No more "you have to be ten to be a trainer"?

Almonds

Almonds

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The games have preschoolers challenging you for battles, but the anime states you have to be ten to get your first pokemon.

Iirc, the preschoolers appeared after Gen 1, but the anime already stated that trainer rule by then. What happened to that rule? It doesn't count anymore?
 
I believe the anime and the games take place in different universes, actually, so different rules would apply to each.
 
Yeah, the "You have to be 10 to be a trainer" was an anime only thing. In fact, Red is 11 in the games and manga.

And we've had child trainers long before 5th gen. It goes at least as far back as 2nd gen with the Twins trainer class.
 
Really, the "You have to be 10 to be a trainer" rule were not mentioned anywhere outside the anime. Not in any game, not in most Pokemon mangas (I think there was one that said about this rule, but not very sure), not in TCG, and not even in the Pokemon Company that do the marketing for this franchise.
 
Really? I could swear it was in the original manual, but I could be mistaken. Regardless, yeah, ever since younger kids were shown with pokemon in the series, this became moot. I'm hesitant to say what the limit should be, since it's mostly up to your own discretion when you think a child is ready to care for an animal, but that is for a pet in real life. I hardly think certain pokemon are appropriate for this. To do the kinds of things I know a pokemon trainer to do, it would take either someone that's been through Cub Scouts for a few years, or at least a teenager. Someone capable of taking care of themselves. Here is where young kids having pokemon confuses me. I think that none of them have anything beyond the first form of any evo line, or at least a pokemon that is suitably small and therefore probably docile. In other words, I don't think it's a trained pokemon in the normal sense of the word, but rather a pokemon that is being kept as a pet, possibly to even protect said child. A preteen might be able to do it, but like I said, I think they would have to be suitably toughened up to do so. Even with all this, I absolutely do not think they could participate in tournaments or other challenges unless it was in a sort of junior league like environment where things are gimped from their actual version. By the time you are a teenager, you should be ready for the real deal. In short, I don't think the way this is protrayed in anything is really appropriate. It should be much harder, although even with everything I said, I doubt you would be able to make it competitively until you're an adult or better.
 
I think it's only an anime only thing; but then I've seen the anime have little kids with Pokemon.
 
It contradicted directly the games where there were children with Pokémon everywhere and there was no such thing, instead some people simply not having a pokémon for no given reason other than it being the beginning of the game.

They needed a reason in the anime to give Ash a pokémon, so they came up with that.


But as both series went on this started to contradict more and more things, so I'd say it's a long forgotten thing even in the anime.
 
I think the "ten to be trainer rule" means that you have to be ten to compete and be a licensed trainer.

There's no law against owning a pokémon if you're underage.
 
Drakon said:
I think the "ten to be trainer rule" means that you have to be ten to compete and be a licensed trainer.

There's no law against owning a pokémon if you're underage.
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More specifically, I believe the 10 year rule is the age requirement for being allowed to travel on ones own without parental supervision.
Most under-aged trainers you meet in the games or in the anime are either within city-limits/eye-shot of cities or are traveling with other adults.
 
The Pokemon might not be the kids Pokemon, but be borrowed from their parents. How else could get a preschooler get a lvl. Riolu or Ferrothorn?
 
Well, there can be many ways to explain it, it is a Kanto only rule (only mentioned), the meaning of the rule is different of what the rule actually writes (laws tend to be unclear like that), "Trainer" as a term has a defined description to it bound to that rule, it's like a license to be allowed to do certain stuff, with restriction in some fields, you can only register as a league participant under this condition... and there is probably a ton more to it but I'm too lazy to go on. (Also at least neither Yellow the manual nor the beginning of the game states anything like this 10 year restriction, can't check it on Red/Blue since I lack the manual to it)
 
You need to be ten to catch and raise Pokémon as well as enter the Pokémon league. But you can still battle with borrowed Pokémon under parental supervision/consent.
 
I think it's that you need to be ten in order to get a Pokédex and a starter Pokémon from your local ... dealer.
 
I think it means that you have to be 10 if you want to do things like take part in the Pokemon League. Young children can still own Pokemon as long as they know how to care for them, but they're too young to be licensed Trainers. And it's obvious that not all Trainers start at exactly 10. Hilbert and Hilda are clearly older than 10 - they're probably at least 13.
 
What Fandago and Feanor said, basically. The ages of the other protagonsts aren't given I don't think, so I generally hike the age up to thirteen or so in my head for the player characters, just so I feel like the kids' parents aren't completely throwing their children out to the wolves by letting them travel around the country alone.
 
It seems that both the anime and games use "start as 10 years old", to mean that trainers must be at least that age to receive a Water/Fire/Grass starter from the professor, Pokedex, and Poke Balls. Any kid younger than that can't be officially licensed, but can receive their own Pokemon, etc. from their families.

Unless I missed something somewhere in the games or anime, I don't think anything has been said of the full rule regarding that.
 
It's purely a question of video game canon vs the anime using a birthday as a framing device (how many stories begin with someone's birthday?)

G50 said:
It seems that both the anime and games use "start as 10 years old", to mean that trainers must be at least that age to receive a Water/Fire/Grass starter from the professor, Pokedex, and Poke Balls. Any kid younger than that can't be officially licensed, but can receive their own Pokemon, etc. from their families.

Unless I missed something somewhere in the games or anime, I don't think anything has been said of the full rule regarding that.
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Which games use "start as 10 years old"?
 
I suppose that preschoolers aren't licenced trainers. They don't have trainer card like the playable character.
 
Shiny Porygon said:
Which games use "start as 10 years old"?
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Only the original ones use them as far as I know.

I think the "start at 10 years old" thing is now discredited as far as the Pokemon franchise goes. Pokemon does discredit a few ideas. Another one seems to be the idea of the rival being an asshole. Nintendo hasn't created any outright mean rivals since Gen II. Now they're usually honest, likable friends of the main character. (The idea of asshole rivals seems to be alive and well in the anime, though.) They've also stopped using the inefficient version of PC system (the one where you had to save the game before changing boxes), the ability to cut tall grass down (I wish they still had it - it helped you get through grass without Repels), and the idea that Ghost Pokemon could only be seen with a Silph Scope (only if wild, though - you could still see the ones belonging to the Channelers and Agatha without one).

I think the Trainers younger than 10 do own their Pokemon - provided that they've proven to their parents that they were responsible enough. It's like a small child owning a pet - you don't give a 5-year-old their own pet unless they prove that they can care for it.
 
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