Thread: Pokemon Lore Questions

Hi there, everyone.
I'm new here but PKMN has been a part of my life since Gen1 and since these last few months I've been frequenting more forums, I decided to come to this site's, form where I managed to get so many information & artworks.
A couple days back, I sent a message with a few questions to Pokémon.com Support Center.
This is the message:

Hi there.
First of all, I'd like to know if any of the questions I make that may get an answer can be later transmitted to any fansite so other fans can get to know about it as well.
Also, I understand if you end up mentioning you can't answer them as my questions mostly seem directed to the original authors, but since I'm not a japan-native, I can't use their inquiry section on the Official Site.

Well, here goes...
1. Scrapped...

2. Red & Green (Characters) have the names Ash & Gary, but according to this site, their game code names seem to be the canon ones, while from Gen2 onwards they always have proper names and Silver doesn't have a proper one. Can I know why?

3. Leaf also doesn't have a proper name and Blue didn't even make it to the Gen1 games. Can I know why?
Also, is there any proper artwork of her from Ken Sugimori? There's barely any proper ones...

4. Scrapped, Serebii Forum already gave me an answer.

5. Which Gen2 PKMN were already planned but later scrapped from Gen1?
Since MissingNo. was born from the 39 empty slots out of 190 PKMN slots for Gen1.

6. Why on Gen2 certain locations from Gen1, like Cerulean Cave & Safari Zone, were closed off?
And why didn't Red get a new artwork as of Gen4, like Green?

7. This is directed to the japanese staff, but not only me but more fans, specially since the BW2 Anime PV, have been yearning for a reboot of the whole series, this time more game-related, direct adaptations of the games, each generation having their own characters and not using recurring ones all around. But, for Gen1, Yellow Version (with FrLg art style) could be best choice of adaptation.

Well, for now these are all the questions I remember having for you. I'm having hope that they may be answered.
Thanks for your time.

I thought that either I'd never get an answer from them or wait around 2 days before it showed up, but instead it took less than an hour...
And I can guess why...
Here's the answer:

Thank you for contacting Pokémon Support.

Our Support Team is not able to provide details on your lore related inquiry. It is the intent of the Pokémon creators, that questions that have not already been answered within the video games, animated movies, or TV shows, be left to the imagination and interpretations of YOU…The Pokémon Fans. Thank you again for taking the time to contact us. Please feel free to reply if you require any further assistance.

Sincerely, Pokémon Support Team

Does anyone here want to comment about this?

Also, is there any topic here specifically to talk about Sugimori's Arts?

2. Red & Green (Characters) have the names Ash & Gary, but according to this site, their game code names seem to be the canon ones, while from Gen2 onwards they always have proper names and Silver doesn't have a proper one. Can I know why?
Ash and Gary are optional names in the English games, canon in the anime. Additionally, Green is the canon name for Japanese versions, but Blue is canon for English versions (due to the version changes).
The player-character name and version name matched up based on the first suggested name, but there's no indication that this was canon. As to why Red is the canon protagonist, rather than Blue, that is also not clear - but it is made canon in Generation II because he is named as Red there. By matching up the version-exclusives (and by intuition, I suppose...) we find that Gold version is equivalent to Red version.
In Generation II, then, following the same pattern that the PC gets the version name and the rival gets the other version name, we would have Gold and Silver filling these respective roles in the "leading" game of the generation, so even if they are not canon names, those are the accepted ones. It was not until the Generation IV remakes that the name Gold was clearly shown to be non-canon. Silver didn't get a similar update to a "proper" name as canon, however. I don't imagine that there's a clear reason for this (or the switch to "proper" names - personally I quite like the old way, and at the very least Red, Ruby and Pearl are "proper" names anyway).
Short answer: I'd wager that, no, you cannot know why.

