Making the Pokeworld your World

[RaiThunder]

So how do you guys write the Poke World? I mean, most people don't write the towns as small as they are in the games and the anime has loads of extra towns. Do you adjust the Pokeworld in your works? And speaking of adjusting how do you handle nationalities or do you make the Pokeworld all Japanese, as I've seen some people do.

Personally, I've split the Pokeworld into a vaguely real world for my current two works. I've set each region to represent one or more continents (Hoenn is Africa and a good portion of South America for example). How do you handle such things in your works?

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

In my works, I tend to literally equate the regions with the corresponding zones of Japan. Kanto/Johto are Honshu, Hoenn is Kyushu, Sinnoh is Hokkaido, etc. A friend of mine and I once considered turning other nations into regions, such as Korea. Anything else grates on my mind, given the deliberate parallels of geography and culture.

 

[Necrozma]

I've actually just begun developing and working on my universe - the reality in which my story will take place.

I've adjusted Kanto and pretty much made it quite similar to the actual region of Kanto in Japan on which it was based while at the same time making up stuff of my own. For example, having Johto and Kanto originally be one region but the differences between the cultures and constant wars led to the separation from which two separate cultures, two separate lands stemmed.

Yes, you could say that I adjust Pokeworld. It's really fun creating your own universe and its own history.

 

[TheLlama]

I make everything like "country"-sized regions. I mean, it's supposed to take a year to travel through a region after all. This includes larger cities, more non-canon towns and such. Not everything is visited, necessarily, but I have them there as potential appearances.

I also like to change how the towns look, at times. For example, I really loved the anime version of Oreburgh City, so I'd be prone to writing Oreburgh like that if I had a fanfic set to Sinnoh.

The same goes for other towns, cities and locations; I change them, adapt them, make them more interesting (in my eyes).

But generally I enjoy creating regions and places so much I've created my own region for my upcoming fanfiction to be set in.

 

[Kihote]

This is what I have been doing so far to Sinnoh. I'm keeping the main towns and such, but giving each one its own special thing to help stand out. I made Twinleaf more of a little village which has no shops, nothing, like the distant suburbs of Sandgem, thus walking from one to the other would be common (as to why the player's mother doesn't really mind sending you off there). Sandgem didn't get a lot of attention, but its more of a classic village, with ye old shop and a pokémon center, and only standing out thanks to Rowan's lab (which takes up most of the space). Jubilife, being not too far away, is the first major city, and is the entertainment area, with television studios, pokétch headquarters, the largest (albeit dying) trainer school in sinnoh, holograms reinacting battles, etc. Oreburgh was seen more of a duller version of Jubilife. Same size, just no flashy lights, instead plenty of smoke, dust and other coal related sideeffects. Those the the ones I've actually done, and I plan to give the rest of Sinnoh my own special flare.

 

[LightningTopaz]

I've made the Pokeworld's cities a lot larger (Pallet Town, for example, is a LOT larger than it is in the show), giving each of them a shopping district, an entertainment distract, while keeping true to the character of each one.

 

[Glitchipedia]

I have Kanto, Johto, Hoenn, Sinnoh, Sevii, Orre, Holon, Fiore, Almia, Pokétopia (from Battle Revolution), the Orange Archipelago, Pokémon Island (from Snap), Mintale (from Channel), the TCG Islands and Faraway Island all together as a nation located somewhere between Japan and California. I haven't placed Unova yet, and I deliberately left out Oblivia because the game in which it appears directly contradicts the main series.

Furthermore, I insert White City (from Stadium 2/GS) into Johto, somewhere near Goldenrod City, using the stadium as the site of what I call the "Johto League preliminaries", which is something like a tournament determining who gets to face the Elite Four. Similarly, I take Cameran from the eighth movie, modernize it and turn it into the same type of city as White City with a similar tournament for the Indigo League. Other than that, I haven't decided yet.

It looks like I'm one of only a few people who actually try to place the Pokéworld on Earth. I do this for a couple of reasons: Pokédex entries mentioning real locations and animals, and because I can't really imagine four of my characters coming from anywhere else but New York.

 

[RaiThunder]

I make everything like "country"-sized regions. I mean, it's supposed to take a year to travel through a region after all. This includes larger cities, more non-canon towns and such. Not everything is visited, necessarily, but I have them there as potential appearances.

