This analysis masterfully applies professional design rubrics to nostalgic icons, turning a simple review into an insightful masterclass on visual storytelling. It’s a rare, disciplined look at how technical elements like silhouette and color hierarchy create lasting cultural symbols.
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Thoughts on the Pokemon Anime's Character Designs (from an Art Teacher)Añadido:
Hey, hey, hey.
Hey, hey, hey.
Hey.
Hey. Hey.
Happy.
Hey, hey. Hey.
Hi.
>> Hi. Hi fellas.
Happy Wednesday. I swear to God, everything is working against me.
>> I want to be the very best like no one ever was. To catch them is my real test.
To train them is my cause. I will travel across the land searching far and wide each Pokemon to understand the power that's inside Pokemon. Got to catch them all. It's you and me. I know it's my destiny Pokemon. No, you're my best friend in the world. We must defend Pokemon. Got to catch them all. A heart so true. Our courage will pull us through. You teach me and I'll teach you Pokemon. Got to catch them all.
>> Pokemon.
Thank you, Gary. That was beautiful. I appreciate your rendition of that. That was great, man.
Hi.
Hello. I had a CD as a kid that had that song on it. And I need you to know that I had that CD with that song on it before I even knew that Pokemon existed.
Before I even knew that, I was totally unaware of that song being from anything. I wish I knew what the CD was because it was a CD that contained other songs such as uh Flying Purple People Eater. Uh it had another song that I we discussed re briefly before is not really a great song. Uh the witch doctor song, not a great song. Uh as far as the modern day goes. What else was on that album? It was a bunch of like weird stuff. It was an thing that was meant for kids, I guess. But it had the like real original version of that song, not like a cover or something. So, they somehow had that licensing.
Wild. So, hi. I'm Squeegee. I'm a freelance artist fun guy. I'm also an art educator. Today, we're going to be talking about Pokemon character designs.
Uh, I have disclaimers. I have several of them. We have to do our housekeeping, but I I have disclaimers that I want to get out of the way. as soon as possible because I need to get them off my chest.
So, first off, not all end all. I'm not the end- all beall of character designers. I just have the thoughts of one fun little guy. I'm a mushroom. I'm a fun guy. You don't have to agree with me on anything. You will find that I'm generally favorable towards the character design in Pokemon. uh the sensibilities of the character design and the art direction for the character design in Pokemon align very closely to my own personal sensibilities. So, you'll find that usually I have to say I'm not a hater, please believe me. But I don't think there's going to be much of that today. Generally, the Pokemon character designs and like trainer designs are pretty solid. A lot of them have stood the test of time truly as well, which you know, some of them are more than a decade or so old and they're still so memorable and people love them so much. So clearly, regardless of anything that I may say as a critique to them today, they're fine. They're working. They're they're doing the job they need to do. But that's to say that there's nothing on this world, nothing on this earth that is perfect.
Everything can be improved in some way, shape, or form, including me. I'm sure I could be better. Which gets me into my next disclaimer point, which is that I'm kind of a casual Pokemon fan. I'm not the most hardcore. And I don't say this as like an I'm just a casual. I I'm saying this in a way where I'm revealing to you my embarrassment. I feel like right now so many people are so excited about Pokemon and so many people are way more attached to Pokemon than I am and I feel kind of bad. I feel a little weird uh about covering the series right now.
I tried to do as much research as I could, but generally I haven't been able to own probably like a third of the platforms that Pokemon games have been released on until like way after that platform was not really supported anymore and just I didn't have the money for it when I was a kid. Uh, if I had the opportunity to buy a game at that point in time, I was usually buying something that was Kingdom Hearts if it was on that platform or Fire Emblem. Th those were usually my picks. Uh, Pokemon was a third. If I got birthday money and had birthday money left over, then we'd go for a Pokemon or it was my father had Emerald, so he that made it easy. Um, but yeah, nothing wrong with being a casual fan. Yeah, I know there's nothing wrong with it, but I just want to put that out there immediately because as a result of that, there are definitely going to be things that I do not understand in Pokémon or things that I might miss, which is just going to happen. I tried my best to do some research to fill some of those gaps in knowledge, but some of the games are like self-contained stories. Some of the games have story beats that relate to other games. The anime does its own thing sometimes, but not always. Like Nintendo and their world building is always rather interesting. So there's a lot to keep track of often.
But we have Pokemon music playing in the background. Can you hear it? That's what's playing right now.
Do you hear it behind me? You should be able to hear behind me. That is Pokemon music behind me. Um I think this is from Is this I don't know what this is. This This might be Legends Arus perhaps. So, hang on. Let me continue just explaining here real quick. Yeah.
So, chat, you guys are more than welcome to fill me in. It's weird calling you chat. Shroom mates, you can fill me in on anything I miss or anything I get wrong kindly and in a friendly manner.
You are welcome to correct me or provide me extra information. I love learning. I love finding out new things. Every single time I do one of these critique series, I learn so much about the characters that we're talking about, and it makes me so happy. I learn all the fun little tidbits and trivia. So, I'm here for it. But I I do just want to say the things I'm most familiar with out of Pokémon are Emerald, Black X, and Moon, cuz those are the games I've played.
Granted, I played most of those games more than a decade ago, so my my memory of certain story beats in those ones may be a little loose. And then also, I have watched a bunch of random bits of the anime, uh, both, you know, as it came on on the TV at home. We had the four kids version, I believe, with the jelly donuts and all that nonsense, but I also watched just like a random amount of the Diamond and Pearl anime because that's what my little cousin watched when he was a little kid. So, I used to watch it with him when we would babysit. Uh, and again, random episodes. It's like I generally understand some of it, but there may be things I miss. But yeah, that there is a lot of stuff to juggle in Pokemon as far as characterization of characters goes. Which parts of the story are canon and which medium, as Rex is reminding us, yeah, that, you know, there's the games, the anime, the manga, gotcha games. There's so much going on.
So, we're going to do our best. We're going to run under the assumption that if I say something wrong, it's not because I'm convinced that it is true.
It's just because that is whatever source I've read something from. I am not completely infallible. I may say something wrong. However, generally, we're going to be doing our best to uh provide information that is accurate.
Yeah. So, so having said all of that, having said all of that, next thing to mention essentially is that when I do these critiques, I usually would aim to do a cold read of all the characters where I would use some context from having researched the background of that game or series's lore and, you know, have some idea of gameplay and what is relevant in that type of universe. However, in this circumstance, I'm actually familiar with all of the characters we're going to talk about, both today and probably all the ones we'll talk about next week also. So, I can't really do a cold read. So, I'm pretending I'm pretending to do a cold read. We're going to walk through elements of the characters designs and I'll sort of explain to you whether or not those elements are pushing me in the direction of understanding who the character is or not.
Uh yeah.
So today today we are going to be covering mostly anime Pokemon characters, characters that do appear in some cases in the games also, but mostly anime characters because that was sort of like an easy grouping I could grab because I didn't want to just be like, all right, here's one guy from this game and one guy from that game and another guy from this game and someone from over here and someone from over there because the stories may or may not have any relation to each other. So today is mostly anime guys. However, next week, next week, I have a greater variety of characters pulled from games. And if there's characters you would like me to go over next week, there's really no limit to who you can suggest, do let me know. Put it in the comments or something after this video is done. Um, and then I can use that information to pick who we're going to go over. So like today, I think we're doing Ash, Misty, Brock, Jesse, James. I want to talk about Nurse Joy for a minute and Professor Oak. Uh, if we have time because I don't know if we'll talk about Nurse Joy and Professor Oak for all that long. Uh, we may also talk about Red. We got to talk about the guy that started it all, right? We got to talk about him somewhere at some point somehow. Uh, and then next week, I think the characters I already have slated and somewhat prepared for are N, uh, Cynthia, Iris.
people wanted me to talk about uh Ry Ryhon. I don't know how to say his name.
I think he's from Sword and Shield. Um I've never played that game. I don't know much about him. Um and then there's like a couple other random ones that we may go for. You got it right. Oh, bet.
Usually I've got teacher debuff and I say names wrong first try. Uh oh, I do want to do want to see Lily. I see Gladion also as a mention, but Lily could come up. I would like to talk about Bee maybe at some point if we could because she was one of the inspirations for my design.
Um, so we'll we'll get there for next week. But if you have your suggestions, please put them in the YouTube comments and I can grab them at that point.
Funny, as the Pokemon designs get worse, the character designs get better. You think so? I would love to talk at some point about why people think Pokemon designs are getting worse, cuz I think there is one key reason why that's occurring. And not even why I don't think the designs are getting worse. I think it's that there's one tenant in the design philosophy that has been let go. And I think people were attached to that tenant more than they may realize.
And also, yes, nostalgia is definitely also a factor. That's also a factor for sure.
Memory of past. Yeah, nostalgia. You spelled it close enough to correct that.
I didn't realize you spelled it wrong, Selma. Don't worry.
Don't worry. Don't worry. You got it.
You You got it. You got it. Iris is my favorite from the anime as a kid. And see, this is where it gets complicated.
So, I know Iris is in the anime. I know that N, I believe, is also in the anime.
Like, there's a bunch of characters from the games that show up in the anime. Uh, what did they let go? Oh, I don't want to get too far into it, but essentially the tenant that they let go is that Pokemon have to have something about them that is like quirky and imperfect essentially. So, no Pokemon can just be entirely cool. They have to have something that makes them sort of like silly or a little bit weird or strange or unusual. And that's sort of a charm point in a lot of character design. Not being focused on making a character just cool is a really good idea because if you're trying to make everything cool, suddenly none of them stand out from each other because they don't have little elements that make them unique or give them that layer of character that they need that sets them apart from others, makes them relatable to certain people. Uh, and they've sort of let that philosophy go in later games. And I feel like that's an important thing that they have lost.
Unfortunately, I'm saying this, this is my theory. I don't know if this is completely accurate, but it's just something I've noticed visually watching as new generations of Pokemon release is my observation. I may be off base, I may be wrong. As I've said, I don't think I've played a Pokemon game since Moon. I've just sort of observed them, but it seems to be I I would say that that there's like a chance that that may be what is going on.
Um, yeah, but then Ninetales is right there being perfect there, but there there are things that they did.
Ninetailes can be a character that is meant to be mostly just cool, but that's because we had characters in that generation that were a bunch of eggs or like we had other little silly things so that Ninetales stood out in that generation for being cool and sleek and having other elements going on with it.
Like hang on, we're getting off track.
Maybe I should do a Pokemon like Pokemon's crit at some point. We can talk about it more there. But we're talking about trainers today. We're talking about the characters, not the little guys. We're talking about trainers.
Some of the newer Pokemons seem to be made just to fill Pokedex like Thenizen and Flam Flamingo. I I don't know those ones off the top of my head, but I would say that I don't think that I mean, technically all Pokemon are made to fill the Pokedex. They have a certain number that they want to release every generation.
And there are some that they're releasing, you know, with the idea that maybe it'll be someone's favorite, but it's not going to be like the big cool one that everybody wants. It's not going to be the one that's pushing forward the generation or anything like that. Um there there's there's a lot of variety as to what they can do with them.
Flying type is literally a flamingo. Why not though? Why not? We had Spiro.
We We had Pidgey, which is literally a pigeon. Wh Why Why are we drawing the line now? We have Pokémon that are kind of just animals in in many generations.
Why are we mad about it now? Why is that? Why do we draw the line now? We had eggs and funny little objects very early on.
I don't know. Pidgey looks nothing like a pigeon. Paid is maybe closer. Paid is closer. That's true. Seal spiel. Yes.
Yes.
Yeah. Ice cream Pokemon that's just ice cream with the face. Yeah. Yeah. There have been Pokémon that are very close to something that exists in reality for a long time.
And people are getting maybe a little bit more annoyed about it now than they ever had before. And maybe there are more of them releasing now than there were before. But I do think that a lot of the reason why we were okay with it once upon a time and are no longer okay with it is nostalgia. There is a Pokemon that is a bag of trash. Like, come on, guys. It's It's not If they're not for you, that's okay. That's okay. But I don't think that the quality is actually going down of Pokemon. I think they just lost one key tenant that was important to me as somebody who liked Pokemon designs and maybe that's what other people are detecting. But maybe, maybe not. I don't know.
Anyways, anyways, I moves in the direction of talking about the trainers because there is probably a lot to say.
So, there are a lot of iterations of the anime characters that we are planning to talk about today. I personally didn't even realize there were so many iterations of some of them because I first of all, >> just popping in to say hi and say it was kind of funny to one day turn into the club leader before giving it back to you, Squeegee.
>> Oh, you're talking about Umamus. I don't know what happened. I've I've been logging into Uma. Usually I just log in and get my uh login bonus and then I log out because I haven't had time recently, but I don't know why that happened.
Thanks for giving it back. Weird. Um, wait, are we going off the anime?
No. Kind of sort of somewhat. We'll talk about it. That's that's what I'm getting to right now, which is that some of the characters like Ash is an anime character. Ash is not in the games inherently, but Ash is kind of just red, but like a little bit to the left in design. So, we can talk about that with Misty and Brock. They do have versions that are in the games, but also a version that is in the anime.
Yeah. Yeah. Ash's anime. Yeah. And then with like Nurse Joy. Nurse Joy is the version of the Pokemon Center ladies from the games that is in the anime.
Jesse and James. I don't know. Do they show up in the games? I don't think they really do. They they were anime at least originally. That's where they came from, as far as I'm aware. Um, and then Professor Oak, I believe, is also somebody who is both in the games and in the anime. They're in yellow version.
Ah, I didn't know that. Okay. And see, here is where we start getting into I've never played yellow version.
Uh, oneoffs. Okay. Another staples. I see. I see. I see. That's fair. That's fair. Jason and James are in Pokemon Masters EX. Okay. But that's like further down the line, I think, than where uh the anime.
>> It's Gary. Dot dot dot. And I totally reird to give it back.
>> I'm not hacking into Selma's hands to sort that out right now. Dot dot dot.
Also, must I put down the new decorations and the giant Narita Brian statue? Sorry for the distract.
>> You're good. Don't worry about it. You You can leave giant Narita Brian. That's fine. Um I don't know what the new decorations are, but thank you for giving me my club backumus. That's very kind of you. Um um what was I saying? I've lost it. Oh, but so we are looking at characters that are sort of like mainstay staples in the anime, but we will look at, you know, different versions of them. So, we will see some versions that are from the games, if that makes sense. But I do have a feeling that for a lot of people who are generally fans of Pokemon, the anime designs for at least Brock and Misty are what they think of off the top of their head. Because I'm going be so real with you, I didn't realize she looked so different in some of the other games. I was totally unaware. And maybe that's on me for, as I said, being sort of a casual fan, but when I think of Misty, I think of her anime design. Uh, so we'll we'll talk about that. We'll look through them because I have I think almost every iteration of at least the main trio downloaded and ready for us to take a little look see at. So, we'll look at that. Uh, I do have to run us through very quickly uh the criteria that we use for critiquing character designs. Also, uh, I'm sure there are roommates who have heard this 8 billion times, but for anybody who has not heard it 8 billion times, it starts now. This is your first time. You will hear it maybe a million bajillion more times, you're you're going to come to love it.
You're going to come to recognize this as the beginning of stream most times.
Hm. I know in my recent anime they changed Misty and Brock to be the game design. Did they? Did they? I didn't see that when I was looking through, but we we'll we'll take a look at that. We'll take a look. Let me teleport us into the other room so that we can start with this. And I'm also going to wait until after the ad ends. But let's see.
There we go. Oh. It still has a critique from Monday on it. Whoopsie. Hide that.
So this is the criteria that we use to critique character designs so that we may remain as objective and unbiased as possible. which in this case will be something that is important because my bias may cause me to try and score characters higher than they maybe deserve because Pokémon is very close to my own personal criteria for designing characters, my own personal habits may things that I personally think work well in character design. However, there are categories that they need to score well in to uh get a good grade overall in order for me to remove my opinion from what's going on here. So, we have here on the left a personification of the rubric a gajinka alla Pokemon. Oh, which is a rubric chan cat by astrolite. Thank you, Astralite. Yeah, the cat agorities. Yes.
So, in order to receive full points for character design, a character needs to get two points in each of five categories. Those categories being color palette, silhouette, complexity versus clarity, focal point, and concept and motif, plural.
Two, get full points for color palette.
The palette should be cohesive and interesting. Contrast should work at a distance. Color placement is worth the focal point, and there should be a strong color hierarchy present.
Pokemon is going to be a breath of fresh air for me because we've been usually looking at gotcha game character design.
Pokemon has fun varied color palettes.
They usually have pretty strong color hierarchies as well and it makes me sing and joy. I I'm so relieved. I'm so tired of black, white, a color of metal. And I think for the most part, especially the anime does not lean into black, white, a color, or metal. Black, white, a color, and metal for people who are unfamiliar with me saying that is my pet peeve gripe with a lot of character design, which is that designs that follow those specifications tend to be a little bit like sy and too safe and their palettes can be a little bit boring or bland sometimes. Come on, give me two colors in a palette. Three even. And you will see that Pokemon character designs do exactly that sometimes, which is so great. When you say metal, do you just mean silver and gold? Yeah, silver or gold. So, like if you look at a character from I hate to always be ragging on Genchin Impact, but like a more than a third of Genchin Impact's cast is like black, white, yellow, silver, black, white, blue, gold, black, white, purple, silver. We call them guacams. Yeah. Metallic colors. That's shiny. It's metal. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Colors need to be appealing for kids. They can be more creative.
Yeah, bright colors tend to be things that are favorable towards kids. Oh, we we'll talk about that also. We'll talk about intentionality behind the designs of trainers also in a second here. What if it's copper? Still a metal, but I don't think we've really seen that much copper in these types of pallets. It seems to usually only be silver or gold.
Copper at least adds orange, which is more variety. I whether or not I assign a design as being welcome or not is neither here nor there right now though because I don't think we're gonna be doing very much of it today. So to you will get no points for color palette if the palette has major instances of low contrast clashing or overwhelming color choices if I think the hues and values should be completely revisited.
Four silhouette to get full points. The silhouette should be unique and easily identifiable in and of itself. I wait, hang on. I I really wanted to do a who's that Pokemon thing, but we don't really do that for trainers. What I'm going to do though is I'm going to hide the screen from all of you for a second when I open up the file so I can make you guess who it is we're looking at first based on their silhouette. Because I will say Pokemon is very often very uh cognizant of silhouette design.
often, not always, but usually, a lot of the designs tend to be silhouette first designs. I would say they're making decisions that sort of go beyond the limits of reality for the sake of making the silhouettes more interesting and recognizable and more exaggerated, and I'm here for it. I'm here for it. So, yeah, silhouette should be unique and easily recognizable in and of themselves, and Pokémon usually excels at this. Ah, they will get no points for silhouette if their silhouette is non-distinct, bloblike, exhibits ladder design, or otherwise just needs a ton more definition perhaps. For complexity versus clarity in order to get full points, the level of detail in the design should be appropriate to the medium. So, in this case, we are going to be looking at a mix of characters that are designed for 2D animation, whether that be for the anime or also just for in sprite animation.
So the designs cannot be too detailed because if you are designing something that is meant to be in a game that is what 8bit, you don't really have much space to work with. You really have to make sure that your design has a lot of clarity and pairs down very well and that it will be recognizable even with the bare minimum of detail. And I would say that they usually do a pretty good job of this. I I would say so they will get no points for their complexity if the design is distractingly complex or too simple to the point of genericness or if I can't make them into a coup marketable plushy.
Funny enough, I feel like the plushification in Pokémon is mostly for the Pokémon themselves. I don't know if they sell all that much merch of trainers outside of trainers that are on the cards.
I could be wrong, but I think most of the merchandising Pokemon does is with the Pokemons themselves. So, they may not be so worried about that element, but the designs definitely do have to be able to be paired down or be displayed at a very low resolution and maintain recognizability.
So, next, in order to get full points for focal point, the primary focal point of the character should be their face, should be their head. You can then visually explore the rest of the design after making eye contact with them. But the face is how we form an understanding with someone. The eyes are the window to the soul. And I would say often Pokémon does succeed at making heads focal.
Whether it be through fun and interesting hair colors, uh more monochromatic outfits where the pop of color is in the hair or, you know, more exaggeration around the head especially.
So, usually I think they're succeeding in this category, but a design will get no points for focal point if the primary focal point is not at all focal due to low contrast, over under detailing, or being completely outco competed by their elements. How many times can I say focal point in like 30 seconds?
It seems I've already said it too many times. Then, finally, to get full points for concept motif, the concept should be clearly, creatively, and thoroughly explored in the design and supported by motifs. Key conceptual aspects should be able to be identified visually. This means that I on a cold read of the design should be able to determine the character's personality, maybe what region in Pokemon is their home, maybe what their occupation is, what type of gym leader they are if they're a gym leader, or what type of Pokemon they usually train if they are sort of type specific. Uh things like that we should be able to identify just by looking at them. So, we'll see if that holds up.
And then they will get no points for this category if the concept is visually unclear, underdeveloped, or non-existent. I don't really use the bonus points area for character designs outside of YouTuber designs, though. Um, because it's not fair. Final disclaimer before we actually start looking at someone is that a grade that I give to a character in Pokemon is not comparable to a grade that I've given a character in another series using this rubric.
Because when I'm considering a character, I'm sort of considering them within the universe that is built around them in their piece of media. Especially because different pieces of media have different, you know, fundamental ideas they are trying to convey and different paths towards success, different art direction. They're maybe trying to do different things. So therefore, it's very hard to compare them sometimes. So, you can't say, "Ah, this guy got a 9 out of 10, but this guy in this other series also got a 9 out of 10, so they're both the same." Or, "How could you? This guy got only a three, and yet you gave this guy a six. Don't be doing that. Leave me alone.
Leave me alone. They're not comparable."
Uh, early gen one is hard to read and what they do and what they specialize in. Uh, most of them have plushies anyway. No, they have trainer keychains and like acrylic stands. Oh, interesting. Okay. They want the Pokemon to be easy to draw for kids. Not sure if the same is true for trainers. I know that. Yeah, that is true for the Pokemon themselves. They can be break or broken down into simple basic shapes most of the time. But yeah, I don't know if that's what they were aiming for with trainers because inherently drawing a whole person is much harder than drawing a funny little owl who is a sphere or a spiel who is a seal that is a sphere.
Yeah. Why did this feature get a nine?
that this is so much better character in the Gotcha game. Got a four/j. Yeah, I I am always waiting for that to happen.
And it hasn't happened much recently, but just know they're in a vacuum. My grades for Pokemon are only comparable to other grades for Pokemon.
So, final things to sort of discuss are that uh we do need to at least think about what the intentions of the series Pokemon existing are.
Therefore, in order to sort of discuss why the characters are designed the way that they are. So, what is the developers intention for Pokemon?
Pokemon is sort of like a threepart success triangle. They have the games, by that I mean the video game. They have the card game and they have the anime.
All three of those things exist to support the other tenants of it. So they have physical media which is cards which exists in sort of like a gambling like format where you can, you know, sort of get that off of it. manga.
Yes, the manga also does exist, but the manga is more so doing the same thing that the anime is doing, perhaps.
Um, the cards are physical media that through playing the game drives people to interact with each other about this piece of media because now we can compete. And now you have a reason to buy more so that you can become better and you can keep up with releases. So that way you can always be on the cutting edge of what is going on in the Pokemon trading card game.
And it's gambling. It's a gotcha system essentially where you're pulling to try and get the best card that you want and they make a lot of money off of that.
Yeah. Yeah. Huge money sync. Huge money sync. So they need whatever characters, whatever Pokemon they're designing to support that card game. So the characters have to do something that is interesting from a support standpoint because the game is mostly built around the Pokemon.
