Pokémon (Not-So) Griefing Thread - Scarlet and Violet Released with 10 Million Copies in First 3 Days in Buggy States

[Golfing on the Moon 1971]

And then the anime studio stopped making movies after that

Do we know why the movies stopped?

 

[Retarded Weeb]

Do we know why the movies stopped?

I haven't looked too much into it since I stopped paying a lot of attention to the anime after XY&Z, but I remember the final movie had its production fucked by the Covid lockdowns and got delayed. Literally every previous movie came out in theaters in Japan in July, but the 2020 movie didn't come out until December. From what I've heard, the TV anime itself also had its production and scheduling fucked up that year as well. And the Japanese box office revenue for the movies were falling since around the Gen 5 movies with the 2020 movie doing the worst of all.

Considering all that and Ash finally getting retired a couple years later, it seems to me that the anime studio was feeling stretched thin with all the outside issues and exhausted from doing the same stuff with Ash for 20 years, and so with the falling revenue from movies anyway they decided just stop doing them so they could focus all their effort on the TV anime until it was finally wrapped up and they could do something a bit new.

The Teraleak did reveal that there was another movie that was in pre-production since 2021 and was meant to come out in 2023 or 2024 but got canceled. It was going to be set in Kanto with a completely original cast and supposed to be aimed at older fans. It was going to be about a couple of teenagers investigating why their friend commited suicide, and was meant to explore male friendship and modern problems like cyber bullying. The leak had a conversation between several high up members of Game Freak like Sugimori discussing the proposed movie and being negative on the idea because the Pokemon themselves barely have anything to do with the plot and the whole thing being made as fujobait to attract female fans. They even straight up say that Game Freak isn't interested in attracting adult female fans, and that if TPC wants to appeal more to women they should focus on it after working out the main appeal of the franchise (the Pokemon and their bonds with trainers) first.

 

[Computer God Autism]

t seems to me that the anime studio was feeling stretched thin with all the outside issues and exhausted from doing the same stuff with Ash for 20 years,

They brought that on themselves by not letting Ash sunset after Gen 4.

The leak had a conversation between several high up members of Game Freak like Sugimori discussing the proposed movie and being negative on the idea because the Pokemon themselves barely have anything to do with the plot and the whole thing being made as fujobait to attract female fans. They even straight up say that Game Freak isn't interested in attracting adult female fans, and that if TPC wants to appeal more to women they should focus on it after working out the main appeal of the franchise (the Pokemon and their bonds with trainers) first.

Based, rare modern Gamefreak W.

 

[Retarded Weeb]

They brought that on themselves by not letting Ash sunset after Gen 4.

To be fair it's not the entire staff's fault. From what I gather, the leaks also revealed that the executive director for the anime for the first six generations, Yuyama, was the guy who was absolutely dead set on Ash always being the main character, never aging, and never winning a Pokemon league even with other staff members or even other major figures in the franchise (like TPC CEO Ishihara) being at least somewhat opposed to that. Which confirms the feeling everyone got about a tweet from one of the animators after Ash lost the Kalos league that felt like a passive-aggressive complaint that he was unhappy with Ash losing too. Apparently the new director that took over for the Sun & Moon anime basically went behind Yuyama's back in having Ash win the Alola league and when Yuyama found out it lead to some arguments and backstage drama.

 

[Celebrate Nite]

They brought that on themselves by not letting Ash sunset after Gen 4.

IMO he should have sunsetted after Gen 2. That whole Sevi Islands sidetrip was wearing out his welcome, especially since there was nothing like that in the official games. And that's me being nice, because at least you can make the argument that Gen 2 is the sequel to Gen 1 and Togepi was around for a good chunk of Gen 1, not to mention the first movie had a couple Gen 2 appearances.

