Themes of the Generations?

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zlip

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    I've been playing pokemon since the beginning and as I played through the generations I noticed that each generation seemed to have a theme or category in which all its pokemon could fall under.

    Kanto-Monsters
    Johto-Animals
    Hoenn-?
    Sinnoh-Mythical
    Unova-Nature

    Kanto is mostly comprised of pokemon that look similar to dinosaurs and exaggerated creatures (Giant rock snake). And the Japanese name is Pocket Monsters so that was the starting theme.

    Alomost every pokemon in Johto is very similar to a real life animal. LAdybugs-Ledia, deer-Stantler, bats-crowbat, spiders-spinark, sheep-Flaffy etc.

    Many Sinnoh pokemon are based on legends and myths. Turtwig and its family seem to be based on the "World Turtle" idea and Bronzong and Bronzor could very well come from the Japanese story "Of a Mirror and a Bell" The two trios in this region where greatly talked about in legends and myths of the pokemon world. There were also many acient creatures such as spiritomb, cranidos, bastidon, rampardos, and sheldon.

    The Unova pokemon seem to be based off nature and how humans have altered it. Many of the pokemon are common everyday natural occurances brought to life such as Villant, Gigalith, and Golett. Others have already are alive in our world and have been advanced to make them cooler such as Ant-durant, Eagle-Bravariy, Electric Eel-Electross. The human advances can be seen in Klink's and litwick's familes going from a basic candle to a streetlight to a chandalere. Klink goes from being two gears to a large contraption. Trubbish was born from trash mixed with radioactive watse!

    As for Hoenn I have no idea as the pokemon seem to vary differently some being able to control elemental forces while others are just normal creatures. Maybe its diversity?

    So what do you think? Is there a planned theme to each genertion of pokemon or do you think the makers didn't really noice?
     
    Yes, Hoenn would definitely be more natural. Look at Fortree City, they're literally in tree houses. The pokemon also reflect that, and Team Aqua/Magma support their environment and such. They're really just flat-out nature. Hoenn doesn't even have like a real city in my eyes, as in large buildings, towers, busy with urbanization, etc. The closet would be Slateport or Lilycove, but those are port cities and they explain themselves. Hoenn is like the country-side isn't it?

    Unova would be more like how man destroys habitats and how they must coexist with animals. Also, there are a lot of inanimate objects moving around. Vanilluxe is one of them.

    I do agree with Sinnoh, I mean the legendaries all reflect that. We have the God Pokemon, Arceus. Then the masters of time and space, and the mover of continents Regigigas.

    Kanto and Johto really go hand-in-hand, I mean the designs are so similar the themes are practically the same, as in basic animals, of course a few exceptions but you get the point. Though, Kanto did go more rural, especially with pokemon like Hypno and Alakazam. Johto went into more wilderness based, like you said Stantler, Ursaring, Feraligatr, etc.
     
    Simply put, Unova's theme would be more urban because most of it is urbanized. Like the above people said, Hoenn is more suited to nature because there are forests, expansive sea routes and a desert.
     
    I think Hoenn would be described as weather. Seeing as the mascots are the weather trio, theres the weather station, castform, weather was introduced this gen and with places like deserts, treetop towns, volcanoes and oceasn there are so many different weathers going on.
     
    @zlip

    Hoenn's theme was Tropical. They purposely designed the game with it being a perfect balance between Land: 50% and Sea: 50%.
    So all of the pokemon had this bright extravagant tropical theme to them. Think of most of the Hoenn pokemon, their color schemes were often very bright and their living/survival conditions were based on tropical weather and climate.

    Edit:
    Kanto's theme was more about Scientific evolution. A lot of the creatures in Kanto were based off of the idea that they were evolving into stronger creatures in order to adapt to their rural surroundings. Also the largest theme of Kanto was all of the deep scientific research that was done in order to understand pokemon more scientifically. How they evolve and what it was that changed about them physically and genetically, also it was about learning to harness that power so that control over pokemon could be better understood.

    All your other themes I agree with you though.
     
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    As far as designs go.

    Kanto - I seems to be a mixture of Animals, Monsters, Humansphere.

    Johto - As previously said it was very standard Animal based.

    Hoenn - I felt this generation they started mixing Cultural objects and aspects into pokemon a bit more. It lent itself to a lot of Aquatic based creatures due to it's geographical make up with all the Water routes and port cities as well as Islands.

    Sinnoh - I felt they started touching about the use of objects like with the Rotom forms and other pokemons. Although like Kanto it seems to contain a mixture of all elements due to all the evolutions and pre-evolutions that went back to past generations.

    Unova - It seems they jumped into the abstract/object time pokemon a bit more with lines like Litwick, Gear, Vanillite, Trubbish. Yes there was ones like Grimer, Magnemite, Voltorb but they seem to be a bit more abstract this go around. There seemed to be a bit more Humansphere then prior Generation or it may just be me. Also like Hoenn I felt there were pokemon that have cultural representations like Braviary, Bisharp, Cofagrigus, Emboar, Samurott, and so forth.

