Out of all the Pokemon in the Spaceworld 1997 demo, most have their stats either unfinished, dummied out or otherwise. There is one, however, who stands out from the crowd: Rinrin. (Credit: The Cutting Room Floor, fan-made art by RacieBeep) Rinrin, in my opinion, may have been intended to be an alternative evolution to Konya, a scrapped pre-evolution to Meowth. This is because it is right next to Konya, a pre evolution to Meowth. It is the only Pokemon in the demo to have a true defined statline. Rinrin was a female-only Pokemon while Meowth was male, implying that there was an intention for gendered evolution. Konya would evolve at Level 14. Fun fact, Konya was also cut from Gen 1! Unlike most Pokemon in the Spaceworld dex however, Rinrin was finished. All stats but Special Defense were done (as SpD was dummied out universally, the split was still in progress). By using Meowth's Demo BST, we are able to devise what the SpD was. It was...low, but not unlike many Pokemon back then. (Source for these images are my private research sheets) Rinrin had access to Bell Chime, which was the prototype Heal Bell. Same effect, just a different name. This was actually its signature move. It would have been quite a desirable Pokemon given this, although it didn't seem like it would be too bulky, so it's definitely subjective. Access to Lovely and Sweet Kiss is certainly an eye-opener as well. Like every other Spaceworld Pokemon though, Rinrin had no TM learnset due to them still being used for debugging. Rinrin also had an evolution known as Berurun, evolving at Lv.28. This Pokemon would have been essentially a Persian counterpart. No stats are available, and it has largely the same learnset. You could technically replicate the stats through going +20 to each, as this is a common thing done for evolution, but know that it isn't definitive. (Credit: The Cutting Room Floor, fan-made art by RacieBeep) It is thought that the Rinrin line inspired Purrloin and Liepard of Gen 5. I do believe I see the resemblance, especially in regards to the idea of trickery being their forte. They have a lot of disruption-centric moves in their learnsets, so perhaps the concept of a deceptive cat got carried over! Game Freak has never acknowledged the Rinrin line in interviews to my knowledge, but Meowth has received Gigantamax, Alolan and Galarian forms, as well as an alternate evolution in Perrserker if it's Galarian. There's quite a lot of love for this cat, but still no Konya or Rinrin...
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Whoa, two articles in around a month? What's all this, Plague? Well a majority of my work outside of this blog is done so I'm able to write all the good stuff up now. I have a few more articles in mind, particularly on some findings on some Spaceworld Pokemon, among other things. But, those'll have to wait. The ten people who follow and actually remember the stuff I put out may know that I covered The Jynx Controversy and its effect on Pokemon Gold and Silver's development. Well, I missed some stuff out. I suggest you read that article, as there's some key info. For those who don't want to read two big articles, here's a TL;DR:
I did note that Jynx is used to release Articuno from its egg in Snap, but only really in passing. I do believe there is more connection to this however, especially in when the controversy ramped up. The main thing here, is the time frame in which Pokemon Snap's development started, and the point of release. Pokemon Snap was originally a game called "Jack and the Beanstalk", which wasn't Pokemon at all. It had a dedicated development team under the tag "Jack and Beans", which you can see in the intro to the game. No footage of this is around, nor prototypes, but what we know is the name and that it was meant to be on the N64DD. It was intended to be a photography game, like Snap, and given the name we can conclude it was based on the British fairy tale. Around Late 1996, PokeFever had struck, and so Nintendo were looking into monetizing the game's success. Jack and the Beanstalk's development was going poorly (note that it had started development in 1995), and Nintendo was questioning whether it would even be a success. This was due to a lack of motivation for actually taking pictures. Thus, they decided that taking pictures of Pokemon would possibly be the right motivator, and after a heated debate they decided to make the switch. A lot was scrapped, but the engine was used to produce Pokemon Snap. Pokemon Snap was eventually released in March of 1999, after around 4 years of development, considering Jack and the Beanstalk. Given the time frame of development, and the featuring of Jynx summoning Articuno...I believe that this was intended to be foreshadowing for Pokemon Gold and Silver's intention to have Jynx summon Ho-Oh. Note that Pokemon Gold and Silver were released in November of 1999 as well. It should be noted that the 2007 re-release of Pokemon Snap as WiiWare had Jynx's face changed to purple to reflect the redesign. (Credit: The Cutting Room Floor) Pokemon Snap could well have been the game to fan the flames of controversy, and this does answer some questions I had regarding my theory. Specifically, the fact that Pre-1999 evidence of the controversy is very thin. But, it doesn't answer everything. Here's some details I have from my evidence file. Jynx's redesign however, did begin around Gen 2's release. I got one thing wrong in my old article, and that was whether Jynx remained black in Gen 2. It changed for Western releases, but not Japanese releases. Here's the regional differences, taken from Bulbapedia's page (Credit: Bulbapedia). I also have an updated image of the sprite change timeline from Spaceworld to GS's release. I will also note that Crystal maintained the controversial design in Japan. I do know the episode of the anime that was the root of the controversy: Episode 39 of the original Pokemon Indigo League series: Holiday Hi-Jynx. I believe that old newspapers without internet access must have been where the controversy was first fanned due to this.
