Naruto + Pokemon

 

 

The little black dot in the head of the frog that is in the head of the other frog, its a human.

 

My untested greatest rpg project of all time is to replace the whole magic system of my D&D clone with something parallel to pokemons: Wizards catching and collecting monsters that cast or are the spells, but at the same time create a bond with them. But at the same time, having the fighter class a viable and interesting choice.

After beating Koga, the ninja trainer at Fuchsia City Gym at Pokemon: Team Rocket, he says something like he had used techniques that were 400 year old. That got me thinking on how the relationship with pokemon was back then, in a feudal japan type world. Which is very close to my thing. 

 

 

Then I realized that Naruto could have become this very easily. In a different world, the Naruto anime went mostly the same until the Chuunin exams, and then derived fully into its "mon" facet: Kakashi's dogs, Jiraiya's toads; everybody's hawks, snakes, monkeys, etc. 

But I would have taken it further: Making every ninjutsu & genjutsu technique (that means: every technique that is not purely martial) some kind of summon; and that includes rasengans, illusions and shadow replications, personified with a little monster that actually does the thing for its master. Sharingans and Rinnegans could be reframed as family "spirits" that serve a clan or maybe keep them as genetic privileges, why not. You even have the bijuus working like that already, filling the setting's slot for legendary pokemon, with the steel type pokemon being the ninjas themselves; filling the slot that pokemon never tackles: Is there space for human fighters in a pokemon game?

I mean; I love Naruto. Gaara and Orochimaru are probably my favs. But how much better would be the series with 80% less Pain and Great ninja wars, and replacing it with mon catching and training, to be the very best like no one ever was? The pokemon entries on this blog are probably not over. Stay in tune.

 

 EDITED: I've been thinking on how to allow pokemon to ninjas while still having "non-magical" fighters in the world, be it as players or as NPCs if their gameplay is not interesting enough.

1. Pokemon are very hard to find for the common person. They are not physical animals, but more spiritual entities from another plane. If you start with one, it means that is has a some kind of contract with your clan (this casually also puts emphasis on the clan aspect of the ninjas). This pokemon is rolled at random from a list of starters.

2. When you level up as a ninja, you have the choice of, instead of raising speed, strenght or whatever attributes you have, studying your village's pokemon scrolls. This will give you access to a new pokemon at random that you can pick if you like it, or level up the one you already have. 

3. Certain NPCs will introduce you to new pokemons if they like you. Old ninjas might want to tell you about their own, or a mystical girl of the mountains may talk good about you to the local Kami. When you roll to pick a random pokemon, you can choose the random one or any of those introduced to you through the adventure. Normally, ninjas will only reveal pokemon to other ninjas of their own or allied villages. Sometimes, Pokemon will appear in your way by themselves, even searching for you if they want to "get XP" through being used by a worthy caster.

4.  Pokemon are summoned through hand seals, because it is aesthetic and fitting. Pokemon may be physically present as "animals" but most of the time, only some of their aspects will be visible (feathers, fire, snow, etc). Sometimes they will be channelled through the body of the caster.  If the hand-seal thing is a upgradeable skill, it is only natural that more martial characters such as samurai don't invest on it. 

5. Staves as magical tools can work as a symbol of status before pokemon, just like a king's scepter. They only work after a downtime period of attunement, and are useful mostly for powering up spells that are "shot". It makes normal for ninjas that use spells on target:self to forfeit wants altogether, even more so if they difficult things such as climbing trees or keeping stealth. 

 

 

gaara and his sandshrew

 

 

Pokemon and Worldbuilding

I am playing Dragonsden's Pokemon: Team Rocket Edition again. Its a fan game made by a Spaniard but I think its becoming translated into english already. It might be the greatest pokemon game ever made. This is the pitch:

You start the adventure as just another recruit on the Inta Island headquarters, at Archi7, with the intention of ascending little by little into the Team Rocket organization. Yoy must fulfill succesfully the missions assigned by your superiors. 

The story unfolds in the same timeline than Red's and Blue's adventurers (the MCs of gen 1 pokemon) and, given that you will be sent to Kanto, you will be able to witness their stories from the perspective of a Team Rocket's member, and everything that happened on the backside, keeping the canon from the original games intact but adding a surprising depth into the lore.

You soon find that the Team Rocket, while still being criminals and Pokemon thieves, are at the core a patriotic resistance from Kanto, resisting an invasion of the Lance, a warlord from Johto, and their Elite 4 who invaded the region using their pseudolegendary Dragonites, and you can feel first hand the campaign of hate and the media manipulation they use trying to paint Giovanni's Team Rocket as crazy terrorists (If you were a vaccine-skeptic person by covid times you'll know what i mean)

If the plot is not enough to sell it to you, the pokemon-training part is awesome: you can potentially capture basically 99% of pokemon of the first 4 generations and fully visit Kanto, Johto and Hoenn. This is my current team:

 

This game really shows how good pokemon worldbuilding is. We don't speak enough of how crazy its premises are:

* A world where there are no animals beyond a very specific number of species, most of which are evolutions of each other, and a great number of them are legendary and not really seen around. 

