Pokemon franchised changed as a whole when it decided to include inputs from westerners. We know they included undertale creator to work on that soundtrack but I don't think he was the only one to be working there. All the big mega franchises have to eventually be casualised for the lowest common denominator even if the original property is Japanese. Look what happened to Guilty gear for example.
Not going to lie it's not as if the OG games were particularly Japanese in style.
Like seriously aside from obvious Japanese names for locations its pretty neutral.
You're a 10 year old throwing monsters at people to make money and capture other monsters to become the world champion monster person.
Even when the OG games were released Japan had a pretty obvious theme going on, giant robots firing missiles everywhere, ninjas and other shit like that. Pokemon was surprisingly non-Japanese for a Japanese product.
Pokemon is like Star Wars where they're so entrenched the series is simply too big to fail. They made like eight unwatchably bad movies in a row that hurt bottom lines, then a couple decent shows (or so I've heard) and people like Star Wars again.
Sales will always be high because they count the amount of games sold to store fronts (see the first week vs second week of Saints Row Shitmake.) What we need to watch is the sales of the following weeks.
It's pokemon so as long as the core mechanic of 'gotta catch them all!' is intact it'll still sell well plus it's attached a lot of the streamers into playing it.
The story is less how well it sells but that Japanese players are quickly calling them out. Hopefully it means there's a growing pushback against the woke in Japan, I think a lot of the money incentives they had to make game companies woke is running dry now.
It's pokemon so as long as the core mechanic of 'gotta catch them all!' is intact
You haven't been able to do that in almost any Pokemon game, a dozen pokemon require trading while holding an item (good luck finding a GBA network link with another human being nowadays), events which took place ten years ago, or trading between games.
Honestly, the way the series has been going since the start of the 3D era, I think it's more that Gamefreak just doesn't care beyond getting the games out so they can sell millions in merch.
Yet Nintendo claims they sold over 10 million copies. "This is the highest global sales level for any software on any Nintendo platform within the first three days."
The consooooom crowd, addicts and mindless sheep, outnumber us greatly.
Honestly I have been playing the game and the wokeness level sees pretty dang low compared to most games these days. I think if there are any problems with the game, which there are, this is the least of any issues.
I think the bigger problem with the character customization is that you can ALMOST not actually change most of your outfits. You have 4 seasonal school uniforms to change from, and it is the same for EVERY character [per version, the color is different in scarlet/violet] and then beyond that you can only change hair, hats, gloves, socks, boots, and facial features. The school uniform thing is pretty set in stone.
Now, it looks like they made it so they will prob add dlc to change all that later, but as of now it is a pretty strict system of you have your school uniform + you can customize things that are not directly the uniform.
Honestly, it isn't that woke. Only real thing they did was they didn't make any hairstyles exclusive to body types or whatever which honestly I don't care many games have done that or years honestly even before the woke stuff. If they did add skirts it would actually probably make the game MORE woke cause they would probably allow boys to wear the skirts too given what they did with the rest of the stuff.
Personally I will say I am enjoying the game a lot, despite its issues, but it does have a few. But, just seriously not seeing the wokeness in it be it any dialog really or anything. Maybe there is some random line I missed. Oh there always is, but I am normally pretty sensitive to woke junk in games and I am just not seeing it.
Oh I think there is potential for it in pokemon heck yeah, but I just don't think I am seeing it that actually manifest in the game.
Honestly game is probably one of the most fun games I have had in a pokemon game in ages, despite serious problems with it that I wish they would fix that they have been having for years [no more national dex, elite 4 is a joke, the "evil team rocket style team" is barely a thing anymore, underwhelming story, ect].
There are ways to be critical of the game, but just not seeing the woke part sorry.
If they did add skirts it would actually probably make the game MORE woke cause they would probably allow boys to wear the skirts too given what they did with the rest of the stuff.
They shouldnt have removed gender locking the customization in the first place
I agree it looks sorta silly, but so can most character customizers that have been in games for like 15 years that have allowed you to put weird female hair on your dude. It isn't even a woke thing this has been allowed in video games for a long time just to make your characters look silly and horrendous :P
I just have trouble caring about that one given that is in about 50% of games that have had a character creator had this option since as long as I even remember.
