The Pokémon anime series and the games have always gone hand in hand, but they’re far from being the same thing. The great amount of well-designed game mechanics is one of the coolest things that Pokémon games have. They’re so thought-out that veteran players are able to predict things like battle outcomes or egg moves, and the best of it is that once you learn how they work, you will always know how to exploit them in your favor in the future Pokémon games.
Then comes the Pokémon anime. It is often filled with inconsistencies and contradictions, as most of the time, the plot is shaped to draw emotion and excitement. But that doesn’t mean that it’s a bad series by any means, it’s just different.
Updated by Brianna Albert on November 2nd, 2020: Before becoming the beloved anime and trading card game, Pokémon was a video game that exploded in popularity. As more childrenーas well as adultsーbecame engrossed in the game, it became apparent it would make an excellent addition in other formats. The franchise is a household name, with many fans playing, watching the anime, and even collecting rare Pokémon cards.
However, over the years, it has become apparent some things canon in one of its iterations would be head-scratching when looked at in retrospect. This is especially true with the many Pokémon games that have been released over the years.
15 Officer Jenny
If anyone has watched the Pokémon anime, they would definitely know who Officer Jenny wasーespecially those who watched the first anime.
Although Officer Jenny has appeared in the early games as well as Pokémon Sun & Moon, her infrequent appearances make it hard to call her a canon character. Who is Officer Jenny, and why is she sometimes in town when in other games she’s not? She’s also not in Pokémon Sword & Shield, either.
14 The Movies
In the Pokémon movies, while some Pokémon are canon, some are not. This affects which Pokémon are even in the gameーthe most famous example being Mewtwoーand which are considered legendary.
Darkai, for example, is not a legendary Pokémon. However, in the games he cannot be caught easily. The contradiction between certain Pokémon and plot points can be confusing.
13 Not Allowed To Use Items
There are many differences with how Pokémon battle with each other versus the anime and game, but one thing that stood out was the items.
In the anime, Pokémon are unable to be healed with items, such as Revives and Potions. They also can’t hold items to boost their stats or eat berries when their health gets low.
12 Real-Time Pokémon Battles
Pokémon don’t battle by taking turns in the real worldーthat would simply end up getting them defeated. In the anime, Pokémon battles are not turn-based and require the trainer to call out attacks, battling in real-time.
On the other hand, they are also not restricted to four moves only. Pokémon can use as much as they know in the anime, which would perhaps make the game more difficult if it were created that way.
11 The Pokédex
The Pokédex is perhaps the most confusing part of both the game and anime. Although it is used to discover Pokémon by pointing it toward it to get a full scan, in the game, the Pokémon are already all registered.
This makes the purpose in the anime useless, as in the game the player already knows what it isーjust not the in-depth details.
10 Not All Pokémon Have The Same Potential
This might be the hardest thing to accept if you want to take your first step in the competitive scene. In the anime, every Pokémon is capable of excelling in battles if you believe in them, but in the games, you just can’t use a Pokémon with low Individual Values (IV) to play competitively, even if you believe in their potential.
If you don’t know what Individual Values are, think of it as hidden statistics numbers assigned to a Pokémon’s stat. Each IV can go from 0 to 31, and the higher the number the higher the Pokémon stat will be. They are more or less like their genes, and each Pokémon has a unique set of them.
9 Cubone’s Skull Helmet
You don’t need to be a hardcore fan to know about Cubone’s mystery. According to the anime, all Cubone have lost their mothers, as the Pokédex states that the skull they wear belonged to their dead mothers.
But in the games, if you try to pair a female and a male Cubone to raise an egg, the Cubone that hatches will already have a skull on its head. And in case you’re wondering what happens to a baby Cubone’s mother once it hatches, well, nothing, she won’t die or anything. Maybe Cubone’s Pokédex entry is just wrong.
8 The Elite 4
In the games, the Elite 4 are a set of highly skilled trainers with powerful Pokémon and more refined strategies, that you can only battle once you’ve gathered all 8 gym badges, or in the case of the Alola games, defeated each Island Kahuna. Most characters in the games talk about them and how every trainer must battle them to become the region’s champion, as they’re kind of a big deal.
