Production Of The Pokémon Anime Has Been Put On Hold, Reruns To Be Shown In Japan

Well, that sucks.

I heard Ash finally got a decent team now.

They could work on it from home. According to all the ads I've seen for Skype and other electronic communications products there's really no reason for this. They don't hand draw anymore it's all on PC so what's the deal?

@GameOtaku Not all companies are set up from working from home. They would need to sort out equipment and/or software for all the production staff, which takes time and money. Trying to get studio-quality audio from voice actors would be particularly difficult.

Add in that work will be going slower as everyone gets used to working from home and the disruption of looking after children or sick relatives, and they might just have decided it's not worth it. Easier to shut everything down for a while and catch up afterwards.

Nothing is going to be happening in Pokemon's anime for months...

So in other words, nothing's really changed.

@withad
I don't know about you but I'd love to see what they could pull off from limited resources. How the art would look, how it would animate, the voices. I remember watching "cartoons" as s kid that were nothing more than comic strips with added effects such as lip flaps and voices or simple movements such as a fist moving up.

Ex. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OH1Tt0tPpdc&list=PL5381BE18F8316D72&index=3&t=0s

@GameOtaku I think the artist could use a break. Behind these anime shows and movies is a dark, labor intense industry that cares nothing about the artist.

@Sandro89 He did, but to be fair, Ash has had decent teams in Sinnoh, Kalos and Alola as well (Generations 4, 6 and 7).

I mean, I wasn't interested in a Sword & Shield one anyway.........

Do XYZ reruns. That run was fantastic.

I think this is the first time the anime has been put on hold since the infamous seizure episode aired.

We have had to wait over 20 episodes to see Sobble, and now we're going to have to wait even longer?!?!?

According to thousands of people online we should just accept people dying and make everyone go back to work. People need their anime and hair dressers so everyone stop being cowards and go risk the lives of all your friends and family (and your own too!)

This message brought to you by the Cult of Capitalism. Worshiping the Golden Lamb since times immemorial!

@Bolt_Strike Are you insane? It's not like this is no big deal. Anything can happen within the production of an series, you know. Don't pretend like nothing happened.

@BlackKnight93 I know.

@Custom1991 It's just a joke about the quality of the anime. Yeah, this is a big deal and I'm sorry for all of the people who can't put food on the table because of this. It's just a jab at how the anime has too much filler and too little actual plot.

@Bolt_Strike -or you could just realize that this time Ash's objective isn't the pure focus of this season and come to terms with that?

The writers don't need the entire story to be kinetic and drive the plot along.

@MegaVel91 thats not what he meant by filler, most of the episodes in the anime are just team rockets half assed scheme of the week, helping some character(s) who will never be seen again &/or just being the same episode as another one that's slightly different.
also, ash's objective has never been the pure focus. misty wanting to become the best water pokemon trainer, brock wanting to be a breeder as well as to breed with attractive females, ect. everyone of the companions have been a main plot focus beyond ash's ambiguous goal which will never get explained so long as the anime is stuck with the writers & directors it currently has.

@Shadowmoon522 Bingo. The whole show has just been Ash bumbling around the regions, getting involved in self contained CotD plots, and occasionally battling a gym leader and eventually making it to the region's league. There's very little sense of an overarching plot, no real progress towards his goal, no real threat that has to be dealt with, just an endless string of minor unrelated plotlines that have nothing to do with the vague and unexplained goal of being a "Pokemon master" so they can use the anime as a glorified TV ad for games and merchandise. It's not just this season, the entire show has been like this and it was never good.

You want to see an example of what a good Pokemon plot, look at Pokemon Adventures/Special. That series is everything the anime should be.

@Bolt_Strike Including the deaths, killing, and literal destroy the world plots?

@Shadowmoon522 Isn't the reason that Ash's goal of being a Pokemon Master being as nebulous as it is because it's a nebulous idea in an of itself?

@MegaVel91 In Special or the anime? Because there's a lot more going on in the former than the latter, and it makes the plot actually you know... interesting and exciting.

@Bolt_Strike Yes the Special.

I keep seeing people bring up Pokemon Adventures as the better of the two and most of the time it boils down mainly to the grittier nature of it... Which includes characters actually dying and Pokemon themselves actually dying (looking a certain Arbok here) and more consistent destroy the world plots than the main games or the anime.

Grittier, darker and edgier doesn't automatically equate to better. Not only that, but the Pokemon Adventures manga isn't nearly as visible to the general public as the anime is, so the writers of that already have less restrictions on what they can do with stories too.

Pokemon Adventures only gets away with what it does because it's far more niche than the anime and games are.

@MegaVel91 Ah. Well the grittiness isn't necessary and that's not my issue anyway. The issue is that Pokemon Adventures has an actual overarching plot and the events of one chapter tend to you know... matter in the next and it actually builds towards a climactic ending. With the anime, unless they catch or evolve a Pokemon or Ash gets a badge, the episodes are mainly pointless.

@Bolt_Strike You mean other than attempting to be a fun romp it's pointless?

@MegaVel91 "@Shadowmoon522 Isn't the reason that Ash's goal of being a Pokemon Master being as nebulous as it is because it's a nebulous idea in an of itself?"
it was more concrete in the games as being synonymous with Pokemon Champion

it only got needlessly convoluted after the anime writers botched things up.

@MegaVel91 Fun romps tend not to make good stories in non-interactive medium because fun is far too subjective. With video games it's fine because those stories are driven by player choice and what the player considers fun, but if we're watching some random characters' choice to screw around in a major setting it's not as interesting because their choices may not reflect ours. Meanwhile, if you're following a character over a long period of time, you generally want to see how they grow, develop, and respond to adversity. Without an overarching plot, you don't get to see that very well, and we really don't see that very well with Ash, he's basically frozen in time forever. So it makes him a boring character to watch, if he's just going to be the same person making the same mistakes, 1, 5, even 10 years from now why even bother following him? You already know what you're getting which is predictable and boring. What they want the anime to be just doesn't work well for the medium.