3. Leaf also doesn't have a proper name and Blue didn't even make it to the Gen1 games. Can I know why?
Also, is there any proper artwork of her from Ken Sugimori? There's barely any proper ones...
Okay, it bothered me in the last question, but now it's going to make the question unanswerable. What do you mean by "proper name"?
Most likely, there was no female PC in the original Generation I games due to space constraints.
As for artwork, there is some out there, not sure what is Sugimori's and what isn't. You can find it on Bulbapedia

5. Which Gen2 PKMN were already planned but later scrapped from Gen1?
Since MissingNo. was born from the 39 empty slots out of 190 PKMN slots for Gen1.
I remember reading something about this many, many years ago, but I can't remember what. Oh well.

6. Why on Gen2 certain locations from Gen1, like Cerulean Cave & Safari Zone, were closed off?
And why didn't Red get a new artwork as of Gen4, like Green?
Space constraints.
I would guess that it's because Red was an end-game "secret" and Green (who is Blue in English) was an official gym-leader.

But, for Gen1, Yellow Version (with FrLg art style) could be best choice of adaptation.
I can understand why it might seem that way, given that Yellow was based off of the anime in the first place. Cannot help but think of "the book of the movie of the book ..." ad nauseum jokes.

You may, in general, find some interesting things on this page:
Prototype Pokémon and characters - Bulbapedia, the community-driven Pokémon encyclopedia

Thanks for commenting. Hope you don't mind me adding a few things from my mind and that I've been checking better these past few days since I made that message...

2. Ash and Gary are optional names in the English games, canon in the anime. Additionally, Green is the canon name for Japanese versions, but Blue is canon for English versions (due to the version changes).
The player-character name and version name matched up based on the first suggested name, but there's no indication that this was canon. As to why Red is the canon protagonist, rather than Blue, that is also not clear - but it is made canon in Generation II because he is named as Red there. By matching up the version-exclusives (and by intuition, I suppose...) we find that Gold version is equivalent to Red version.
In Generation II, then, following the same pattern that the PC gets the version name and the rival gets the other version name, we would have Gold and Silver filling these respective roles in the "leading" game of the generation, so even if they are not canon names, those are the accepted ones. It was not until the Generation IV remakes that the name Gold was clearly shown to be non-canon. Silver didn't get a similar update to a "proper" name as canon, however. I don't imagine that there's a clear reason for this (or the switch to "proper" names - personally I quite like the old way, and at the very least Red, Ruby and Pearl are "proper" names anyway).
Short answer: I'd wager that, no, you cannot know why.
About who's name goes to who, honestly I never gave it that much thought, maybe because by the time I got this immersed all that intel was already sort of disclosed.
About namings, to which I call "proper names", like Gold being named Ethan, I can see the Gen4 case of Red & Green having those names go all the way back to Gen1.
In Gen1, well, you could always think of Ash & Gary as their names, but it wasn't for sure. Also, right, Game Freak has always given the choice of naming the PC as you like, despite the preset names they have in the game's internal code, and that's a reason for Red & Green being made that way in Gen2, because by that time they possibly didn't want to attribute proper names to them. Then, Gen3 didn't help much on that front, by not making the other PC as an NPC, hence making them have a proper name, while on RSE & Gen4 they finally did it, having the other PC as an NPC, hence them being given a name. However, on HgSs, they still didn't try to solve the question of possible proper names for Red & Green, at the least, since Leaf wasn't even mentioned... It makes me sad they make things like this...

3. Okay, it bothered me in the last question, but now it's going to make the question unanswerable.
What do you mean by "proper name"?
Most likely, there was no female PC in the original Generation I games due to space constraints.
As for artwork, there is some out there, not sure what is Sugimori's and what isn't. You can find it on Bulbapedia.
When I made the question, I was mixing Data Slots & Game Memory altogether, not quite getting why Blue and those 29PKMN had been excluded from Gen1.
But now I finally get it, too bad there was only memory remnant enough for Mew by the time of the final debugging...
Even Fanarts, to which I've found a few ones capable of imitating his style, of Classic Blue there's literally none... How harsh...
About "proper name", I already answered it in the previous point, but I've been making cross-checkings of Leaf's preset jap/eng names with Red's & Green's.
I made a couple guesses, but that's as good as it goes... The guesses go to Satoko & Amanda/Ashley (using the Anime as a reference, thanks Bulbapedia).