The thing is, there is no Elite 4 in the anime. Some of the characters that take the role of Elite 4 trainers in the games often cross paths with Ash, only they aren’t formally introduced as members of the Elite 4. Most of the time they are acknowledged as very skilled trainers, but never as members of the E4.
7 Giovanni Never Retires
If you don’t know Giovanni, he’s the leader of Team Rocket. He’s usually behind most of the illegal movements done across the Pokémon world. He was also behind Mewtwo’s creation and is usually involved in most of the plots that revolve around the Psychic Pokémon.
In the Pokémon games, Giovanni will retire from his illegal activities and his duties as a Gym leader once you beat him at his own gym in Viridian City, as he’s reminded that Pokémon can also be friends to have fun with. This never happens in the anime, as he’s still bossing around Jessie and James.
6 Legendary Pokémon Of The Same Species
In most installments of the games, you can only catch a single legendary Pokémon of a said species. For example, in the Gen I games there’s just a single Moltres, in Gen II games there’s only one Lugia and in Gen III there’s a single Latios. Once you’ve fought and caught them, you can’t fight them again.
But in the anime canon, there are multiple legendary Pokémon of a particular species. If we go by the examples we gave before, the anime has shown multiple Moltres, a Lugia made an appearance and it was later seen with a child, and multiple Latios have been seen. Sometimes Legendary Pokémon are just very powerful Pokes who have earned a number of myths of legends over the years.
5 4 Moves Rule
In the anime, Pokémon aren’t limited to just 4 moves, and they don’t have to unlearn a move they know to make space for another. This is something that’s way more visible in the early seasons, but the later ones are more prone to stick with the 4 moves rule until the plot demands otherwise.
In the games, your Pokémon can only learn 4 moves, and if you want to teach them another one you have to make them forget a move they already know. This is mostly due to gameplay balance, as the game would be way too complicated if Pokémon could learn all the moves they have access to.
4 Making Things Up
There have been times in the anime where trainers just make up things on the spot. It isn’t rare for battles to devolve into imagination duels as trainers mix moves to win battles. This is kind of entertaining if you ignore game mechanics, but if you like to play competitively it can become distracting and even confusing at times.
You can’t mix or create moves in the games, as it’d probably be a very hard mechanic to implement and it’d make the game overly complex. Although it’d be nice to mix an Ice-Type move with Aqua-Jet like Ash’s Buizel does to defeat those pesky Dragon types before they can even act.
3 The Power Of Friendship
Do you remember how Ash met his Charmander? He was the Pokémon of a trainer that left him because he was weak. As time went on, Ash’s Charmander trained hard and over time became one of his most powerful Pokémon, showing that with enough training and love a Pokémon could reach its max potential.
But this is not the case in the games. Friendship values rarely have any effect other than making certain moves more or less effective or evolve certain Pokémon. However, a similar concept named Affection was introduced in Gen VI, and it can make Pokémon evade moves or heal themselves, but only against regular or scripted NPC trainers.
2 Dodge It!
If you’ve seen enough Pokémon battles in the anime, you probably already know that Pokes dodge attacks if their trainers order them to do so. This always hypes up battles, as it’s very exciting to see Pokémon evade at the last moment moves that would otherwise KO them.
Sadly, the main games do not work like that, as the chances of a Pokémon dodging an attack can only be modified by moves or abilities, and trainers can’t make Pokémon dodge attacks on command. However, Pokémon GO players can make their Pokes evade attacks, as they can make their Pokémon dodge if they swipe their finger across their phone’s screen at the right moment.
1 Only 8 Gyms
Except for the Gen VII games, all Pokémon games have had an exact amount of 8 gyms per region. And as tradition, you need to collect all 8 badges from a region’s gyms if you want to win the right to battle against the Elite 4, or enter Galar’s Champion Cup, to become that region’s champion.
But the Pokémon anime has shown that there are more than 8 gyms per region, as Gary Oak was once seen in Kanto carrying 10 badges from 10 different gyms. Ash often battles the Gyms found in the games, and it is the work of the rival of the moment to gain badges off-screen at unseen gyms.
NEXT: Pokémon Will Always Be A Handheld Series