This is something that I like to do - I can't imagine that the regions only have the towns in the games. I always have extra towns and the main ones are always larger than they are in-game. It makes it more fun to write about and also gives you more flexibility in timing. If things in the game world were directly translated to the real world, you could probably fit all of one region into a single large state here in the US.

 

[TheLlama]

I make everything like "country"-sized regions. I mean, it's supposed to take a year to travel through a region after all. This includes larger cities, more non-canon towns and such. Not everything is visited, necessarily, but I have them there as potential appearances.

This is something that I like to do - I can't imagine that the regions only have the towns in the games. I always have extra towns and the main ones are always larger than they are in-game. It makes it more fun to write about and also gives you more flexibility in timing. If things in the game world were directly translated to the real world, you could probably fit all of one region into a single large state here in the US.

As for size, I typically think of one region to be between 500-1000 kilometers in each direction, or something of an equivalent to my home country, Norway. Even at a slow pace you'd be able to walk north to south in about a month with this kind of size. Add in time spent NOT walking in the wild, a few days in each city, the fact that you often criss-cross the country and whatnot, and you get close to a year - which is the mean time I work with as far as a trainer journey is concerned (naturally, with stories that are not trainer journeys this is changed and worked on freely as I see fit).

 

[RaiThunder]

I typically think of one region to be between 500-1000 kilometers in each direction, or something of an equivalent to my home country, Norway.

I'm not sure how large I want the size estimate yet, but the Unova region in my story is fairly large, taking approximately six months to traverse by foot/bike. The story will be taking place over approximately eighteen months though, so I have time for the traveling, staying in towns, camping, and side-quests that the characters overtake. I prefer to make the regions large sized countries - half the US for the parts of Unova available in Black and White, the size of Africa/South America for Hoenn - because it gives me more room the make extra cities and talk about explorations of areas.

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

I have Kanto, Johto, Hoenn, Sinnoh, Sevii, Orre, Holon, Fiore, Almia, Pokétopia (from Battle Revolution), the Orange Archipelago, Pokémon Island (from Snap), Mintale (from Channel), the TCG Islands and Faraway Island all together as a nation located somewhere between Japan and California. I haven't placed Unova yet, and I deliberately left out Oblivia because the game in which it appears directly contradicts the main series.

Furthermore, I insert White City (from Stadium 2/GS) into Johto, somewhere near Goldenrod City, using the stadium as the site of what I call the "Johto League preliminaries", which is something like a tournament determining who gets to face the Elite Four. Similarly, I take Cameran from the eighth movie, modernize it and turn it into the same type of city as White City with a similar tournament for the Indigo League. Other than that, I haven't decided yet.

It looks like I'm one of only a few people who actually try to place the Pokéworld on Earth. I do this for a couple of reasons: Pokédex entries mentioning real locations and animals, and because I can't really imagine four of my characters coming from anywhere else but New York.

The issue with making the pokéworld a new continent in the Pacific is that it's geographically identical to the Japanese islands. You'd get two more or less identical landmasses - that being impossible - each with a virtually identical region called Kanto. That's why I choose simply to retool Japan.

This is something that I like to do - I can't imagine that the regions only have the towns in the games. I always have extra towns and the main ones are always larger than they are in-game. It makes it more fun to write about and also gives you more flexibility in timing. If things in the game world were directly translated to the real world, you could probably fit all of one region into a single large state here in the US.

If the game world was real, it would be impossibly tiny, much smaller than a 'large' state. If each region had a realistic number of settlements... it would match up well in size with Japan.

As for size, I typically think of one region to be between 500-1000 kilometers in each direction, or something of an equivalent to my home country, Norway. Even at a slow pace you'd be able to walk north to south in about a month with this kind of size. Add in time spent NOT walking in the wild, a few days in each city, the fact that you often criss-cross the country and whatnot, and you get close to a year - which is the mean time I work with as far as a trainer journey is concerned (naturally, with stories that are not trainer journeys this is changed and worked on freely as I see fit).

This is a very sensible suggestion, and a good compromise.

I'm not sure how large I want the size estimate yet, but the Unova region in my story is fairly large, taking approximately six months to traverse by foot/bike. The story will be taking place over approximately eighteen months though, so I have time for the traveling, staying in towns, camping, and side-quests that the characters overtake. I prefer to make the regions large sized countries - half the US for the parts of Unova available in Black and White, the size of Africa/South America for Hoenn - because it gives me more room the make extra cities and talk about explorations of areas.