Otherwise he should have never lost the tournamant/E4/whatever. I know "bait and switch", but look where it got us... It took fucking two/three years ago for this asshole to FINALLY win. That's how long they've been blue-balling everyone. Even with all the support and knowledge he gained with hands-on experience and people teaching him, it took THAT fucking long. One would look at that and say Ash is legit braindead retarded and should quit pokemon after like the third/fourth attempt.

Yuyama, was the guy who was absolutely dead set on Ash always being the main character, never aging, and never winning a Pokemon league even with other staff members or even other major figures in the franchise (like TPC CEO Ishihara) being at least somewhat opposed to that.

Figures it was one guy. You can't have something like this happen without someone higher up (or at least has some power behind them) kicking and screaming like a 2 year old. Reminds me of Yuji Naka when he was in Sega with the Sonic series.

 

[The Ultimate Ramotith]

While we are on the topic of old generations, omeone is releasing a demo f Pokémon Emerald getting the Octopath Traveler treatment.

 

[I_Lurk_Here]

While we are on the topic of old generations, omeone is releasing a demo f Pokémon Emerald getting the Octopath Traveler treatment.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=OI_IKX-M3Fc

Will this add more features/QOL stuff than Emerald? Seems like a neat idea but I have no reason to play unless it has that.

 

[Archeops]

I finally managed to get a win from the Pokémon Center’s monstrously stupid queue system and picked up one PC-exclusive ETB of Black Bolt and White Flare each.

Interestingly enough the site managed to keep preorders for these preorders open from 10 AM to 3PM PDT, that’s a hell of a lot better than past drops. I’ll take that as a possible sign of TPCi doing marginally better at keeping up with the increased demand.

I just like psychic stage 2s that manipulate energy cards and can build actives that hit for enough damage to draw prizes every turn.

I’d pay VERY close attention to the BW special sets coming out, one of the products features (specifically one of the mini tins) has Garbodor and Amoongus on it…

…and Garbodor brings up a lot of bad memories in TCG players due this BW-era print.

 

[Abella]

I finally managed to get a win from the Pokémon Center’s monstrously stupid queue system and picked up one PC-exclusive ETB of Black Bolt and White Flare each.

Interestingly enough the site managed to keep preorders for these preorders open from 10 AM to 3PM PDT, that’s a hell of a lot better than past drops. I’ll take that as a possible sign of TPCi doing marginally better at keeping up with the increased demand.

I managed to get my preorder in, but I’m not optimistic about destined rivals. Not having kanto nostalgia baiting or eeveelutions means hopefully those sets won’t get bought out like 151 does every single restock.

I’d pay VERY close attention to the BW special sets coming out, one of the products features (specifically one of the mini tins) has Garbodor and Amoongus on it…
View attachment 7334527
…and Garbodor brings up a lot of bad memories in TCG players due this BW-era print.
View attachment 7334547

Man I miss that era of the card game before they just started handing out ex evolutions to every Pokemon.

 

[Grayback]

Okay, TPC. I will now buy your set.

 

[AnotherPleb]

View attachment 7341069
Okay, TPC. I will now buy your set.

This almost chose my ZA starter.

 

[Grayback]

This almost chose my ZA starter.

By the time that ZA comes out, I will have converted you to pige.

 

[Anonitolia]

>he wasn’t already considering best pige
shame upon thee
choose him now, fiend

 

[Abella]

I realize that most collectors are fucking retarded. I’m not just talking about the ones slabbing anything and everything, but people that are buying out the ancillary bundles just for the packs when they intend on throwing out said ancillary products or complaining about code cards and basic energy cards.

 

[Computer God Autism]

This almost chose my ZA starter.

Funny how the starter that people liked the least in Gen 5 is now the one most nintendies people will probably pick the most in ZA.

 

[The Cum Beast]

Funny how the starter that people liked the least in Gen 5 is now the one most nintendies people will probably pick the most in ZA.

Considering that chikorita is 1 out of the 3 options, not surprising

All joking aside I'm leaning Tepig since I'm a unovatard but I'll probably wait and see their evos.