For the anime, the anime mostly exists to drive interest towards the ways that they make money, which are through selling video game, selling card game.
The anime itself inherently doesn't necessarily make that much money. And I would say the same is goes for the manga. In most cases, if you have a TV show for something, it exists to sell merchandise, which is what Pokemon also does a lot of. So, the games again also exist primarily so that you'll buy them and compete in them and maybe play against your friends in them and also get attached to the fun little creatures in them. So, you'll want to buy a little plushy of them. Yeah, games and anime the most popular. Yes, this is true. So with that in mind, we do have to note here that in the case of Pokemon, which is kind of odd compared to most series we talk about, the element that they are basing their marketing on is not the people. The trainers are not inherently like the key tenant here. Do they still sell merchandise of the characters? Yes, as we are hearing, yes, they do. However, primarily the longevity of the series has been based upon the Pokemon themselves, hence it being called Pokemon. Yeah, the trainers are secondary. So, the trainers mostly exist to drive story forward in the anime and in the games essentially. So, they are something that you are supposed to become attached to usually from some sort of like emotional or like story based uh basis. Great use of words. Eg.
I sound I feel like I'm not picking my words very well today. Um, but yeah, so that is the role that the trainers play.
You are not trying to get a trainer in order to do better in the game, unless you're in the card game and you need them for that ability. The trainers more so act as rivals or friends to you, the player character, if you are playing the game and things like that. They are your rival. They are the people you're competing against, trying to triumph over.
So, as a result of that, they're designing the characters in a way that will be interesting, first of all, to children, because Pokemon inherently was created with the idea of appealing mostly, oh, I'm losing my voice suddenly, mostly to the demographic of like elementary school to middle school, maybe some high school. Uh, and predominantly originally boys. Um, they've kind of expanded their marketing a little bit since then and they've realized that a lot of people who grew up playing Pokémon when they were little kids are now maybe in their 20s or 30s or 40s or 50s or more. So, they've created stories that can be broadly appealing, but their core audience is still inherently kids. So, when designing for kids, we usually are not worrying about appeal winks at you. Uh, characters have to be appropriate to be on children's television. So, we are not usually going to be seeing clothing that is all that revealing. Um, and the characters, because they're meant to appeal to children, are usually much more colorful and flashy. They usually have clear color associations with them so that children can recognize them easily and repetitively.
Yeah, surprised there's more bug Pokémon. when we're appealing to children. I don't know how into bugs children are all the time, but that's why there are a lot of Pokemon that are very cute and round and cuddly and easy to draw. Yeah. Biggest differences between Pokémon and Digimon. What? The fact that they are appealing to they're on children's TV and therefore not sexualizing the characters designs.
Targeted audience. Yeah, Digimon, I think, was trying to appeal to maybe a slightly older audience. mayaps. But yes, so having just like mentioned all of those things, why don't we like take a look at some of them real quick here?
Why don't we take a look at some of them? Flashback to the beach episode and James' outfit. Manga has some manga readers, at least in the US, tend to be a slightly older audience than TV watchers. So they may be able to get away with that a little bit more perhaps. But at the same time, there are TV shows that are targeted towards kids that can have some of that sometimes, as long as it's still PG, perhaps.
Flashback to beach episodes.
I know that people still find a way to be like, "Oh, I'm so in love with these characters in Pokémon." But their base designs are not inherently inappropriate. So, I'm going to turn this off so you can't see for one second as soon as I find my mouse. And then you're going to guess who we are looking at first. You're gonna take a guess for me. Make this go away.
Oh, this would be kind of funny, too, cuz I'm using their theoretically what their oldest design is.
Can I get black, please? There we go.
Although, I guess I could Hang on. I I could put it over all of their iterations.
That might be kind of funny cuz some of the iterations may be clearer as to who someone is or not.
Put that there. Put that there. Put this here.
Bam.
I think you'll identify this. Yeah.
Ready? Ready? Ready. Shmates. Who's that Pokemon character?
Everybody shout in unison.
Who is this? I think we can recognize who this is a little bit perhaps.
No idea.
No clue.
Nyo, I have a feeling you're kidding.
However, however, you're not completely wrong. I know that people definitely recognize who this is because the hair is iconic, but that's really all this character has that's recognizable in the silhouette.
And if we're being honest, there are probably a lot of other anime characters who have a very similar hairstyle going on.
Um, yeah, Naruto. Yeah, I saw somebody say Giovani, which also sure. Yeah, spiky hair guy. Guy with spiky hair in the silhouette. guy who had kind of baggy pants for a while, but his clothing doesn't really add anything to his silhouette, unfortunately. He's got a blocky silhouette, which makes me think that he is sturdy perhaps and strong and grounded. His hair is sharp, so we know that there's some sort of edge to him. So, he's not just a grounded, mature character. There's something else going on there. Grounded.
I'm saying these things knowingly.
H the one with his arm on his side kind of looks like Cyrus. This one? Yeah. So, the thing that I'm getting at here is that Brock, despite being recognizable to people who play Pokemon, I don't think has that recognizable of a silhouette. I I don't think that he has as iconic of a silhouette as other characters do, wildly enough. We recognize him, but his clothing isn't that standout.
How old is Brock even? I know he was 15, at least originally, I think. Yeah, teenager. I don't know if they've aged him up or how that all works, but in the anime at least, he was 15 at the start once upon a time. I think I mostly recognized his face and color palette.
That's what he looked like in the first game. This is OG Brock. When I think of Brock, I think of this Brock. I think of anime Brock or secondarily, I will recognize other game Brocks, but I think of this one. So, it's very weird seeing a couple other iterations. Who is this man? This is just an NPC in a potentially fantasybased farming game.
Who is this?
Um, fourth looks like Spark. He kind of does a little bit. I see that. Yeah.
Really? What? I know. I know.
Why is he white? That's the other question. Having looked at all of these, I was like, "Oh my god, he's so pale.
What happened?
Does he really not have a little bit of a tan to him in the originals? Why Why are you keeping him out of the sun? What happened, Brock after a divorce? Oh my god. Yeah, there there's some interesting things going on there. So, we have red and blue. We have yellow. We have fire red leaf green. We have heart gold, soul, silver, which does weird things, I think, for a couple of the characters. There's some premise going on there that has to be occurring.
Otherwise, I don't know what's happening with them. Uh, this is Origins.
I think this is the original series. This is the Ruby and Sapphire arc. This is the Diamond Pearl arc, which is another Brock I'm familiar with. And this is the Sun and Moon version. Can you zoom in for Generation for a sec? Sure. Yes, I know that this is an age up, but they really changed a lot about them sometimes. So, Brock's original design is so 90s to me. He's got his big graphic tea. He's got his Converse on.
He's got his big baggy uh jean pants on.
He's got his clip on his clip belt.
He's so stylish.
He's so 90s. He's so grounded. Isn't he shirtless in the OG design? Is he? I don't recall that. I I don't remember that. A lot of older character designs are inspired by the fashion of the time period. Yes. Which I kind of love. I kind of love that for his first iteration. I like that I can place what time period he exists in based on what he's wearing. We lose that the closer to the modern era some of the designs get just because the clothing choices chosen for them end up being a little bit more timeless or they end up being like almost a little techary and slightly futuristic in their cuts and stylings. So we don't usually we can't always place that in future designs.
There is a very concrete Pokemon style of clothing design that starts to develop around this point in time. It seems like with, you know, strong horizontal lines, bold colors, and things like that. However, the design for Brock that I think I was going to critique was going to be his original anime version because in the game, I feel like they haven't made his design as iconic or clearly recognizable. The vest adds something that is necessary to me for his silhouette. It adds at least a little bit of an overhang. It's providing a nice big square area. It's a tactical item for somebody who is meant to be a dependable type of character.
Uh and then his color palette is also much more clearly defined. It's a very interesting color palette and it is recognizable. We see the almost army or like forest green vest with orange and it's Brock. It's that combo. Sorry, we're in a boss battle right now.
Sorry, sorry, sorry. Boss battle. We're fighting Brock right now in the puter gym. Um, is what we're doing right now.
Brock becomes a Lancer in the anime when the lancer in the game is someone else.
I don't know what that What do you mean by that? I'm not sure what that means.
My my understanding of Brock as a character in the anime at least is that he was an aspiring Pokemon breeder and then he decided to become a doctor at some point and that he is supposed to be like very mature and wise and level-headed often although I think of him as being silly often parentification he went through in the anime. He does. He is the caretaker for what, nine siblings or something. And he was left in charge of taking care of them and the gym by his father abandoning them. So yeah, he is the big brother archetype perhaps. He feels like an adult compared to them. He's really weird about women. He is really weird about women, but I think that that's like a bash st bash the stampede 90s early 2000s. We have to write male characters that way so that they can be seen as like whatever. That's like a popular trope in that time period is the weird about women trope. Um, even if they are not that way in any other iteration. So I I blame that on the era more so than on anything else. Brock, I want to love you. I want to like you. So he is designed to be somebody who we can read as being dependable in his silhouette. He's got his arms crossed, which reads as mature to us as a viewer.
He's got his tactical vest on which lets us know that he is ready for any circumstance. He's got a lot of squares in his design which we associate with characters being sturdy and dependable and responsible and maybe leader types of characters which does align well with the fact that he is sort of the older brother archetype in a lot of ways. His hair being spiky does provide some contrast to him so that he's not all squares. Yes, like a rock. Yes, like a rock. Um, his hair provides a little bit of contrast and it also makes it so that uh we can tell that he's not only that way. He can have other sides to him as well. He can be a little weird sometimes. He can be a little bit silly sometimes. And you should also take him seriously. He's not just goofy. And he has a frying pan. That is a thing he does have also. Yes. As far as being able to identify what type of trainer he is, I think dressing him in earth tones is helping us to identify him as being potentially a rock trainer. Although, if people don't aren't familiar with Pokémon, they may guess that he is aligned with the element of earth. You know, he is wearing oranges that are slightly desaturated and like not all that bright in value. He's wearing sort of like a warm color of pants. These two colors together sort of form like a terracotta palette almost. The green feels earthy and sort of naturalistic.
So that does make sense for a rock trainer. Maybe there are a lot of rock Pokemon or just like rock associations that end up a little more gray. But I'm happy that they went for something a little bit more ground like even though ground is its own type and that may also be in interesting in other ways could be a little bit confusing. Yeah, Colina, I would say ground more than rock because of how vibrant the colors are. Yes, I can see that. Here's my question for you. Um, do they ever mention that? Because the thing that always confused me in Pokemon was rock versus ground having being different things. I don't know. Oh, even raided.
Hi, welcome in raiders. Oh, M. You guys are so quick with the shout out.
Shmates, can we rotate for the raiders, please? Hi there. I'm Squeegee. I'm a freelance artist fun guy and I'm also an art educator. Today we're critiquing the character designs in Pokemon of the characters, not in the Pokemon though.
But welcome. It seems like recently you may have been playing some Yakuza, Bayonetta, or a raccoon game of some sort. Don't sniff us, Nyla. Why you sniffing them?
Why are you sniffing them? All the rock types he uses are actually also GROUND TYPES. OH, WAIT. Maybe that's why. Yeah, ground is earth that's not grass. And rock is stone. Rock and stone. So maybe they are leaning into the fact that he uses Pokemon that are multi-p.
Maybe that's why they were okay with making him more saturated. But at the same time, this is for a children's show, so they needed to inject him with some color. Being all gray might have made us think that he was an enemy or an antagonist. We tend to associate desaturated colors with evil perhaps. His ace is a rock/ground. Fair.
In the anime, he also doesn't only have rock types uh over time. That is true I think for most of the characters. Like I know that certain characters start as like poison only or water only or something only but then they branch out later on because it's just more interesting to have more variety sometimes more type coverage maybe also.
Yeah. Team Galactic. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Also their choice of color palette for him I think also is meant to support his personality which is that he is a very warm person for the most part. also you know in the fact that he is mature and welcoming he is thought to be rather kind so it does give us a good understanding of his personality as well.
Yeah. Crow gunk. Yes. Ground is soil and rock is rock. True. Rock is rock and stone.
This is true. This is true. So I think that Brock, aside from his silhouette, is a pretty effective character design in this iteration. I think this is when he is at his strongest. Other than just the fact that I feel a lot of nostalgia and love for the way he looks in his 90s fit back in the day. Some of his other outfits I don't think convey those elements of him as well. This one I lose him entirely as a character. The big eyebrows were very important for making his face recognizable because when you are limited to so few pixels or looking at a character from a distance or an animation, you have to pick very specific things in order to make a face recognizable.
And they always gave him big eyebrows that slope down and in. And they gave him that classic trope of eyes closed all the time. And despite keeping that in all of these iterations here, the fact that his eyebrows seem to just get thinner after his first iteration really is not helping me to recognize him as being Brock, unfortunately.
That's something that I think is an iconic decision made for the anime design that they should have just stuck with. They should have stuck with it.
Yeah, they plucked his brows. Screw you uh conventional standards of beauty and whatever. I think thick eyebrows for him was the move. And it's sad to me that this version, this version, and this version lack that for this one, which is the heart gold, soul silver, I do think that they were still in, you know, thinking about some of the same ideas in design with giving him warm colors. They gave him tactical pants. We can see that element of preparedness, but the squared off nature of his silhouette has been lost a good bit. And they just like took the saturation and value out of everything. They they washed him out a little bit. I feel like he doesn't feel as warm here. And I may honestly accidentally guess that he's a fire type trainer from this outfit cuz this orange without like the warm red of the pants, without the darker brown in his hair.
Doesn't really make me think ground and earth tone anymore. I don't know. Made him skinny, too. Supposed to be slightly muscular. Yeah, he had thicker arms. He was just more squared off in his design.
His head was a little bit wider, which they didn't really lose, but I feel like they've lost him. They We've lost him.
What? What happened? I love his jelly donuts. Me, too. I also love his jelly donuts.
Oh, localization.
Why are you this way? So, I'm gonna grade Brock based on the era that I think is strongest and the error that I think is weakest, just because I think that that's a fun thing for me to do.
So, Anime Brock, this one loses it a little bit for me.
This one I think is still somewhat effective, but I don't think the colors do as good of a job at conveying his typing. And then this is kind of getting back to the root of things. But this is more or less just a rehash of the original design. Average it out. That would be mean. I think this is an outlier that I should exclude if we're going to average it out. I'm just going to give this one a grade and give this one a grade and we can see what the range of Brock is. So, for the stronger end of Brock, the main critique is still that his silhouette is not that recognizable. A lot of the elements in it do not help us to isolate who he is against larger casts of characters, despite the fact that it is telling us things about who he is as a person. I'm being maybe a little nice. I honestly, if I was grading him in another game, I may have put it here, and I probably should. He's not a blob, but he's not that recognizable, unfortunately. Cold Cat Eat, thank you for following. I appreciate it. What about his Let's Go design. I didn't have that in here because technically, isn't that a spinoff game? I didn't have any spin-offs in here because Bulipedia does not list them like in line with the iterations when they show them. I mean, we can look at if it's significantly different. No, it's a remake. Oh, wait.
You're right. It is a remake. How much did they change him in that one? I don't know. Crarance uh in the game isn't So, let's go. Thought it was basically a remake. Interesting. Okay. Complexity versus clarity. I think the level of detail here is perfect. We don't need to change very much about it. Color palette, lovely, interesting, engaging, memorable. Focal point. Aha. We didn't actually talk about his focal point.
Concept and motif. I think I can mostly tell what I'm supposed to about him.
Focal point in this version. I I'm torn.
What's the What What do you guys look at first here, mates? I think I'm looking at his chest.
His hair is some of the darkest part of the design, but his clothing is much more interesting than his head is, unfortunately, because of the saturation.
I I find that I'm looking at his vest and his shirt more than anything else.
Belt, the red pouch. Okay. Yeah, this is sort of a bright element surrounded by darker elements.
Best contrast and saturation. Yeah.
Stop. Brock, I'm sorry. I can't give you that many points for it.
Pants. Why are you looking at his his I don't think his pants are that focal. I I don't I don't think so. The green. I mean, his chest was focal in the manga.
You were saying earlier that's cuz he's shirtless, though. Or is that something else? Or is that unrelated? Could be.
But two, four, five, six and a half, seven.
Seven out of 10 for Brock. Oh, I was I was very kind to him on the thumbnail.
So, at Strongest, Brock is a seven, which I feel kind of bad about.
Is he still iconic? Yes. But are is there still room for improvement? Still, yes. I need to use a smaller brush so that we can read it at his weakest.
at weakest.
I would guess conceptually that he is a farmer in a fantasy game. Um, so I don't think I'm really grasping his concept.
He does still have a squared off silhouette a little bit, but not as much as I would like him to.
Silhouette not recognizable or memorable. Level of detail, he feels very generic, unfortunately. He's just so low detail. I don't know what's going on. Focal point might be the only thing I can give to him, which I never mind. I lied to you. His shirt has more saturation than anything else, so his shirt becomes focal, unfortunately.
Farmer is Rocky, I guess.
I feel like I'm being nice. Earthy. I I'll put him there maybe for concept. Is that fair? And then color palette. The palette is just not interesting at all.
It is at least three different brown tones, but the brown tones don't really have any interplay across the design. We don't have colors repeating in multiple places. The blocking is not very interesting. It's pretty basic. If I were to do a ladder test on him, I fear that he would have a an incredibly climbable ladder.
Uhoh.
I mean, there's just not a lot to draw as wrongs on here either. It's just not interesting. if he feels too bare down or paired down background character in a generic isekai. Yeah, I would agree with that color palette. Does it have in issues? No. But is it bland and boring?
Yes.
So, what does he get here? One, two, three, and a half. Brock, I'm sorry.
Actually, I'm not. This is not a very strong Brock design.
So, if we're averaging that out, might be five. What is the weakest from? It's from Origins.
Pokemon Origins. I I don't know that one. I'm not familiar with that one, perhaps. Shoes and hair the same color.
At least that is kind of true. The anime.
Is it the anime?
I can't remember what this was from.
This I think this is from a game. If we added them together, they'd make a 10.
That sounds like a little bit like coping with his green.
These will be the afters going forward.
Seemingly they could be. Yeah, is is an animated special. Oh, it's good. Like a straightup quick adaptation of Pokemon Red. Red and blue with red as the protagonist. Oh, interesting. Okay. I'm interested that they made Brock look like this for it then.
Maybe a little disappointed that they did that. A lot of the colors are toned down in it. That's fair, but they still could have made it the color choices more interesting, if you ask me. At least.
Yeah. Okay, I'm going to hide it again.
We're going to move to the next character.
Next one. Who's that Pokemon trainer?
Oh, wait. I got to I got to make all of them visible again.
Go like this. Go like This. Go like that. Go like this. Go like that. Go like this. Go like that. Bam.
Who is that? Pokemon trainer.
Who is it?
This one I would give as being recognizable by silhouette. I I'll give her that.
I don't think there's really any question as to who this is.
Who this is, I don't think anyone would recognize. Yeah, Misty and some woman with funky hair. I agree.
Here's Misty. Look at her. There she is.
Misty. Misty. Misty. No idea. This is again, I guess, aged up Misty from Heart Gold Soul Silver, which maybe I just should not be including because she feels like an outlier here, both in terms of design and recognizability.
And I fear that she would probably get not a fantastic grade here comparatively. Yeah, it looks like Misty's mom.
That is not Misty. Uh, it's it's Misty.
Look, she's got her little like wheat we thing we we spike of hair. That's her.
Trust poor kids and a scientist swimmer.
Sure. So, what we have here is a character who looks pretty sporty. She's wearing a more athletic style of bathing suit in three of these iterations. And then in this iteration, she's wearing sort of like a like sports style shirt where you cut the sleeves off. It seems like she's got suspenders holding her shorts up, but she's got her sneakers on, too. So, she seems like she is ready to get out there, do something athletic. I believe that she's doing something athletic.
Also, she doesn't seem to be like that girly inherently in the way that she's dressed. She is wearing nothing all that frilly. She's dressed in a way that you would associate, you know, maybe a kid who is going to run around outside would wear. Maybe that's what you would think by looking at her. Um, she has red hair and her hair is very sharp and it's kind of fiery. It's a little fiery. Red is a color that can be or is a color that can be kind of intense and you know something we associate with warmth, but we can also associate red with wrath and anger perhaps.
Swim team and their coach.
True. True. Perhaps maybe that is what she changed. Squishy.
She's dressed like you. She is kind of dressed like me. That's kind of true.
But I would say that I dress maybe also in a little bit more of a tomboy-ish way. I'm not a girl, but um yeah, maybe a tropical feeling. Yeah. So, all of this is to say that that she is dressed in an athletic manner and she is dressed to be a swimmer, at least in the games, which makes sense because she is the tomboy swimmer or tomboy mermaid as they call her in taglines, which I think makes sense. She doesn't really feel like a water type trainer in the anime to me, but in the games she does. I also think that the sandals made the most choice or made the most sense for her as far as footwear goes. Unless these are like those what do you call them? Amphibious shoes. The sort of like shoes you can wear in the water and out of the water at the same time perhaps.
Yeah, she's a bit hotheaded in the anime. That's true. which I think is related to the choice of red hair for her. In the games, I believe her strategy is that she just essentially just throws a bunch of like inherently just strong Pokemon at you where her idea is just full out attack essentially, which may also relate to the choice of red for her hair color and making it somewhat spiky cuz that's sort of like an aggressive way of fighting. I say as if fighting isn't inherently aggressive, but that's an aggressive strategy perhaps. Ah, they're swim shoes. Okay, these ones read as swim shoes here. I don't know if these ones do because of their shapes. The fact that these have the vertical stripes on the sides of them feel like something I'd see in a swim shoe. These just look like sneakers to me a little bit. And her shoes in the anime, she's not swimming. They're running around outside. So, she's not really dressed to swim. But, I fear that we've lost the elements that tell us about what type of Pokemon she uses here. If I were to guess, just looking at her anime design, I may guess that she is actually, what would I have guessed?
I don't know if I would have guessed fire, but maybe she does have yellow, red, and orange, which are all the colors that become fire.
Normal type, maybe. Anybody's giving coastal. Are you getting that from the color choices? A bug train or something outdoorsy? I could see that. I could see that also. I could see that Misty's finally started washing chlorine out of her hair and using conditioner.
No, her hair tuft is kind of flameshaped. I see that also. So, based on all those elements, I do unfortunately think that anime Misty is not selling the Pokemon typing angle as well as she could, but I do think she does a decent job at conveying her personality. Misty is often considered to be sweet and optimistic, but really hot-tempered in the anime, at least in the beginning. In the beginning, I hear she mellows out a lot by the end, but uh she's supposed to be kind of hotheaded, which I think makes sense. All the red is on her head. Across the entirety of this, and we're ignoring her, but across all of these iterations here, where she is younger, her head is pretty focal.
Not as much here, but everywhere her hair is more orange. Her head becomes focal because orange is a a high satur highly saturated color. Orange is close to red, which is a high chroma color, so it out competes other colors for in the battle for our attention. Um, and her head has the biggest element of asymmetry on it. It also has the most exaggeration in silhouette in it, which is why we recognize her. Yeah, ponytail is iconic and recognizable.
She, I think, is someone who we could identify by silhouette outside of Pokemon. Even though still her clothing isn't doing that much for her, unfortunately, she at least has like a little bit of overhang to her shirt that adds to silhouette. And same with her shorts, but it's still not that much. Her hair is really doing the heavy lifting. And I do appreciate the hair as a moment of asymmetry, too, because a lot of at least early Pokémon characters tend to be real symmetrical. Unfortunately, older designs tend to simplify the trainer gimmick. Aside from, I guess, the Elite 4. That's fair. I mean, the Elite 4 were meant to stand out a bit more because they are, you know, sitting at sort of like a higher tier in the game. Unlike other hair colors, red head hair gets lighter over time. Often doesn't gray, but goes pure white. Oh, interesting. Okay, so maybe that is why her hair is fading a little bit more when she gets older. is weird in Origins. Not included in this lineup.