Rai, hon, you have no sense of scale. At all. Hoenn would have upwards of two billion people, and hundreds of cities. It would take a lifetime to traverse. We're going to have to discuss this in detail on Skype.

A quick google revealed to me that with modern transport, traversing Japan takes nearly six months. Additionally, the animé's interpretation of size is complete nonsense; that version of the world is grossly enlarged for the purpose of churcning out carbon copied episodes about new pokémon. I disregard it.

I may make a complete map of pokéworld!Japan at some point.

 

[RaiThunder]

Yeah, in detail on Skype is a good idea. I have no sense of scale for worldbuilding. @.@

 

[Glitchipedia]

The issue with making the pokéworld a new continent in the Pacific is that it's geographically identical to the Japanese islands. You'd get two more or less identical landmasses - that being impossible - each with a virtually identical region called Kanto. That's why I choose simply to retool Japan.

It only sounds impossible until you hear yourself say "there are monsters in this world that can control space, time, antimatter and more, and you can carry them around in your pocket." Then you realize that the whole premise basically throws the laws of physics (and in some cases, basic logic) out the window.

Plus, if I made it a retooled Japan, then I'd have to use the Japanese names for everything. And my American/English characters wouldn't be able to get anywhere there because they don't speak Japanese. It just works better for me to leave the place culturally ambiguous.

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

It only sounds impossible until you hear yourself say "there are monsters in this world that can control space, time, antimatter and more, and you can carry them around in your pocket." Then you realize that the whole premise basically throws the laws of physics (and in some cases, basic logic) out the window.

Plus, if I made it a retooled Japan, then I'd have to use the Japanese names for everything. And my American/English characters wouldn't be able to get anywhere there because they don't speak Japanese. It just works better for me to leave the place culturally ambiguous.

Cloning an archipelago seems a pointless and absurd thing to do to me. Go ahead with it if you like, but I'd raise an eyebrow... it's not a thing I'd be willing to try justifying.

No, you wouldn't have to use Japanese names for everything, nor would you have to strand your English-speaking characters. For example, you could do what pretty much every iteration of the pokémon world does and name everything neutrally, like "Saffron" as an expy for Tokyo. You can simply have your characters understand Japanese, because why not? You can make the damn place culturally like the pokéworld which happens to be based on Japan, what with all those bullet trains, pagoda towers and kimono girls. You can make the damn place culturally ambiguous, or culturally your own thing. But the geography is that of Japan.

You're telling me you can have an archipelago exactly like Japan sitting next to it in the Pacific, but you can't make your characters learn Japanese. False dichotomy, laughable fallacy, and borderline hypocrisy given your little speech about doing what you like with the premise regardless of plausibility.

 

[Glitchipedia]

Cloning an archipelago seems a pointless and absurd thing to do to me. Go ahead with it if you like, but I'd raise an eyebrow... it's not a thing I'd be willing to try justifying.

No, you wouldn't have to use Japanese names for everything, nor would you have to strand your English-speaking characters. For example, you could do what pretty much every iteration of the pokémon world does and name everything neutrally, like "Saffron" as an expy for Tokyo. You can simply have your characters understand Japanese, because why not? You can make the damn place culturally like the pokéworld which happens to be based on Japan, what with all those bullet trains, pagoda towers and kimono girls. You can make the damn place culturally ambiguous, or culturally your own thing. But the geography is that of Japan.

You're telling me you can have an archipelago exactly like Japan sitting next to it in the Pacific, but you can't make your characters learn Japanese. False dichotomy, laughable fallacy, and borderline hypocrisy given your little speech about doing what you like with the premise regardless of plausibility.

....there's no need to get hostile. Holy crap.

And it's not exactly like Japan. Take a look at my personal map:

Spoiler

The way I have it set up, the shapes of the regions are roughly similar to the places they're based on, but not exactly the same.

As for having my characters learn Japanese, it's out-of-character. When it comes to throwing out plausibility, throwing out character consistency/believability is where I draw the line.

 

[ShinyFlareon]

Dudes. Chill pills all around. We're all friends here, right? Right.

