So looking back, why did Marina get cameos in early DP?

[Cybersai]

Back in early DP before HGSS was announced, Marina got several cameos in early Sinnoh:

We see her advertising the Poketch in, "Not on my watch, you don't."

In another ep on Zoey's laptop, we see Marina doing a Contest appeal with her Feraligatr. We also see some fat kid wearing a Marina shirt in the Miltank cafe episode.


Do you think the writers knew at the time that Marina would be replaced with Kotone in the games, so they decided to give her one last hurrah in the anime before her character faded into obscurity?

 

[InfernoFlames]

she's like an Idol in the anime, so i guess the writers just cameo her wherever possible

 

[Cybersai]

But now she doesn't appear anymore. And she didn't get any cameos back in the AG eps either.

It was only in the very beginning of DP, before the 4th Gym. Then she disappeared altogether.

 

[Matt3225]

Im gonna guess that she was there to hint at the games since the female character is usually the one to advertise the games(Hence May and Dawn in the main cast while Brendan and Lucas are doomed to cameos) and since since no one knew about kotone yet they just went with Marina

 

[Adamant]

Do you think the writers knew at the time that Marina would be replaced with Kotone in the games, so they decided to give her one last hurrah in the anime before her character faded into obscurity?

I think it's more likely they didn't, but knew a GSC remake was at least being planned (there were a good number of hints towards this in DP), and tossed her in as a teaser of sorts. Making her a coordinator was an obvious choice, since she pretty much was one in all but name back in the Raikou special anyway.

 

[Cybersai]

It is nice to know at least in the anime, Marina and Kotone are two different people.

Makes me wonder if Marina/Kenta could have been in that HGSS mini-arc instead of Kotone and Korey.

 

[Duckgon Z]

I think it's more likely they didn't, but knew a GSC remake was at least being planned (there were a good number of hints towards this in DP), and tossed her in as a teaser of sorts. Making her a coordinator was an obvious choice, since she pretty much was one in all but name back in the Raikou special anyway.

Pretty much. They had no idea about things like Pokeathlon, Lyra, and all the others aspects of HG/SS, but they probably had a good feeling that a GSC remake would be coming in a few years, and this was foreshadowing.

This is probably also why there were/are so many Johto Pokemon as background Pokemon and in fillers like the Tag Twins with Croconaw and Quilava.

 

[PDL]

Honestly? The main reason behind Marina's cameo appearences is that the writers are making it very sure that Marina has acheived her goal of being an "Idol Trainer". Thus concluding her story.

 

[Amewsment]

It's a loaded question of sorts because you assume that:
a) There is perfect/good communication between the writers for the anime and the people at Game Freak HQ, so you presume in essence that there is little or no information asymmetry between the two. However we do not know how well cued in the writers really are in regards to the future of the games.

b) That cameos like this one are intricately planned and serve a deeper purpose other than simple background art or whatever. Moreover in this specific you assume that her feature is somehow related to HG/SS and given recent developments it seems sensible/logical. Maybe they were toying with the idea of making a few Chronicles episodes at some point after the games launched or possibly it has no meaning and it's just a brief reference/cameo for the sake of it.

 

[Ampharos King]

My hypothesis would be:
The writers were expecting a GSC remake so they decided to include Marina (the anime version of Crystal) as a Coordinator.
Upon the discovery that Marina's game counterpart was not the female playable character for these remakes, Marina hasn't been mentioned again. This is even more so confirmed by the remake's playable character spawning an anime character (Lyra).
Once the Gen II remake hype vanished, Marina no longer needed to make sporadic appearances in the anime.

 

[Amewsment]

I would not be surprised if it down to a misunderstanding actually. The writers probably knew or guessed there might be a remake and thus implicitly assumed Marina/Kris would feature in it. As she is easier to cameo than Jimmy or Vincent, plus her cameos make more sense given her fame, she got featured in a few episodes.

 

[Rex Kamex]

Honestly? The main reason behind Marina's cameo appearences is that the writers are making it very sure that Marina has acheived her goal of being an "Idol Trainer". Thus concluding her story.

But did she really need a solid conclusion, though? Because we never saw what happened to Jimmy, and both of them appeared in a one-time special anyway.

I think it was an early hint at G/S remakes not that people were supposed to expect the games this early, but Marina would get much foreshadowing before she actually appeared come the Johto remake releases.

But that was before in the games, her character was replaced by Lyra/got the biggest makeover ever :-|.

 

[Hellion]

You ask why, I ask why not ? It serves continuity, she's an established character, she'd had a cameo appearance in the beginning of Pokemon Ranger and the Temple of the Sea, she mentionned her dream to become an idol which is all but being a coordinator...

Does it have to mean something ?

It could just be nothing or a cleverly disguised plan to have Marina defeat Dawn in the Grand Festival or a way to give her character a farewell or a writer who just really wanted to put her in Sinnoh because he likes her or 25 452 other reasons that we could come up with... Thing is, we're not the writers so we don't know what it means...

 

[Cybersai]

Does it have to mean something ?

Usually we don't see old characters making cameos out of nowhere. Whenever an older character appears its usually to star in that said episode or its a flashback sequence of older Gym leaders.

The fact that Marina was once the title girl of Crystal and we got HGSS remakes a few years later is telling.

The writers either thought Marina would still be in those games, or they heard ahead of time that GameFreak was designing Kotone so they wanted to show her one last time.

 

[Adamant]

a cleverly disguised plan to have Marina defeat Dawn in the Grand Festival

I remember that being a common theory back at the beginning of DP, but they seem to be building up Naoshi for that.

 

[jda95]

I don't think they knew she was going to be replaced. I think however, they were aware (or assumed) that remakes of G/S were coming, so they hinted at it with her. I doubt they knew she would be replaced.

 

[Hellion]

The fact that Marina was once the title girl of Crystal and we got HGSS remakes a few years later is telling.

In your opinion

The writers either thought Marina would still be in those games, or they heard ahead of time that GameFreak was designing Kotone so they wanted to show her one last time.

Or both, or neither, or plenty of other reasons....

I remember that being a common theory back at the beginning of DP, but they seem to be building up Naoshi for that.

Since when is barely appearing, not being mentionned in over 50 episodes considered build up ? I agree with you, Nando is sorta set up for that, but the reasons we have to suppose that are thin at best...

 

[Adamant]

Since when is barely appearing, not being mentionned in over 50 episodes considered build up ?

They way they reminded us he's still out there winning ribbons around the 6th gym, after we last heard of him after he defeated Nozomi in a battle we didn't get to see.

Really, those two appearances combined scream "He's going to be at the Grand Festival and he's at least going to beat Hikari, if not win the entire thing".

 

[Hellion]

They way they reminded us he's still out there winning ribbons around the 6th gym, after we last heard of him after he defeated Nozomi in a battle we didn't get to see.

That was in DP106 and that was to anounce that he had won his fourth ribbon... more than 60 episodes ago. I've seen hypier hypes than this if you get my drift.

Really, those two appearances combined scream "He's going to be at the Grand Festival and he's at least going to beat Hikari, if not win the entire thing".

I really don't disagree with that, we're pretty much all expecting it. That being said, it's funny how we've really seen Nando and Marina appear in the same amount of contest... Nando in Hearthome (barely) and Marina on Zoey's laptop (barely again)...

But yeah, Nando'll probably be Robert 2.0... sigh

 

[Thingamajig]

Probably so you could make a speculation thread about it.

Obvious answer is obvious in this case. The anime people would've known about the GS remakes in the works and dropped a few hints, and then dropped her once they knew it was going to be a different female character.