Heck I remember old MS DOS RPGS that you could pick a gender but then have a picture of an opposite gender just normally without any importing or anything. This isn't anything new.
Maybe but I am just not seeing where that is in this game. I just played through most of it, I just beat the elite 4 but haven't gotten to the final crater in the middle of the map maybe it is all there, but this has had less woke stuff than I have seen in any game in recent years. There is maybe one somewhat androgynous character in the entire game but that isn't anything new even for pokemon nor most japanese forms of entertainment, and it isn't even in your face, nor does it seem like they are trying to make anything of it and feels more like just it being sorta japanese style anime than anything woke.
Maybe I missed a random bit of dialog SOMEWHERE but I sure as heck didn't see it. Nothing of the character creator is that out of the ordinary even as of like 10 years ago + compared to video games with character creators even back then.
Look, I don't deny that they probably will try and push it woke but if anything I saw much more woke stuff in sword and shield than this game that had two somewhat androgynous characters at most. If anything this is pulled back less woke from sword/shield and those characters almost did feel more trans than generically androgynous like the one in this game.
There are reasons to have complaints about this game and the direction pokemon has gone, but this is just silly and not there. I don't even like a lot of the way the visual style has gone, but I can hardly call it woke for what they have done.
Dude 11/19 or 10/19 [one maybe is debatable but it really isn't a skirt I would go with 11/19 is more accurate] of female protagonists in the core series of pokemon games didn't have a skirt. Including 5 out of the first 6 female playable characters of which the only one of those was the fire red leaf green remake that had a skirt. It wasn't even until Diamond/Pearl and or FireRed/LeafGreen that there was a female protagonist that had a skirt. [just in case you want to claim this is recent only]. If anything the female characters had more utilitarian almost climbing/hiking gear type clothes for most of the early games cause they were going on a long distance hiking adventure.
In addition, while there is a smaller sample size even a number of the female rivals didn't have skirts including the first few. There is no female rival with a skirt until XY gen 6. Also, many if not most of Ash's female traveling companions in the anime, including the very freakin' first one Misty most definitely did not have a skirt.
And no, the frills at the bottom of May's shirt do not count as a skirt.
If anything it is more traditionally pokemon to NOT have a skirt as a main female character. Normally there is some sort of tights/shorts thing the female player wears, which actually you can buy tights and wear in this game and the school uniform shorts totally are appropriate to earlier character designs.
Also female school uniforms without skirts are not uncommon even in before "now adays-wokeness" In many countries and areas. Many places have non-skirt based uniforms and have had for many years.
Look, I hate the wokeness as much as anyone else but this just isn't even close to damning enough. Maybe they did do it for some woke reason, but even if they did this isn't even anything that different from the core series.
Given you make a big bruhaha about this, and it's so obviously incorrect from th get-go, I don't know if I can trust the rest of your info. It could very well be true, and I just happened to know off-hand the singular bit of false info you're giving, but... What are the odds? I know just one thing about your post, the mainstream female rivals... And it's at odds with your knowledge.
And yes, Bianca and Dawn are rivals. Not antagonists, but rivals. They work with/alongside you, but in competition to grow. Antagonistic rivals are pretty universally all male, so your example wouldn't make sense in that case.
Barry is officially the rival of Diamond Pearl btw.
I will give you I did miss Bianca as she is depicted as both with and without a skirt depending on the version of the game, but not far off. Either way the rival was just a throw in thing that a number of them and even the first female rival was not wearing a skirt.
Also, no I was wrong about one of my 20+ examples, and even then only sightly as I missed that sometimes she does and doesn't wear a skirt depending on the game version. That is bad logic to just dismiss everything cause I was 50% off about one of my many many examples. Just google it. All the rivals and protagonists are on bulbapedia or many other locations. Acting cause I got one out of 20+ slightly off means I was wrong about them all lol.
And Dawn is not officially considered a rival in DP but Barry is. There is an actual specific list.