Realism isn't really much of a concern for me in terms of specific sizes for a region. It takes however long I need it to take to get somewhere. I mostly go off of the games in terms of a city's relative size, but I'll add in whatever I feel necessary. Towns obviously don't consist of only three or four houses, after all, and big cities will have a lot more than just personal homes and one or two areas of interest. Sometimes I'll add in additional towns or cities (I once had a fake town along the coast of the bay between Vermillion City and Fuchsia City called Navy Port), but since I don't have a single continuity between all of my pokemon stories, they're usually one-off things. I might reference real-world places or events, but I tend to keep it ambiguous as to where the regions are because, frankly, it usually won't matter whether or not the pokeworld is a series of island continents suspiciously similar to some regions in Japan, the actual regions inside Japan, or what language anyone speaks. Writing another language is fecking difficult because you've got to be sure you're doing it correctly, and it quickly becomes nothing more than a pain in the ass. The characters could very well be speaking another language, but the writer will be writing in English anyway (at least here), so there's translation convention at work.

 

[RaiThunder]

So... wait a minute. You can put a whole new continent on or shift a bunch of islands to Earth. You can put all the pokémon there.
But it's unreasonable and out of character for your characters to learn Japanese? While in cities based on Japanese lands and cultures, with Shinto towers and Kimono girls and bullet trains?
Really?

There would be no reason to strand your characters. No-one said "it has to be Japan". But it is kind of a lot more ridiculous to say I can clone an archipelago, defying all laws of tectonics, over having my characters know another language. Most people in the world know more than one language, it's common. But my point is, you can have the geography be Japan, but not the language or the culture, because, this is Pokémon. The Pokémon world, not ours. If they're in Japan or a Japan-like island nation, who's going to say it's wrong? It's easier to justify than 'sudden mass of unexplored, unknown islands suspiciously similar to Japan and continents with odd, almost magical creatures'.

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

...there's no need to get hostile. Holy crap.

And it's not exactly like Japan. Take a look at my personal map:

Spoiler

The way I have it set up, the shapes of the regions are roughly similar to the places they're based on, but not exactly the same.

As for having my characters learn Japanese, it's out-of-character. When it comes to throwing out plausibility, throwing out character consistency/believability is where I draw the line.

I do not believe I was being hostile, nor does anything you have said merit hostility. I'm willing to demonstrate hostility should you so desire. (I am joking. No intentional hostility from me.)

Let me show you something.

Spoiler

Spoiler

This is what I mean when I say the regions really are identical. And, I stress, Kanto's real life counterpart is also named Kanto.

I find your lack of reason disturbing. But it's not my business to condemn whatever line you draw on what you choose to find believable... Nevertheless: is it really so hard to have your characters be speaking Japanese? (You don't need to use a single Japanese word, aside from "pokémon" obviously, given that you are simply writing in English.) I'm not trying to convince you to, I'm just incredulous that that's a bigger deal to you than the aforementioned geographical peculiarity.

Dudes. Chill pills all around. We're all friends here, right? Right.

I tend to keep it ambiguous as to where the regions are because, frankly, it usually won't matter whether or not the pokeworld is a series of island continents suspiciously similar to some regions in Japan, the actual regions inside Japan, or what language anyone speaks. Writing another language is fecking difficult because you've got to be sure you're doing it correctly, and it quickly becomes nothing more than a pain in the ass. The characters could very well be speaking another language, but the writer will be writing in English anyway (at least here), so there's translation convention at work.

I've yet to lose my chill, and we are all anonymous posters on an internet forum debating. This seems perfectly civil to me. Try browsing Youtube comments some time. ;P

Ambiguity is a helpful tool because, as you so rightfully say, it rarely will matter on any significant level. I add to that that the language itself can be ambiguous. I'm currently reading a book written in English but set in a world that is culturally Japanese: technically the characters speak Japanese but there's never a Japanese word - though I admit the author uses Japanese names. (It's called "Across the Nightingale Floor" if you're curious, and it's moderately good.)

While I'm at it, Isshu/Unova is essentially New York, although the resemblance is much less clear. However, Liberty Garden is Liberty Island, Unity Tower is the United Nations, Skyarrow Bridge is the Brooklyn Bridge et cetera. You're welcome.

 

[TheLlama]

unrepetant, even if you didn't mean to be hostile, the way you phrased yourself did come off as slightly hostile, just saying.

You are very correct in that the regions are, in the games, based off of real locations in Japan - but that does not mean you HAVE to have them be Japan if it's in the real world, you can always use some creative interpretation.

