Is the anime connected to the game development?

[CrystaI]

This is just a sudden question I wanted to ask.

Is the director board of Pokemon anime connected to the development team of Pokemon game department? Do the anime team note about the new games that are under development? Do they ever told by the game department side of what kind of story plot they are planning? The most important doubt: What are the connection between the anime department and game department?

Because the more I look into the anime, the less connection I feel they have between the game department. From the story plot focus+progress up to characterizations of different characters, from world geography to the atmosphere of the world. Even the staffs of the anime are seems to completely separated from the game department. More importantly, in the opening and ending of anime that provide the staff roll, it doesn't give credit to the game which it supposed to be based on. (On the opposite, many of the anime I watched that are originated from some games, mangas or light novels, they will write a single line in the opening/ending indicating the original source)

Well there are a few exception like Pokemon Yellow (aka Pocket Monster Pikachu ver. in GBC), Pokemon Puzzle League on N64, which adapts the anime settings to a certain extents. Also after OS era, every year they use the movies for legendary Pokemon promotion, making several Pokemons available only for the movie watchers.
But other than these, I don't see much connections between the progress of anime and the development of game. It just seems like the anime department do their own things, and game deparment do their own things. The two are just too detached that it seems there are no communication in the between.


Does anyone know about the connection between the anime and game department? What kind of communication do they have except both being a branch of Pokemon Company? Especially on the director board of both department, do they report to each other the progress of each side? Do they told to each other about what they had planned in the near future?

Although it is said that anime is supposed to promote the game, but it doesn't feel like it is promoting the game to any extent......

 

[JacobYBM]

[Series] Director Yajima Tetsuo and Chief [Series] Director Yuyama Kunihiko likely speak with the producers of the games about the upcoming plans for the games. Since episodes are at the key animation stage five months before the finished episodes even air it's likely that the production staff of the animated series know what is coming down the pipeline up to seven or eight months before hand (allowing for two weeks to write an episode and three-to-four to storyboard). However, none of the episodes currently airing now seem to include much knowledge of the new Mega Evolutions, outside of Mega Evolution Act II, so I have to assume the game producers are not always forthcoming.

My guess is Yajima and Yuyama want to plan better but the production staff for the games simply don't make that easy for them.

 

[Silktree]

My guess is Yajima and Yuyama want to plan better but the production staff for the games simply don't make that easy for them.

Why are you assuming that Game Freak are the ones at fault? Junichi Masuda did meet OLM in early March, so they were presumably planning the ORAS short as well as Mega Evolution Act II. I doubt that he pressured them not to do anything else.

 

[CrystaI]

That ORAS short is really toooooooo short, even shorter than the B2W2 promotion trailer that is also made by OLM. Moreover, it feels more like a ORAS Mega Evolution promotion trailer than some so-called "short anime", it doesn't have much content when you compare to the B2W2 one. Even it was mean to actually aired on TV, I doubt this short anime is just act as a TV commercial advertisement for ORAS.

It just feel like OLM made that ORAS short on the request of GF to promote ORAS, nothing more and nothing less. It doesn't have anything to do with the TV series that is currently airing weekly on TV Tokyo.

 

[XYZ Nexus]

That's the whole point, to advertise the main point of ORAS in just a few minutes. Expecting something any longer is just wishful thinking tbh, and besides none of these shorts were any good barring the decent animation in the B2W2 trailer. And this short was aired on YouTube, so it wasn't even going to be that long anyway, the only new thing to promote about ORAS that won't bore little kids are the Megas. Hence why they focused only on the Megas and nothing more, B2W2 had more to advertise like a new story that follows up on BW, redesigns of familiar Gym Leaders, etc.

 

[JacobYBM]

My guess is Yajima and Yuyama want to plan better but the production staff for the games simply don't make that easy for them.

Why are you assuming that Game Freak are the ones at fault? Junichi Masuda did meet OLM in early March, so they were presumably planning the ORAS short as well as Mega Evolution Act II. I doubt that he pressured them not to do anything else.

Game Freak are the ones who tell the production staff what is coming out and when. If the plan was made to do the short and Mega Evolution Act II in May that would means six-ish months to produce both while also juggling other episodes all in various stages of production. May would've been too late to begin production on episodes centering on the new aspects of the games.

