Pokemon Battles

Now one of the things that we all want to do here is to have longer Pokémon battles. In order to have longer battle we need to come up with a systems to coordinate the battles.

We can't do the same Battling Style that is in the games because we are working with 3-Dimensional Space! Pokémon and there trainers are on the field at the same time. They both pokemon and trainer have to move around the field, jump and dodge attacks.

Watch this video to clear things up.

Really? I'm not that keen of long battle scenes, no matter how interesting they are in the manga. They have little to do with the plot and I heard they're more difficult to animate. ;p

Just my opinion tho'.

That's true. I was just assuming we would do the 3-D battles like in the manga and even the anime. But you have a point poke, animating every battle like that would be a pain (and I'm not an animator!). However, I would be really depressed if we didn't have some epic battles like Red vs. Green and the Elite Four battles.

Why wouldn't we have many battles? Battling is a core part of Pokemon in general, and if the show lacked battles, it would become dull very quick. It's almost like its hook, per say.

That's going to be difficult to make the battles interesting. Everyone who are fighting fans have seen the animation take longer.

Yeah, it will be difficult, but it's also worth it. I mean do you really want the battle to be...

Red: I challenge you to a Pokemon battle!

Green: Okay!

(fade out-fade in)

Red: Yay, I won!

I mean, that was way simplified, but we are going to make the battles worth seeing. Look at other shows (I'm thinking Avatar the Last Airbender right now but it could be any show with battling in it), some of the fights take up the whole episode, but it still manges to be interesting and move the plot along. It will be a lot of work, especially for the storyboarders and the script writers, but if we are trying to seriously make this show and do it right, we need the complex, sometimes drawn-out battles.

I'm not entirely sure why this is up for discussion, I thought it was apparent just based on the manga. There's some battles that go on for multiple chapters, I just assumed our anime would work in a similar way...

Well, I'm sure that not EVERY battle would be like that, right?
Otherwise it could drag on for a long time.

But I do get what you're saying, but maybe the only battles that should go on through a number of episodes are the really important ones?
eg. Red vs Green Finale, Red vs Giovanni

I think fighting Lt. Surge, Koga, etc. could be reduced down into one episodes per person respectfully.

What I was thinking of doing for the coordinate the battles thing is just to have a diagram showing what direction the pokemon is moving and going there to be on the field. We can use sprites and a map of battle field to drew the a diagram. The animators and storyborder will figer out the camera angles.

As for battle lingf. I wasn't thinking all the battles should be longer just some of them. Just make the battles longer by 2 or 3 attacks.

Are writers should gave the directions on were the pokemon moving.

Mrtweetums wrote:Well, I'm sure that not EVERY battle would be like that, right?
Otherwise it could drag on for a long time.

But I do get what you're saying, but maybe the only battles that should go on through a number of episodes are the really important ones?
eg. Red vs Green Finale, Red vs Giovanni

I think fighting Lt. Surge, Koga, etc. could be reduced down into one episodes per person respectfully.

The thing that I've noticed about the manga is that they don't really have all the random extraneous battles that you get in the games or even the anime. The manga only really show the battles that are important and plot-relevant. Of course the other happen (I guess), but you never see Red battling ye random stranger, it's always Red vs. an important person. Granted some battles are longer/more detailed than other battles...but yeah

SaiTurtlesninjaNX wrote:What I was thinking of doing for the coordinate the battles thing is just to have a diagram showing what direction the pokemon is moving and going there to be on the field. We can use sprites and a map of battle field to drew the a diagram. The animators and storyborder will figer out the camera angles.

As for battle lingf. I wasn't thinking all the battles should be longer just some of them. Just make the battles longer by 2 or 3 attacks.

Are writers should gave the directions on were the pokemon moving.

A lot of that is storyboarder stuff, I think. The script writer will give general directions, but it will be up to the storyboarders to visualize it. It's like in Shakespeare! Sometimes Will just wrote "and they fight" and it was up to the fight choreographer to plan out what would actually happen...*nerd moment over*

But yes

Ahaha, a Shakespeare comparison. And it's about right.

A scene was added of battling in chapter 1, and the battle in chapter 3 is going to be extended also. As such, the Scripting team already has the intention of extending battles. But the Storyboarders are the genius people who work out what moves where, etc. The Script will explain what is happening more vaguely so the Storyboarders have an idea for which they work out the specifics.

