbands in the Hurdle Dash?

 

[Dogasu]

Re: How do you feel about the way the Pokeathlon and Musicals were handled in the ani

I'll bet part of the reason they didn't do much with the Musicals is they didn't want to have to pay Miyazaki Shinji to create a bunch of new pieces just for the Musicals. With the Pokemon Contests, all they had to do was have him make one Contest theme and then use pre-existing battle music to fill out the rest of the competition, but I doubt they'd be able to get away with doing something like that if Musicals were made into a series-wide event.

 

[MarshiyanMisutaa]

Re: How do you feel about the way the Pokeathlon and Musicals were handled in the ani

It must be a conspiracy. I blame Mr. Contesta...

 

[Cybersai]

Re: How do you feel about the way the Pokeathlon and Musicals were handled in the ani

Well the contests were brought into the anime in an attempt to save the series after how stale and repetitive Johto was, and an attempt to lure young female fans into the series.

I guess they feel the Pokeathlon and Musicals wouldn't make the same impact? After all, we all know the reason Contests kept coming back after Hoenn for a reason.

 

[pokemon fan 132]

Re: How do you feel about the way the Pokeathlon and Musicals were handled in the ani

I feel indifferent about whole thing because quite honestly both Pokethlon and Musicals judging by what had been showed in episodes they were introduced,fails in comparison to contests imo.Im glad writers never expanded on whole concept because im not sure if i could digest seeing them appearing on daily basis like contests were.

Not to mention they didnt seemed to had enough stamina and potential to get carried out through whole region to make something worthwhile out of it.Pokethlon was like some sort of pokemon olympics which involved pokemon competing in various sport disciplines,while Musicals seemed to had nothing more going for it other than pokemon dancing being center of stage.

Idea seemed nice and everything on paper,but in practice it simply didnt had material to do something legit out of whole thing.At least with contests writers manage to expand on whole concept by implementing battling rounds ,combination of attacks etc being nice change of pace from gyms giving something similar yet to large extent different.

Granted some could say how they could have done same thing with Musicals but problem is that due to their nature involving pokemon dressing and dancing makes them too similar to contests and their appeal rounds,not providing anything new really acting like just inferior replacement which leaves sour taste in mouth.There is only so much you can do with this and i dont think they could become profitable and popular enough to warrant more exposure.

Well the contests were brought into the anime in an attempt to save the series after how stale and repetitive Johto was, and an attempt to lure young female fans into the series.

I guess they feel the Pokeathlon and Musicals wouldn't make the same impact? After all, we all know the reason Contests kept coming back after Hoenn for a reason.

I dont think Contests being introduced in Hoenn had anything to do with attempt of trying to "save series".If anime needed second on going quest in order to maintain viewers interest i dont think it would ever regress back to original series formula like BW is lately doing.As for Johto whether it was stale or not i believe is matter of opinion.

Im of belief how contests were initially planned to get introduced solely for promotional purposes,with writers after awhile due to being received well deciding to stick with them with main motivation behind stay probably being to try attracting more of female viewers toward this show.Granted success was decent but it probably didnt polute big enough results to justify their stay becoming permanent fixture like gyms are.

 

[Almonds]

Re: How do you feel about the way the Pokeathlon and Musicals were handled in the ani

The contests must have been written in detail to show how pokemon contest moves can actually differ from battle moves - it's like a creative pokemon show with flashy acts, while sticking to the original pokemon battles.

The musicals and pokethalon didn't really have much to do with either of those, so I guess they were neglected.