That's one where Brock was weird, too.
Yeah, Bulbedia didn't give me her. Where is it? I don't think Bulbedia gave me that version of her. Let me scroll down and see if it was here somewhere.
Yeah, they only gave me original series alternate artwork from original series.
Sun and Moon, which is what I have here is the Sun and Moon version, which is not that different from actually it really didn't change much from the original version of her. I actually can't find it. Google. Guess I can Google.
Let me see. Is she still recognizable?
I guess this is her origins thing. Yeah, it seems like mostly an art style change.
And she is wearing her outfit from what is this? Uh, fire red leaf green, I think. Perhaps, but it's still recognizable. I can tell it's her. She looks a little bit older, maybe.
It's fine. It's not Brock, at least. Um, as far as color palettes go, whoops, spoiler almost. As far as color palettes go, I do think that her color palette is the most engaging in the anime because she is the greatest variety of colors.
I'm just surprised they didn't go for something that's more like aqua toned maybe so we could convey that she is a water type trainer more clearly because then we could also play with the fact that blue and orange are complimentary colors and we can build interesting color palettes around that.
I think the weakest of these that are here is perhaps this version of her. The shoes don't read as aquatic. The swimsuit isn't as clearly a swimsuit as it was in previous versions. I think the vertical stripes add interesting detail and also clarify that it is a sports type swimsuit. This may read as just shorts and a tank top. She does have a water droplet on her shirt, but it is unfortunately a slightly more generic outfit. and the yellow just doesn't have that great of contrast to their skin tone, unfortunately. From a distance, it starts to look less and less like she's wearing clothing, unfortunately.
So, if I had to pick strongest and weakest, I'm actually kind of torn because for selling her concept, I think the fire red leaf green version is working the best. It does have a very strong focal point. The color choices make the most sense.
Blue is Ash's color, which is also odd.
Oh, don't don't get me started.
Blue is his color, which makes sense cuz he's based on the character named Red.
You're right.
That was not Misty. You disagree with that one with the Origins. Misty, I I just don't know if we're a fan of the art direction for Origins. This seems to be what's going on here. But if I were to grade them, I am going to grade her anime version because I think that that is the iconic memorable one for most of us. So, color palette. It is an interesting, engaging color palette. I just don't think it's conveying her concept to us very well, unfortunately.
Her silhouette is much more recognizable than Brocks was, but still, it's lacking a little bit of exaggeration.
She doesn't really have a lot of visual weight in her silhouette. She's kind of the same width all the way up until we reach her hair. Her clothing's kind of blocky. It's still relatively tight. So, I feel like she'd benefit from some more exaggeration somewhere in her clothes.
But her hair is so iconic. I think we would really, it'd be rude of me to not at least give her points for that because even if we just use her head against characters from other any other piece of media, you'd know it's her more or less. For complexity versus clarity, I think the level of detail in the anime version is fine. For focal point, it is her head.
Being a redhead does give her an advantage here, but then for constip motif is not working so well for me. I think we get an idea of her personality, but not an idea of, you know, what kind of trainer she is. Maybe where she's from, things like that.
This is two, four, five, six, seven, eight out of 10. So that's pretty decent. She scored better than Brock did.
Weakest iteration. Her head is focal. I can give her that immediately at least.
Her silhouette, I think, is a step down from the silhouette in the anime because there's just nothing adding to the outer edge. The clarity in her color palette is not fantastic, and it's also just less interesting. There's really only two colors in her palette. She's got a little bit of blue in her shoes, but her outfit is mostly yellow, which doesn't relate as much to water, maybe.
and she just feels underdetailed, unfortunately.
Conceptually, I think it makes sense, though.
Well, color-wise, maybe I'll put it there. So, the weaker end of Misti is 1 2 3 4 5 6 and a half out of 10. Still not that bad. That's pretty decent. So, Misti has a lot less variation here, which maybe is unfair because we graded Origins before. Origins. Misty seems to be based on this version of Misti, which is still more recognizable. Yellow is supposed to convey beach.
Maybe, maybe, maybe it's sand. I just don't know if it was the greatest choice for clarity and readability. And, you know, if we're thinking about what we associate water with, yellow is not usually up there. Also, is she does she hang out at the beach? If I remember correctly, her the gym is a pool, right? I think of her as being a swimmer more in the sense of being like an athlete who is in a pool swimming than ocean swimming maybe. Yeah, her gym's a pool. So, I don't know if beach would be the greatest association. Oh, having like like beach, not beach, like pool tiling as a pattern on her would be neat, but we're not doing pattern work in this type of animation.
Ruby and Sapphire in the anime. She's also yellow and blue. Is she? I wonder if Bulipedia just didn't give me very many options for her, unfortunately.
They may have just not had as many prepared for us. Her colors in Let's Go Pikachu are pretty good. She She's wearing white as a top and I think what blue jean shorts still in that? I feel like it's not any clear that she is a water type trainer in that, but I can't remember.
Does her yellow outfit match one of her Pokemon? Isn't one of them a starfish?
One's yellow with a jewel. I Star me. Is Starmy yellow? I think Stari has some yellow, but it's mostly purple.
Yeah, Star is mostly purple. Star me is looks like this, which is one of her Pokemon if I remember correctly. Or Staru.
Stareu is yellow.
I guess Staru is more gold and yellow.
I thought she had a Star Me.
Maybe she doesn't. Maybe I'm misremembering. For a video idea, what if you grade the Pokemon Meiku designs?
Oh, we do want to talk about the Pokemon Meiku designs at some point cuz we have talked about them vaguely. She has both.
Oh, okay. Okay. Okay. I mean, I could see this making sense in combination with the mostly yellow design version, but I still don't know if it was the greatest choice. We could have gone purple. If we went purple, that would still feel a little bit more aquatic and it would still have clearer contrast perhaps. You know, she had both. Okay. In the anime, she had that one. Okay. I see. I see. I see.
I see. But generally six and a half to eight. Not a bad range, memorable design, stronger than Brock a little bit, both at her weakest and strongest. I would say she is more recognizable and she does have a very solid spot in the hearts of many Pokemon fans. Purple is Poisoner Ghost, though.
That's true, but by that metric, she should have just been blue. They should have just gone for blue in the palette cuz blue is water. Um, but blue is Ash's color. Blue is Ash's color.
Whoops, not that one. I've I've gotten rid of the wrong thing. Whoopsie.
You guys get to look out the window for a split second there.
Who's that Pokemon trainer?
Let's see.
I need all those ones to be turned back on. I'm going to bring those ones in there. And we're going to go like this.
And we're going to go like that.
Bam. Who's that? Pokemon trainer.
Oh, it showed a single frame of Misti again. That was weird. Um, and the OG or generic, huh?
I like Blake calling him by his legal name or his Japanese name. It's Pikachu guy wearing a hat. That's true. Ash or red? Okay, we can accept either of those as being answers because there's a reason why it looks like both. This is Ash.
So, if we're gonna look at his silhouette, he does have hair that adds some width around the sides of his head.
The top of his head is smoothed over by the fact that he's wearing a hat. I think the hat works best when it's a little bit more squared off.
His pants have a varying level of baggginess. we see until they decide that we're just going to like not do pants any longer. Um, so his clothing is telling me that maybe he's a little bit dependable.
He's not completely dependable, though.
Seems somewhat trustworthy from the silhouette.
And then we look at him, I have to make an admission to you, which is that I never realized that this hat isn't the hat he always wears.
What? I I don't remember this hat not being the one he always wore. Since when did he have other hats?
Blue guy. I looking at him, they did make him much more blue. They did make him more blue. When I think of Ash, I think of red. Not the guy, the color, but also the guy. So, I'm really surprised looking at him to realize that he is wearing much more blue than I would have thought he is. How peculiar.
How peculiar. You didn't notice. I didn't. Yeah, it's had changed with every region it seems like. So, we've got like a more Wi-Fi signal looking Pokemon symbol. We've got a whole Pokemon symbol. We've got just the top half of Pokemon ball symbol. I don't know who this is. This is someone else.
Um, this is Ash. All the denim. Yeah.
Well, the denim stops at a point and then comes back once and then mostly goes away. He gets a jean jacket sometimes. And this is yellow. Love the anime did some adult designs for the protagonists. would be interesting. It's a tradition of changing the hat every generation. Ah, I see. Okay, I see. I never realized that, which is on me.
That's the Journeys one. The Last Ash series. Okay. Somehow they made him look younger. He seems like he's getting younger, which is intriguing.
Resembles some of the male protagonists in a very, very loose way. Yeah, Gen one and two are the same design. Gen one and two. Okay, so Oh, wait. Do you what what do you mean by that? That these are the same design.
They're not. So, what we have in order here are the original. This is Ruby and Sapphire. This is Diamond and Pearl, which is one of the looks that I was familiar with for him. The gold is a nice touch. Ah, then there is Black and White, XY, Sun and Moon, and Journeys.
Apparently, perhaps it's been 10 for 30 years. Good for him. He He's ageless.
I'm Gary. Dot dot dot dot. I don't have a ash fact as I just checked the wiki about the Pokemon stage play.
>> Oh well, thank you for checking anyway.
Your fun fact is that there is a stage play. Thank you, Gary. Lots of primary colors. Okay, so if I'm looking at him ignoring his expression, I don't know if I would know what his personality is like based on his clothing.
He seems to be dressed. I mean, original version, they all kind of look a little bit more 90s, but you know, he's wearing pants that have maybe several pockets in them, so he seems well prepared.
He's got a ball cap on, so he's doing things outside, maybe keeping the sun out of his face. He's wearing sort of casual clothing.
It feels like almost all the way through where he's just wearing a t-shirt and some joggers, button-down shirt and cargo pants that are kind of blue. He seems a little bit more professional in certain points in time, but not all that professional.
Seems somewhat casual. He's got a colored shirt on, though, which I commend him for. Seems like a generic spunky kid.
That's kind of the trope he fills somewhat. Uh he is supposed to be well hard or warm-hearted, well-intentioned, stubborn. He's kind of rash. He's an amateur. He is pretty optimistic. And I would say he's also quite uh naive, which you know, for the fact that he just kind of looks like a young boy. His personality is boy, maybe that's fair.
Maybe that's fair. Maybe that's fine.
And he's iconic. And I feel like so much the reason why he is iconic is because we've just seen him for so long. The combination of red and white hat with blue for his color palette I feel like is helping us recognizably a lot or recognizability a lot and his hairstyle is at least somewhat specific. But I do fear that if I put him in silhouette and we were to compare him against characters in other places, especially if I go like this and hide the Pokeballs that are happening and the things that look like Pokemon.
This is just a guy. This is just a kid.
There's not a lot of weight in his silhouette either, unless we're looking at this version where his pants are thicker and chunkier at the bottom. So that exaggeration makes his silhouette more recognizable a little bit. But so many of these designs have clothing that is quite squared off, somewhat similar, not extending very far off the body. He's pretty tight. I don't know. After XY, he starts to look younger. Think of his cheeks. A very ' 90s trope that I never understood. Oh, it's like it's like a blush indication almost on his cheeks somewhat. The way that they interpreted it for Alola. I know people weren't a huge fan of unfortunately.
Does most of the male player characters have the same silhouette?
I don't know if most of them would be what I would say. Red has the same silhouette. But the the reason why Red has the same silhouette is because Ash is kind of just is Red, but in the anime in some type of way, he's the basis, the inspiration for Ash.
So that's why they look somewhat similar. I think it's funny that they made him blue, but I guess he is the combination of red and blue, the colors, which is from the early game names at least. Classic music jump scare. Sorry.
Um, the color palette being blue and red I think is supported by the fact that they've added gold because because it becomes a primary palette because it becomes a primarybased color palette which we tend to associate with youth or school and naivity and things that are similar to that often if we're not being presented them in a way that feels teacherly. So, I think that makes sense for him as a color palette.
Pairing that with the black does give him a little bit of a serious angle to him here that I don't know if is accurate to his personality, but you know, he does start to gain a little bit more renown. He does start to win a little bit more and make a name for himself. So giving him clothing that causes us to take him a little bit more seriously, I think would be a good choice because in Alola, which is what this is from, I think he finally becomes he finally wins after how many decades?
He he finally is at the top and he feels like a he doesn't feel like he's any older. He feels like he is less serious.
I don't know, maybe he's more relaxed now. He can take it easy. I don't know what he's like in that version or in that part of the anime.
This is the meme song. Yeah. Finally wins Alola. Yeah. If I were to look at this lineup and pick who I think is a gym leader or somebody who is a champion, I would pick this one probably because the colors make him appear a little bit more mature. He's wearing a collared shirt. He's wearing some layers which is a little bit more interesting.
And I don't know if he feels quite that way in the other versions.
We don't acknowledge that win. It wasn't earned properly. It was a throwaway win.
What do you mean it was a throwaway win?
He wins the challenge in Sun and Moon, but they don't count that as a league win. So in Journeys, he gets his first league win. Oh, okay.
Sorry, I'm popping. The whiplash to go from XY to Alola.
Yeah, I I think that we lost some of the exaggeration in his face. That was something people enjoyed about him and they rounded him out a lot in his clothing and the shapes for his clothing. His clothing feels less mature also. And I feel like we haven't really gotten that back in this version either for Journeys. The clothing is more squared off, but something about his face is making him feel younger again, I guess. I don't know. Had a wasp in my room. Oh my god. Be careful. Be safe. Be safe. Okay, the music dancing music's gone. We can sit back down now.
It's the green.
The green and this design. He is getting more complicated in his color palette here, which I'm not sure is helping him either. I feel like we're muddying the color palette by adding too many colors at this point. also where bear it down.
Your palette can have three colors and black and white. Maybe here it's black and white and green and yellow and red and two tones of blue. And his hair is black but has a different black than his shoes is. That's a lot of variety. Not as many repeating colors throughout the design for Unity's sake. I feel like he's at his strongest here.
Maybe that's my bias as having watched the anime for this era, but I feel like this is the strongest design as far as conveying him is still being, you know, a kid and still being kind of, I don't want to say rough around the edges. Um, well-intentioned, but stubborn and rash and an amateur, but trying to seem more professional than he is, you know, because he is attempting to do great things. Um, Gen 4, the third design is the gem where they make him a pretty competent trainer. Switch they had to cheat to make him lose. Ah, I see. I see. I see. I see. Okay. Much of sauce to me. Rest. Having a modified version of a hoodie and jacket. The lesson feels like boring clothes. Giving him a vest is odd also because Brock wears a vest. I don't know if Brock is in this version of the anime, but yeah, he does seem to be wearing stuff that's more casual with his jacket. And then he goes a little more tactical with the jacket here, which is a little strange.
Also, maybe I don't know. I for me, he's at his best and most recognizable here and here. I didn't know that these were iterations that existed of his outfit.
And I feel like we've lost what made him him. Why didn't they bring back the original outfit? I don't know. I I do not know. I'm not sure. Was Gen 4 when he lost to that random train with a dark cry? I don't know. I am not an expert on that one. Someone is saying yes, I would believe them. Second of last is in a tropical region. Yes, I know that much. So, giving him shorts would make sense, but I still feel like we could have kept some element of the layering with something that feels like a sweatshirt, even if it was more of like a like swim coverup style sweatshirt or something like that. The stripes, while maybe they do feel a little more nautical, I feel like just don't feel as him.
Perhaps the one who cheated Ash out of a win in Gen 4 was Action Replay. There's a character named Action Replay.
He shows up at the end of Journeys the same with a few fan favorite characters.
Okay, interesting. Cinnamon makes sense for the tone of the anime. Okay, if if I'll believe you if you say so, dude.
That's a cool name.
It's a cool name, but action replay.
First name action, last name Replay.
That guy wins. He does not need a replay. He doesn't need not need to play against you again. He only needs one go.
Action replay is cheats. Huh? What are you talking about?
I don't know what we're talking about.
That is a letting your kid pick out their own outfit for the first time sort of outfit. This one, I could see that.
I feel like my first outfit I picked out as a kid was much more wild. Oh, I got one guide. Soul Kingdom, why'd you one guide me? How could you? Hey, I believed you. I thought you were telling the truth. I don't cheat in games, so I don't know what that is.
Sun and Moon's design takes place in a low bunch of tropical islands. Makes some sense. No, I I I did play Sun and Moon, so I know the setting, but like what what did the trainers dress like in Sun and Moon?
The player What did the player character wear?
I don't want Jesse. Why am I looking at Jesse? Oh, wait. I know why. Okay. Is this Is this why he's dressed this way in all of them? I feel so stupid. He's just wearing the male trainer outfit from Every Generation, isn't he?
Which the trouble with that is that this is sort of like the generic self-insert character here, which I guess that is the role that Ash is meant to fill.
Technically, no. Yes. Okay. Somewhere there there's some truth in some of this, but somehow it doesn't it feels more recognizable on the player trainer than it does on him.
What changed? Is the proportioning? Is the fact that they rounded it out? It might be a style thing cuz he's got the same backpack. The hat is very comparable.
I see. It's still terrible. Ruko really doesn't like it. I like the girly's outfit aside from her chicken style hat.
I always thought that was a little bit silly. Uh Galar the boy doesn't dress like that. Yeah, cuz isn't Galar is Galar the one where you're in school?
I can't remember. But now I'm curious.
Wait, because I never played as the male trainer when I played Pokemon. Um, no. I don't want diamond. I want Pokemon. Pokemon, not just training shoes that have diamonds on them. Oh, wait. Okay.
No. Yeah, Lucas doesn't look that much like the outfit that he ends up in.
Maybe it doesn't happen all the time.
Oh, Galar holding shorted shield. Okay.
Sorry. I, as I've said, I'm not as familiar with the ones that came after Moon did render the design since they completely revamped the animation style.
I see. School arc is Alola. What?
Alola's not school. You're not school.
School's not Alola. School when they replaced Ash with new characters. Or is it is a school arc in the anime is what you mean? Cuz the game for Alola is not school arc really. You're you're helping uh what's her name? Uh because her mom is being evil. Scarlet and Violet school. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. In the anime. Okay. They're at school in Alola in the anime. Okay. I see. Lol is school focused. Interesting.
Now I'm just curious as to Pokemon Diamond Train. Okay. Give me X.
Interesting. His outfits do seem to be somewhat inspired by the male trainers of the eras because in Diamond and Pearl, he ends up with more gold because Wats's face has more uh gold. His name Lucas.
He has more gold in his outfit, but I think his gold is his backpack. But they did increase the amount of gold as a result of that. Also, the pants stayed blue. Having black in his torso, I think, is also what Lucas has, too.
which is odd. He's ending up with designs that are for a different character that aren't tailored to him maybe, which is strange.
Interesting.
Giving a school arc feels like a downgrade cuz he traveled so much. I mean, he's a elementary school to middle school player, though. Lucas wore that in diamond and pearl, but changed to a blue jacket and platinum. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
True. Um, but I think that's why this outfit looks the way that it does. I feel insane not having realized that before now, but if I'm being so honest with you, I only ever played as the girlies. Like, I know Dawn. I know what Dawn looks like. I know he doesn't look like Dawn. That's cuz Dawn was I mean, he's also there, but that's intriguing.
Learning together. That's kind of embarrassing to learn together.
There'sn't really Gar season though in the anime. It's probably why just journeys which is like all regions. Ah, I see. Okay. I see how Lily fears touching Pokemon. Oh, okay. Interesting. So, I it seems like some of the characters are abundantly different in the show. Dawn has been ruined in each appearance in the anime post Gen 4. Why? In what? In what sense?
Makes sense. The girls usually had a better design than their male counterparts. Anyway, if I'm going to be so honest with you, I kind of agree with that. I think whoever they had designing the out or whoever was designing the outfits for the girlies knew how to come up with some sleigh fits. Some absolutely slay fits. I think that that is the case. Um, but I don't know if the guys have as killer of cool outfits sometimes. I don't know. Ros's first design is a recolor of Red's outfit. It is. That is true. That That is true. Perhaps. What do you think I meant earlier? What do you mean, Moske Gang? What did you mean earlier? I need context. What did you say earlier that you're referring to?
Ruku pointing out that the wider round hips and drop inseam make the design look like toddler pants. Oh, for this one. Oh my god, I see what you mean.
You're so right, Ruku.
Is that what the Alol Yeah, but for the Alola trainer because they don't make his hips feel as wide and there's still like an angled slope to them, it doesn't necessarily feel that way. That's so interesting that they kind of looked like the male protag designs. Did you say that earlier? Is that Were you the one who said that that I read that from?
You're so right. Pants do make him look younger. They do. They do. Fem fashion is also much more varied than masculine fashion. It can be, but I would say that there are characters in Pokemon who have very stylish masculine fashion choices.
And Ash is maybe just not one of them.
Yeah, sorry. Moscake, you are right. You are right. You are very right. And I will stand here in shame cuz I am right.
Oak jump scare. We'll get to him later.
So, I'm going to protect the ashes under my wingspan for a second here. I'm going to take them under my arm. I'm going to whisper a secret to them. Um, Ash, I think your strongest design is probably either your base design from the original or your uh Diamond and Pearl design for the fact that they managed to convey your personality. The Diamond and Pearl one conveys a little bit more seriousness, which makes sense with you where things were in the plot in the anime is what it sounds like. The fact that your outfit is coming partially inspired by the generic male trainer for each region maybe is not benefiting you that much because I guess you in some ways are meant to be a self-insert character perhaps just as the base trainers for each game are meant to be. Uh, however, Ash has a very clear and distinct personality with a good bit of flavor to it, at least for me. And I feel like his clothing doesn't sell me on that as well. I don't know. Everyone who thinks men's fashion is limited needs to go follow Wisdom right now and be forever inspired.
I think men's formal wear can be somewhat limited sometimes, but there's ways to make it interesting. Um, but yeah, Pokemon has some interesting men's formal wear and just interesting men's fashion. I don't know if Ash has it in all these cases. Anyways, grading.
I'm going to grade. Which one do I grade? I feel like for consistency, I should just grade the OG anime one. I feel like I'm being biased in my preference for this one. But OG version, OG version, I would say I get his personality. He is just the boy. He's so 90s with his cuffed uh pants and his uh sneakers, his t-shirt, his ball cap on. He's I I think I can see his sort of go get him personality from the way that he's dressed. He's dressed in something of a sporty manner.
So, I think we're reading his personality relatively well. Ash, I don't think inherently does he have an associated type? We associate him with Pikachu.
And there's a couple other Pokemon we associate him with, but he seems to have a more varied team than other fellas do because he's not a gym leader inherently. So, the fact that he doesn't have an associated type from the way that he is designed is maybe fine. I'm not so bothered by it. No, he's got everything. Yeah, he he's got fellows from all over from all types.
He's associated with generic trainer.
Yeah, which is you and you can choose whoever you want to be on your team. So, for concept reasons, I think he's fine.
He's okay. I don't know if his clothing is selling him as well as it could, but it's okay. It's okay. I know why he's designed this way, and it's fine. For focal point, the red of his hat makes his head focal. And this is generally true across all the iterations. The fact that the red is mostly conglomerate around his head is a smart move. Red is the highest chroma color. And when at high or when at full saturation and presented against every other color out there, also at full saturation, red wins.
Red.
There it is. Bam.
Give me my hand back. So, makes his head pretty focal. I think the unfortunate thing about this iteration is that the gold becomes more focal than the red does. So, maybe that's why we'll grade this one as the top design. Focal point.
Totally fine. Complexity versus clarity.
