We’ve done a bunch of Pokémon-related stuff at TheGamer by now. It’s a property with a seemingly infinite amounot of subject matter that can be probed. Mario is Nintendo’s icon without question, but I don’t think he even has as much appeal as Pikachu and the other cute critters in the Pokémon pantheon. Do you regularly watch a Mario anime every week, or play his trading card game, or run around in the real world collecting Marios? No. Maybe we should be doing those things as a society. I'd be down for another crack at a Mario cartoon evꦰen if it weren’t an anime. I don’t know about the other two examples, but the point is Pokémon is beloved by all and makes money hand over fist.

Just by myself, I’ve published six articles, which tackled everything from 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:problems with the series that fans overlook, hacks for the games, comics, the 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:worst spinoffs, and more. It’s easy to write about and I have fun doing it. So again, we’ve written a lot here, but there’s one thing we haven’t delved into: comparing the games to the anime. As popular as the cards are, the two biggest selling points for Pokémon is in regards to the games and show. That’s why it seems like a logical choice to compare the two because even though they share a name. Things that fans, like myself, can get upset over. That’s why I hunte⛎d down these twenty-five priceless memes for your evening entertainment.

25 Ashy Don’t Play Like That

Gotta Catch ‘Em All. It’s a slogan as memorable as “Lets-a-go”, or “It’s dangerous to go alone take this” in terms of famous video game quotes, or catchphrases. It was so important to Nintendo’s marketing of Pokémon that they promoted it on the box for the first six games in the West. In order to sell the gimmick, they needed to hit hard that that was the goal of the games and in order to make it to that goal you had to trade with friends or buy multiple copies. In terms of marketing, it was pure genius. While it’s sti𝓡ll the catchph🌄rase for the series they stopped putting it on the box starting with the Game Boy Advance generation for some reason.

Now ev💦en though the slogan is all over the anime too, Ash couldn’t be more oblivious. Not counting movies, or TV specials there are now over 1000 episodes as o✃f April and there are over 800 Pokémon. How many has Ash caught in this time frame? Less than one hundred! Either Ash has never heard the slogan, or he’s a terrible trainer. The obvious answer is yes, he’s a terrible trainer, but we’ll get more into why later.

24 I’m A Loser Baby

Let’s continue from where I left off regarding Ash’s skills as a trainer. Ash isn’t terrible. He’s super friendly to his Pokémon and legitimately wants to be the very best like no one was before, but he’s also too arrogant and lazy. He’s gotten every badge during🌸 his gym battles one way or another, which boils down to luck a lot of the time. Has he ever won a legit tournament? Nope. I understand why the writers can’t have him catch every Pokémon and why he can’t win. It just wouldn’t be interesting if he literally were the best.

I want to be the very worst.

On the contrary, the games make you into a winner easily. They are not without their challenge, but if you even mildly prepare yourself for battle, you’ll stand out victoriously. A game where you lose all the time wouldn’t be that interesting and or rewarding. They targeted for a younger audience as an introduction to RPGs after all. It’s not Dragon Quest in terms of difficulty although maybe it should be. Technically, the Pokémon series should be thanking Dragon Quest since they more or less introduced monster catching as a thing in video games with Dragon Quest V in 1992.

23 Lullaby On Broadway

In terms of Pokémon skills, Nintendo plays it pretty fast and loose when it comes to power and usefulness between the show and the games. Take this meme for example. Jigglypuff’s s♏pecial technique is 🌜“Sing” which will lull a Pokémon to sleep for a set number of turns. It all depends on the Pokémon and its resistance to sleep, but we’re looking at a few turns here max so a couple minutes at best in real time. In the anime, Jigglypuff’s melody is god tier in terms of effectiveness.

In episode 45 “The Song of Jigglypuff” Ash and pals meet the pink puffball for the first time and it is desperate for someone to hear its singing without going to sleep. When everyone eventually falls asleep it draws all over their faces, angry like a true diva. Later on, they make it to Neon Town, which is a parallel to Las Vegas. It’s a city that never sleeps so the gang gets the idea to stage a performance for Jigglypuf𓆉f, thinking someone will stay awake, in order to make it happy. Unfortunately, that theory was wrong because everyone in 🐬the city falls asleep. That is some powerful medicine. With powers like that, I could get rid of sleep aids.

22 Love Brocks

The Brock in the games and the Brock in the anime couldn’t be farther apart. Video game Brock is barely a character at all. He’s your first step on your goal of becoming a Pokémon Champion in the first games. That is to say, he’s the first Gym Leader you will face. He even makes an appearance in Pokémon Gold and Pokémon Silver if you continue back into Kanto after defeating the⛄ Johto circuit. He’s an iconic part of the seri⛦es, but he’s not much of a well-defined character in terms of personality.

Why the anime then decided to single him out to become friends with Ash is beyond me. In a way it kind of makes sense. He’s the first Gym Leader and Misty is the second, so yeah, I can see why they would go with the first two. What I don’t understand is why they made him into a love-crazed fool like this meme points ou🌳t. At the end of the day, you can just shrug your shoulders and blame it on anime. Brock is a thousand Japanese tropes rolled into one. I guess raising your gang of brothers and sisters for years while your father is away will do that to a person.

21 What Should I Call You?

What came first? The chicken or the egg. It’s an age-old riddle we will never solve and the same quandary can be applied to Pokémon. What is Pokémon? Should it be classified as a video game with various sꦦpinoffs, or is it an anime with assorted media tie-ins? Nowadays it’s hard to distinguish, but technically it began as a video game and sort of exploded after that. There’s a core set of games with spinoff titles too,๊ the anime, toys, board games, comics, and so much more. It prints money!