That ORAS short is really toooooooo short, even shorter than the B2W2 promotion trailer that is also made by OLM. Moreover, it feels more like a ORAS Mega Evolution promotion trailer than some so-called "short anime", it doesn't have much content when you compare to the B2W2 one. Even it was mean to actually aired on TV, I doubt this short anime is just act as a TV commercial advertisement for ORAS.

It just feel like OLM made that ORAS short on the request of GF to promote ORAS, nothing more and nothing less. It doesn't have anything to do with the TV series that is currently airing weekly on TV Tokyo.

That's the point. That was the point of the trailer for the B2W2 trailer, too. It's supposed to inspire people to think "oh, this animated trailer looks nice. I'll go buy the games that look nothing like this trailer now!"

 

[Silktree]

Game Freak are the ones who tell the production staff what is coming out and when. If the plan was made to do the short and Mega Evolution Act II in May that would means six-ish months to produce both while also juggling other episodes all in various stages of production. May would've been too late to begin production on episodes centering on the new aspects of the games.

The meeting was in early March. The December-February episodes (whose titles are already known) are unlikely to have already been in production at that time.

I personally don't see a problem with the lack of direct ORAS promotion in the main anime (the short and Manon segments are enough to generate hype around the new Mega Evolutions), but I still find it weird that Mega Evolution Act II wasn't a two-parter.

 

[Gabo2oo]

I have very little to contribute here, but I've noticed small details in the anime. For example, Clemont being terrible at running is a running gag in the series, and it comes from a single line that's irrelevant to the story and most people probably missed in the game, but it's there. I'm pretty sure the anime staff is at least provided by information about each character's concept work.

 

[JacobYBM]

Why the Hell I read 'March' as 'May', I don't know. Okay. Let's break it down by stage:

Script (March-April): Two-ish weeks. The average scenario writer handles about 2-3 scripts at a time and finishes about two a month. Head Writer Tomioka Atsuhiro wrote Mega Evolution Act II. Let's assume he began writing in March, though. Tomioka writes for multiple series and is the head writer of multiple series, too. Nevertheless, let's assume he finished the script in April. From there...

Storyboard (April-May): The average storyboard takes about three-to-four weeks. Episode Director Asada Yuuji drew the storyboard for the episode but remember he has other duties on other episodes, too.

Layout (May, perhaps beyond): Layouts are done by the key animator. They act as more concrete visual guides for how the finished key animation is supposed to look. The background teams are given the layouts so they understand how to draw the background in relation to the moving objects. The moving objects are drawn by the key animator and include anything from characters to smoke, water, moving rocks, fire, explosions, blood, or snot. A lot of effects works for the series is being done using CG these days, so Iwane mostly has to rely only on drawing smoke effects and debris, although he occasionally has the opportunity to do traditional hand-drawn effects himself. Episode Director Asada Yuuji tends to personally supervise the digital effects himself.

Animation (May-July, August for in-betweens): For most series only about one month is allotted for 'animation' (key animation and in-between animation). The average key animator can handle--usually--two cuts (shots) per day. The average episode has three hundred cuts, however Pocket Monster usually uses a fair number of what is called 'BANK animation' or re-usable animation for attacks that are from the 'bank'. I don't think Mega Evolution Act II used much in the way of BANK animation, though. Studio Cockpit employee Iwane Masa'aki is the only key animator for Mega Evolution Act II, meaning he would have had to dig deep like the key animators of yore. Back in the 1980s it wasn't unheard of for animators to do one hundred cuts a month. Iwane is from that generation and has been doing solo episodes since 1998 so he is no stranger to pulling off the incredible. This is likely due to Pocket Monster having a better schedule than most Japanese cartoons. Most have only one-to-three months to put an episode together from scratch. Let's assume Iwane spent three months on his key animation. From there he would have needed to have Episode Director Asada Yuuji, Chief Animation Supervisor Hiro'oka Toshihito and likely [Series Director] Yajima Tetsuo give the thumbs up on his work. If Iwane needed to make any changes he would. However, let's remember that the episode had five 'second key animators'. Second key animators are used when the schedule for a production is short. The 'first key animator' (in this case Iwane) draws rough key frames and the seconds come in an clean them up and add in any extra frames if deemed necessary. After the second key animation is given the thumbs up the finished key animation is sent to the in-between checker who helps the production coordinator assign cuts to in-between animators. An in-between animator can usually handle only fifteen drawings a day. The average episode of a children's series like Pocket Monster has 3,000-4,000 in-betweens allowed per episode. Mega Evolution Act II is something of a prestige episode, so let's assume it had north of 3,500 allotted drawings. One in-between animator could pull off 450 in-between drawings in thirty days. Eight in-between animators are credited by name with four in-between animation studios credited. If all eight credited-by-name in-between animators worked for thirty days on the in-between animation for the episode we are looking at about 3,600 drawings being their maximum likely output. He's the tricky part, because we don't know if Iwane would finish a cut, have it approved, and then have it sent to be tweened while he was still finishing his keys for the other cuts or not. One would think that would be an efficiency technique he and Asada would employ given how tightly-knit they are but that might not be what occurs. For all we know in-between animation is handled all at once, with all of the key animation finished first. This would mean an extra month gobbled up! Iwane has been supremely busy this year, not only doing nine solo episodes of his own but also working as a key animator for the other Studio Cockpit episodes of the series.