My critique for Ash's outfit is that if we saw someone else wearing it, it would not be strange. Usually, you want a character's outfit to feel like it is meant for them. It is tailored to them, and it'd be strange to see someone else wearing it. I think an issue inherent to the fact that they are taking the generic male trainer outfit and sort of editing editing it a little bit for him is just that he's wearing something that I feel like I could see any dude wearing in Pokemon. It doesn't feel like it's something that's just his inherently. A lot of similar shapes are used in other trainers outfits with the collars and sweatshirts and the jackets. Um, so I I don't know if it's as recognizable as some of the others are. Like Misty's outfit I feel like would look strange on a lot of the other girlies. Her outfit is tailored to the fact that she's a little bit more of a tomboy. It's a little more sporty.
H just want a couple of slightly more specific details for his silhouette.
He's just a boy. I'm just a girl girl in the world.
It's okay. We can recognize him somewhat. And I would say it's maybe a step slightly better than Brocks, but I don't know if it's all that much better. I I still think his silhouette is not much to write home about. Yeah, the fluffy side hair helps. The hat helps a little bit, especially if he's at an angle, but his clothing doesn't really have much weight to it. Put him in the middle. He's also completely symmetrical just about in almost every iteration.
And symmetry can feel kind of stiff.
And I would say that symmetry is feeling especially stiff to me when we reach these iterations where the zipper is bilaterally splitting his design.
And it's just not as interesting. It's it's just a little bit stiff. The pose here may be affecting my read of it, but the fact that his jacket is open, it provides some more movement and interest. Definitely feels a little more casual. It's not as intense for it. Walk me. Yeah, we got meme music again.
Only recognize him by his hair and pose.
I may actually have to move his points down if that is the case. Unfortunately, I may have to edit my thumbnail because my guesses were so far off, unfortunately.
Hi, herbal specialty.
Furret walk meme. Why is it the fur walk meme? I don't even know if I know the meme. I just know that that song is always on Tik Tok all the time. Color palette. It's a primary palette. He's got more than one tone of blue. His head is focal. The green of his gloves is an interesting choice. I feel like it's varied. There's decent clarity in it. I don't inherently have an issue with this color palette.
Two, four, five, six and a half. Seven out of 10.
Wow, I do need to edit my thumbnail.
Seven out of 10 at his strongest. What would we say is his weakest? What do we think is his weakest? Is it Alola or is it Legends? Cuz I feel like the Legends outfit is just like a little bit more generic, unfortunately.
I guess the Alola silhouette is probably the least interesting silhouette because his shirt just tangents right into his pants, more or less. Legends all the way.
That's so sad. That's so or journeys, not legends. I lied. Um I said the wrong word. Yeah, neither of them are especially strong.
Oh, but like these two I feel like are somewhat forgettable also, unfortunately. Try the ladder on Alola.
Oh, wait. You're right. Let's do a ladder on Alola. I didn't explain what the ladder test is, even though I did it earlier. The ladder test is a test that we use to determine whether or not the vertical space in a character's design is handled in an interesting manner because as people we are very tall and long.
I mean I don't really want to draw a line for every stripe in his shirt because usually they just sort of fade into background noise but they are big enough that I guess I will draw them.
Chin, eyes, bottom of hat, top of hat.
Usually in a character's design, we want there to be variation in the spacing of these rungs. And I'm drawing the rungs anywhere there's a major point of contrast in the design, whether it be from color or from silhouette or from contrast or something of the likes. I can maybe give him like one more here.
We want there to be clustering of lines around the face because the face is meant to be focal and having higher detail around the face is usually favorable for that reason.
And we want the ladder to be unclimbable because otherwise designs can feel kind of stagnant.
And I would say this is not the safest ladder ever. Not the most climbable. We do at least have one big gap. But these spacings down here in his legs are very similar. All the ones throughout his torso because of his shirt are going to be very even. But that's a little unfair. That's pattern more so than it is actual proportioning of the character's outfit. Um, but then if we get back into his head, where we're back into outfit proportioning, the space between his eyes to his hat to the top of his brim of his hat to the top of his hat is also very similar. So, it just doesn't feel all that interesting.
Unfortunately, this design, wait, also hang on. Let's do a ladder for this one.
I think we're going to see a similar thing occurring, which is that the distance between his shoulders and the bottom of his shirt and the bottom of his shorts and the bottom of his shirt is so similar.
This This is maybe a little bit longer, but not that much. And I guess I could draw a line here and here and here. But now these gaps are the same size as these gaps are. And I could draw a line here maybe for his shoes or maybe a second one. But I think one of the reasons why this outfit feels more generic to me is because the proportioning of the outfit just isn't all that interesting.
There's a lot of repetition of this size detail.
Shoulder to top of collar. Bottom of hat brim to top of hat brim. stripe in the center. Very similar. Oh, I've been raided. Hello, Alis.
I'm not sure how to say your name. I'm so sorry. But hi, welcome in. Shmates, can you rotate out to the raiders, please? Hi, mod. Thanks so also. Um, I'm Squeegee. I'm a freelance artist guy.
I'm also an art educator. Today, we are critiquing the character designs of Pokemon, and we are currently looking at Ash. Whoa, another raid. Hello. Were you guys together? Was this planned? Hello.
Hi, Starlight. I'll I'll do it again.
Run it back. Shrew mates. Rotate more.
We'll shout out once uh the cool the cool down runs out. But hi, I'm Squeegee. I'm a freelancers fun guy. I'm also not educator. Uh we are doing character design critiques for Pokemon characters and Pokemon trainer terrainers today. Hello. Double raid.
Was this intentional? Did you guys plan this? Do you know each other? Starlight though. Thank you for raiding also. Hi.
Rotate my heart. Yeah, you can see the the YouTube streammates are trying their best to rotate for you. They're trying.
They're doing their best. But hello. How was your stream, you two? Yes, we stream together. Aha, I see. I see. How was your stream? What are you guys doing?
What are we up to? If you and your fellas need to do things like eat or drink or snuck me, me me. Please take care of yourselves. If you want to stick around and hang out, you are welcome to do so. But please take care of yourselves first and foremost.
Ah, let me hide these. But man, I I think I could give these two ashes probably a similar grade. Unfortunately, stream was fun. We were both drawing.
Shroom mates, did you hear that? Did you hear that? They were both drawing.
Do you know what that means?
I'll give the shrew mates a moment to to to maybe make their demands if they want to.
Taxes, baby. on this beautiful tax day that it is in fact today, would you guys care to pay an art tax?
Maybe would you care to show us what you're up to? Uh we participate in something here called art tax where if you would like to, you can send us uh a link to what you were working on on stream if you'd like to show everybody.
We're we're nosy. We we love having a delicious art snack during stream. You don't have to if you don't want to by any means. Don't let me intimidate you into it, but we're just curious.
So, you're welcome to if you want to. If you send us a link to something that is like on Twitter or Blue Sky or Tumblr or IMR links, we can take uh Discord links we can take.
These are all valid options. Bubot might not like it, but I've given you permission so it can show up. So I I'll grab it. I'll see it anyway.
Must give art tax to repel the beep.
Does it repel them? I think they enjoy it also. I don't know.
Thank you. Yeah, you're welcome to if you would like to. Don't let me pressure you into it if you're not feeling up to it or if you guys need to do things like eat or drink or snort me. But you can go for it. Ah, see, there we go. I have been provided a link to a blue sky and Mubot has been kind enough to allow it.
Oh, here's some art text. Wahoo. Thank you.
Love your streams. I learned a lot from you. Oh, thanks. I'm I'm glad you like them. I'm glad I could help. So, whoa.
Hang on. I don't know if I can show this. What is going on here? Hang on.
Click on Starlight's image uh at your own discretion perhaps. Hang on. I am say so. I don't know what this is yet.
Um mildly mildly maybe inappropriate for stream posing here. Um but it is very well highlighted. Shmates, if you would like to click on that link, you may do so at your own discretion. Perhaps the Discord one. I'm so sorry. I don't know if I can show that though cuz my community is all ages. Um the the warning will be uh fella laying down in a potentially somewhat suggestive pose, but they are a cool harpy with some neat pink and blue lighting perhaps. YouTube chat is neglected. I'm giving it to you.
Don't worry. I I'm copying and pasting it as we speak so that you can have it also. Um so here's Starlights, which is the one I was saying that about. Bam.
Nope. I actually can't send the link because it's too long. I lied. It's 41 characters longer than what YouTube will let me send. Oh my god.
Um, don't worry. This is the safer work version. I It is safer work, but it is suggestive enough that I I would not be it would probably be not smart of me to show my all ages audience it. Anyway, so sad. I'm so sorry. I don't know how to shorten the link to send it to YouTube chat. It's 41 characters too long, which is more than I prepared for. But I can send you the blue sky here, and you can see that Bam. There we go. Here, we can just open up something that's not not safe for work. We'll just take a look at your blue sky for one second here. # feet that is occurring there. Yes. Rex says, "Awesome." Yeah.
Don't worry. So, here. Wait. I can go here.
And then we can see.
We'll take We'll take this as art tax.
Look at this. Look how cool. A blinking robot fella. Uh, the red hair with the purple and blue lighting is delicious.
Delectable is good. This is a fun background, too. Let's take a mini scroll through. Um, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Neat, cute, dectable. Don't look at my 30 unread notifications.
Why is my internet not capturing my cursor? This is weird. How strange. But this is cool. Thank you for sharing.
Shmates, can you say thank you for delicious dectable art tax, please? if you'd be so kind. Say thank you. Thank you guys for writing in. Also, I forget what I was doing.
What was I doing? Oh, we were talking about Ash. Oh, I got to close this. I almost just opened the image that I was not intending to open. There we go.
Wait, hang on. Wrong person. There we go. Thank you, guys. Yeah, of course.
Let me bring this back in here. So, these ashes I think are suffering similar things. This Ash has more detail, but I feel like it's not conveying his personality to me. He is an adventurer. He is going on his journey. He's got his backpack on, which makes sense. He's in a warm climate, so he's wearing shorts and short sleeves.
He's not wearing many layers. Could he get too hot? Maybe, but it's just the drip is kind of lacking. So, I'm going to grade Alola because I think that is the weaker one still. I think his silhouette is weaker than his usual silhouette is unfortunately because his shirt forms a tangent with his pants and for complexity versus clarity his level of detail is low. His clothing does not feel unique to him because it isn't unfortunately still. Uh, I think that the blue elements in his shirt are not fully distracting me from his head, but the red in his pants is in a similar amount as it is in his hat. So, while it is distributing the colors in an effective manner, it is a little distracting. I don't know if I could take full points off for focal point, though. I think I'd put him here, maybe.
For color palette, it's fine. This is funny. It may not actually be that bad.
It may just be stylistic reasons that we aren't a fan of this one because conceptually I think we're getting some of it but just not all of it that we need to about him.
Thank you for following. I appreciate it. At least he's a a pallet separates him from the others in this gener two three four five six and a half. Did he almost get the same grade? What was his other grade?
Oh, I lost it. I I think I erased it. I graded his the first part of him. What happened? Where'd it go? What did I do?
Did I Oh, there we go. Seven. I think I'm being kind of generous. But I mean, I think honestly this is proving to me at least that the reason we aren't a fan of these designs has nothing to do with the actual design itself. I think it has everything to do with the illustration that high. There's not that much inherently wrong with them. The colors are interesting. They're just lacking in a janessaqua. And I think the art style is potentially what is holding it back a little bit.
But the rubric doesn't lie. So this is what we have to go with.
That's what it is. Maybe some wabishabi.
They need some asymmetry. I am begging.
Please give me asymmetry in Pokemon character design. That's that's a thing that I would like to ask for very kindly. journey design is the one that doesn't have or the only one that isn't based on another character. So, it's sad they didn't do much with it. That does actually make me sad that they didn't find something interesting or unique to do with it.
H anyways, Ash, you were more disappointing than I was prepared for, unfortunately.
Let me turn this off. We Well, who's that trainer again?
Who's that Pokemon character? Wait, hang on. Put them in the folder and make the thing and do the other thing and do several things and do that. And there we go.
Honestly, I feel like the pose gives it away on this one. Three, two, one. Put your guesses in. Now, who's this?
I feel like the pose kind of gives it away, but at the same time, looking at this silhouette, I know who this is because I've watched Pokemon a good bit. This is a guy. This is a man who has kind of a long haircut.
And again, I don't think I'd recognize this character against characters from other games. What the heck? Also, Automod, what did you not like in that sentence?
You You can say that. Gary's going to read your message. I'm so sorry. I don't know why Automod didn't like that. I recognize you from your YouTube tutorial.
Gary, I need you to cool it. I know that you haven't sang in a while, and I know that it's like a year since the last time you got to sing on stream, but could you not for a second? I'm so sorry. Um, when Automod grabs messages, for some reason when we approve them, it sends them through my text to speech with a random voice. And I don't know why it does this. Gary just gets possessed by some strange guy from somewhere in the great beyond. And this time he decided to sing. But hi.
I'm I'm glad you've been enjoying the stream. I'm so sorry that that he did that to you, Gary. You weirdo. You got to be normal for the new people. You can't be this strange all the time. Come on. Why is the music so sad? It's unwavering heart from black and white. Okay, it's just like random songs. Okay, there's three hours of them. It's just random. It's not boss music at least. Come on, it's Pokemon music. We can't complain. The music's always been good, more or less.
Yeah. Anyways, James, I feel like the only part of him that's distinguishing from others on the silhouette is the rose, which doesn't count. That's an accessory. Even then, there's so many men holding roses in the anime. They do like holding roses. The hair, I think, is the most discernable part of his silhouette. I fear that his pose isn't selling his outfit as clearly as it could in some of these circumstances.
Because hey, he has a cropped jacket on with padded shoulders. I think that we could have exaggerated those elements more on him because the edge of his jacket does get lost into his arms a little bit. This silhouette makes it clearer than the others do cuz his glove is a little bit wider, but I feel like he just needs much more exaggeration in a couple places. He's supposed to be dressed in sort of like a sleek maybe villainous manner, but I feel like we could have exaggerated it if we gave him even like more extreme sharp shoulders. If we flared the gloves a little bit more, if his boots were a little bit tighter so that the edge of his pants was wider than they are. I think that would all help to make him more recognizable in silhouette. But I do think it'd be remiss to say that we don't recognize him as being a very unique character.
when we're not talking about silhouette.
Just join. The only reason I noticed reviewing James was the hair. Yeah.
Yeah. What they do to James in the fourth one in Alola, they make James and Jesse look older. They make them seem like they're older than the main cast.
So, they make them taller. They make their head or their head a little bit smaller proportionally compared to their body, but they do round them out again a little bit more like they did before.
Yeah. I mean, it's a uniform. It is a uniform that they are wearing. That is true. But we could still exaggerate it a little more. We could exaggerate it more, I feel like. Right. Like I could find a male slightly fem villain with a purple uh blue/ purple/s bob in every anime in the mid '9s. That is also kind of true. There are a lot of Yeah.
Maybe Yeah. more androgynous male characters with bobs 90s anime. So unfortunately again, James, I don't know if your silhouette is that recognizable.
To be fair, Jesse and James are more wellknown for their disguises than anything else. I would say that their base designs are still iconic at the very least, but yes, they are well known for their disguises a lot of the time.
That is what adds a lot of character to them. But so for starters here, focal point. I think that Jesse and James both by, you know, the design of them wearing an outfit that is a uniform have very effective focal points because both of them were given sort of outrageous over-the-top hair colors.
James' hair is purple. It's very saturated. It makes his head the primary focal point. The big letter R on his chest becomes the secondary focal point, which tells you the next most important thing about him, which is that he is a member of Team Rocket. They are the antagonists. It is red. We associate red with evil sometimes. I feel like he is at his most evil in this iteration here, which I didn't mark down what time period this is from. The darker colors do make him feel more intimidating.
However, I would not say that he is a particularly intimidating character. He is part of a very goofy flop trio of characters. They're kind of unsuccessful villains. They are antagonists that are more of a nuisance and more of goofballs than really anything else a lot of the time.
And I feel like this does make him appear to be more serious than he is, which is something he is running away from as a character, I think. Right. He's running away from his past where he had a lot of his family had a lot of money and affluence and he's like, "No, I don't want that responsibility. I don't want that burden." He kind of lets Jesse and Meowth make all the decisions for him.
He doesn't have the most confidence despite the fact that he is pretending to be a little bit more princely and over the top and exaggerated and outgoing, but he is a little bit lacking in self-confidence. Yeah. Wait, this song isn't from Dragon Quest? It's not.
No, Jesse's indeed more unique. We'll get to Jesse. We'll get to Jesse. But James first. James first. Focal point. We can say immediately it's his head. No questions asked. all of his iterations that is the same. I don't think it's worthwhile to grade a strongest and weakest version of him because he also hasn't changed very much aside from having one darker color iteration.
The color blocking has stayed very comparable. The outfit blocking has stayed mostly comparable.
Although the longer I look at the Alola one, the more I'm like, man, what happened to the exaggeration? The short boots with the longer pants. So that way Jesse's longer boots with her shorter skirt form sort of like contrasting ways of wearing the outfit is lost here cuz his boots are kneeh high now. So the difference is not as extreme. Doesn't feel as unique. I do like the higher gloves with the little bit of a baggier detail around the elbows.
But they like rounded him out in sort of a strange way in his torso that makes it feel like he's like really puffing his chest out in this pose. It's interesting. I don't know. Fun fact, they pose to make an R in the anime.
They do. Uh, that's why Jesse is always like kind of like to the side. I believe James is the upright. We'll see Jesse later. And she's doing the like side part of it a little bit.
You'll see. You'll see. Fun fact, they keep posing. Yes. At least he kept the long legs. That is true. They tried making Team Rocket actually evil in Gen 5, but realized that was a mistake. Ah, I see. Is that what's going on here?
Reflected by the fact that we're wearing darker colors. Jesse's hair carries the R shape. Yes, it does. Yes, it does. But it's and it's such a great choice. It's such a smart choice for silhouette cuz she is iconic and recognizable outside of Pokemon for her silhouette.
But we'll get to her. So James color palette wise, he is purple, red, white, and black. The fact that there is red in the design does help to save him from being a guacam style design. A black, white, red or black, white, purple design. So there is some interest here coming from that.
I think the colors do tell us something effectively about him. We tend to think of purple as being a color associated with poison in Pokemon. And also purple's a color we associate with royalty often. He comes from a very wealthy background. And I believe he and Jesse at least start out the anime with predominantly poison type Pokémon, although I think that expands a lot after the first maybe like season or two. I'm actually not sure at what point it branches out, but I feel like that's how they started was with mostly poison at that point in time. Yes. This is a very early design. It's interesting seeing his proportions in a little bit more of a '9s manner. Yeah. He starts with coughing. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
So, I think his color palette makes sense for who he is as a person and for the type of Pokemon we tend to associate him with. Also, if he has a coughing, they're also purple. A lot of evil teams use a lot of poison. It is funny how uh archetypes work in Pokemon. We tend to associate ghost and maybe poison with evil despite the fact that characters who train Pokemon of those varieties may or may not be evil. It's just like the baggage we bring in with what those words mean to us. But yes, poison would be associated well with enemies often.
Concept of motif. He is a grunt essentially.
He and Jesse both are. They both work for an organization and they are just kind of they are distinct grunts for that organization, but they are not especially high ranking nonetheless. I don't think they're not very successful in their job. And as a result, they get to have a somewhat, you know, generic outfit, but that does make sense. They're wearing the uniform.
They've each styled it a little bit differently from each other. And their hair is mainly what makes them memorable, but I think it's fine the way that they're handled. And their outfits do help to align them with being part of a nefarious organization. Maybe more successfully in Gen 4, as they were saying, with a darker design, but it's fine. Dark is literally the evil type in Japanese. Yeah, that's true. Also, yes, I'm going to be an evil Pokemon trainer.
That's me.
They do whatever they want. That's true.
Boy and girl failures for the greater Team Rocket and we love them for it.
Exactly. That is what makes them lovable is the fact that they are not actually successful. They just cause problems for fun. Seemingly sometimes they decide their own missions. It seems like yeah, concept motif wise, I think his design works fine. I I get enough of his personality coming through it. I can tell what his role in the story is well enough through it. I don't have a big concern silhouette wise. Again, as with several other characters, he's just not recognizable. Exaggerate his shoulders.
Exaggerate the crop of his thing.
Whoops. Spoiler. Nope, that's Brock.
Wrong person. There we go. Exaggerate it. Give him like slightly broader shoulder look. Maybe that's not that's not the tool I want. Where's the tool I want? There we go. I'm editing this one just really quickly. But like push his shoulders out a little bit more. Puff his shoulders out.
You can make his cropped shirt bigger.
Make his shoes maybe narrower so that way he can still wear straightlegg pants, but there's a little bit more exaggeration where the pants tuck into the boots. Maybe flare his gloves out a little bit bigger. Make them a little bit chunkier so that way his shirt pushes in a little bit more where that is. Just a little. Come on. Just Just a little. A little more exaggeration in the silhouette for me, please. But again, similar to every other character we've looked at so far today, he's completely symmetrical. The only moment of asymmetry in his design is the one piece of hair that comes across his face. And he does need that in order to not feel so stiff. But again, I feel like a lot of early Pokémon designs can suffer a little bit from a stiff feeling coming from this imagery.
Designing a symmetric designing a symmetrical character, which should not be a tongue twister to say, but designing a symmetrical character maybe is favorable for animation because you don't have to worry about flipping a character left or right. It's easier to not goof up what's supposed to be on what side of the body, but at the same time, it's not as interesting. Come on. I'm click to them because they're simple and beautiful and they make me happy. Why are you so money hungry?
James does love Pokemon. Uh, genuinely, which they do. When I was reading the wiki for prepare to prepare for today, I was surprised that they note that he loves and adores Pokemon, which they say is a contrast to Jesse.
Does Jesse not love her Pokemon?
I mean, I she she's like a little bit uh what do you call it? Like not sunderee with them sometimes, but like she tries to pretend like she doesn't, but she loves them. She cares about them. Why did they say that about her? He does a body bottle cap or bottle cap collection, too. Brady, she's more Oh, yeah. She's more stoic about it. Maybe that would be a good way of putting it.
But they say like almost something to the tone of like contrary to Jesse, he genuinely loves and adores his Pokemon, which is crazy to me. I don't think that. I don't know if that's true.
Jesse's backstory is all over the place.
Yeah, she's easily annoyed by them.
James is more of a softy, I guess. It just felt like the way they worded it. I was like, "What do you mean? What do you mean?" She cares about her Pokemon also.
Hey, hey, both James and Jesse respect their Pokemon. Yeah. Yeah. I I would say so.
Yes.
So, Complexity versus Clarity for his outfit.
I think that the outfit is very paired down. The fact that it is a uniform sort of negates that trait I was saying earlier when I was discussing Ash's design.
The fact that James is wearing an outfit that a lot of other characters could wear and it wouldn't feel out of place is intentional. He's wearing a uniform, so that's kind of fine. He's relatively paired down. I still wish that maybe he had something about his uniform that was customizing it to him and maybe leans a little bit more into his personality or his interests or something because they are kind of operating on their own.
Nobody's going to come yell at them for a dress code violation. And I guess we do see more of that in their disguises, but I want a little more for the base design. But that gives us a two, four, six, seven and a half out of 10 for the just in general for James. I guess we're moving quickly today cuz I'm not making a lot of edits.
Did I was that seven and a half? I forgot what I said already. 2 4 6 7 and Oh, wait. I counted wrong. Eight. 2 4 6 7 and eight. Yeah, eight out of 10.
Okay, wait. Good thing I went back.
Bam. Good work, man. Maybe some rose petals on the uniform edges. Maybe, maybe, maybe. Uh, yeah, there's a number of things that could make it more interesting. Perhaps if we want to lean into the princely holding a rose angle, you could do that.