 

[Glitchipedia]

So... wait a minute. You can put a whole new continent on or shift a bunch of islands to Earth. You can put all the pokémon there.
But it's unreasonable and out of character for your characters to learn Japanese? While in cities based on Japanese lands and cultures, with Shinto towers and Kimono girls and bullet trains?
Really?

There would be no reason to strand your characters. No-one said "it has to be Japan". But it is kind of a lot more ridiculous to say I can clone an archipelago, defying all laws of tectonics, over having my characters know another language. Most people in the world know more than one language, it's common. But my point is, you can have the geography be Japan, but not the language or the culture, because, this is Pokémon. The Pokémon world, not ours. If they're in Japan or a Japan-like island nation, who's going to say it's wrong? It's easier to justify than 'sudden mass of unexplored, unknown islands suspiciously similar to Japan and continents with odd, almost magical creatures'.

Uh, not everyone can be bothered to learn a foreign language. My four characters hailing from New York spent a good portion of their childhood in the slums or even on the street (except one, Annie, who's actually upper-class), and when they finally got out of that nightmare, foreign languages were the last thing on their minds. If there's one out of all of them that may know a foreign language, it would be Annie, and she's more likely to have learned Spanish, French or German. The little bit of Japanese that Bella knows is just song lyrics she learned phonetically—she has no idea what any of it means.

My English character, Professor Sonan, I suppose could have learned a foreign language, one that would be helpful in his line of work as a biologist/geneticist—admittedly, I don't know if Japanese falls into that category or not. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't. But somehow I can't picture a Christopher Lee lookalike speaking Japanese very well. His adopted son Colin only knows a foreign language by virtue of being a genetic experiment in "brain-programming", and that language is PokéSpeak. The good doctor had no time to program any more before his laboratory was destroyed by one of his other experiments, and he has since dropped experimenting in favor of dealing solely in theories.

The islands are not "sudden" or "newly discovered"—we're left to assume they've been there the whole time. This isn't necessarily our Earth in the traditional sense, it could be an alternate universe that's still similar to ours, but not identical (like the Pokénation itself).

I do not believe I was being hostile, nor does anything you have said merit hostility. I'm willing to demonstrate hostility should you so desire. (I am joking. No intentional hostility from me.)

Let me show you something.

Spoiler

Spoiler

This is what I mean when I say the regions really are identical. And, I stress, Kanto's real life counterpart is also named Kanto.

I find your lack of reason disturbing. But it's not my business to condemn whatever line you draw on what you choose to find believable... Nevertheless: is it really so hard to have your characters be speaking Japanese? (You don't need to use a single Japanese word, aside from "pokémon" obviously, given that you are simply writing in English.) I'm not trying to convince you to, I'm just incredulous that that's a bigger deal to you than the aforementioned geographical peculiarity.

As I have said, my setup does not resemble Japan exactly as yours seems to. I will point out that your setup has one crucial flaw—Hoenn is not oriented that way in the games in which it appears, even if its real-world counterpart is. As for there being two regions called "Kanto", there are also multiple places called "Springfield", "York" and even "Paris", so....

I'm willing to accept the theory that early settlers of Kanto and Johto (and maybe other regions as well) may have been Japanese, and that their cultural influence persists into the present day, thus explaining things like the Kimono Girls. Outright replacing an existing country with a fictional one stretches my willing suspension of disbelief to the breaking point—that's why I'd have to actually use the real Japan if I tried to do it your way.

While I'm at it, Isshu/Unova is essentially New York, although the resemblance is much less clear. However, Liberty Garden is Liberty Island, Unity Tower is the United Nations, Skyarrow Bridge is the Brooklyn Bridge et cetera. You're welcome.

Again, my characters aren't from Unova, they're from New York. Having them come from Unova would be....weird.

unrepetant, even if you didn't mean to be hostile, the way you phrased yourself did come off as slightly hostile, just saying.

You are very correct in that the regions are, in the games, based off of real locations in Japan - but that does not mean you HAVE to have them be Japan if it's in the real world, you can always use some creative interpretation.

Thank you. And besides which, if the story's any good, no one's going to be paying attention to the geography anyhow. It's like how Coruscant is scientifically unsound every way you look at it, but you don't really notice while you're watching the movie.

....wait....maybe that's not the best example.

....

Uh....but you get my point.