* Pokemon can be so powerful that there are no arms race between countries. No guns, tanks, nukes or even more primitive weapons: There is no need of them when you can just train a worm into a Beedrill and make it fight for you. Everything in Kanto, from the small to the big, is settled by combats, and all combats are fought by pokemon. A government getting hold of Mewtwo is the equivalent of the race for the Nuclear Bomb.

* In a sense, pokemon work as local fauna, flora, workforce, weaponry, pets and shinto gods. Everything and everyone in the setting has a different relationship with pokemons. Every city has a pokemon something: a museum, a safari zone, a pokemon burial yard. 

See this video if you want to see all the types of pokemon trainers of gen 1, or just marvel on how artists could make peak 56x56 pixels pictures with 4 colors. If you are like me (a worldbuilding ultra geek) you can spend hours thinking on how each of the random trainers represent an alignment chart of personality x strate of society, which defines their lifestyle and which pokemons they get:

Bugcatchers are kids trying to get pokemons in their nearby forest. I like to think that, given that bug type pokemon are strong against dark and psychic, those kids can defend their homesteads of evil Sneasels, Hypnos and Kadabras. Some bugcatchers will stay sheltered or forego pokemon hunting as adults, others will attempt to get a Pinsir or a Scyther, but most will switch to another type as they grow up. 

Swimmers strike to me as some sort of 60s surfers, living in the coastal areas by and for the sea. Sailors are also water-pokemon users, which reminds me that while there are cruises available, there are no sight of cars. Kanto is a good example of a non-globalized world where people lives near their workplace, and travelling is done by bike and for fun. I don't think planes are really needed either, when important persons can teach FLY to their pidgeottos.

Bikers and Team Rockets are the organized criminals, the former using poison/fight pokemons such as weezing or mankey, and the latter using their signature rattatas/zubat combo. As revealed in the game i'm playing, they pretend to be lamer than they are as a way to gain advantage over the elite 4. As Giovanni says: "you cannot fight what you don't know it exists"

Mountaineers (geodudes and onixs) are the common country man who loves Lynyrd Skynyrd. Blue collars become engineers (magnemites and voltorbs) in more industrial zones. Fishermen complete the middle class triad. The most drunk of them talk about the magikarp they will never evolve, the most level headed about where and when to find more (or less) level 19 tentacools at this time of the year.

Those self called Cool Trainers (endless nidorinos) represent the snob, against the true Gentleman's Arcanines and Manectrics. The Nerd will get their personal pokemon waifu (usually Slowpokes) for personal fulfillment instead of elitism. 

Maybe its just me, but I see many people at the street who could be the Gambler. Those old men with a couple of poliwags or wasted junkies with a meowth who should be taken away by the pokemon welfare; trying to get all or nothing in a street combat. One, trying to recover the spirit of his younger days; the other, some coins for some Silph-manufactured crack.  

Which leads me to one of the greatest pillars of the setting: Scientists. Wherever you go, under a very thin veil of innocence, they are doing massive pokemon-related shit. Cloning Articuno, Creating Mewtwo and creating countless waste (Dittos) in the process, creating all types of pokemon steroids, resurrecting fossils, inventing the pokedex or better types of pokeball, or closing the gap between science and parapsychology with the silph scope. I like to think that, just as they invented the teletransporter tiles, Escape Ropes really work as teletransporters in-setting. The clash of nature/divine vs science/manmade is a heavy underlying theme through all the games.

Karatekas, who use machops and hitmonlees, are beautiful to have. You never ever see a man vs man (or man vs pokemon) fight in all the game. I understand it so that no man can match the fighting skill of those fight pokemons, yet they still practice karate to hone their spirit, strenght and skills. True spiritual man that seek for enlightment and possibly get inspired by the energy of their pokemon companions. 

The spiritual representation continues on the Channelers at Lavender Town. It is refreshing to see that the game cares to show you that there exist death rites and beliefs in this world for men and beasts alike. They double up as goth girls, making the world become suddently much more interesting. Also, see this note on how Erika, the plant gym leader, was probably destined originally to be a ghost trainer or a ghost itself.

 

If I was a real person on Kanto, however, I'd probably be a Bird Keeper. They strike me as sort of a middle ground between a complete outcast and a functional life. Fearow is probably my favorite pokemon: its not just beautiful, but also a real (glass) cannon, a true sweeper if you can manage to never let your opponent get a turn

Interesting how policemen trainers carry growlithes for protection instead of guns or batons. I like to think that when they carry a random haunter or pikachu, they do it because they are on a special mission, so they are not easily targeted by a water-user criminal. 

As a wrap up, I'd say that all this examples paint a world in which the common people is very connected to nature, and most of them live meaningful lives pursuing their passions. You might not have noticed conscioulsy yet but now you just did. I will probably expand on pokemon-related ideas this month, because I am a huge pokemon nerd.

As another wrap up, just some quote that I might extend on the future: any worldbuilding is not great just for what the world shows, but for the stories and explanations it allows you to make.