Um, I'm trying to think of what else I might do for his outfit to make it more uniquely his, but I don't know him that well, if I'm being so honest with you. I don't know his backstory as well as I would like to. Bottle caps since he collects them. I wonder if there could be a cute way of including his bottle caps as like a belt or like as like a strand where he's like pierced them and put them together or something. That might be interesting. But yeah, giving him just something that is a little bit of flare because I'll tell you something. Joby, my partner, teaches uh teenagers who attend private school who have to wear uniforms and they all all of them find ways to make their uniform their own. They all constantly commit uniform violations.
Gaspie would never pierce them.
Something something he could do with them. There's something he could do with them. Maybe he mounts them in something.
I don't know. Like the way that you like set gems sometimes with little prongs around them as jewelry. I don't know.
Something. Don't Don't pierce them.
Something something.
might have been spending this entire review trying to find a male find male Bob Havs in the sameish time period. Oh, Ruku gave us some examples of fellas who may have similar silhouettes. Let's see.
Oh, Misty with orange shoes. Some other Ash versions.
Oh, yeah. There's the Team Rocket R poses. Oh, yeah. James being in good company. We'll see. James has the anime hair vents, though, cuz these fellas all have bobs, but they all have bangs. This is three characters that all have the same hairstyle. This felt like it's bonus points for being pink.
Maybe skip a little bit. This music is very vocal.
This is still from a game. This is from black and white, I think, which means I'm allowed to play it. I should be fine. Unless it's distracting, then I can skip it. I can move to the next one if that's the case.
But let me put this one here.
There we go. So, wo Kieran, thank you for following. I appreciate it. This fellow also has purple hair that is in a bob.
And then finally, oh being here is kind of funny to me, but that is true. I love your model. Thank you. I made it myself. I'm a 3D modeler and character designer. Thank you.
James has enough bottle caps to fill treasure chest with them.
My character gets no bonus points. Don't give him anything. Who? Who? Who are you talking about?
Which one of these? Any of these? Or are you talking about James? I'm not giving him bonus points.
Nobody gets bonus points. No. Really?
That's so great. Which program did you do? Blender. Yeah, Blender. I was a 3D modeler before I was a YouTuber and then one day was like, "What if I just be was a VTuber? I'm making models for other people. Why don't I make model for me and then stop doing that?" Yeah. Pink hair. Oh. Oh, the other guy. I see. It's a bit distracting.
Okay, I'll skip us. We'll We'll move on.
You gave them with pink hair bonus points.
I did. What?
Why did I give the one with pink hair bonus points? Did I accidentally do that?
Or do you mean did I review that character design at a different point in time? Who was that? Was that somebody I know? I didn't recognize him.
Huh? Bonus points for having pink hair.
No, no, no, no, no, no. Bonus points for being like as in in similarity to James.
The fact that he has pink hair and the other one had purple hair, that means that they are more similar to James. Not bonus points as Sorry, I may have not been clear about what I was saying.
Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry.
No, no, no, no, no, no points being given there. I'm just saying that he is more comparable perhaps to James for having a pink or purple hair color.
Although James not having bangs does set him apart from those fellows. I think the eight out of 10 is fair for him. I would say that's fair for him. He's an iconic character. He's a recognizable character. Why change anything? Cuz they pretty much got it right the first time.
They nailed it. Why? Why? Why change perfection? Not perfection. Why change an eight out of 10? Because apparently we can change an eight out of 10 to a seven or a six or a lower number out of 10.
Eight out of 10. I like you guys are applauding for him. Did you guys clap for other characters, too? Or are you applauding for Selma who uh got a full art ambipom? I don't know what an am a congrats. I'm excited for you. I don't keep up with the card game, so I'm not sure what that means, but I full art's probably good while plotting Selma.
Okay, both fair. Both is also fair.
Okay, I'm going to hide it again.
That's not the right thing. I keep hiding the wrong thing and then you can see out my window. Sorry. Whoops.
Let's see who next. I can't make them an obvious choice for the next design we're looking at cuz that wouldn't make sense.
It'd be too easy. Although that one would be easy anyway. So maybe it doesn't matter.
Maybe it doesn't matter.
Put that in there. Put this up here.
Make it do that and go like this. Bam.
There you go. Ag luck still exists. Are you saying my luck still exists or your luck still exists? Who's that Pokemon trainer?
Mhm. I'm going to call the applause police. I'm not going to stop you from applauding for whoever you would like.
You're permitted. You're allowed. Should I pick someone else to throw us off? I don't think there's a way to throw you off of who this is. This one's very obvious, I would say.
Yeah, girl puts the R in rocket. Jessica herself.
Jesse. It's interesting seeing their original palettes to me. I didn't realize her hair used to be so much more red. Her hair's always been very magenta to me, but I have always been such a fan of her super over-the-top exaggerated hairstyle. It makes her so recognizable in silhouette. Also, tall boots, short skirt, crop top, sleigh. Her outfit feels like it is more tailored to her than James does because she is a little bit more theatrical and over the top as a person. So, the fact that her outfit may draw more attention seems like it is all part of the plan for her. Uh, S tier silhouette. Yes, her silhouette is very asymmetrical.
The exaggeration in her sleeves is a little bit more apparent, I feel like, than James is. And the fact that her waist is just tinier does provide a greater amount of contrast for her cropped jacket top. The proportioning in her outfit is more interesting than some of the other characters as well because her boots are so long. They're so long.
immediately.
She's the first full point silhouette I think I'm giving. So, I don't know if I gave Misty full points. Rier silhouette.
I'll see myself out. No.
R for rare.
Should have made James Tose to match.
Why T- pose? Is it for team rocket? TR.
I saw somebody ask earlier when I'm going to do an S pose. We can work on that. I'll just become a snake.
King, thank you for following. I appreciate it. R pose. Hey, we were asking what the new meta for 3D modeling should be when companies inevitably attempt to copyright the T pose and the A pose and the Y pose. Maybe Jesse's on to something here. Maybe we go for the R pose. Skinniest waist in the series.
Waist snatched.
Her waist is so snatched. Oh, hello.
We've been raided. Oh, hi Woody Devs.
How are you? Hi. Welcome in. Trew mates rotate for the raiders. Hi, how is your stream? What were you up to? Mod, thank you for getting the shout out. Also, uh I am Squeegee. I'm a freelance artist fun guy and I'm also an art educator.
We're doing critiques for Pokemon character designs right now.
Predominantly anime characters. We're looking at Jesse just doing some Blender. Yeah, Woody Devs is a both you do webdev, but also you develop was it materials in Blender? You do some animation work, some gamedev work, some blender work. Isn't neat. Yeah, gamedev.
Hell yeah. Shoemates, woody dubs is worth checking out. And as the shoe mates have aptly noted, hey Woody, if you have something you're working on stream that you'd like to share with us.
Ah, you're welcome to do so. Would you like to participate in some art tax? Oh, hi Al.
Um, if you would like to. Oh, hi Twiggy.
Hi. A lot of familiar faces to say hi to here. Oh, I never took roll. I should do that at some point. We're two and a half hours into stream. I'm doing a good job with my pacing right now, which is good.
Um, oh, Sahara Arts, thank you for following. I appreciate it. Can I post a video? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Um, give me a link. Uh, Mubot may not like it, but that's his problem. I'll grab it anyway. I can still yink that video. I'm excited to see I saw your post. Um, you posted something like a day or two on Twitter, I think, and I was observing that. Is that what a day is maybe?
Perhaps I'm not gonna give spoiler in case that is what it is.
You guys waving to each other. Hi.
Hi, Twiggy. Hi, Al. How are you?
Hi, Almond.
Um, we'll keep an eye out for that though. To everyone who's unfamiliar with Woody, he may be in fact the coolest. That's true. Woody is very cool. I There's certain fellows when I say their name, I'm always like, is this not right? I always worry about it.
Mubot. No. Uhoh. But what did Mubot do?
Did Mubot grab it? I can't see it.
Usually I can see it if Mubot grabs it.
What did Mubot do? Do you guys see it?
Did Mubot grab it and not even show me?
What happened? What happened? Tell me what happened. I see you shaking Mubot.
What did he do? I can't even see the link. Usually I can see the link.
No. Huh? Oh, wait. There it is. I got it. I I got link. I do it by reaction.
Oh, you were just preemptively ready to yell at Mubot. Didn't grab it. Oh, wait.
I I got the I got the blue sky might be deleted by Twitch itself.
Oh my god. Twitch itself. Leave me alone. Let us see things. Join for a free hat. Here we can look at Woody's free hat on the test bot.
There we go. Look at that. My chatters can wear hats. We're making more hats today. Oh, that's cute. Look at that little chat guy. There is Woody in a big giant world of your creation. Big Tea ate the art tax. Oh, see that's rude and cruel and unkind.
It should not have done that. I've never seen that before where it eats it before I can even see it. But I'm glad we found a way to get it anyway. Thank you for sharing, Woody.
I love the style of your eyeballs, which is maybe a strange thing to say, but you feel like a muppet to me in the best way possible.
But this is neat to see. I'm glad your hats were happening. I hope your hats are going well. I love a nice little hat. I have several of them. Sadly, I don't think I can really give the roommates the hats. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. That made me realize something isn't connected. That was supposed to be connected. What's wrong with it? Oh, it's doing It's updating.
Why is it updating? There we go. I had to click a button so it' finish updating. My little guys have hat.
We have hat, but maybe in a normal type of hat. I'll take it as a compliment.
Yeah. No, no. I mean that as a compliment in every way, shape, and form. I was I knew something was missing. I didn't know what was going on. It was missing. It wasn't hanging out with us. But Woody, thank you for sharing your delicious dectable art tax with us. True mate, say thank you. Say thank you, please. Woody, if you need to do things like eat or drink or strike me, you and your fellas, you're welcome to do so. If you want to stick around and hang out, you are welcome to do so also. But please prioritize looking after yourselves, please. I like caps and beanies. They can be quite good for character design. This is adding points to this guy's very cute silhouette.
Thank you. We keep accidentally Professor Oak jump scaring. He'll arrive eventually. He'll get his turn. It's just hasn't happened yet.
Funny they always reference Jesse being old. She's 25. Well, to a cast of characters that are 10 to 15, she's a decade older than them, maybe.
more or less variably. So to them maybe she does seem old, but I do think that is very funny. She's old by VTuber terminology.
Also, she she's old in VTuber terms, which is to say, I guess I'm also old in VTuber terms.
Even James and Meowth call her old.
That's so mean. She's only 25. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. She's not that old. She's younger than me. Yeah. Her age isn't exactly mentioned. Ranges from 17 to 25.
Same with James. Oh, I I swear I had heard that she was officially 25 at some point, but that may just be me misremembering or inventing things in my mind within my brain. Um, but grading Jesse silhouette a little bit more slag, a little bit more recognizable than the other fellas had. H I'm almost certain that Jesse's uniform isn't unique to her. vaguely remember another pair of Team Rocket members having the same uniform in the anime. Just don't remember which episode that happens in.
Is this just another circumstance where we're realizing that the Pokemon character designs tend to be a little bit more interesting sometimes when they have a masculine and feminine version.
The feminine version ends up winning. Is that what's happening? Let me see if I can find what you're talking about.
Team Rocket anime.
Uh, let's see. Cuz like most of the Team Rocket characters that I can think of look like this. They they usually are wearing black and they're wearing hats.
This is what I think of when I think of Team Rocket. That's not Jesse and James.
But are there other ones who wear that?
Unless it's the Team Rocket trainers who are like other like specific characters who are bosses.
I think it's Butch and Cassidy.
Is it?
No, she still wears a different version of the outfit. They're still wearing different versions of the outfit than Jesse and James do. Hers is all one piece. Her hair is still also an iconic silhouette, but his outfit is the same as Jesse's. Her outfit is or no, his outfit is the same as James. Her outfit is not the same as Jesse's, though. Jesse's is wearing a crop top and an angular skirt without trim on it. Still a slight fit, though.
I guess it's different though. Even they make fun of Jesse and James for their uniforms. Why canon Jesse and James designed their own uniforms to express their individualism?
If that's the case, then I may critique James more harshly because his is not that different. His is pretty much the same as the others. Aside from the fact that it's cropped as a layer, never mind corrected. Hey, we're all living and learning. When everyone around you is a teenager or preteen, 25 is chrome levels of old.
Oh man.
Man, I I'm old to teenagers. I'll have to accept it.
But Jesse sleigh outfit recognizable outfit similar to James.
Her head is the focal point. Not just because the magenta of her hair stands out so much, but also because her hair creates a line that directs us into her face. It gets wider as it gets closer to her head, which sort of wants to pull us into her. The exaggeration is also really nice for bringing attention to her upper body. Generally, this is a very creative way of forming the R silhouette as well. I think that her iteration in Alola is stronger than James', but she or James iteration is, but something about her face design is still a little strange to me. I do wish her earrings were a little bigger in the newest version.
Do not look up Jesse in a Pikachu manga.
I won't. I will not. I will not be looking her up. It's not happening.
Nope. I will not Google her under any specific context, nor any other female character in this series because I know that that is a dangerous thing to do, which saddens me cuz it's a series meant for children. And the fact that that stuff comes up in a search result is not fantastic.
She has red hair, which is kind of magenta in its undertone, which gets close to the type of poison colors we might associate with her. But I feel like James hair being purple is more appropriate for the poison type coloration. Although hers is still close enough that I don't take any issue with it. The green in her earrings does add some variety to her color palette that I do think she needed because her hair color is still very similar to the R for rocket on her chest. So, it does add more variety to her silhouette. Her lipstick, I think, does make her face a little bit more focal, too, though, because it exaggerates her lips a little better.
And I found when I was watching the anime that I could see her mouth movements easier than other characters because of lipstick. Lipstick works very well for that. As do thicker eyebrows in the case of Brock. Maybe not that he's always using them. At least her and James have a kid in it, so it ends up being wholesome. What? Okay, good for them.
Huh? Ailia. Ailia and Hun have more similar outfits. I don't know any of these other Team Rocket fellas and Hun.
What? What?
Bleak. I've tried to Google the name you've said and I'm not getting anything related to Pokémon at all. Hang on. It thinks I've misspelled something. Oh, it is not listening to me. It really wants me to look at some historic man. Even when I type the word Pokemon afterwards, I've added the word Pokemon and it doesn't want me to look at them.
Their tops are more comparable, but I would still still say that their outfits are distinctly different.
Big wide pants that are exaggerated, no sleeves. They do have cropped tops on, but these are still pretty different. It the Han. I think that is mostly probably Itilla the Han, but it's not only Itil the Han. There's some other guy I don't recognize occurring. Also, uh, remember Team Rocket members are named after historical villains. Yeah, you get to be named the first name and you get to be named the last name or vice versa.
What a time. I mean, there are villains through and through is what that tells us. But Jesse, the things I was saying about Brock and Ash and Misty about shape language in their design, I don't know if work is well for Team Rocket just because Team Rocket is wearing uniforms. Usually a uniform is meant to tell us that you are trustworthy, that you were affiliated with a particular organization. Often uniforms are associated with organizations that we are meant to think of somewhat favorably. you know, even if your military is doing evil, your country wants you to think of them as being dependable, strong people that you can trust, even if you can't. Um, so the uniform is working in that way. I just don't think it's working as well for telling us about her personality. The fact that it's cropped, I think, is helping with her over the top nature and things like that. Um, yeah, unless that uniform is black with a high collar and big shoulders. True. Then you're doing Dracula and you're doing other things maybe or some some other type of sensibility.
But yeah, this outfit is squared off.
Team Rocket members are maybe supposed to look like they are important or professional in some manner. Some of them are meant to look still a little bit untrustworthy in their dark colors and the fact that we can't see their eyes. I think that for James and Jesse being flop villains, the fact that they're wearing white is maybe a little more befitting. And their hair being bright, bold colors is also befitting cuz it makes them friendlier, especially for children. It makes them not scary villains. I'll be honest with you, my cousin watching the anime was scared of some of the villains in Pokémon, which to me being older was kind of wild. But I forget that kids are put off by different things than adults might be.
Did I forget that mom Jesse in that one manga has short hair? No, you can't cut her hair. You're not allowed.
Oh my god, look at Oh wow, she is pregnant. What is going on here? Okay, this is official.
James looks like he now works as a judge. He is now a founding father with his hair pulled back and Jesse cut all her hair off. I mean, this is still kind of a slay hairstyle, but it's not her iconic original hairstyle. No, this is interesting to behold.
They're both just a little to the left for me in that circumstance.
The evil timeline. What What makes that an evil timeline? The fact that they're together. I know people don't ship them or people do ship them, but not as many people ship them.
Not the hair. The evil timeline isn't the one in which she cuts her hair and James becomes a um 1700s political figure.
Looks like a fan manga. Supposedly it's official is what I'm being told. Um maybe. I don't know. I will not erase that image from my mind now. Sorry.
You're stuck with that now. See Jesse being shipped with Ash's mom. That's news to me. I don't know anything about shipping in these games and it's going to stay that way.
I think Jesse needs a little more of the greens throughout her palette to make it truly interesting. But I would say that a nine out of 10 is fair for her.
And as I said from for James, how do you improve upon perfection? Not that she's completely perfect, but if it ain't broke, don't fix it, which they didn't do. They made some elements a little bit more angular. They gave her skirt maybe a little bit more of a slope. They made her undershirt maybe a little bit longer.
And that's really all that's changed.
Maybe her gloves go a little higher now.
It's not broke to fix it. Interesting silhouette. Interesting color palette. I can get a decent read of her character.
She's an icon. Thank you, Jesse, for your service.
Who do we have left? I think I actually covered almost everyone that I wanted to cover today, which is a miracle considering it's almost 5:00 p.m. and I've managed to be focused and on top of things this whole time. Are you proud of me for mates? I'm going to take roll here in a minute though before we do the next one though. I'll take roll while I set up the next one. Just very quickly to uh be a silhouette check.
If you'd like to check in for class, I say 3 hours in, you can do so. by using the onepoint channel point redeem on Twitch or by typing with your fingers on YouTube to say hi or here or something of that nature if you would like. Taking roll three hours in is wild. Hey, you don't have to be on time to class.
Whether or not you your attendance is rather loose. You can come if you want.
You don't have to. You can come when you want and stop by. I I gave people more of a chance to roll in today. Maybe I'm saying as if I'm not covering for the fact that I definitely didn't totally forget to do it in the first place. Ah, we'll fix that.
Um, I've had a string cheese sitting next to me this whole stream. Also m room temperature string cheese. I should probably eat some of that also. And I will hydrate. Thank you. I will take sippy of water. Watch. You can watch me take my sip of water.
My hand tracking gets lost because my cup is oluding it. But like, cheers. I saw that Amber lost lost her streak earlier. Amber, what happened? I don't think you've missed a single stream as far as I'm aware. How are you only at a three stream streak? What happened? I bet it was something Twitch did. Is there a maximum streak length that Twitch will let you have? Also, because Amber, I thought you had like a 60-day streak, too. Yours was really long. Might not have stayed long enough.
Do they have a minimum time?
Is there a minimum like you have to be here for a certain amount of time before it counts?
Let's see who's here. Pretty sure there is. Oh, I see. Daydreams and rainy nights. Thank you for following. I appreciate it. Must stay for five minutes. Oh, interesting.
Oh, so like you get the reward after five minutes where it tells you what your streak is perhaps. I could see that. Oh, tube noises. Who's your class?
I see Bleak. I see friendly guy, Sam, Nene, Aith, Amber, Edward, Rex, Fryto, Shaman, Magnus, Loi, Agnes, Mad Bonds, Mturn, Star, Leia, Seni, Ultra Squid, Chorama, Neni, Cotton Candy, Floss, Selma, Alsu, Corey, Silver Dragon, Rexarim, Kevwin, Pedro. Hi. Hi, Silly the Valley. So, the valley, if you want to use the the redeem, it's a onepoint channel point redeem for here if you want to if you would like to. I think I missed one, but you can go back to the VOD to get it back. And I did watch the VOD, so I don't know. No, so mean and cruel.
Silly the valley like Sylvy. I thought it was a joke like Lily of the Valley, which may also make sense because there's a character named Lily, too.
That's a clever Pokemony name. Hi, YouTube's true mates. I see Mosc and Salt Kingdom and Game Loser and Herbal Specialty and Rurku and Callie and Ked.
Hi. Hello. Thank you for checking in.
Lurkers, as always, thank you for being here. I appreciate it. And VOD Watchers, I hope you're enjoying. I hope I'm not totally screwing this up. I say as I unwrap a bag directly next to my microphone so that you can definitely hear it. Yeah. Twitch roommates, say hi to the YouTube roommates. YouTube roommates, say hi to the Twitch roommates. I know you guys are technically in separate classrooms, but like you can still be nice to each other. Hey, that's my hair. I kind of want that and need it. Rex, why have you done this to me? I'm eating my string cheese. Hang on.
Mhm.
After who did you rank, I ranked Jesse next. Mhm. Like different classrooms.
Mhm. One classroom is in my attic and one classroom is in my basement.
Mhm.
Who's that Pokemon character?
It's a joined online class, I guess.
Yeah, technically they're separate sections. Well, then what now, Lance?
Just cuz you can go up and down the stairs to go between the classrooms does not make them not separate classrooms.
Chancy. Really? This is a Pokemon? I didn't think so. I don't think this is a Pokemon.
I mean, both that become quantum. No, you're just running back and forth really quickly. You're just really fast.
Your legs work very well. You're an athlete. Hi, Hoshi.
O, you just put three distinctly different characters on stream. Yes. Nurse Joy, Nurse Joyy's sister, and Nurse Joyy's other sister, which perhaps may be what we're looking at here.
Apparently, Nurse Joy refers to their family name as opposed to their first name. So, all of the nurses are not the same person potentially. Mhm.
Here she is. I've never seen these versions ever before in my life, and it feels strange looking at them. What did they do to her?
Why does she have side bags. Now, what happened?
All sisters like Officer Jenny. Yes, I did debate putting Officer Jenny in today. Uh, we may look at her if we have time. Also, potentially. It's canon they're all different. Yeah, it is a joke. Yes, they are sisters. Nurse Joy is a title. I believe Joy is the family name.
And they all have separate first names is the way it goes. Nurse Joy is the name of the profession, too, for Pokemon nurses. Is it? Is that what it is?
I thought it was No. Yeah. Nurse Joy is not the first name of these women, but actually is the family name.
The family name. Why would they change perfection? I don't know. I do feel like the longer skirt is maybe a little bit more appropriate for her being a nurse and also wearing the leggings underneath, too. But why did you do that to her bangs? What happened?
Why? The Dfluon episode proves it. Yes.
Yes, I believe so. The hair though.
Yeah, I I I'm not a big fan of the bangs change for her. I think her original bangs are more distinct. Love that they try to give a lore explanation for why every nurse in game looks the same when they made the anime.
I would say so. Yeah, they're trying to make sense of the fact that we're just trying to save on sprite work.
The the outfits I don't mind, but the hair though. think they stopped using the classic design in Unova. They changed a lot of things in Gen 5.
Interesting.
I don't like that they got rid of her because like I always read this as being lipstick, but I'm realizing now that she doesn't have lipstick on. That's just her mouth. She feels so much younger in the newer iterations.
She feels like an adult here from the way that her bangs are curled. It looks like she was using like curlers to curl her bangs, which she wears to sleep at night.
And now she just looks so much younger.
Realize Happy and Blissy curls are based on OG Nurse Joy Bangs. They might be, but like that's a thing where we're relating her to the Pokémon that she's associated with through her bangs and her hairstyle. She's wearing pink because she uses uh what? Chansancy, right? Is it Chanse?