It's not quite to the extent of Shakespeare, whom I believe must have utterly detested SDs, but yeah.

I totally agree with the concept of longer battles. Think about it, Red vs. Giovanni is hinted at constantly from the moment they met, so making the battles only as long as they appear to be in the manga would be rather anti-climatic because then it would just go exactly as the fans think it would. If we introduce some original concepts and not just an extra attack or two, not only would it be that much better, but it would give us some Brownie points. (As in, more kudos to our talented team).

Okay, in example I'm going to mention Naruto Shippuuden here and I apologize to anyone in advance if they don't understand because they don't watch the show. Also...

[b]*MINOR SPOILERS ALERT*[/b]

During the arc where they rescue Gaara, the team simultaneously release the 5-pronged seal which blocks their access to the Akatsuki hideout. To each of the 5 people who released the seal, a copy of them was created for the original to battle as a measure for stalling for time. In the manga this is never elaborated on although it shows all 5 members struggling against their adversary and their comments that their copies were their exact equal in power and technique. In the anime however, this IS elaborated on and in between the battles of the manga by the other characters, it shows the 5 team members and their individual battles against their copy although they were mainly treated as one whole battle. It even had them trying to figure out a way to defeat them. But in the manga it just shows their eventual defeat, skipping the battle itself completely, with no hint as to how because it wasn't plot relevant. I imagine it was done not only to extend screen time, but also the 5 characters screen time, as they don't appear very often as they were minor characters just there for support in the plot and they're rarely major plot devices (no offense intended to those characters or people who like those characters).

[b]*END SPOILERS*[/b]

This is not to say that we will do battles that don't appear in the manga though...such as in chapter 1 where Red catches all those Pokemon or chapter 15 where Red battles a Primeape at the beginning. But it's worth considering. However with making canonical battles longer, I think it's a given in shonen anime. It's SHONEN. As in, action/adventure/fantasy with [b]battles[/b]. Pokemon battles are central to the franchise of Pokemon, not just this manga or in the anime. So if we don't have decent battles and just copy and paste from the manga, it'll become boring very quickly. It should be noted as well that conversations take a longer amount of screen time than battles do, as a single panel of battling manga can just be a single millisecond of time whereas in conversation a panel can be anything from a monologue to a one-liner.

Also in storyboarding these battles, a lot of things can be going on at the same time which makes for many many storyboards and will probably test the boarders imagination and creativity with camera angles. This is something scripters will have do take into consideration as well. But I think it'll be worth remembering that this is a manga categorised as shonen, which is mainly action-orientated with a plot and several characters which propel eachother to the next battle. We've got to remember who the manga is aimed at as well, which are boys in the age category of 7-12 although the official rating means its suited to anyone below that age. But shonen is mainly aimed at boys (no offense) and boys like action packed adventure (no offense) so to have short battles with tons of dialogue 1) Won't be very true to the series. 2) Isn't very shonen like. Lots of shojo (aka girly anime) have minor violence in it. and 3) It is very boring.

I think I've said enough...Phew, I think that was my longest post ever.

Hmmm, the battle with Giovanni. I don;t remember it all that well, but I remmeber a lot of epicness. I think it is important to be careful with all the scnees we intend to extend. If done right, it will seem like it was plucked right from the manga. If done badly, it will ruin the battle and it's purpose . . . hence exactly how each battle scene is treated in terms of extension etc. will require a bit of discretion in each case.

One of the biggest things we have to focus on in this project has to be what we do with the battles. While I don't think we'll extend them to the point where we have constant mid-battle flashbacks or anything I'm not against using an animated medium to its full potential in order to bring out the most of the fight scenes.

The difficulty of animating the battles, however, Isn't my problem directly. If it does turn out to be too hard then maybe it isn't worth doing.

But then we may as well be cutting corners. If it seems difficult to animate, we could try and simplify it, but I think a more major concern is the flow of the battle, something the scriptwriters'll need to think about. But I don't think it should be a copy and paste job from the manga and sometimes it's better for it to be extended. Because of the way an anime works compared to a manga, it's likely that most scenes will be altered or lengthened in some way, as there's issues of the setting, camera angles and portrayal of the characters within the scene.