*Key Animation = provided key animation drawings for another Animation Supervisor.
**No Notation = acts as both the作画監督 (Sakuga Kantoku; Animation Supervisor) and provides Key Animation alongside other key animators.
† = Sole person credited for原画 (Genga; key animation).

XY012 (January 9, 2014) †
XY017 (February 20, 2014) †

XY021 (March 27, 2014) (Key Animation)

Mega Evolution Act I (April 3, 2014) †
XY023 (April 17, 2014) †
XY029 (May 29, 2014) †

XY OP2 (May 29, 2014) (Key Animation)
XY ED2 (May 29, 2014) † (Animation Supervised by Matsunaga Kanae)

XY034 (July 3, 2014) †

XY36 (July 24, 2014) (Key Animation)

XY40 (August 21, 2014) (2nd Key Animation)

XY43 (September 18, 2014) (Key Animation)

XY47 (October 16, 2014) † (Animation Supervisor Assistants: Sakai Hiromi, Nakaya Toshiko)

Mega Evolution Act II (November 6, 2014) † (five second key animators assist)

Iwane did the action cuts for Episode #36 and helped on Episode #43 , too. Those episodes are also sub-contracted to Studio Cockpit, so he tends to help on them because he is their best action animator. He also did second key animation for Episode #43 . Iwane also did one of the Mega Evolution corner segments and probably contributed to the promotional video for Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire. At the same time, Iwane also did all of the key animation for Episode #47 but needed Sakai Hiromi and Nakaya Toshiko to act as 'animation supervisor assistants' to help him correct his own key animation. In fact, quite a few of Iwane's signature smoke effects were recycled from previous episodes, it seems.

We know thanks to the leak of genga (key animation) for Best Wishes Episode #20 five months before the episode aired that the key animation is either finished then or partially finished. Obviously, if there is finished key animation that means the key animators move on to their next scheduled product. If Mega Evolution Act II immediately began production in March that means Iwane would have had to be scheduled immediately, despite any prior commitments he might have had. This is probably why Episode #47 suffered and why his last prior solo key animation episode was Episode #34 . Episode #34 aired 03 July 2014. If the key animation was finished or partially finished five months ahead of time that would mean Iwane was drawing the key animation for Episode #34 in February. February is a month before the Masuda's visit to OLM, which was likely when everyone agreed to do Mega Evolution Act II. That means Act II was approved for production just weeks before it aired on 03 April 2014. However, we didn't learn about such a confirmation until 15 May 2014. That would have meant Iwane was just beginning to work on his key animation for Mega Evolution Act II. But wait, if this five month deal holds true that means the 16 October 2014 airing Episode #47 would have had to have been in the throws of key animation in May, too! Working on six hundred cuts in three-ish months is pretty damned unheard of, even for this workaholic bastard we so dearly love. This is especially odd to hear when we consider Iwane did work on Episode #43 , which aired on 18 September 2014. Episode #43 key animation would have been in production as late as April. April lines up with the Asada Yuuji potentially being busy crafting the storyboards for Mega Evolution Act II, however.