Now I'm going to second guess myself.
Now I'm second guessing myself real hard. Right, right, right, right, right, right, right. Yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes. I don't know why I'm thinking otherwise. I'm stretching about the Galar version in life suggestions, which is very different. I know she there's different versions that are more extremely different for Alola.
Also, I think her hair is on one side of her head in Alola and like in Sun and Moon, they look like this. And there's a lot more variety in their clothing.
Look at that. This is so different still too. Chances correct for KTO. Okay. Does she have different ones in other places?
Alino and Yova. Okay. Audino in black and white. So, she gets an audino for a while. Why is it translating it? Stop trying to autorate it. That's in the language I want to read it in.
Molly in the new anime is also a former Nurse Joy. So, now she gets to go by Molly.
A wait. This is so cute though. I like this design for her. This is still recognizably Nurse Joy, but she does feel like she makes sense with the region they've moved her to. This is more of like I guess like a British inspired or like not British, maybe more European inspired style for a nurse's outfit. Her hair being pulled off to the side almost like it's in a bun. This is cute. She's got like a wing-like collar because some of her Pokémon do have something that's like a wing because, you know, wings are associated with angels, which we associate with health and living and dying and things like that. Also healing. Wow. Makes sense. Guess British uh glare era or the glare areas inspired by Britain. Yeah, makes sense. Wartime nurses like the lady of the lamp herself. Yeah, this is a good interpretation for her design. I feel like this is modernizing her for whatever region she is in. These ones are cute, but I feel like she looks like a teenager who I don't know if I would trust to be a nurse to me. But this style of shirt reminds me a lot of scrubs. So I think this is smart. This is a more traditional style like Japanese outfit. So maybe that's fine. And maybe this is something that someone who is a healer or in a medical profession might wear. Maybe I'm just unfamiliar with it.
Why have we got rid of her sleigh bangs though? I'm so heartbroken.
I'm still heartbroken.
It still breaks my heart. I don't know why they did that to her. Old school nurse uniform is great. World War I instead of World War II era. Yeah. Wait.
Waiting. Google tells me there's hundreds, possibly thousands of nurse joys. Well, yeah. Every single one that you encounter in every game is a different person. The problem is she shouldn't be modern. She should be retroinspired. Modern takes are wrong.
Why is that, Ruku? Why do you think so?
Is it because Pokemon is not set in a determined time period or it is set in a determined time period which is in the past? I've always thought of Pokemon as being timeless where, you know, they both use older technology and newer technology simultaneously. So, you can't truly place what time period it's in.
I don't know. In Gen 5, Plus, she's a different Pokemon. Gen 5 was Odino and Alolith's Comfy.
H she is a support type Pokemon is what it seems like. the type that you can use to are the ones we associate with maybe healing or health or robustness and defense and things like that, which makes sense for her. She is a nurse and a healer. She's wearing an apron and a nurses, what do you even call them? Like the the paper style hats that nurses used to wear that then were cloth at some point, which makes it very clear that she is meant to be a nurse. She is violating the Geneva Convention, unfortunately. You can't have red crosses. Changing it to pink, I think, does make it legal. So, all you'd have to do here is go.
What?
For consistency sake, then change that.
Like a girl boss. Yeah. Violating the Geneva Convention like a girl boss.
Nurse Joyy's jeans are strong. The father's jeans get wiped out. There's only nurse Joy. I mean, if your father and your mother are both a redhead and you all do your hair the same way, you're going to look pretty comparable.
Probably she is the Geneva Convention. I guess she is the Gina Convention in that world, but I don't think that the real Geneva Convention would agree, unfortunately. Notice her character was originally based on retro types and works when or works well when still leaning into old tropes. Modern takes weaken the identity, so the hair looks wrong not being an old style. Ah, I see what you mean. But I think that's why I'm not as much of a fan of the bangs is because the bangs feel weirdly modern when I like the retro big giant curling bangs that feel like they have like a metric ton of hairspray in them. And I'm sad that that has been lost.
Like I I'm fine with these outfit changes even though they do feel maybe a little bit more modern in their cut and in all the sharp hard flat angles in them.
bought.
Yeah, the hair doesn't make as much sense with those bangs, unfortunately.
RIP. Would the modern style fit with the modern bangs? Maybe. But which one are you talking about with modern style? Are you talking about the Alola ones?
Because again, I still don't know if I feel like the hair is making as much sense with this outfit.
My face tracking has given up on me as I go like this with my mouth. However, thing we can say about her silhouette recognizable, her hair is a style that we don't see all that often in character design, especially when she's got her exaggerated bangs that add to her silhouette. Her puffed sleeves and her skirt add to her silhouette. Her ribbon adds to her silhouette. the fact that they make the uh what we call it like the sleeve armhole bits. What do you call these?
The the the the the straps. The straps.
The fact that they make the straps add to the silhouette is a smart move. Even in the other outfits, the choice to flare the sleeve at the elbow, to make the collar wider, to make the bow real big and exaggerated, to add some weight to the bottom part of the sleeve, again, to make the collar wider. All of these choices help to make her recognizable in silhouette. Yes, drafts is the word I wanted.
But all of these things I think are doing a good job of making her recognizable in silhouette.
Maybe despite the fact that we're not a fan of some of the other moves that were made in the future of her design. I'm grading just her base design or sort of overall. So silhouette, she's completely symmetrical, but for the fact that she is meant to be somebody who is trustworthy. She's a nurse. We tend to think of symmetry as relating to characters that are very like even in their characterization.
They're relaxed, maybe reassuring, they're levelheaded, they're calming, and I think that would make sense for a character who is intended to be a very kind personification of a nurse.
Real nurse clothing isn't always completely symmetrical, but the silhouettes are usually very symmetrical. So, I'm not too worried about her silhouette in this case.
Although, man, I do want some more asymmetry in Pokémon.
For her focal point, her hair being the most saturated part of her design does a good job of making us look to her head, especially in the older iterations where her hair is even closer to red. here where she's becoming more monochromatic and the hair isn't as saturated. It's not working as well, but her head is still very focal in pretty much every instance I've seen of her. So, we can give her full points for that. For complexity versus clarity, I think this is the one thing that is being improved in the Alolan and Galar region versions of her. her clothing feels more specifically tailored to her and it feels more grounded within the Pokemon universe in those iterations. For the Galar outfit where she had like the little like wing style sleeves, I think that was a smart move to tailor it more to her. In the Alola outfits, the way that she had scalloped sleeves and some asymmetry in the collar where there was like sort of like a question mark shape on the front, I think that was a good move. Her hat was asymmetrical in that iteration. So, they have made some improvements. I do fear that her initial design is kind of generic nurse.
That's kind of the trope they're playing with. The fact that there was kind of one nurse design that was very in-your-face and clearly a nurse in the games and they were like, "Well, here you go. Here she is in the anime also."
So, does it work? Is it recognizable? Is it memorable? Yes. But I feel like we could have tailored this outfit more to her. And even in these iterations, these still feel like generic outfits.
Unfortunately, I feel like we need to give, maybe this speaks to the characterization of her, but I feel like she needs something that is unique to her in these elements. And taking some inspiration from the Pokemon she uses in later iterations does seem to help a little bit. Which Joy is your favorite? I would say that the Galar is my favorite right now. Followed up closely in second by OG.
Yeah, not a unique enough outfit. Maybe I do think that the level of detail is maybe fine. I just think that the details included could be more specific for her. For concept motifs though, she looks kind, she looks friendly, she looks like a nurse. What more can I ask for? Essentially, for color palette, pink is a feminine color. It is a friendly color, which would align well with her, but she's very monochromatic. Her original version, where her hair is more red, is more interesting because now we at least have two undertones. We've got a more crimson red, and we've got a cooler pink that is less saturated. We've got variety and saturation, variety and undertone. This works for me. Here, she's becoming so much more monochromatic, which is unfortunate. The difference in saturation, in value, and in hue between her hair and her pink elements of her clothing has been diminished, unfortunately, which is the same in Alola. And I think that the loss of contrast is not working as well for me. I've also said it as Galler. Is that incorrect? I may be incorrect. If we've learned anything, you should always second guess the way I pronounce something. Always second guess the way I pronounce something. My friends played the game and they said it as galar gal galair galar but I what do they know? What do they know? I think for at least one of them who was playing that game also that was their first time playing a Pokemon game.
I don't know.
Oh wait to bring us back to a thing that we were second guessing me on. I have to bring us back to this real quick. If you were here on Monday when we were talking about vertexes and vertices, I need you to know that I did snoop on the professor that I work with cuz we work teaching 3D modeling to see how he says it. And he uses both. He says he says vertexes and vertices.
So, no wonder I'm saying both also. But it was weird. It was like contextually he was saying one under certain circumstances and a different one under other ones. It was so weird. So then I asked him about it and he said that he only says vertices and I was like that's wrong.
You've said vertexes like nine or 10 times today and then later on in class he was working with another student and he said vertexes and then immediately he just like I my head pivots to him immediately. I locked on to him and he looks up and he's like you're right. He really didn't want to admit it.
I believe the official pronunciation for Pokemon is Galler. Interesting.
Okay. I see. I see. I see. Language is a construct. I know.
But the origin for vertexes is vert or for multiple vertexes.
Vertices in 3D modeling comes from math where they're called vertices. No one who does only math calls them vertexes.
It's wild.
But it seems like I'm not the only one who says any of that. Anyways, I got to get back to this. Sorry, I was saying the region wrong. People have a problem with the OG short skirt because when you think about the OG design can be inferred to be something not appropriate for this community. Yeah, her skirt is a little short. I do think her skirt could be a little bit longer to be more appropriate or they could have just given her the stockings that she has in the other versions which feel more historically nurseike to have worn.
So maybe I do take a little bit off for that for appropriateness for children's media or media, but it's not too bad.
And then for color palette, it's not the most interesting palette ever, but I would say it's not a total loss either.
I tend to not score completely monochromatic designs as highly as non-monoch ones. crotic to the times maybe. But nurse Joy 2, four, five, six, seven, eight. She could have better score than Ash did, which honestly doesn't feel right in some ways, but Rubric doesn't lie.
She's iconic and recognizable, and I really think her silhouette is what is saving her, and that did not save Ash, unfortunately. Who's next?
There is only one character left that I had open right now. And I think after that, we'll move on to some suggestion characters. There's a couple characters I want to hold on to cuz I want to put them on the thumbnail for next week. Uh but we'll move on after that. So, let's see. We'll turn off the wrong part of the video again, wrong part of the overlay, which is my favorite thing to do now, apparently.
Let's grab these and let's stick them in a boulder. And let's put a clipping group on top.
Come on, Phil.
There we go. Got it.
Who is that? Pokemon trainer.
Who is it?
It Brock's dad. No.
Honestly, based on silhouette similarity though, I would think so. Maybe if I didn't know any better. I want Lenora. I don't think I have Lenora downloaded.
Cynthia. Cynthia N and Iris. I think I want to do next week because I think I want to put them on the thumbnail for next week.
Are you a boy or a girl? Neither.
Professor Oak.
Mhm. The hair is just different enough from Brock. Yes, it is asymmetrical.
It's not it's not exactly the same as Brocks, although they do have somewhat similar silhouettes because they're both stockier characters with a lot of squares in their design. This character is dependable. He's wearing a long jacket and it is Professor Oak.
He looks so mean in the early iterations. This does not look like a guy I would want to have a conversation with. I'd be afraid of him.
I think Koba's referring to what Oak asks. Oh, that's fair. That here's a good question. What do I answer that with these days? I feel like the question they ask nowadays in Pokemon is what style do you want to cho choose?
Right? They they ask you if you want to choose what style as like more inclusive terminology, but I still like don't ever know what to pick in games. Cuz half the time I'm like, I'm going to pick the guy because that's further away from what people assume I am. So then it'll be more fun.
But then I'm like, well, but I want to bond with the girlies as a girly in some capacity and I don't want to be play the character that's like into them. And the style still has certain pronouns. I know it does. It would be cool and fun and easy if they just made everyone suffer through they would have to change anything but yeah I don't know body A or B. Yeah, I mean I'll take what I can get.
I'll take what I can get. Girls have such cute outfits sometimes. That is the other reason why I do often choose the girlies in games is because their outfits sometimes are more sleigh and more interesting. Mhm. Yeah. Older design looks like a grumpy old man.
That's a question for you.
How is he characterized in the anime versus the game? Is it different? So, I know Misty is somewhat different.
I'm not sure what the difference is.
Let's put a portrait and you pick. They don't even ask anymore. Oh, they don't even ask you a question anymore. They just let you choose. Interesting.
Don't remember him being grumpy. Keeps getting attacked by Pokemon. Is running gag. That's true, but that's not really his personality.
Lenn is goof or the anime is goofy and good-hearted. Okay, he comes across in my memory as kind of grumpy in the game, but I may be misremembering and I may just be remembering interacting with him as a child and therefore thinking that he was mean just cuz he looked a little bit mean from his strong eyebrows and the frown on his sprites. Perhaps sillier in the anime. Tough on Gary.
Victim of constant slapstick violence.
That's true. He does get stabbed with a syringe. There's a meme that is him with a syringe in his arm that I have a version of that says that's something about ginger ale. How does that go? I don't remember what it was. I had it in my debut slides though.
Regular games you just want to be left alone to research. Yeah, maybe that's what it was. So, we can tell he's a scientist cuz he's wearing the shortand for a scientist. All you have to do to tell someone that you are a scientist in character design is wear a lab coat. And it can be the most generic lab coat ever, but we're going to look at at it and be like, well, scientist. And I have to say something that has been a little bit disappointing to me with Pokemon's character designs is the scientist designs a little bit. A number of them don't feel like very unique takes on being a scientist because a lot of them are something vaguely businessy in their outfit or with the clothing they were being they're wearing underneath and then they wear a lab coat over it and that's kind of it. Some of the outfits get a little bit more inventive and a little bit more interesting and a little bit more creative, especially when we start taking into account maybe a Pokemon type they're associated with or something else. But I fear that Professor Oak and some other professors don't necessarily succeed in this area cuz he is dressed as just a guy. He's wearing a collared shirt. He's wearing his khakis with a belt and he's wearing his loafers and he's got his lab coat over it and he does not seem like he's very happy to be here. kind of gives doctor vibes with the color scheme a little bit. More so here than in the other iterations because we tend to think of doctors as being or maybe scientists also as being cold and precise and calculating where the colors here are a little bit warmer and friendlier perhaps which may push us a little bit more towards scientist like he'd have a golf cart. Why is that? Is it cuz he looks dadshaped to you? Does he look fatherly? He looks square and dependable. Why do they even need a lab coat to be a Pokemon professor in the first place? This is a fantastic question, one that I have asked before because they're a professor. They're some of them are more or less scientists, but I'm a professor.
I've been a professor. Never do I wear a lab coat. My biology professors that I knew never wore lab coats.
I feel like there's other things we could do to denote that they are scientists or that they are researching an animal or a creature that don't have to be lab coats. But this is what I'm saying. I feel like the outfit design for the researchers and the professors is not as inspired maybe as the designs are for other groups of characters maybe. I don't know. So then bring back extinct species of Pokémon.
So those ones make sense. Yes. So that is doing the type of science that is in a laboratory and therefore would necessitate the coat. But a lot of them are more like field scientists than they are laboratory scientists. So it is interesting. I'm not a professor or a scientist, but I do have a lab coat.
What are you doing with a lab coat? I have a lab coat, but my lab coat is for glass engraving. It's not even for science. I don't think we ever wore lab coats when I was in chem either. And I have a major in organic chem. Usually you just wear an apron. Honestly, lab coats kind of get in the way a little bit, especially when you're a student.
He does have a lab. That's true. He does have a lab. That's fair. This is fair.
More cuz some Pokémon's fluids can be toxic or really hot. So, the picture doesn't get on their normal clothes or skin. That's fair. Sure. All I'm saying is I want this to feel more unique and more inspired.
many other characters could wear this exact outfit and I'd be like, "All right, okay." They could stick this outfit on Brock and I'd say, "Sure, why not? It's already two out of the three main colors of Brock's palette." Because Brock is green, orange, and desaturated red.
It's just missing something. I feel like it could be more unique for him. What Pokemon is he researching? What is he doing with his research? If he is out in the field constantly being tortured by Pokemon, maybe we could see evidence of that in his clothing. Maybe it could be a little bit tattered. Maybe we can see the results of the misfortune in his design. Perhaps despite his best efforts of being, you know, well put together, you know, can't get past the fact that Pokemon seem to have it out for him. Maybe. Don't know. Can I give a pass to people who have to study Pokemon like Grimer and Trubbish? Also fair, maybe. But I I still think there's a way we could have made him more unique in the details. He is also completely symmetrical aside from the tuft of hair on his head. So, I'll give him that that he does have some maybe some battle scars. Oh, that'd be kind of funny to add in. Yeah, maybe he's a little more grizzled from his time dealing with the uh Pokemon. Yeah, he researches all of them. I guess that's fair. Does he not have like a particular companion Pokemon? I feel like most Pokemon have a or Pokemon characters have a companion.
Then again, he is the one offering you your starters.
So maybe if he had something that relates to grass, fire, and water. Netherron. Oh, wait. Nearon is associated with him.
That is I feel like that is true. Yeah, he has a neateron or netheran. And then he also has a Mew at some point, right?
He interacts with Mew, right? Not has a Mew, but he interacts with Mew. But taking inspiration from either all three of the starter types because he's offering you starters or maybe needan may have been an interesting avenue through which to find something interesting and inventive to do with his design because I fear that it has to be here. Nurse Joy benefited from her hair being really interesting and that was saving her from feeling more generic, but he's feeling a little bit more generic. Each professor has a specific research topic in Pokemon. Interesting.
Could have a Dragonite or something from his trainer days before researching. Oh, okay. Interesting. This is the final boss. That's an interesting note. Is that true?
That would be funny if you made it all the way to the end of the game and then it was suddenly revealed to you that oh well the guy you met first is actually the like leader of the Elite 4 or whoever it is you're battling for whatever region that is whatever their premier league is. That'd be interesting. Have they done that before?
I feel like they actually may have. I know that uh what's his face? Yeah. And Alola. Yeah. What is his name? Koule.
Kui.
He has a secret identity. Perhaps he was meant to be, but they scratched it. Okay. I wonder if they'll ever do one where they make the professor evil. I don't know. That may also be something they've done. As I've said before, my memory is not the greatest actual team that he had in the original Pokemon red green games that people found. Oh, interesting. Okay. Color palette wise, I got to figure out which version of him I want to grade. I think I'm grading the anime version because this version, unfortunately, has his hair and skin color just a little too close for me. And his pants are honestly not that different from either of those elements either. Here, his hair feels a little bit more gray.
There's a little bit more difference in saturation here. Maybe this feels like they'd ironed out what they wanted his design to be a little bit more thoroughly. Also, exaggerating the little bit of hair that comes down into his face is a good idea. He has recognizable face design because of his eye bags and his big thick eyebrows and his wide mouth. So, I think this is where he's at his strongest, which is wild to me that the anime designs are at the strongest sometimes. Uh, we have silhouette not recognizable, unfortunately. His hair does a little bit of something. He's not a blob, but I would say that if I were to line him up against characters in Pokemon and outside of Pokemon, it would not be people who are vaguely familiar with Professor Oak would not be able to figure out which one he is. Probably for color palette, he does have an interesting palette from the fact that he has red and orange, and he's often seen with books or other small elements that provide a greater variety of colors. His eyebrows are a dark brown, as are his shoes, so there's decent variety at the very least. And the clarity is totally fine in this version.
I don't have any issue. For focal point, I do fear that it is not his face, it is his chest. As we said several times before, red is the highest chroma color and tends to be very focal when put against any other color. And that is more or less happening here.
Unfortunately, I'm looking right here. Your head has less contrast because your hair and your face are maybe one step apart in value. If that actually they're a little bit further apart in value. Your hair is deceptively darker than it looks.
But there's not a lot of difference here. There's a lot of difference here.
Could it be the fact that they had to have a pixel character as to being why the anime could be more detailed? I don't think it's that this is inherently more detailed than this design is. I would say that they have the same number of details. It just feels like they figured out the proportioning a little bit better and the color design for clarity's sake is working a little bit better as well. His hair is graying a little bit, but it's not all that gray.
So, you suggested give him more gray hair, but I don't think he's supposed to be that old that his hair would be graying. He's supposed to be middle-aged, I think. I don't think he's supposed to be so old that his hair would be gray. His age is unknown, though, so maybe I'm wrong.
Plan is the final boss of Red and Green.
Also, in the manga, they revealed he used to be the Indigo League champion.
Oh, good for him. Ron is the only one with a dark coat and he looks so mean.
From my memory, he's just gruff.
Focal point. It's not his face.
Concept and motifs. I don't think it's an especially clever way of working with those concepts, but I can see what they're aiming for with him. He is an older gentleman who may appear as somewhat gruff.
He is a professor. He is doing something science related. He is trying to be professional. I see it. But I feel like we could make something that has a little more pizzazz, a little bit more excitement. It's a little more inspired.
Maybe it's got a little more layers to it. I do fear that some of the things holding back concepts thus far comes from all the layers being minimal. Most of the characters, the layers for their concept are I am a Pokemon trainer who is a nurse. I am a Pokemon character who is a professor.
The reason why the nurse joy who is for Galler, was that how you said it? I don't remember what you guys told me the pronunciation was already. I'm sorry. I forgot. Um, but the reason why that one seems to be more effective is because it's got an added layer. She's got wings as a motif, which seem to be taking inspiration from her Pokemon as well. So, that's adding more layers to that to to that concept. And we're going to see a lot more of that. I think next week when we look at more modern Pokemon designs, because if we're being honest, all of the designs we looked at today, for the most part, are what, 20 years old, if not more.
ish, right? I don't have the exact release date in my brain, but something in that range. 30. Okay, closer to 30, maybe. So, these are in the earlier infant stages of Pokemon's design.
Oh, I guess that is true. H, interesting. 30 years.
Wow.
Interesting. Pokemon's been around for 30 years. Okay. Anyways, we're I'm not gonna think about that too hard. Um, these are earlier designs, so maybe if they are not as strong as later designs are, that makes sense. And it's funny, I do think that the trainers designs have gotten stronger over time. Meanwhile, a lot of fellas are saying that the Pokemon's designs themselves have not gotten stronger over time. We can talk about that maybe next stream or maybe more in depth later. And I talked about it a little bit earlier, but interesting. Professor Oak gets two, three and a half, four and a half, five out of 10, which I think sounds totally fair for him. His design to me is very middle of the road.
He's there. He exists. He's real.
He's neither passing nor failing. Middle of the road. He's fine. Not a lot to love, but not a lot to hate. It's okay.
I'm half the age of Pokemon.
My soul withered thinking about that.
Yeah, my soul withered a little thinking about that. Also, I had a soul wither moment the other day remembering how old Final Fantasy 7 is and I was like, don't like that. Just like or like how old Shrek is. I was like, I'm good. I don't want to think about it.
Bit younger than Pokemon. Um I'm similar in age to Pokemon. I'm a little younger than it. Not much, which is what I don't like. I don't like that. So, that's Professor Oak. Let me just recap what we've looked at here so far. So, it seems like Ash was in the 6 and 12 to 7 range. Thank god I had that.5 number there to save me. Misty is in the 6 and 12 to eight range, so she's a little bit stronger.
Brock is three to seven. So, unfortunately, he's got an outlier that is much weaker. But I think generally Brock is a seven out of 10.
Jesse's a nine out of 10. Mwah. We love you, baby girl. James, eight out of 10.
Mwah. We also love you, baby girl. Nurse Joy, another eight out of 10. And Professor Oak is a five out of 10.
