I wouldn't call it a sudden change--if you'd notice, that appears to be a scene from the third episode of pokemon, which far over the better half of a decade old at this point in time. Things were sketchy back then--minor design changes, stylistic tweaks, many things were uncertain on the anime, most of all its success. I think the color accuracy of a pokemon was the least of their worries. Also consider that they had very limited Sugimori art and monochromatic Red and Green sprites to base all of their pokemon animation design on--like I said, it was a tentative era in the franchise, much more so the anime. Consider, if you will, Toshihiro Ono's oldest of pokemon manga, and compare his drawings of pokemon like, say, Haunter or Fearow to the standard images you see today. Ideas on pokemon were more freeform back then.
But if it was a sudden change, as you put it, I doubt it was discussed in a boardroom at Nintendo HQ over many hours and strained friendships and boxes of stale donuts to get Caterpie to have a green string-shot-spewy-thing. It probably happened all at once, a spriter who either inadvertantly did it or felt it would be a nice minor change for some anatomical or personal reason. If you look, it's barely any different than the Sugimori standards that they're likely encouraged to go by when upgrading the look of pokemon on the handheld games. It's very minor in the scope of things. But, I digress--I really have no idea why I went on like this in the first place. My knowledge of pokemon is diminished almost to nothing, but I suppose it comes with being a different generation of fan. I have a more beginning-to-present viewpoint.
so why the sudden change, this also occured in the anime, does anyone know why it changed? or was it supposed to be green in the first place?