Also, fine if you want to focus on the weakest of the massive list of evidence I even gave the rival [this was about main characters anyway, the rival was just a side throw in of evidence] and googling the rest is too hard because I was 50% wrong about one specific case of bianca who is depicted in BOTH ways not just with a skirt in the actual games, here is the list for you for the games of female characters not in a skirt:
Crystal, HGSS, RS, E, ORAS, BW [specifically the first one], SM, USUM, LGP/E, LA, and of course SA.
That gives you 11/19 female player characters without skirts through the game history, including no skirts until the FRLG remake or DP. All the early rivals were skirtless so this is such a stupid argument to act like girls without skirts is some new thing in pokemon due to wokeness.
Of official list of the rivals there are more skirts, but of them: 6.5/9 female characters are not skirts by default. the 0.5 given Bianca in BW has a skirt, but not a skirt in BW2. Even if I give you that the other girl is a rival in DP, and Bianca doesn't count cause in one of her appearances she does, that is still 50% of the female rival appearances are without skirts. Even though this isn't even about the rival but the primary character more importantly.
I'll even take it a step further. Kanto region: 2/3 or 3/4, if you count Koga's replacement later, of female gym leaders no skirt.
Johto: 3/4 female gym leaders no skirt [I am counting a dress as a skirt for the purposes of this where Jasmine does have a dress, which if anything this generously works in favor of your argument if I were to be nitpicky about it]
Hoenn: 3/4 female gym leaders no skirt.
Sinnoh: 50% of female gym leaders no form of skirt or dress.
Only one female gym leader has a dress or skirt in BW1 and only one in BW2
50% of female gym leaders in Kalos no sort of skirt
SWSH: Only two gym leaders have a skirt/dress with 5 female characters not having one [more gyms due to version differences in this one]. Bede does not have a dress she has a giant coat which is very clearly not a dress btw.
Even so, this argument is about the player characters themselves mostly which heavily favor one direction especially early in the games series.
So clearly, unless you want to just be hyper skeptical cause maybe one I got 50% off then so be it, but I have clearly shown in what takes half a google search that it is actually more traditional from pokemon games FROM THE FREAKIN' BEGINNING to not have girls in skirts compared to having them in skirts, so your argument that this is some new woke thing is utterly absurd.
Especially when you consider the rate of girls in skirts actually INCREASES in the later games compared to the early games overall. The closer we get to the modern wokeness, there literally are MORE skirts at a higher rate. It is seriously the opposite of your entire thesis is true.
Female professors are 50/50 on skirts/dresses, moms are pretty mixed as well. The ONLY example more in your favor is that most of the elite 4 female characters had dresses of some kind. But not all do, but also even the recent games kept that. Heck the one member of the elite 4 that is a female still does even in the newest game has a little skirt/dress. Once again proving the point.
Also, of the female champions, including the first one in Cynthia, are about half dresses half not, once again proving my point.
In every category of significant characters in the pokemon games a simple google search shows just how one directional this is and goes against your entire argument. It is actually shocking how much it does as I didn't expect it when I decided to do a quick google search on this.
Look, I am not saying there is not wokeness somewhere or there wont' be going forward and isn't a concern, but it just isn't there in the way you say and this is a downright moronic argument if you just take a few seconds to look at all the official character drawings that are very well compiled on the internet by game and by role.
Pokemon franchised changed as a whole when it decided to include inputs from westerners. We know they included undertale creator to work on that soundtrack but I don't think he was the only one to be working there. All the big mega franchises have to eventually be casualised for the lowest common denominator even if the original property is Japanese. Look what happened to Guilty gear for example.
This is kinda the biggest thing here. Lots of western influence is pushing this.
What sucks the most is most western players do not want the western influence
It's as if there was something special that attracted westerners to it in the first place.
Not going to lie it's not as if the OG games were particularly Japanese in style.
Like seriously aside from obvious Japanese names for locations its pretty neutral.
You're a 10 year old throwing monsters at people to make money and capture other monsters to become the world champion monster person.
Even when the OG games were released Japan had a pretty obvious theme going on, giant robots firing missiles everywhere, ninjas and other shit like that. Pokemon was surprisingly non-Japanese for a Japanese product.