So, it seems like there is a decent range here in grades.
I think people tend to think very favorably towards Pokemon's designs overall. So, I am surprised by how low some of these numbers have been going, but that's to say that not every design they've ever made for a character has been a hit. And again, these are older designs. There are definitely newer designs that are much more of hits than these ones are.
I would site most of the cast of NPC characters that I saw in Alola and probably also in Diamond and Pearl and probably also in Black and White because those are the ones I played as being stronger most of them. Feel like Pokemon design themselves as the star of the show and that would be true. That would be true. So if the trainers themselves are a little bit less interesting than the Pokemons, maybe that's also intentional. So that way our focus as a viewer is on the Pokemon and not on the trainer as much. Especially when they're in battle. Maybe that does help us to keep an eye on them and not be distracted by their elements. But at the same time, these are characters that are supposed to be important to us as players and as watchers of the anime. So yeah. Okay. So we have like a half an hour left. These are the fellas that I wanted to get through today. Look at me go. I did one, two, three, four, five, six, seven different characters. And I critiqued I gave grades to more than seven. I gave eight, nine, 10 grades.
Unheard of levels of squeegee effectiveness. Say that again. I'm not going to. I'll give you a hand gesture instead. I'm actually juggling and you cannot say that there is any other thing I could possibly be doing with this hand gesture.
Lot of Brocks. Yeah, it seems like there were more Brock iterations than anyone else. Ash has seven. Misty has five that I had here, although I know she had six or maybe more. These aren't even all the iterations of everyone. I don't think I have the Let's Go designs for some of them. A bonus. Critique your favorite Pokémon's design. You want me to critique Skitty? My perfect little pink kitty cats. I love Skitty so much. Wait, I can show you the We can just look at that real quick. If you guys have suggestions for who you would like us to look at to end out the day, we can do that. Your choices do not include N or Cynthia or Iris or Lily or who else do they not include? I got to check my list of who else they don't also include. Um, or Ryhan. None of those ones are allowed. Giovani. Loki. I feel like we should pull a villain in here. So, I could get Giovani. Maybe we go for Giovani. Gary. Gary and Lance I was thinking about covering for next week just specifically to confuse Lance White in particular. Also second Giovani Kulus. Ah Kros is next week. Kulus is also included in my next week design or decision. Um where's my Oh, there it is.
Here's my list. Grimsley two Ken Ken. I almost just said two people want me to critique Kai. It's just you. You're trying to stack the vote. I see you.
Don't think I don't see you. Here's my Pokemon decisions. Ra. Oh, people really like Ra. Oh, Ra was a favorite.
Also, I think I'm gonna go with Giovani for today for my final one, maybe. Um, maybe we do two villains today to even things out because we have Jesse and James as villains. We could bring Giovanni in. Maybe we pick another villain. Although, we're doing a couple villains next week or antagonists more so than villains, maybe. But look at my Pokemons. This was a trend that YouTubers were doing on Twitter for some reason this week and I was like, "Hell yeah, sure. Why not?"
My favorite little guy of all time. I love Skitty is just cat that is pink.
Cat with pink. Cute little guy. My normalist of type.
The design, it's cute. He's round.
Everything is round. His silhouette is recognizable because of tail, which is sort of like a flower a little bit.
Skitty is just a little house cat. For a child whose favorite animal is a cat, this was the obvious choice. Uh, my second favorite Pokemon is Marini. I think Marini is so cute. Their resemblance is uncanny, I'm sure.
There's definitely no way that Marini influenced my designing of myself in any way, shape, or form. No way, no how, and I won't hear anything about it. But it's just a little guy living inside a terrifying tentacally sharp, dangerous, poisonous hat. No way, Jose. never normalize fiend itself. Skiddy, I've told you guys before, I beat Emerald using a team of only Skiddy once and it is my crowning achievement as a gamer and I would love to see if I can find the game cuz I don't know if I have it anymore. I think Fungi Father still has it somewhere. Website link, please. Uh, let me find it. I'll give it to you if I can find it. Where is the website link?
It's just like a like GitHuby kind of thing. Yeah. Grids.fun something. Here it is. If you want to do it here, Don Spars, please. What makes me sad? Listen, listen, listen, listen, listen, listen, listen, listen. I'll explain that in one second. Let me just paste it in case you guys want to do this also for the grids. Um, Don Spars is only there because I don't dislike any Pokemon. I don't dislike any of them. Every Pokemon to me has its charm, has people that love it, and I can understand why people love it.
It's just Dunspar is not as interesting to me. And listen to me, I am limited by the fact that I really only know Pokemon up to moon. I don't really know the Pokemon beyond Moon very well. So, as soon as we started getting into like Dynamax, I was like, I don't know what any of this is.
Um, he's cute. He's I just don't have much to say about him. He's fine. He's He's okay. I don't know. I I'm sorry, Dun Sparse. I will give you a formal apology. Um, I did find out you can change the grid to not have a least favorite option, and I feel like that would have been good.
Underrated. Can you tell I was a kid who liked cats? I think people are so mean to per ugly. I get that per ugly is supposed to be ugly or whatever, but I don't even think this is an ugly design.
I love how peeved this cat looks. This cat is the quintessential cat that your grandma has that you're not allowed to touch who is a beautiful long-haired kitty that you just have to gaze at because they're beautiful but mean and you can tell they're mean from the way that they look and the look in their eyeballs. They hate you. Um, but I love Per Ugly. I feel people give per ugly too much crap.
It's so cute. It's supposed to be mean and it looks mean, but she's a diva and I love her and I feel like she gets she doesn't get as much love as she should and I love her.
Bulking hits like a truck. Exactly. This is my fat kitty cat that I had for most of my life. Exactly. Charizard.
Case in point, the fact that the cards from the TCG go for thousands of dollars. Is Charizard cool? Yeah. Do I think there's cooler Pokemon than Charizard? Absolutely. Nostalgia. He's great, but it's not all that. He's so overrated.
is fine. I think every single person I've seen fill out this grid thing has said the same thing for him. My favorite starter is Torch Chick. I love Torch Chick. I had a Torch Chick named Axel as a Kingdom Hearts reference cuz I was like, hm, fire creature.
Obvious choice. I tend to be favorable towards the fire starters in Pokemon games usually. Um, I know most people for some reason just are that way. A lot of people tend to just pick a type and that ends up being their favorite across several games. Don't know what it is.
I'm usually a fire type fella.
Incinor.
I was not Charizard. I did pick Bulbasaur as my pick for that generation. Who did I have in the other ones? Um, I'm trying to think. Can't remember off the top of my head, but I've mostly picked fire starters. I have to look at a list of starters or I tend to forget which ones that exist. Um, Synquail, even though Synquil now has some weird lore about it that makes it kind of disturbing and not fun.
What can you do? Best Gigantamax is Lapras. The Aurora Veil Spam is awesome.
I love Lapras. Lapras is my third favorite Pokemon. I should have replaced this with Lapras. I love Lapras. Do you like muds? Mudskip. Mudkips. I do.
They're cute and they're cute. And that's true. I like Impolon also. Ah, favorite D or best Dynamax. I didn't play this game, but I think Meowth being long is really funny.
I was like, this is incredible for silhouette design. I'm here for it.
Buried. My starters are usually grass types. See, that's the thing. Do are you guys that way also? Were most of your starters have been the same type?
Spirit starters Bulbasaur. Maybe biased cuz I picked him my very first Pokemon playthrough. That's also fair. Yes.
Okay. Yeah. W wild that that is how it goes though. I also love Paplio though.
I picked Incinor because cat, but Paplio was also really cute and Rowlet was really cute. I think Alola had just like top tier starters.
I don't know how I feel about the wind and wave starters. I should just do a Pokemon critique stream because the new starters for Wind and Waves don't work for me from a design standpoint. They don't work. They're all using too similar of shape language. Mm- No. Nuke Gecko is cute. What do you mean? They're cute, but they don't work for me personally, but the dog. Okay, we'll get into it.
We'll get into it. I I'll have to do a stream about it at some point because I don't know if I have the time for it right now. But just really quickly, I've been holding a chip in my hand and it's gotten sweaty because I'm talking about Pokemon. And now I feel like the children who at a family gathering offer you a very damp Chee it or like very damp Cheeto that you don't want to touch under any circumstance.
I need to actually eat the food I have and not hold it for 10 years. And you do this so often. I'm awful. I'm a y. I can't stop talking to eat. This is who I am. You have to accept this about me.
Um, little do we know what Incinor would do to the world. What did Incinor do to the world? I know Incinar is very popular and competitive, so maybe that's the problem. Um, people are just jealous. He's too strong. Um, wind and waves starter.
Yeah. So, look at these fellas here. Here's the fellas. Here they are. We can look at them and see them. I might actually pull this art. So we can see them a little bit closer.
What shape language is being used for all of them? Tell me what is the overarching shape of all of these designs?
It's a circle.
They're circles. Everything is really round and circular in all of them. You might say, "But EG, but EG, they're they're they're the first evolution version." Okay, sure. But if we look at them next to each other when they're standing here all together, round and thick, maybe you're round and oval. You're You are still round and kind of thick. You are round and thick, but you're a little bit shorter. They're very similar in their overall shapes.
They're all friend-shaped. I get this.
But if I pull for you the initial starters of Bulba Gen One starters, I can hear a claim that maybe Charizard and Squirtle are too similar. But the fact that we have a much greater difference in physique between the two that are standing up and the one that is leaning down is helpful.
Bulbasaur has a lot more sharp angles, too, and the circles are located in different places.
on this design where you've got a big oval here, you've got the oval of the body, and then you have a bigger oval up here that does still come to a point. I would say that Squirtle and Charmander for me are still maybe a little too similar, but I don't think that as a lineup they work for me for starters.
Oh, here look, here's a list of all the starters. I think that some of the peak lines for starters were around this era. Do you see the variety being used in shape language?
Torchic has a lot more sharp shapes that influence the overall silhouette. Trio is tall. Mudkip is on four legs and has big rounded arcs in the silhouette. Here we have uh Chimchar, which is has thinner limbs and around her head with a little squiggly on it. There's there's a lot more variety in their shapes. Do you see how they're just becoming round at this point? These guys are all just short circles compared to everybody else.
And granted, I wasn't huge on these starters either, but like I thought these ones were great. I thought these ones were fine. We're just losing variety in body type. Even here, we have guy on two legs, who's a sphere. We have a cat who is more sleek with sharper shapes. And we have Pablo, who's a triangle. He's a big triangle. Variety in shapes. If we're going to do a lineup of characters that need to be compared against each other, give them more variety. I swear to God. That's my critique for them as starters. And also, I'm sure we'll learn more about them, but a lot of previous starters had more layers in their concept, which we can see the beginnings of maybe in their prior evolutions. Paplio being a seal, who also is circusy. Oh, he's so cute.
And Cinderore was sort of a hidden agent. We didn't know he was going to turn into a wrestler, but like there's more layers to some of them. These ones I feel like I'm not getting a layer from. I'm I'm not getting another element on top of it. We've already had a lot of bird starters and this feels like the most generic bird starter we've gotten. Unfortunately, the dog is cute.
We haven't really had dog starter happen before.
But what is the dog about? What is the what other layer does this dog have to it? This rabbit is a fighter and is wearing bandages. They fight with their feet. So, they have bandages on their feet and their feet are made bigger for it.
Maybe we'll learn more when the game releases and something will make more sense out of them, but they don't work for me right now. Bird should have been an ugly bird chick. Naked barely leafed bird.
Lizard should have been more uh sticky and gecko-like. Dog is perfect. I think that the choice of a Pomeranian for the dog is cute in the overlap. This looks like a littlest pet shop to me also, which might also be an interesting thing. Ugly duckling evolution line.
That would be interesting. Already have a dog, fire dog of a sort, which is Arcanine. I guess that's true. But at the same time, there's overlap in other things. I think still too though, right? We've got a lot of birds. Although I guess the birds have been different types for the most part other than piplup and what is this called? Quaxley. They look very different though for being birds. Um there's multiple fire foxes in the game also, right?
But people didn't complain about that with this fella either. I don't know.
Guesses Garuda, Borang, and Komodo dragon. Oh, for what types of animals they'll turn into later in the revolutionary line? Maybe. We'll see.
But I they don't work for me unfortunately compared to the other cast. I think some of the strongest eras here. I think this was a very strong era. I think this was a very strong era.
I think this is a strong era. I think this is a strong era. This one mostly works for me, too. I don't know about this one. so much. Uh, I feel like these don't look like Pokémon to me in some weird way, which we've discussed before.
And these are also getting further away, unfortunately. The water lizards starting to look like each other, including Froaky. Oh, yeah. I guess they are. Whoa, wait, look at this. Three water lizards. Give me a lizard that's not water, maybe, cuz they all have similar shapes in their design. They do feel distinctly different from each other, but that is odd that they haven't put them in different categories categories like they have for others.
So, like we've got fire monkey, but also grass monkey. We have fire cat, but also grass cat. We have water bird, we have grass bird, we have grass bird, we have fireb bird, but they're mostly blue. We have trio.
H, interesting. I'm just noting trends.
It's probably have more variety in some of them. But anyways, I I've yacked at length here about them when I did not initially intend to. Those were my gripes.
Do I have anything else to say here?
Leafeon, underrated Eevee Lucian. I wish Eevee or Leafeon was more viable to use on a team. Every time I've ever put a Leafeon on a team, all of my friends were like, "Why would you do that?
There's much better graph types you could use."
Have you considered that I put Pokemon on my team cuz I love them and not cuz I care what's good. Please consider that.
I'm ignoring you.
Glacion fanks. I like the bangs. Fair.
Water cat next. True. True. I would like water cats. Glacion is also cool, but I think this fell is underrated. I think Ponyta is very cute. And I like the cotton candy. Ponyta. Look how cute.
It's so cotton candy. She's so cute.
She's a little princess. This is the type of horse that you have as a pet and you take it to children's events and you let them pet her and braid her mane. I love her. Transgender also. Yes, we love this about her. Uh, I think Umbreon has a very sleek and simple but effective shiny. I'm forever pissed off about Skitty shiny just being red because why would you take the thing that is cute cuz it's pink and make it red. Make her lilac because Dell Caddyy is lilac. I don't know. Invert their colors. I don't like the shiny version. I've never been a fan of shiny. Skitty or Leafeon shiny?
Oh, Leafeon's shiny which is just like two shades of green different. Not a fan. But taking Umbreon from being gold to being blue just feels like it makes sense. It just makes sense and it's so cool. I like Drapa. I think he's shaped real fun.
He was on my team in Sun and Moon. I love him. Uh I particularly especially remember watching the episodes of the Pokemon anime in which we had Reggi Rock. I love Reggi Rock so much. Joby and I un at each other all the time.
He's so nostalgic to me. I love him.
Joby has caught me on more than one occasion just listening to Reggi Rock or like the Reggie compilations of sound effects. They're so funny. There's like a Reggie Gigas one where he's falling into like a void and he's going he's going no. Is he going no? He's yelling something that doesn't make sense and it sounds like init or English. But yeah, I love him. Favorite mythical.
Oh, I guess this list didn't ask me for favorite legendary either, which is interesting. Um, but then my personal story for Delmise or Deelmise. I don't know how you're supposed to say his name. Adelmise. Ready is not mythical.
No, they're asking favorite. You're asking me my favorite mythical, which I'm thinking about and I don't have an answer to, which is why I also thought about the fact that this list didn't ask me for a favorite legendary, which is why I'm thinking, but I don't have an answer. Nothing beats a Guzord scream. Guzzler does just scream, but Victory Bell also has a intense scream.
Also, um my my story for Delmise is that I caught one and was like, "This is weird. Why is this anchor red?" just because there was like it showed up on a route when I think I was training my marini or something. And I was like, "Well, these guys apparently don't show up very often. They've got a low rate or something. I'll catch them." And whatever it was, does Delmies have like a gender ratio or something, too, where like one gender is harder to find? Let's see.
Whatever it was, I found like a rare combination of things for for it and it was a rare and I had or it was a shiny and I had absolutely no clue that that was going on. And it wasn't until I guess I think I was emptying my box out or like I was putting it in the box or moving things around in my box when my friend was watching and they were like, "Is that a shiny down lines?" And I was like, "No, no, I've never caught a shiny before."
And they were like, "Yes, you have. You have in fact now caught a shiny doll mice." Woohoo.
I was really confused, but I was like, "Yeah, that does make sense that the anchor would in fact not be red. Why would it be red?
Clearly, there's no good reason as to why it would be red."
I really looked at this thing and was like, "Yeah, that makes sense. This this makes sense. He's evil."
Clearly, obviously, he's evil. Why? Why wouldn't he look like this?
Thought you'd cut a shiny Skitty before that. I don't think I have a shiny Skitty. I just hate the way shiny Skitty looks. Maybe I did catch a shiny Skitty and tried to erase it from my memory cuz I didn't like it.
I don't like shiny Skitty's design. I may also be lying. I may have caught a shiny in another game and I don't remember it. I don't remember what it was cuz like I have a bunch of shinies in Pokémon Go, but in Pokémon Go it's way easier to get them, I think.
Consider your favorite mythical yet.
Just curious. I'm considering it, but the problem is there's just so many Pokemon to think about. So, your first kitty was shiny. Oh, wait. That may be true. I That may be another case where I was confused. That may also be true.
Their colors are so similar. I don't think I would have noticed they were different. I believe you. That may have been true. I haven't seen my Skitties from that game in a while. And I think the reason why I remembered that and may have told you about it was cuz I may have seen a screenshot of it on my phone at some point. Uh I'm looking at a list of mythical Pokémon so I can remember who's on it to see if I have one.
No, please give me the Please stop showing me legendaries. Please give me just mythicals. I'm begging you. I'm begging you. Please. Oh, wait. Hang on.
Hang on. Hang on. Hang on. Easy answer.
Gerach. He's so cute. He's just a little star or shaman. But look at this little guy.
I love this little fella. Shaped like little star. He's got his little talismans on his hat. He's very cute. Um favorite legendary is a good question also that I don't know if I have an answer to right now. Um Shaman is just also very good.
Little guy. I like little guys. As long as he keeps his tummy eye closed. True.
Sure. Fair. Don't open them. Favorite box legendary. What is a box legendary?
Oh, or legendary trio. Um, dogs.
Sure. Legendary on the Oh, on the front is the box. Legendary. Oh, I didn't know that.
Um, I like dogs. Sometimes if I have to pick a trio, um, if I have to pick just one, if I'm being so honest with you, I don't care that much about the legendaries, unfortunately, and I think that's why I don't have a favorite off the top of my mind. I feel like people would very easily be able to answer that question.
Uh, I thought some of them were cool. Um, legendary Pokemon are there. Apparently, here's a list. Let's see. Yeah, I do like I do prefer dogs. Oh, I'll just take I'll just take Reggie Brock. I'll just take Reggie Rock. Reggie Rock counts in this case. I'll take Reggie Brock.
Lunala is cool. Lunala is cool. I would agree with that. Uh the tapos from uh Alola were cute, but I I wasn't particularly attached to them either.
And then the like ultra scary ones that also occurred out of the void. I'm not counting towards this either.
Reggie Drago. There's other Reggies.
Those things look strange. Back here for the radio. My computer doesn't like Twitch. I'm sorry your computer isn't liking Twitch. Ultra Beasts aren't technically legendaries, which is what I thought, but they are in this list for some reason. Um, wait. So, wait. So, what is this list? This list is subleendary Pokemon. Wait, hang on.
Articuno, Zaptose, and Moltres are subleary. Do they not count as legendary? How does this work? What is this nonsense?
What are they not? Is that cuz they're not box legendaries?
What? This is on Sarah. Sarah is declaring that they're not legendaries.
They're sublear. Why are we doing tiers for legendaries? cuz that's where the Ultra Beasts they have ranked are there.
They got changed. I love that I'm looking at all of this and not showing you any of it. Um I think Karex is the goofiest looking legendary I've seen. Um Zygarde and X Y and Z's legendaries were not super exciting to me. Guina's cool. Daga and Paly are cool. Sure. Opinions on Sylvy?
Hm. Go figure that you may ask that Sully is cool. Also was in Sun and Moon, but it just is like a patchwork of other Pokemon and that is I guess a part of the unfortunate lore behind it. But as a result, it feels like it's not very cohesive as a design and therefore I wasn't very attached to it. A lot of lore. Yes, it does have a lot of lore. I do recall that. Yeah, Chimera Chimera Maiden Lab, but I just most of the most of the Pokemon I like are for design reasons, unless I was attached to them as a kid, and that one just didn't work for me. Legendary birds got demoted, I would imagine. I don't know. We're all finding out terrible new things about what Pokémon qualify as what. If you want to join me on this journey, here, look at this list. Be terrified.
Legendary tier list. Ending my stream with a tier list. That would be interesting and impossible, perhaps.
Let me close all these things. Why don't we just look at Giovanni real quick? I never heard Jubby come home. Where is my Jubby? Is Jubby home?
I'm going to do something real quick.
I'm going to go poke my head out of the office and see if Jubby is here. And if Jubby is here, I'm not going to worry about ending stream on time, perhaps. Do them. They better not have You better not be kidnapping my partner. I'll be right back literally in like 2 seconds.
I'm not even going to put the BRB on cuz I'm be gone for so short of a time. Be good. Don't do anything I wouldn't do.
No fires, no chanting, no um actually that's mostly it. Don't do anything I wouldn't do.
I'm staring at you really intensely as I rip my headphones out. See if I hold that pose. Yeah, look at that. I look really concerned that is not was stolen by.
How weird.
Somebody didn't tell me they were going to be out today. Oh, get him, Ember. Get him. Get him, Ember. Get them. I can't be deleted. Oh, Rex, I can delete you and I can give you your power right back in 10 minutes. I can delete you. I have that power. Rex, I can in fact time you out. Don't think you're above the law.
Actually, Rex, I can't time you out. Why can't I time you out? It's not letting me. Hang on. Help. Help. Amber, can you type Rex out? I can't talk Rex out. Why can't I do that? Do I have to remove your mod status in order to do that?
What? Think they might have reverted that change?
What? Wait, so I can't time my own mod out?
Modon mod violence. It's too much work for me.
Rex, Hang on. I have a solution. I I have a solution.
I I have a solution for this.
Do you want to see my solution? You ready for my solution?
Now think about what you've done.
Now think about what you've done.
I may not be able to time you out right now, but you can still think about your actions.
You're not above the law. Don't think you're above the law. I'll get you. I'll reinstate it after you've been placed in timeout for an appropriate amount of time. But for now, enjoy your timeout.
Um, hey, no fire. Gabe loser, stop setting the other classroom on fire.
Don't make me time you out, too.
You guys did the exact things I asked you not to, which is maybe on me for telling you not to do them. Let me find Giovani.
Gioani Pokemon.
Time them out now that they they're not a mod. Oh, I guess I can. Hey, Amber, could you time Rex out now that they're not a mod?
Oh my gosh. Why all the first images I see of Javon shirtless? Batman, put the clothes on, dude.
What is going on there? Okay, how long?
Uh, however long you timed out the other fellas who were chanting for um, doesn't have to be very long, but just long enough so they can think about what they've done.
Put them in the corner. Who? Giovani or Rex?
Oh, this is a cool Giovanni iteration. I like this one. Let's see. I'm going to grab a couple of them actually cuz he has multiple versions cuz he's in the anime.
Mod someone else for like a minute. No, I can't do that. That's starting to do like weird power imbalance things. Lone was actually timed out. Just deleted messages. Oh, so can you delete Rex's message now that that was done. If if that's all you did to the others, maybe that's all you need to do to Rex. Maybe.