Iwane Masa'aki worked as a second key animator for Episode #40 (21 August 2014). It's not unheard of for episodes of Japanese cartoons to not be finished until just hours before they are set to air. Pocket Monster just so happens to be one of those titles that have better schedules, going by details we've heard over the years. Still, if Iwane is helping a pal out by doing second key animation that means the series is beginning to suffer. In 2014 there have been 170 animated series in production, the most Japan has ever done. Look at the credits for the series and you'll see that the number of key animators is growing by the episode due to staff shortages and the limit of staff's skills. Still, we know that episodes are being dubbed rather quickly these days. My theory is that the production committee have been having OLM finish episodes six-plus weeks ahead of schedule so that they can be sent to the international branches of The Pokémon Company International for dubbing and closer airing. If this, this also explains why the number of staff used on episodes has increased. In fact, perhaps this explains why Episode #47 is hardly Iwane's best? I don't think it's impossible that Iwane was asked to speedily put it together in the middle of working on Mega Evolution Act II. That would explain the greater deal of BANK animation, the two animation supervisor assistants, and the general lack of juice behind the key animation drawings. The storyboard for Episode #47 was handled by Kawada Takenori. Kawada has done a few storyboards for Episode Director Asada Yuuji over the years, especially around the time Asada is working on more important episodes. If Asada was trying to fine-tune Mega Evolution Act II or his next upcoming episode with some importance I could definitely see Kawada being asked to come in to help speed things along.

Why is Mega Evolution Act II not double-length? Time. The core staff didn't have the time to do make more. Hell, the production committee members probably didn't even consider having a double-length episode in the first place. Perhaps TV Toukyou only wanted to air a single, half-hour episode special? Perhaps the production committee members agreed to some sense of continuity by keeping each act the same standard length and simply did not want to air an 'Act II' longer than Act I or both Act II and Act III on the same day. The fact that the schedule was worked so that Tomioka Atsuhiro could write, Asada Yuuji could direct, and Iwane Masa'aki could provide all of the key animation himself for both likely means that everyone involved has agreed to allow these Mega Evolution specials be as personal and high-quality as possible. You can't get that if you allow outside influences that might be detrimental to the work come in. Having Oohashi Aito lend a hand would have been nice but near as I can tell they were busy working on the Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire promotional video. Series Director Yajima Tetsuo is probably stretched for staff that he can use to replace Iwane's slot in the rotation. Iwane is become invaluable to the series thanks to his speed. If the production committee members could agree on approving Mega Evolution Act IV much earlier that means the production coordinator(s) for the series can hunt down staff ahead of time to try and buy Asada and Iwane more time to work on it instead of wasting their time on a less important episode like Episode #34 or Episode #47 . It was about five weeks after Mega Evolution Act I aired that we learned Act II was ordered. I'm more likely to think that the order for Mega Evolution Act II didn't come until after Act I aired but I can't say for sure, given all of the evidence we have to consider. For Act III we learned straight away that it would occur after Act II aired, which leaves me to believe that the planning for the episode was better this time. If Yajima and company can have better assurance of when the production committee wants new Mega Evolution Act specials it will be much, much easier for them to plan. If they can plan ahead better then they can produce something much better and avoid tying up their golden geese on less qualified episodes.

 

[Nicolas721]

I think the games department tell the anime department what features the new games will have, along with new legendary forms, new characters and tentative release dates, a lot of time before us, but the anime has the final word on how they will implement them.

The anime chooses not to follow the "games style" because not following it that has always been their tradition, and I don't think that changing the style would help on selling more games.

I'm also sad that there wasn't an ORAS arc, but that probably was done in order to not interrupt the "Serena chooses her goal and Lots of captures and evolutions" arc, so they made Mega evolution arc II, the ORAS short, the mega evolution segments and other things to make up for it.

 

[YamiiDenryuu]

I'm guessing there isn't a massive ORAS arc in the main anime because they're in the middle of the Kalos arc. The Mega specials allow for that promotion to be shuffled off to the side, so if it's more effort than it's worth to be included in the main series, it doesn't need to be. There's no question that the anime's team heard about ORAS months in advance, since that would be necessary to produce the special, so that's certainly not the reason it's not in the main series.

As for promotion and following the games, I imagine all the show really needs to do to advertise is show off the flashiest aspects of the games, like the Pokemon, locations and (loosely) main mechanics. That's enough to attract attention and make people go "hey, I could consume additional media with these things in it".

Besides, they could always visit Hoenn later like they did with Kanto back in AG.

 

[henrymidfields]

Not to mention that Pokemon isn't necessarily played by kids to the extent that it was back in the days of Gen 1. Now GF could just make the games and for people like some of us who have played Pokemon before, we'll buy it, promoted or otherwise. The Hoenn remake arc could wait until the Kalos arc is done - no need to rush.