Almost like they appreciate the diversity and uniqueness that comes from another culture's creations.
SJWs hate that. Actual real appreciation for diversity? It kills their con.
Even Japanese SJWs know this. They are traitors that purposely try to invite woke foreign interference in to Japan
Of course, they are destroying all civilizations. Not just one of them.
The game apparently runs at sub 30fps much of the time.
Scarlet and Violet feature woke designs, plagued by performance issues and they have mediocre designs for new Pokemon.
Sad part is despite all of these flaws, these shitty games actually sold really well.
https://www.gematsu.com/2022/11/pokemon-scarlet-and-violet-sold-10-million-copies-in-first-three-days
Pokemon is like Star Wars where they're so entrenched the series is simply too big to fail. They made like eight unwatchably bad movies in a row that hurt bottom lines, then a couple decent shows (or so I've heard) and people like Star Wars again.
To me, Star Wars is six movies and three books. That's it.
"A delayed game is eventually good. A rushed game will sell 10m copies with the first 3 days." -Shigeru Miyamoto
Sales will always be high because they count the amount of games sold to store fronts (see the first week vs second week of Saints Row Shitmake.) What we need to watch is the sales of the following weeks.
And yet the game got 10 million sales. Consooommers will buy anything with the name pokemon slapped on it.
It's pokemon so as long as the core mechanic of 'gotta catch them all!' is intact it'll still sell well plus it's attached a lot of the streamers into playing it.
The story is less how well it sells but that Japanese players are quickly calling them out. Hopefully it means there's a growing pushback against the woke in Japan, I think a lot of the money incentives they had to make game companies woke is running dry now.
Well, considering the culling of 'mons, that's not really possible.
You haven't been able to do that in almost any Pokemon game, a dozen pokemon require trading while holding an item (good luck finding a GBA network link with another human being nowadays), events which took place ten years ago, or trading between games.
Honestly, the way the series has been going since the start of the 3D era, I think it's more that Gamefreak just doesn't care beyond getting the games out so they can sell millions in merch.
Did boundingintocomics try to find the most groomer themed screenshot possible for this? Because it feels like it took effort 🤔
Yet Nintendo claims they sold over 10 million copies. "This is the highest global sales level for any software on any Nintendo platform within the first three days."
The consooooom crowd, addicts and mindless sheep, outnumber us greatly.
Honestly I have been playing the game and the wokeness level sees pretty dang low compared to most games these days. I think if there are any problems with the game, which there are, this is the least of any issues.
I think the bigger problem with the character customization is that you can ALMOST not actually change most of your outfits. You have 4 seasonal school uniforms to change from, and it is the same for EVERY character [per version, the color is different in scarlet/violet] and then beyond that you can only change hair, hats, gloves, socks, boots, and facial features. The school uniform thing is pretty set in stone.
Now, it looks like they made it so they will prob add dlc to change all that later, but as of now it is a pretty strict system of you have your school uniform + you can customize things that are not directly the uniform.
Honestly, it isn't that woke. Only real thing they did was they didn't make any hairstyles exclusive to body types or whatever which honestly I don't care many games have done that or years honestly even before the woke stuff. If they did add skirts it would actually probably make the game MORE woke cause they would probably allow boys to wear the skirts too given what they did with the rest of the stuff.
Personally I will say I am enjoying the game a lot, despite its issues, but it does have a few. But, just seriously not seeing the wokeness in it be it any dialog really or anything. Maybe there is some random line I missed. Oh there always is, but I am normally pretty sensitive to woke junk in games and I am just not seeing it.
Oh I think there is potential for it in pokemon heck yeah, but I just don't think I am seeing it that actually manifest in the game.
Honestly game is probably one of the most fun games I have had in a pokemon game in ages, despite serious problems with it that I wish they would fix that they have been having for years [no more national dex, elite 4 is a joke, the "evil team rocket style team" is barely a thing anymore, underwhelming story, ect].
There are ways to be critical of the game, but just not seeing the woke part sorry.