5. I remember reading something about this many, many years ago, but I can't remember what. Oh well.
The only clue I managed to find was someone's report of trying to ask of the GF staff members at a sign event if Ho-Oh was one of them, to which most likely the staff member and his translator mistook as being Hoothoot, since their jap names are similar...

6.1. Space constraints.
It's the most likely explainable reason for it, but we've gotta have in account the amount of Beta Maps (including a Beta but almost functional Safari Zone map) hidden inside the game file... Maybe it wasn't just space but also time constraints, who knows...

6.2. I would guess that it's because Red was an end-game "secret" and Green (who is Blue in English) was an official gym-leader.
Yep, of course that's the reasonable thought about it, having into account the younger audience which never played the Classic Versions.
Too bad for older audience, like me (I'm 24)...

7. I can understand why it might seem that way, given that Yellow was based off of the anime in the first place. Cannot help but think of "the book of the movie of the book ..." ad nauseum jokes.
I understand, it was just a good old wish of mine that got revived by that promotional introduction to BW2, that seemed to pour so much awesomeness (to me, much more than the regular series), hence me trying to get the message across...

Also, I found on Twitter the accounts of Ken Sugimori, Junichi Masuda & Pokemon.co.jp and tried to send them a few of these questions but none answered me so far...

I've been trying to ask through Twitter a few things to Ken Sugimori and Junichi Masuda, but the best I could get from Sugimori was a small pic of a PKMN Card VS poster showing the artworks of the Gen2 Johto Leaders, Will and Janine... And it was a RT. The tweet in question.
Is it possible that they are purposely avoiding my questions?

Originally Posted by xrick

I've been trying to ask a few things to Ken Sugimori and Junichi Masuda through Twitter, but the best I could get from Sugimori was a small pic of a PKMN Card VS poster showing the artworks of the Gen2 Johto Leaders, Will and Janine... And it was a RT.
Is it possible that they are purposely avoiding my questions?

What questions did you ask them?

Originally Posted by Water Max

Originally Posted by xrick

I've been trying to ask a few things to Ken Sugimori and Junichi Masuda through Twitter, but the best I could get from Sugimori was a small pic of a PKMN Card VS poster showing the artworks of the Gen2 Johto Leaders, Will and Janine... And it was a RT.
Is it possible that they are purposely avoiding my questions?

What questions did you ask them?

Just check the tweets, it's easier... [1], [2], [3].
Those were the ones I sent first, in english. After that, I started using Google Translate to try to post them in japanese. [1], [2], [3], [4].

Originally Posted by xrick

Originally Posted by Water Max

Originally Posted by xrick

I've been trying to ask a few things to Ken Sugimori and Junichi Masuda through Twitter, but the best I could get from Sugimori was a small pic of a PKMN Card VS poster showing the artworks of the Gen2 Johto Leaders, Will and Janine... And it was a RT.
Is it possible that they are purposely avoiding my questions?

What questions did you ask them?

Just check the tweets, it's easier... [1], [2], [3].
Those were the ones I sent first, in english. After that, I started using Google Translate to try to post them in japanese. [1], [2], [3], [4].

