i just wanted to point out that i didn't tell you the plot... or plots, since there 4 story arcs :3
Astinus was warning you about characterization mainly, which is actually valid advice regardless of what the plot actually is.
Also, ze
also said that you probably thought of half of zir advice already, which implies that, yes, ze read the part where you said you came up with this idea five years ago. Still, just because you said you came up with the story five years ago doesn't necessarily mean you already know:
1. What a Mary Sue is.
2. Why you shouldn't use brand-new canon until enough information is revealed about them (e.g., it's not recommended that you use Iris because there's not much information about what her character is like).
3. Why mixing canon isn't a good idea unless you know what you're doing. This isn't just because people might not know what went on in the anime if they're manga fans and vice versa. It's also because the manga and anime are completely different in tone, completely different in basics (like how certain moves work), and completely different in backstories (like how the entire plot involving the Mask of Ice -- which really defined who Blue and Silver became as characters -- never happened in the anime). This is, in general, why I think having this be a sequel for
both the anime
and the Special manga won't fly -- because they have completely incompatible storylines. Or, in other words, stuff that happened in the anime didn't happen in the manga and vice versa. You'll have trouble finding places where the two can coincide without blowing off important plot points of one or the other.
These are points that you learn from interacting in writing communities and generally getting feedback like Asty's from more experienced writers. For example, a Mary Sue is extremely hard to define, and most people who start out in writing communities (and a lot of people who are still on places like Fanfiction.net) don't know what those are because it's a fandom term. Likewise, a lot of people think that using stuff from new generations is a great idea, but people don't know that until the games have been out for awhile and until the usual sites have pretty much everything to know up, what you think might be true in canon might not actually be true. (For example, you could say that anime!Iris has a Crimgan and an Ononokus because she does in the games, but what if the anime says in next week's episode that Kibago really
is her only Pokémon for fairly important plot reasons? Or, for a better example, what if you say that N is this overzealous extremist hypocrite who captures all his Pokémon, only to find out once you get the games that N actually just befriends local Pokémon and gets them to fight for him? Sure, like Asty said, there's a chance you've already done your homework about this, but if you haven't, the point is you just don't know these kinds of things until information like this is more readily available.)
And the larger point? You don't really know these kinds of tips unless you talk to a lot of fandom authors because the more experienced folk are your best teachers. How long ago you started planning gives us a baseline idea of how much thought you put into the plot, but we're giving you advice about the details and how to execute your ideas. It's like saying that we know you understand the basics of cooking, but we want to teach you how to use different spices properly. It's just two different things.
And I'm sorry if I seem confrontational, but yes. It's understood that you've been planning this for awhile, but Asty isn't actually saying that ze thinks you just came up with it on the spot. Asty was just saying that there's certain details in this whole shebang that might not work (even if you've thought that they will for the past five years), so you'll want to be careful about using them. This stems from the fact that you say you're going to use them, not from how long ago you decided you wanted to use them, if that makes sense.
As for my own opinion, I honestly can't judge whether or not this concept will work because, as Asty has said, you've given us a bare-bones idea. Whether or not every plot is a good or bad idea depends completely on what you do with it. You could have a really awesome magical girl idea that you describe to us in as bare-bones a description as possible, but it could fall flat in the execution if the characterization's weak, if your plot is full of holes, that sort of thing. On the other hand, it could potentially live up to what you say it will be. If you offered a brief summary of the plot itself (like the summaries
these people give), it might be slightly easier to figure out the general direction in which this is going, but other than that, you could either be very generic about this (basically a lot like Sailor Moon, only with Pokémon) or blow off magical girl conventions completely in new and interesting ways (examples for your convenience:
1 2 3). I just can't say. *shrug*