 

[I_Lurk_Here]

Totodile and Squirtle are tied for my favourite starter, so I know who I'll pick.

 

[AnotherPleb]

>he wasn’t already considering best pige
shame upon thee
choose him now, fiend

I wanted to hope that Chikorita wouldn't be the absolute worst starter in this game too. Watch them make it even more defensive with a mid mega and no movepool boosts.

View attachment 7343411
By the time that ZA comes out, I will have converted you to pige.

I just chose the fire starter in Violet and chose Oshawott in PLA so I feel like I need to vary it up though...

 

[Grayback]

Some recent observations from the ongoing TCG scarcity saga:

Last Thursday (May 8 ), my local Walmart finally had single card packs back in stock. I think that this is only the third time that they've had regular packs since the start of 2025.
This store is in the suburbs of a major city in the US southeast, so it's not like our selection is limited because we're in the Alaskan wilderness or something.

The packs were all Stellar Crown. I'm not sure why that set seems to be the most plentiful. When I check online, Stellar Crown packs are usually the cheapest packs there, too.

Unfortunately for Walmart, they're the same price or significantly cheaper online.

The usual extras were stocked up, too—official decks, jumbo card boxes, resale bundles (of nothing but commons).
But they also had something unusual: boxes with mystery graded cards in them. As if they're really going to put some incredible card that's graded a solid 10 in a random box for 21 dollars. But hey, you can buy it and hope to get lucky, right?

Maybe this is common in other places and you guys are already familiar with these, but I'd never seen it before. It seems like it could be an indicator of where the market is going. Too many people just like graded cards too much.

On Friday (May 9), I saw an ad for cards at Walgreens. Google adsense has finally figured out what I actually like!

They're selling 4 recent packs, and an extra holographic card, for only 20 bucks? Sounds like a great deal!

They weren't in their spot on the shelf (even though they still had a spot on the shelf reserved for those items), because I guess you can't trust people anymore...

But they were up front, behind the registers.
Unfortunately, they don't match the picture online.

If you look closely, two of the four packs in every one of the cardboard-backed bundles has been replaced with the Trick-or-Trade packs. The ones with 3 cards in each of them, instead of the 10 that you're supposed to get from a normal pack. AND they wanted 24 bucks for the things now. Booooooooo.

On Saturday (May 10), I was back in Walmart for something, and I swung by the card section again. I don't have a picture of what the whole long thing looked like before, but the trading card section (Pokémon, Digimon, Yu-Gi-Oh, tons of sports cards) used to take up the whole front wall between the two entrances to the checkout lanes on either side of the store. You can see part of it in my first picture.

It was all gone.

Now, the cards have been pushed off to a tiny section on one side.

This is all that's left. This happened in two days.
The Stellar Crown packs, the theme decks, the boxes, most of the repackaged bundles—it had all been bought up. So Pokémon cards are clearly making money for the store. If something is selling a ton, you'd think that a store would want to sell more of it.

Unless it wasn't bought up, and the items were just taken off of the sales floor and moved to some storeroom.

But instead of leaning into this product which we know sells well, they don't even have the room for it now.
That's what really struck me—trying to figure out what this meant for the future of how cards are going to be sold.
Maybe they're just not going to be carried in most physical stores anymore. Maybe they'll all be online—where the seller can adjust the price instantly to match market trends (and charge you the most money possible), where they can hide how much they have in stock to manipulate scarcity (or slow down bulk-buying scalpers), and where people can't steal them.

Or maybe this behavior is just limited to one store, and it's an anomaly. I'd be interested to know if the rest of you have seen anything similar.

 

[Celebrate Nite]

But they also had something unusual: boxes with mystery graded cards in them. As if they're really going to put some incredible card that's graded a solid 10 in a random box for 21 dollars. But hey, you can buy it and hope to get lucky, right?

>Gen1 Charizard being used as bait to sell these boxes
>in 2025
WTF is going on with the TCG scene???