In tweet [1] I don't think there is a question. In tweet [2] there is no question mark so maybe you should ask something like "Do you have any artwork for the Gen 1 & 2 Gym Leaders & Elite 4? I can't find them." In tweet [3] I think "Do you know anything about Blue? Like her original artwork or name?" is a good question to ask and I don't know why he hasn't responded because Junichi Masuda has sometimes tweeted in English and often replies to people. Replying to "And what about Red, Green & Silver? Do they have names?" I think Red, Green and Silver are their names. Red and Green (or Blue internationally) have appeared in Gold, Silver, Crystal, HeartGold and SoulSilver on Mt. Silver and Viridian Gym, respectively, and in Black 2 and White 2 in the Pokémon World Tournament with the name Red and Green (or Blue). They also all appear in the Pokémon Adventures manga with these names. Your Japanese version of this question may not be understandable because translating it back into English from Japanese Google Translate writes "No Red Silver, green, and blue, like the gold with the sound of the name, the name is available? This is quite a mystery ...". Did you try taking Red, Green, Blue, Gold and Silver's names in Japanese from their Bulbapedia pages? If not that may work better than just translating them from Google Translate. I made my usertitle from finding translations for "2nd kyu" and "karateka" on the Kyu and Karate Wikipedia pages to make them very accurate. I also think that tweet [4] does not have a question in it.

Originally Posted by Water Max

Originally Posted by xrick

Originally Posted by Water Max

Originally Posted by xrick

I've been trying to ask a few things to Ken Sugimori and Junichi Masuda through Twitter, but the best I could get from Sugimori was a small pic of a PKMN Card VS poster showing the artworks of the Gen2 Johto Leaders, Will and Janine... And it was a RT.
Is it possible that they are purposely avoiding my questions?

What questions did you ask them?

Just check the tweets, it's easier... [1], [2], [3].
Those were the ones I sent first, in english. After that, I started using Google Translate to try to post them in japanese. [1], [2], [3], [4].

In tweet [1] I don't think there is a question.
In tweet [2] there is no question mark so maybe you should ask something like "Do you have any artwork for the Gen 1 & 2 Gym Leaders & Elite 4? I can't find them."
In tweet [3] I think "Do you know anything about Blue? Like her original artwork or name?" is a good question to ask and I don't know why he hasn't responded because Junichi Masuda has sometimes tweeted in English and often replies to people. Replying to "And what about Red, Green & Silver? Do they have names?" I think Red, Green and Silver are their names. Red and Green (or Blue internationally) have appeared in Gold, Silver, Crystal, HeartGold and SoulSilver on Mt. Silver and Viridian Gym, respectively, and in Black 2 and White 2 in the Pokémon World Tournament with the name Red and Green (or Blue). They also all appear in the Pokémon Adventures manga with these names.
Your Japanese version of this question may not be understandable because translating it back into English from Japanese Google Translate writes "No Red Silver, green, and blue, like the gold with the sound of the name, the name is available? This is quite a mystery ...". Did you try taking Red, Green, Blue, Gold and Silver's names in Japanese from their Bulbapedia pages? If not that may work better than just translating them from Google Translate. I made my usertitle from finding translations for "2nd kyu" and "karateka" on the Kyu and Karate Wikipedia pages to make them very accurate. I also think that tweet [4] does not have a question in it.

The thing is, I wasn't intending to make them all questions at all, rather, I was just hoping they'd commented them there...
Also, what do you mean with taking the characters' names from Bulbapedia? I have a few notepad docs with all characters' names, just for the sake of research in japanese, when needed.
Any idea of how I can get the tweets properly translated into japanese so I can tweet them? Or is someone here capable of helping me?

The thing could go like this:
1. Thanks for the CardVS Gym Leader poster but don't you have any other artworks of Gen1&2 Gym Leaders & Elite4?
2. Do you know anything about Blue, PKMN Red&Green's scrapped heroine? Like her original artwork or name?
3. Like Gold is named Ethan (Hibiki), does Red, Green, Blue & Silver have other names?
4. I also saw "PKMN BW2 SP Introduction Movie" and I really loved it! Isn't it possible to reboot the anime and have it go like that?
Something like this... I'd be so glad if anyone could help.
NOTE: I abreviatted some stuff but they don't have to stay like that in the translation.


EDIT: And so I tried tweeting again to Junichi Masuda, in english... And no answer...
Are my questions stuff that they can't answer by any means?