Sadly not. No. Okay. Darn it. So, we can't time out messages or we can't get rid of messages that were sent by people if they were a mod, even if they're no longer a mod. How wild. What a world I live on. Rex's family is a double agent, but being instantly caught. I've known that Rex is not even pretending to be a double agent. Rex has always been very vocal about still being a member of your organization. Even though in Rex's application to join as a mod, Rex did swear to give up on being a member of that organization. So really this is on me for trying to trust you with that one.
Rex lies. Not all of you turning on Rex immediately.
You know I can get revenge.
I'm starting to cause anarchy in this room state accidentally. I'm trying to find Giovani and his iconic orange suit and I can't find it. Giovanni, where is your orange suit? Is that the anime version?
Gavanni, Pokemon.
Anime, please, I'm begging you. Give me it. 20 second timeout for threatening Hoshi.
Oh boy. Uh oh man. Giovanni's just a dude in a suit in some of the anime versions. I guess also this is just a man in a suit. This is just a scary Italian guy.
This man unironically looks like my grandfather. Especially this one.
Especially this one. Unironically genuinely looks like my grandfather. My grandfather looks like an evil Italian man.
Except when he wears tracksuits. Then he doesn't look so evil.
Where is his freaking orange suit? I can't get a full body of his orange suit.
But this So this will have to do. This will have to be good enough. I wanted a transparent image of it, but I couldn't find it. So, we just have to live with this, even though it has a background on it.
There he is.
Chill out, Shmates. Peace and love.
What's happening? What's happening?
Shrew mates. Shrew mates. Calm.
Breathe in. Breathe out. Everything is fine.
It's going to be okay.
Relax. We're all going to get along. The shmates are well known for their kindness and their accepting behavior and their supportive uplifting nature shown towards each other. Who is getting timed out still? Stop getting or stop getting your messages deleted. True mates. Be good.
Um, here's Giovani in his iconic orange suit. What did you say, Raku? An Italian man wearing a tracksuit. Groundbreaking.
I know, right? Wow. My grandfather is in every way the stereotype.
Um, right down to the uh accent. Rex, nice try. Thanks.
I don't know what's going on with my head right now. You can't hurt me in a way that ma in a way that lasts or matters. That bat was really delayed.
The bats really did not want to hang out. Javani's presence is causing chaos in the shroom state. He would like that, wouldn't he? So, Giovani, can you tell he's evil from the fact that he has no eyebrows?
They really gave him an evil disposition. He feels less evil here where he does have eyebrows, but the fact that his eyebrows are pretty much synonymous with his brow bone or just so flat down over his eyes, they look like an eyelid, it works. The really sharp widow's peak and somewhat receding hairline does make him seem like he is maybe an older gentleman. Um something something Italian older gentlemen are usually found to not look rather trustworthy. That is one of those those there Italian stereotypes. Thank you to the Italian mafia for that. But that is the stereotype he is leaning into effectively and I think he does a decent job of it. He is dressed in a way that yeah does look corporate. He looks professional as your average mafia boss would. Um they're trying to seem professional and like they've got it all put together. They've got it all figured out. you're meant to respect them.
Respect is incredibly important. Yeah, he's a crime syndicate leader to be less direct about. Um, he's leading a nefarious organization, as we would put it. I think the most interesting design out of these is this one. What is this from? I need Bulbedia to tell me things.
Bulipedia, can you tell me about this outfit Giovani has on? Why is he wearing that? Is that a game design? Yeah, second design. This has a killer silhouette. This feels like a militarystyle outfit because of the like button style and the belt and the long sleeves. It's sort of like a trench coat. He's got his long scarf on which is also helping with aura. That tells you that if he is an official or something. Um he is still appearing to be relaxed. He doesn't have to fully fit whatever the uniform is because he is in charge.
And his hair has a little bit more shape to it, which is why I feel like this looks exactly like my grandfather. Older Italian gentlemen love to slick their hair back like this. And it's perfect.
If we made this a little bit more rounder, this would just be Grandad Shroom. The one who is married to my grandmom who is obsessed with Stormtroopers. But this is this is cool.
Interesting silhouette more so than the others. Uh we're playing with layering a little bit more. He still feels evil.
You don't have to be gray to look evil, though. This feels like a fleshed out character. This feels a little bit more like a generic villain, unfortunately, because his layering isn't as interesting. The shorter cut to his suit has some interest, as does his collar that almost feels clerical, but it's not as cool as this one is. Got elements that add to silhouette. His sleeves are a little bit chunkier. His scarf moves in the wind. Has some activity. His collar is standing up, which is intimidating. It makes him feel bigger.
It's good. This is goofy.
I love this. But this feels like a Scooby-Doo villain to me more so than a Pokemon villain. And I know that Pokemon has some very silly looking villains sometimes, but he's so bright, man. He's so bright. And this is just a man. I don't know who this is. Why is he brunette? I guess he's younger.
I guess he is just younger. Perhaps you need Celaby for the event in heart gold soul silver to see design too. Ah, lack of eyebrows doesn't feel very Italian though. Minus two Mediterranean points. That is true. That is true. I My family members do have really thick intense eyebrows. But I think that they're doing that just to make him feel more evil. It makes him feel less human to remove them. He feels more alien.
And to dehumanize your villains does often make them more villainous. In Gen two, this is his deadbeat dad design. I believe that as being a deadbeat dad perhaps.
Second one is an alternate reality from a timeline that beat Trainer Red thing called Rainbow Rocket. A multiverse shenanigan with Team Rocket. I have heard vaguely about this, but maybe it's a slay design though. This This is pretty killer. If I'm grading the most effective design for him, I think it'd be this one. This is intimidating. This is recognizable. This feels like an elevated and fashionable take on somebody who is a crime syndicate leader is what I would say. He's a little too symmetrical, maybe.
So, I might have to take a couple points off. Feel like this music is somewhat fitting.
Although, it's Scarlet and Violet music.
So, for his color palette, he's a villain. He does not need to be colorful. And if he was colorful, we may not believe that he's a villain, which is why when I look at this design, I think he looks goofy. He's wearing such bright colors.
I know Italian lads love their randomly colored suits sometimes, or also their randomly colored tracksuits, but this does not come across that way. I think the second design is fan-made redesign. Are you sure? This came off of Bulipedia.
Unless they're confused.
Someone was saying that you need a specific event in a game to get that though. And maybe that's why it's a thing. What's a thing? Huh?
They mix up the yak as a trope for the mafia trope with the orange suit. Oh, that's true. I do see that. Again, maybe they're just going for a broader crime syndicate syndicate organization leader than they are Italian in that circumstance.
Perhaps his initial headsh shot for red and green is scary though. They put him all in shadow, which is pretty good. We'll grade this design because I think this is the design people are the most familiar with from him.
So, for this design, what is the focal point?
I mean, it's his face, but I think that's more so the angle than anything else. I'm being drawn into his face because he looks sickly, though, not because his head is inherently interesting.
Although, I can pull older iterations of him. Oh, this these feel a little bit.
This is an interesting illustration.
Look at this man. He's so evil.
His hair's so short. He's wearing a sweater.
His suit is just like all one object, too. There's no like distinction.
In other versions, he's wearing a red sweater underneath, but that's a little bit too focal.
In my memory, he has a tie with the original. In the game, I don't think he ever wears a tie. Yeah, this this design here is the is from Heart Gold and Soul Silver. This is a Heart Gold Soul Silver design. I can confirm that. More Bond villain with clothing design there. evil villain with the turtleneck and paired down jacket. I agree with that. He also, and I, it's weird for me to say this, but he feels more Russian to me here. I feel like I associate the which maybe that is also a Bond villain thing, but I feel like I associate the sweater turtleneck sweater paired down suit that is maybe a little bit bigger and exaggerated really close cropped haircut that is like shaved real short. I feel like I associate that with Russian villains a little bit more. He's meant to be the godfather maybe a little bit. This Pokemon Go design is the best. What is this Pokemon Go design?
Ultra Sun, Ultra Moon versus model battle sprites. I don't actually see a Pokemon Go design. Unless you're talking about the Let's Go design, in which case they make him short.
My short Italian king. person looks like an insufferable 5-year-old looking at you before they take your phone and run with it. I don't think he looks that young, but it is weird that we're above him. If we're trying to present a character that's meant to be intimidating, placing the horizon or putting him in a worm's eye view or bird's eye, sorry, hang on, I'm all over the place here. Putting him below the viewer's eye where we're seeing him more from a bird's eye view instead of us being a worm makes him less intimidating. Worm's eye view. Have you ever heard that before? They'll call it like the ground view sometimes or floor level view, but I like worm's eye view for cuz they call the the upper one bird's eye view, so why not?
Looks like he has an actual nose with this art. This one does have a nose. His nose is a little bit nebulous in other artworks perhaps, but this is an odd art direction choice because in most of his other sprites, we're below him, especially in this one. We're meant to feel short next to him. Even in this one, we're at least at eye level with him. Here, we're above him, which is a little bit odd.
A little odd. Looks like Voldemort.
Here's a question. Does he predate Voldemort?
I don't think he does, but I don't remember. HE MO WELL, ACTUALLY, you're right. I'm lying. I think he actually does. He does.
He does. Nebulous is the word to use. He does. He does. He does. He He He clears that.
Uh on his Pokemon Go version has its own page on Bulipedia. Doesn't have a lot of art. Oh, okay. Maybe that's why he's not listed there. Does buy a lot. Whoa.
Okay. This looks like a military guy to me. His Look at this.
I don't like that his outfit feels more techweary. I feel like we're getting away from the Crime Syndicate style outfit. I'm not a fan of it.
I don't know how I feel about that. The white gloves work.
This just looks like kind of a different guy. They didn't really preserve his hair shape or his face shape. He's he does have the tall forehead still, but his chin is long and his nose is longer than I would think. And the zipper is something. I don't know. Him looking at a camera going, "Yeah, what are you going to do about it?" Maybe. I don't know. Some of the Pokemon Go designs for characters I feel like are a little hit or miss. It's an exercise game. You know what? I guess that's fair. Put him in a tracksuit. It's kind of a tracksuit.
It's got the collar, but it's not all the way there. I don't know. Military coup villain. All villains. He does read as a villain, but I feel like there's something stronger about some of the iterations here. Also, my parents love this game.
Your parents love Pokémon Go. Really?
Pokémon Go did take my family by storm.
So, my parents weren't a part of it because neither of them had phones that could play the game, but my aunt and my uncle and my cousin were really into it.
We were really into it. There is a uh when I used to visit them uh where they used to live, we used to go to a park which was like an old military location, I think. Um and we used to always go there so that the kids could play Pokémon Go. And because I was like one of the older kids, as was my sister, we'd have to like lead the raids. We were all team Valor. So we would take down all the Pokétops that were there. Um we take down all the gyms. It was a good time.
Never gotten to Pokémon Go. Pokémon Go happened for me. I I was I think in a prime time for Pokémon Go cuz I was in college. Uh so college campuses had a lot happening with Pokémon Go on them, which made it fun to play.
But after I graduated college, I haven't really played anymore since then just because the community wasn't there and it was just easy. My art department when I was in college was a gym essentially and there was like a group that would go around and do the raids together. It was a very like nice community event or like on days where it was like the shiny or not shiny, the community days where they'd have a lot of one Pokemon. So everyone would go shiny hunting, the entire campus would fill up with the lores. It was really nice, but I haven't really found a reason to play it outside of when I was in college, unfortunately.
Crazy Pokémon Go came out and said that they use data from it to train an AI for a map. Of course they did. Of course they did. Of course they did. Of course they did. Of course they did. Everyone is evil. Everything's evil. Nothing can ever be for good. I just learned that the Coke freestyle machines are of course also for evil because I Why wouldn't they be? They have cameras in them. Why does a machine that gives me Coca-Cola have to have cameras in it? It was in the toss. I'm sure it was in the toss, but most people don't read that anyway, so they wouldn't know, unfortunately. I didn't sign a TOS when I was using a Coca-Cola freestyle machine, though, and they're recording me. Maybe they claim they're not, but why did they camera in it otherwise?
What are they doing with a camera in it otherwise?
What's the point of it? And they're recording all the things I do when I'm interacting with the machine anyway. So, h who's to say they're not doing that?
What? Yeah, there's a Job and I watched a video by Fern about it yesterday.
Interesting. Fern is an interesting account to listen to. They do some interesting research uh like video essay types of things that are more than just explaining to you what happened in a show. The song is so whimsical. I know.
I'm complaining about horrible mega corporation evils and things they're doing with uh our data while we're looking at Giovani who is a terrible evil villain. I'm listening to like the most calm, soothing Pokemon music in the background.
We're relaxed. Watch out for this one, guys. cuz I like mango coke. That is an interesting flavor. Hey, I got to watch out for them. They're going to try and poison me with the mango coke. No thanks. Play Giovani's theme. Sure.
Well, we'll end out with Giovanni's theme while I grade him.
The music is going to stop while I do that, though.
Oh, wait. This design, this design here is apparently his Omega Ruby Alpha Sapphire design.
None of this seems right. How many different versions of his theme are there? There's a lot of versions of his theme. I'm just going to pick one. I'm picking the sun, Ultra Sun, Ultra Moon one.
There he was in that game. Apparently, according to YouTube, he has battle music from that game. Second Sign's a mystery. Yeah, everyone's claiming it's from somewhere else. It's from somewhere. It's It's canon somehow. It's everywhere, but I don't know what it's about.
Mhm.
Multiverse shenanigans. Mhm.
I think multiverse shenanigans are cool, but I think that we should move on to a different theme in media. I'm tired of it. Marvel did it. Pokemon's doing it.
Who else is doing it? There's a lot of others who are doing it. Kingdom Hearts is kind of doing it now, but they always went to other worlds, but it's not like different universes that are like parallel universes.
I don't know.
Instead of multiverse, they should do alters and reincarnations. Please don't step on what uh the Hoyverse is doing either. But again, yeah, Hoyverse is doing that. Also, can we not come up with concepts that are different than that? Maybe. I get that it gives everyone a lot of freedom, but I I don't know if I'm here for it. Even Miraculous Ladybug is doing it. Everyone's doing it.
Color palette.
It's not that interesting, but it is effective.
Desaturated dark colors with a little bit of red does mark him potentially as a villain or at least somebody who is intending to be red as being professional. It works. It's not the most interesting though, so I'm taking points off for that. We can make it a little more interesting.
his silhouette. We didn't do a who's that Pokemon for him. So, let me do that real quick. Who's that Pokemon trainer?
Whoops. You get out of here right now.
Let's see.
Nope. Don't do that.
Who else wish we had? Who is this? This is a man. This is a guy.
This is somebody wearing a suit. Bald man.
I feel like I can't give this any points for silhouette almost. I'm I'm grading this version. Even the collar here is not enough. This is a man and that is it unfortunately.
Man, the silhouettes are going to be so much better next week.
You're not recognizable at all in silhouette. Complexity versus clarity. I think you need more detail. The reason why this design is more effective is because it has more layers and a little bit more detail that feels a little bit more specific.
And this one doesn't feel that way. Some more generic than Larry from Scarlet and Violet. Unfortunately, somehow maybe he feels generic. I'm going to put that there. Focal point. It is his head, but that's kind of because there's not really anything else to look at.
But honestly, the red R in his chest is still a little bit more interesting. His sickly skin tone makes his face somewhat focal.
For concept and motifs though, I can tell that he is evil and a crime boss maybe, but I wish there was more there were more layers to his design.
Doesn't he have he's got like Pokemon associated with him? Why do they not influence his outfits? I feel like a lot of the higher ranking members who are like the ones that you fight who are like the more minor antagonists under him do have designs that are more interesting and exaggerated and in some way inspired by the Pokemon they hang out with. What Pokemon does Giovani have? I swear he's got a Persian, but I don't know what else. Oh, Mewtwo, Neo King, Rhydon, Guz Lord. I feel like we could take some influence from that.
Give him something sharper. Give him like sharp collars or something.
Give him some sort of clip on his collar or like a tie pin that looks like Persian's forehead charm thingabob. I don't know. There's something we can do about it. What have a Persian be a part of his design to be evil? Why? We associate villains with petting cats often and I feel like there are things you could do with that to make him feel evil. You could darken the area around his eyes because Persian has darker eyes. Uh, we could use something that's like the red gem on its forehead. You could have something that feels a little bit like whiskers somewhere that's maybe not on the face. There's things you can do with it to make it work, but I feel like we could have made his execution of concept more interesting, more inspired.
He's sort of falling into the same issue that Professor Oak had, unfortunately.
So, what do you have here? Two, three, four and a half. Five. Oh no. Devani.
Sadly, I don't think he has one of the cooler designs for a villain despite being probably one of the most iconic antagonists. We will look at an antagonist next week who is also iconic but is a better design.
More effective design. Maybe a red ring to match person's gem. Yes. Something.
Anything. Give me something. Something.
The only pets is Persian like that when it was a Meowth. I know. Which would be like cute to see. Ground types. Unlike the rest of his gang that use poison types. H.
Yeah, there could be things we could do to make them more interesting. Made a mistake. The second design wasn't in the multiverse. Rainbow rocket run. I put or rainbow walk.
Put rainbow rocket Giovanni in life suggestions. I see him. He's the one that's in Sun and Moon where he just has the R on his chest turned rainbow and it's not really all that different.
Yeah, they made him taller, but he's still just the same guy. They really haven't changed him very much, which I guess like we were saying with James and Jesse, there's not all that much of a reason to change him, I guess, if we want him to be recognizably himself. This version of him feels like that one Star Wars guy. What is his name? General Hux, the one that they CGIed in what is it? Rogue One that was like kind of uncanny. I don't know really very much about Star Wars, but the way that they shaped his face reminds me of that guy with that hairstyle, too, which I guess older guy who is in an evil organization wearing all dark colors.
Similarities are there maybe. I don't know.
crown types. Yeah. So, I think the red for the tie and logo are meant to be the Persians gem maybe, but I don't know if it's direct enough. It could be clearer.
Can we look at Corbo next stream? He's from Legends ZA, but I think he's kind of cool. Hi, can you put that in the YouTube comments, please? In the YouTube comments, please. If if anyone has the suggestions or suggestions for what we should look at next week, please put them in the YouTube comments because that's where I'm going to go to look to grab things from. Because as much as I could write notes right now, this is not really an accurate way of seeing what people sort of want as a whole. So like if I see a name show up a couple times in the comments, that usually ends up being who I grab. I put Corbo in the suggestion if that works. You can put it there too, but I I will let you know that I unfortunately may forget to check there sometimes because suggestions is usually used more so for suggesting changes to the Discord server or for suggesting like just series I should check out or things that I should do.
But you can stick it there and I can try to remember to Would you want names or also lore? Just names. Just names. We can talk lore if they are chosen and if they appear on stream we can talk about it when they're there. want to add extra info in the characters. I mean, you can if you want to. I won't stop you. But perhaps it may be good to do that.
Besides coming to the VOD on YouTube can help the video. That is also true. If you want to like the video, that's always a nice thing to do. You're still going. I Joby didn't come home from work yet, so I'm still going. But I am wrapping us up here for the day. Thank you all for hanging out, listening to me yap about Pokemon. Oh, we're in an ad right now, so I can't end anyway. I will eat my string cheese and look at you.
I'm just going to look you in the eye awkwardly as we're stuck here. I was like, I'm going to add or I'm going to end and they said no, you're going to have an ad and you're not going to.
Wait, the Star Wars guy is Grand Moff Tarkin, not Moth. Oh, sure. That's probably correct. I don't know very much about Star Wars. I've never been particularly into it, unfortunately. Um I I I know that characters exist and I don't remember many of them. Grand Moff, sure.
I I sorry. Whoopsie.
I'm eat my cheese here. I'll blink for you.
4hour out of the fridge. Room temperature string cheese. My favorite.
Can we have cheese? Sure. There's one bite of cheese left and I'll give it to you. But you have to be okay with the fact that it's warm.
and the fact that I've probably also been holding it in the wrapper, of course, not like with my bare fingers, but I've been holding it for probably the last 40 minutes.
Here, at least it's not a sweaty chip. I did put the chips down that I was holding that were getting sweaty.
The salt dissolved into my hand and then recristallized off after I stopped holding it.
Whoopsie.
Say, EG, is like 15 patterns of sheep wool enough or do I need to add more?
I'd say that's probably pretty good. Do your sheep have hats? Maybe, maybe they could diversify into hats.
Okay, ads are over. Woohoo. So, rest of the week, tomorrow, Minecraft server is open. It's open if you want to play in the Shroom State server. open hours. And then Friday, we're doing the community art showcase for the bingo based character designs.
Mine was partially already spoiled. I posted the line art for it on Twitter.
I need to color it still. I just haven't had time to color it. It's been sitting at like 80% of the way line arted or it had been until yesterday for like two weeks. And I just need to stick some flat colors and a shade of color in or something. Maybe tonight or tomorrow.
We'll see. Yeah, I did accidentally redesign Freddy Fazbear. We'll talk about it on Friday. But if you'd like to design a character for our character design challenge, uh I almost typed in bingo, which would still be relevant, but you can check out the extra credit area of the Discord server. I've Did I spell it right? I did. Okay.
What? Yeah.
I was drawing I was working on my design. I was doing the line art and Joby came in the room and was like, "EG, are you are you drawing Freddy Fazbear as an idol, as a magical girl?" And I was like, "I am not." And Jobby was like, "Well, she does in fact have a top hat and she does in fact have a bow tie and she's also holding a microphone that almost looks exactly like Freddy's microphone and she also has freckles and three toes. you have just made Freddy Fazbear a cute girl in dress. And I was like, and I have to be honest with you, it was not an intentional move. I don't know what that bear looks like off the top of my head. I've never played one of those games and I know so very little about those games. But I guess apparently somehow he permeated my mind. You'll see it Friday. You'll see it Friday. The colors are not going to be related to Freddy Fazbear probably. But we'll see it Friday. We'll see. You'll see Friday.
Maybe I'll make an alt color version to be Freddy Fazbear, but the base color version will not be. He's calling EEG.
You have to play it. Hush, have you considered that I'm a whip and a weenie and I will cry. I will jump scare and it will harm my heart. I can't do itm.
No. False. I can't do jump scares.
They're the actual worst thing for me as far as horror goes. I will literally spend the entire game like peeking through my fingers. You remember me trying to play Little Nightmares? I had a hard time with that.
I I'm I'm a wuss in the truest sense.
Time for an art design critique of the FNAF characters. Jubby actually asked if they could do a critique of the FNAF characters designs because we have talked about how some of the characters designs don't make sense in the world apparently. I'll bring Jubby on at some point for that. Maybe Jubby knows a lot about FNAF, which I forget constantly.
Um and they do remind me about often. So maybe we'll talk about it at some point.
Maybe. We'll see. But anyways, I need to go. I'm going to go eat my dinner. How much for the Joby character crit?
Nothing. Joby actually asked me if they could do it today and I said no, we have to do Pokemon because this would be the third week in a row I'd canceled it or moved it if I didn't. So maybe that'll be the thing that we do after Pokemon perhaps. Maybe we'll let Jubby in. But the problem with letting Jubby in is that we need to wait for summer so Jubby can be here for the entirety of a stream because right now Jubby would have to start at 400 p.m. and that's only 2 hours. So maybe we have to put this off a little bit. We'll wait until late May and then we'll see. No, I've not seen the movies. I have to end stream. I I keep answering questions. This is my own fault.
Yes, I'm going to go drink my water. I'm going to go raid and I'm going to drink my water and I'm going to eat my dinner and I'm going to call my dubby and figure out where in the world they are right now because they're not here. I don't know where they are. But YouTube shmates, I can't send you anywhere. So, I'm going to say sh you later. Bye.
Thank you for hanging with me. Bye for now. Bye. Bye. Bye for real.
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