They shouldnt have removed gender locking the customization in the first place
I agree it looks sorta silly, but so can most character customizers that have been in games for like 15 years that have allowed you to put weird female hair on your dude. It isn't even a woke thing this has been allowed in video games for a long time just to make your characters look silly and horrendous :P
I just have trouble caring about that one given that is in about 50% of games that have had a character creator had this option since as long as I even remember.
Heck I remember old MS DOS RPGS that you could pick a gender but then have a picture of an opposite gender just normally without any importing or anything. This isn't anything new.
the problem is the fact that they are going in that more woke direction in general.
Maybe but I am just not seeing where that is in this game. I just played through most of it, I just beat the elite 4 but haven't gotten to the final crater in the middle of the map maybe it is all there, but this has had less woke stuff than I have seen in any game in recent years. There is maybe one somewhat androgynous character in the entire game but that isn't anything new even for pokemon nor most japanese forms of entertainment, and it isn't even in your face, nor does it seem like they are trying to make anything of it and feels more like just it being sorta japanese style anime than anything woke.
Maybe I missed a random bit of dialog SOMEWHERE but I sure as heck didn't see it. Nothing of the character creator is that out of the ordinary even as of like 10 years ago + compared to video games with character creators even back then.
Look, I don't deny that they probably will try and push it woke but if anything I saw much more woke stuff in sword and shield than this game that had two somewhat androgynous characters at most. If anything this is pulled back less woke from sword/shield and those characters almost did feel more trans than generically androgynous like the one in this game.
There are reasons to have complaints about this game and the direction pokemon has gone, but this is just silly and not there. I don't even like a lot of the way the visual style has gone, but I can hardly call it woke for what they have done.
Yeah, it always starts with small changes.
Give it another release or two and it'll include Drumpf references and lectures on "love is love".
Dude 11/19 or 10/19 [one maybe is debatable but it really isn't a skirt I would go with 11/19 is more accurate] of female protagonists in the core series of pokemon games didn't have a skirt. Including 5 out of the first 6 female playable characters of which the only one of those was the fire red leaf green remake that had a skirt. It wasn't even until Diamond/Pearl and or FireRed/LeafGreen that there was a female protagonist that had a skirt. [just in case you want to claim this is recent only]. If anything the female characters had more utilitarian almost climbing/hiking gear type clothes for most of the early games cause they were going on a long distance hiking adventure.
In addition, while there is a smaller sample size even a number of the female rivals didn't have skirts including the first few. There is no female rival with a skirt until XY gen 6. Also, many if not most of Ash's female traveling companions in the anime, including the very freakin' first one Misty most definitely did not have a skirt.
And no, the frills at the bottom of May's shirt do not count as a skirt.
If anything it is more traditionally pokemon to NOT have a skirt as a main female character. Normally there is some sort of tights/shorts thing the female player wears, which actually you can buy tights and wear in this game and the school uniform shorts totally are appropriate to earlier character designs.
Also female school uniforms without skirts are not uncommon even in before "now adays-wokeness" In many countries and areas. Many places have non-skirt based uniforms and have had for many years.
Look, I hate the wokeness as much as anyone else but this just isn't even close to damning enough. Maybe they did do it for some woke reason, but even if they did this isn't even anything that different from the core series.
TIL that Pokemon Black and White were gen 7.
Oh, and who could forget that gen 8 classic, diamond and pearl.
Given you make a big bruhaha about this, and it's so obviously incorrect from th get-go, I don't know if I can trust the rest of your info. It could very well be true, and I just happened to know off-hand the singular bit of false info you're giving, but... What are the odds? I know just one thing about your post, the mainstream female rivals... And it's at odds with your knowledge.
And yes, Bianca and Dawn are rivals. Not antagonists, but rivals. They work with/alongside you, but in competition to grow. Antagonistic rivals are pretty universally all male, so your example wouldn't make sense in that case.
Barry is officially the rival of Diamond Pearl btw.
I will give you I did miss Bianca as she is depicted as both with and without a skirt depending on the version of the game, but not far off. Either way the rival was just a throw in thing that a number of them and even the first female rival was not wearing a skirt.