Did Ken Sugimori actually create the design of Mewtwo, or did he just illustrate it? If it's the latter, then who's responsible for the concept? I'm curious to know whether it was an individual or group of individuals directly involved with the Mother series, as Bulbapedia implies this may be the case given Mewtwo's similarities with Giygas.

Do you have Twitter? Try to ask him directly, maybe you'll have better luck than me...

EDIT1: Here's another question I want to try tweet to those two...
Gen2 & Gen4 occurs 3 years after Gen1 & Gen3, right?
Then how much time passes until Gen5?

EDIT2: Through trial-and-error, I think this time I managed to get the questions right.
Here's the tweets I sent to Sugimori: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]
I just hope this time I may get some kind of answer from him...

@xrick; As this was turning more into a discussion rather than something that could be quickly answered and moved on (which is what the SQSA thread is primarily for), I decided to take all relating posts and make your own thread with them. Feel free to re-work the title as you see fit.

Thank you,
~yourlilemogirl

5) the list of pokemon cut from R/B are on bulbapedia, but I'll list them.

Scizor
Shuckle
Heracross
Ho-oh
Sneasel
Teddiursa
Ursaring
Slugma
Magcargo
Swinub
Piloswine
Corsola
Remoraid
Octillery
Delibird
Mantine
Skarmory
Houndour
Houndoom
Kingdra
Phanpy
Donphan
Porygon2
Stantler
Smeargle
Tyrogue
Hitmontop
Smoochum
Elekid
Magby
Miltank
Blissey
Raikou
Entei
Suicune
Larvitar
Pupitar
Tyranitar
Lugia

These Pokemon are listed by the corresponding missingno in R/B, and you may notice that the list looks pretty closely to the pokedex in G/S, minus missing pokemon obviously. Kind of explains why Ho-oh was in the first anime episode, It was coded into the game before the bulk of gen 1 Pokemon.

Take a look at these links for some more information;
Smogon
Bulbapedia

Originally Posted by FABuLUSH!

5) the list of pokemon cut from R/B are on bulbapedia, but I'll list them.

Scizor
Shuckle
Heracross
Ho-oh
Sneasel
Teddiursa
Ursaring
Slugma
Magcargo
Swinub
Piloswine
Corsola
Remoraid
Octillery
Delibird
Mantine
Skarmory
Houndour
Houndoom
Kingdra
Phanpy
Donphan
Porygon2
Stantler
Smeargle
Tyrogue
Hitmontop
Smoochum
Elekid
Magby
Miltank
Blissey
Raikou
Entei
Suicune
Larvitar
Pupitar
Tyranitar
Lugia

These Pokemon are listed by the corresponding missingno in R/B, and you may notice that the list looks pretty closely to the pokedex in G/S, minus missing pokemon obviously. Kind of explains why Ho-oh was in the first anime episode, It was coded into the game before the bulk of gen 1 Pokemon.

Take a look at these links for some more information;
Smogon
Bulbapedia

Yeah, I had checked that as well, but thanks for replying.
But, anyway, that sure is strange...

Originally Posted by yourlilemogirl

@xrick; As this was turning more into a discussion rather than something that could be quickly answered and moved on (which is what the SQSA thread is primarily for), I decided to take all relating posts and make your own thread with them. Feel free to re-work the title as you see fit.

Thank you,
~yourlilemogirl

Well, this was unexpected...
I just hope anyone sees this and comes here to take part in it...
About the name, it's a good one, thanks.

Sorry for double posting, since nobody else posted here, but there's something I want to share with you.
Then anyone is free to edit this into the previous post later.

Sugimori answered to this tweet of mine... But as usual... It had to be the kind of answer I was hoping not to get...

From Google Translate and my own understanding, I get he said something like those questions couldn't be answered by his own accord, most likely meaning he needed permission to talk about the topics of the questions I made, and that we was sorry for that.

Then I asked him if he could redirect the questions to Satoshi Tajiri himself, but so far no news...
Does anyone know if Tajiri have a Twitter account?