It’s the name of the game.

Let’s get back to the naming dilemma. The joke for this meme is that both Ash Ketchum, the protagonist of the anime, and Red, the default name for the original trainer from the games, both have terrible names. Now I’ve heard plenty of people named Ash before, but not so much Ketchum. It’s a funny pun based on their motto “Gotta catch ‘em all” which is funny, but also pretty silly. As for Red I’ve also seen that name tossed around in reality, but considering it’s Red because the game is called Pokémon Red, well, it just feels uninspired. In🐻 the grand scheme, it doesn’t really matter though.

20 Smell Ya Later

Continuing on with naming conventions, your rival in the games is often referred to as Blue for his attire and because that’s the opposite of Pokémon Red i.e. Pokémon Blue. In the English releases one of his default names is Gary because fans of the show may want to call him by this counterpart. You can name your rival, and yourself, wh𒅌atever you want so long as it’s within seven characters. I know I can do the math. Stink Boy is longer than seven characters, but whatever. The point is people like to goof on his name and call Gary a lot of ruder, explicit names that can’t really be 🌺repeated here, but it’s pretty obvious.

And why shouldn’t you call him by an awful name? He is your rival and not in a friendly way either. Sure he n🌜ever tries to physically do your character harm, but he’s so smarmy I just want to punch his lights out. Why does he even act so smug in the games? The anime Gary has a right, someജwhat, as he seems to actually be a good trainer, or at least better than Ash. Is the video game version just riding on his grandfather’s coattails? Whatever the case may be, he deserves every insulting name he gets.

19 I Like The Way You Move

One of the most problematic mechanics I’ve had with the Pokémon games since day one has been in regards to the limited move sets. No matter what Pokémon you train they can only hav👍e four moves. It’s been that way for over t🔴wenty years now and it’s about dang time it changes. For that matter let’s get rid of random encounters as long as we’re talking about dated RPG mechanics. At least they’ve made strides with the former, but it’s annoying to fight around with move lists especially when you need HMs to finish the games and thus have even less room for the skills you really want. More on that issue later.

This is even more excruciating knowing that the anime seemingly has no limits. I mean, Ash’s Pikachu learned Iron Tail for crying out loud! It’s not like any Pokémon can learn any move, but at least it’s more realistic. Do you honestly expect me to believe that any Pokémon can learn and forget Tackle, or that a bird Pokémon like Pidgey doesn’t knꦇow how to use Peck when it has a beak? These are obvious, biological moves, so come on video games. Get with the program already.

18 Hidden Ex Machina

To go along with my move argument let’s delve further into HMs. They are kind of like abilities you acquire in a Metroidvania, or I guess we should just say Metroid since this is Nintendo. These HMs, or Hidden Machines, can be taught to Pokémon in order to reach new areas previously inaccessible before. Flash can light up dark caves or dungeons so you can actually see wh♔ere you’re going. Fly can be used to fast travel around to previously visited locations. Surf lets you sail around 🧜open waters. I mean, you get the idea. While cool in concept because you only get four moves per Pokémon it makes you waste a move just so you can continue playing the game.

What’s the deal with all these HMs?

To dodge this obstacle a lot of people, including myself, add a useless Pokémon into our lineups that can learn a majority of the HM moves. There are “lovingly” referred to as HM slaves. How does the show handle HMs? It doesn’t. Again, it’s an obvious answer. Do you think Lapras needs to be taught how to swim and carry people on its back? No! Do you think Scyther with its giant blades for hands needs to know how to Cut? No! Thankfully, this crisis has been answered with Pokémon Sun and Pokémon Moon getting rid of HMs so the argument now is mo🎶ot, but it’s stiꦍll worth bringing up for a joke.

17 Loud Noises

I know what you’re thinking already. Tristan, Pikachu actually says its name in both the anime and games now. If that was indeed your thought congrats on figuring out the joke of this meme, but it’s only step one in a longer discussion. While Pikachu can indeed say its name instead of an incoherent sound bite in the games, that doesn’t transfer to any of the other Pokémon. And why shouldn’t it? I get that the games were limited by technology ♏when the original Game Boy games shipped. They were worried about fitting all of the data into the cartridges because, again, chip sizes were small and expensive back then.

Now, game cartridges can hold a lot so I don’t buy that Nintendo can’t because of space now. Why have it for Pikachu and no one else? The simple answer is Pikachu is the mascot so in that regards I get it. I al💛so understand that the TV universe and the games are very different works as I’ve debated through a number of these entries so far. It just seems puzzling to me. Pick a side and stick to it. Don’t bounce around otherwise it muddies the brand you’re trying to push.

16 Trade Embargo

Trading is what Pokémon was built on. That’s why it started with two separate versions and why it will always launch with two games until the end of time. The cynical reason points to money, but it goes beyond that. While cash is the blood that feeds all of us to get up in the morning for one reason or another, trading is also about building a community. You need friends in order to “catch ‘em all” because certain Pokémon only exist in certain versions. For example, in Pokémon Red players could catch Spearow at the beginning of the game whereas Pokémon Blue allowed players to catch Pidgey. Of course, you could ju🅷st buy two🎐 copies for yourself if you have two systems, but that’s pretty sad.

Now, does trading exist in the anime? Yes, even Ash does it once but regrets it immediately. The real joke here is that he releases a lot of Pokémon th﷽roughout his journey for various reasons. He releases Butterfree to find love, Primeape to be a champion fighter, and so on. There’s a simple explanation for this too.꧟ In order to keep the show fresh, the writers have to have Ash catch a new Pokémon. If he used the same six Pokémon from the beginning of the series it would get old, right? Why not just have him trade though?