Also, no I was wrong about one of my 20+ examples, and even then only sightly as I missed that sometimes she does and doesn't wear a skirt depending on the game version. That is bad logic to just dismiss everything cause I was 50% off about one of my many many examples. Just google it. All the rivals and protagonists are on bulbapedia or many other locations. Acting cause I got one out of 20+ slightly off means I was wrong about them all lol.
And Dawn is not officially considered a rival in DP but Barry is. There is an actual specific list.
Also, fine if you want to focus on the weakest of the massive list of evidence I even gave the rival [this was about main characters anyway, the rival was just a side throw in of evidence] and googling the rest is too hard because I was 50% wrong about one specific case of bianca who is depicted in BOTH ways not just with a skirt in the actual games, here is the list for you for the games of female characters not in a skirt:
Crystal, HGSS, RS, E, ORAS, BW [specifically the first one], SM, USUM, LGP/E, LA, and of course SA.
That gives you 11/19 female player characters without skirts through the game history, including no skirts until the FRLG remake or DP. All the early rivals were skirtless so this is such a stupid argument to act like girls without skirts is some new thing in pokemon due to wokeness.
Of official list of the rivals there are more skirts, but of them: 6.5/9 female characters are not skirts by default. the 0.5 given Bianca in BW has a skirt, but not a skirt in BW2. Even if I give you that the other girl is a rival in DP, and Bianca doesn't count cause in one of her appearances she does, that is still 50% of the female rival appearances are without skirts. Even though this isn't even about the rival but the primary character more importantly.
I'll even take it a step further. Kanto region: 2/3 or 3/4, if you count Koga's replacement later, of female gym leaders no skirt.
Johto: 3/4 female gym leaders no skirt [I am counting a dress as a skirt for the purposes of this where Jasmine does have a dress, which if anything this generously works in favor of your argument if I were to be nitpicky about it]
Hoenn: 3/4 female gym leaders no skirt.
Sinnoh: 50% of female gym leaders no form of skirt or dress.
Only one female gym leader has a dress or skirt in BW1 and only one in BW2
50% of female gym leaders in Kalos no sort of skirt
SWSH: Only two gym leaders have a skirt/dress with 5 female characters not having one [more gyms due to version differences in this one]. Bede does not have a dress she has a giant coat which is very clearly not a dress btw.
Even so, this argument is about the player characters themselves mostly which heavily favor one direction especially early in the games series.
So clearly, unless you want to just be hyper skeptical cause maybe one I got 50% off then so be it, but I have clearly shown in what takes half a google search that it is actually more traditional from pokemon games FROM THE FREAKIN' BEGINNING to not have girls in skirts compared to having them in skirts, so your argument that this is some new woke thing is utterly absurd.
Especially when you consider the rate of girls in skirts actually INCREASES in the later games compared to the early games overall. The closer we get to the modern wokeness, there literally are MORE skirts at a higher rate. It is seriously the opposite of your entire thesis is true.
Female professors are 50/50 on skirts/dresses, moms are pretty mixed as well. The ONLY example more in your favor is that most of the elite 4 female characters had dresses of some kind. But not all do, but also even the recent games kept that. Heck the one member of the elite 4 that is a female still does even in the newest game has a little skirt/dress. Once again proving the point.
Also, of the female champions, including the first one in Cynthia, are about half dresses half not, once again proving my point.
In every category of significant characters in the pokemon games a simple google search shows just how one directional this is and goes against your entire argument. It is actually shocking how much it does as I didn't expect it when I decided to do a quick google search on this.
Look, I am not saying there is not wokeness somewhere or there wont' be going forward and isn't a concern, but it just isn't there in the way you say and this is a downright moronic argument if you just take a few seconds to look at all the official character drawings that are very well compiled on the internet by game and by role.
Oh no!!!!! No skirts in Pokemon?!?! What the fuck has the world come to?!?!?! How am I supposed to look up rule 34 pokemon porn now?!?!?!
Who the fuck cares. Pokemon had been garbage since after Silver and Gold.
if you think skirts=porn i think you might be the one with the issues here.
You sound like a 1950s evangelist. Do you have a severe porn addiction that you’re trying to hide?
It would cost me zero dollars to call a troon by the name they want to be called by and give in to their delusion.
I do not.
Unless a man is wearing them.