    As for the regions themselves.

    Kanto - It seemed to symbol beginnings as it was the start of the franchise. And lay out all the basics. It seemed to be the basic Good vs. Bad with Good being Red and Bad Team Rocket.

    Johto - Kanto and Johto a lot of times seem to go hand in hand but I didn't get the same feel for Johto as a did Kanto. Yes they built upon it the original, they had the same organization to fight against, but it seemed like there was more story behind the pokemon of the region. Like Ho-oh the three beasts, Lugia. And it gave me a sense of traditional/classic feel of an old timely area namely areas like Ecruteak, Mahogany, Blackthorn, Ruins of Alph.

    Hoenn - Seemed to emphasis nature in city design, through it's sydicates, the introduction of Weather, the Weather Institution, the Weather Trio.

    Sinnoh - Just going off what I saw from Cynthia talking about legends, the references to them like it Eterna, Celestic, Snowpoint. Supposedly Arceus started everything and Cyrus wanted to end everything so we got an Alpha and Omega feel as well. Definitely to say the least a region steeped in history concern legends.

    Unova - It seemed to symbolize a clash between natural/and technology. The different versions depict the surroundings as slightly different. On has a White Forest the other a Black City. The Legends one powered by Fire the other by Electricity. Yes both are naturally occurring and can be used as energy sources, but Electricity is a modern way of powering things where as fire with coal powering it isn't as prominent as it was in the past. There is also a ideal about the relationship between humans and pokemon brought about by N and Plasma that adds something to the region as well.
     
    Moving to Pokemon General, since it's more about the designs, not the games.
     
    I didn't say this before but I always felt like Unova's theme was all based on the idea of Human progression rather than Pokemon progression.
    For instance think of all the humongous cities, shops, cars, bridges, there's even a proper airport! Where as the pokemon are more like, "We just live here..."
    Unova felt to me like, Humans just took over and built themselves a proper busy bustling continent and the pokemon just adapted to living in advanced rural conditions. Even some of the pokemon are explained in the pokedex to be so well adapted to the human environment that they depend their survival on human existence.
    God only knows how much different the pokemon would have been if it was a low populated continent like Hoenn.
     
    Oh wow this is a super interesting thing I never noticed.
    Let me sum up my interpretations (made from other people's observations plus some of my own):

    Kanto - Open, rural, but with enough big cities. There is kind of a mix here and different Pokémon fit in different parts of the region. Notice that in this generation they introduced the second fewest non-evolving Pokémon of all generations. It is only slightly behind Sinnoh in this aspect (note Generation IV introduces the fewest total Pokémon of any generation to begin with and Kanto introduces many more). Adaptation is the theme. They emphasised evolution.

    Johto - Kind of same as Kanto but more colourful and the Pokémon are less scary. It seems more gentle. They have almost as much folklore in Johto as they do in Sinnoh. It seems to be a pretty good mix of the other three Japan-based regions. I'll say the theme is expansion since this generation introduced a lot of changes and a lot of new unexpected Pokémon as well as a new region that can be explored alongside Kanto rather than simply starting from scratch. We expand our PokéHorizons for the first time in Generation II.

    Hoenn - The theme is nature. The Pokémon are really colourful and the island is close to nature. Notice the only two tall buildings in Hoenn outside of the Battle Frontier/Tower are the Lilycove Department Store and the space tower thingy in Mossdeep. So, it seems quite rural too (although it seems they all are except for Unova). There is a lot of water so lots of variety in the Pokémon--once again a very natural thing. (Note that this region has the most non-evolving Pokémon BY FAR.)

    Sinnoh - The theme is legend. They get rather out there in this region, i.e. mythical godlike Pokémon and beginning to talk about Space and creating new universes. Also with Giratina we explore separate dimensions (well, only one separate dimension, but you get my point). I guess you could also say mystery is the theme.

    Unova - Like other people said, the way we humans modify our environment and what things change into after certain interference. This region is clearly heavily urbanised and things seem a lot bigger. So I guess the theme is urbanisation and progression.


    Yay! :3
     
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    In my opinion Kanto pokemon are a lot like little Kaiju and yokai, so I think u hit the nail in the head when u say that they are monsters. I also like the emphasis on rural area yet it has large cities, that is also something u see a lot in Kaiju movies. The contrast of the rural close to the city.
     
    KANTO: Science
    JOHTO: Cities (I'm not sure about that one)
    HOENN: Ocean/ Beaches
    SINNOH: Beauty
    UNOVA: Nature
    KALOS: Europe, mostly centered around Paris though.
    Only doing these from memory, sorry if they aren't correct, but I'm 100% sure Kanto is correct.
     
    Europe is a theme? xD

    Anyways, this topic is dead since several years. Please don't revive old topics. Create a new one instead, if you want to discuss an old topic again!
     
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