There is a common belief that Carole B. Weatherford's article about Jynx (which is what ramped the controversy up in the west) came out a month after the episode was aired in the US. This is false. The article came out on May 1st 2000, while the episode was first aired on December 11th 1999. The episode originally came out in Japan on October 5th 1998. There are multiple instances where content released in 1999 was delayed to October 2000 for western audiences: Gym Challenge in the TCG, where Sabrina's Jynx was censored, and Pokemon Gold and Silver itself. I believe this was intentional, to promote the game. Gold and Silver were released on the 15th, Gym Challenge on the 16th. Both of these also had Jynx censored, which does seem to imply there was some unrest, but it isn't a very strong argument in my opinion. What does this mean? Well, not a lot. Pokemon Gold and Silver were released in October 2000 and April 2001 in the US and Europe respectively. The time frame lines up with Weatherford's article. Thus this doesn't necessarily support my belief that the controversy is what got Jynx dropped from the story. For my theory to be correct, I need evidence that Jynx was controversial in 1999. Do I have it? Indeed I do. It took a bit of searching, but I found it! On September 14th 1999, Washington Post writer Mary C. Norton published an article covering Pokemon's worse blunders, covering the dark sides to the series. It included Jynx and named it as a sexist Pokemon. It can be theorized that this fanned the flames of controversy that would stretch into accusations of racism. Remember, Pokemon Shock had only happened 2 years prior to this, and resulted in a large branding overhaul: Nintendo and Game Freak wanted to keep clean. Eyes were still on Pokemon; it should be noted that this was essentially the Minecraft and Fortnite of the century. Now, this is one article from the Washington Post, and it should not be taken as a direct conformation that the controversy stemmed from it. The beginning of a controversy is honestly one of the hardest things to pin down, especially for a time before the internet became widespread and accepted like it is today. Most of the controversy ramped up in 2000. So, this theory remains open-ended. I do believe there was at least some anticipation from Game Freak regarding this, given that Jynx was dropped from the story despite Pokemon Snap's precedent. That Washington Post article could well have been what tipped them off. Or perhaps, it was simply to use a Pokemon with more favor in the series. What do you think? Leave me some comments. Holy crap I have not used this in a while, have I? Well, I wanted to be honest and not simply fill this blog with filler content, nor cover things that have been already covered by Helix Chamber and Dr. Lava. And well, here's some original stuff, eh? I posted on my Twitter fairly recently about finding an old promo disk from 2001, featuring a CD-ROM. This CD-ROM contained promotional content relating to the 2nd generation of Pokemon, and 50.Grind's Gotta Catch Em All Single. If you're a CD maniac, you can find the details of this disk on Discogs here. Before I go into the details of what was on the disk, let me as a brit explain who 50.Grind are. Who were 50.Grind?50.Grind were an English Electronic Rock band ran by Nick Atkinson, under the record label Recognition Records. Weirdly though, outside of Gotta Catch Em All, 50.Grind has virtually no online information. I can't find any albums after Gotta Catch Em All's big splash or...anything. I did my best to track down all the information though, so here's the scoop. 50.Grind were a very "skater kid" kind of band. I mean, look at everything about them. So, it was a very 90s kind of thing, riding on the Pokemon culture that was all over the UK at the time. The anime had reached peak popularity and the 2nd Generation was coming, so it worked like a charm and definitely contributed to the success of the single. 50.Grind gained notoriety after the release of Gotta Catch Em All feat. Pokemon All-Stars, a Nintendo-sanctioned Single. It received positive reception from fans, to the point it reached #57 on the UK Singles Charts and #15 on the Top 2000 on NPO Radio 2 in the Netherlands. It also played on Nickelodeon UK, with a YouTube archive of this being shown here. Although looking into it, I can see some of the Pokemon haters of those days giving some pretty angry reviews. The CD-ROM shows an interview with the band members, with them talking about their favorite Pokemon among other things. One likes Farfetch'd, which is kind of ironic given its evolution didn't make it into the final game. I hope he's happy about Sirfetch'd, though! 50.Grind broke up in 2003. Nick Atkinson would later form Rooster, who would release two albums: Rooster and Circles and Satellites before dissolving in 2007. He would go on to form The Temperance Movement in 2011, a blues rock band, which is active to this day. Their latest album, A Deeper Cut, was released in 2018. The Daily ExpressThe Daily Express is a UK tabloid newspaper owned by Reach PLC and published by Northern and Shell Media. It was founded on the 24th of April 1990 by Sir Arthur Pearson. I find it interesting how Nintendo decided to associate with the Daily Express, as it had recently been sold over to Richard Desmond who owned a porn company and produced OK! Magazine at the time. Regardless, it's an interesting turn of events and definitely goes down in Pokemon's unique history in the UK. These days, the Daily Express is known for its far-right political alignment, support for the Conservatives and controversies. Its most recent controversy was particularly around the European Union and migrants, where they were accused of xenophobic comments. Editor Gary Jones seeks to change the paper's reputation however, with a statement in April 2018 confirming this. I'm here for the Pokemon!Alright, alright! I have found 3 different covers in my online research. There's a CD-ROM, then two CDs. I have the CD-ROM, but not the two CDs, so I won't be able to snag the two variants of the recordings to upload here. The two CDs contained the two different Singles, one edited for promo as Discogs evidences. The CD-ROM contains various advertisements for Pokemon and 50.Grind's content. This includes screensavers, and TV advertisements. There are 4 screensavers. One is 50.Grind's logo, one is Ash and his team from the Johto League series of the anime, then there's two Pokemon Jets. What are Pokemon Jets doing here? What are they? Allow Mama Plague to explain! Pokemon has maintained a partnership with All Nippon Airways since 1996, although since 2016 they've been retired along with all other Boeing 747s. The liveries these used were all retired at the same time in 2006. I did some digging, and the plane matches up with the 1999 Boeing 767-300s that were unveiled in 1999. They were in fact a winning design from a March 1999 competition, which children between the ages of 6 and 12 participated in. The first winner was rolled out in Osaka, and I am assuming this wallpaper is exactly that: the winner, before the design was put on two further planes. The first's registration number is JA8964! I find it kind of funny to see these on a UK disk though...why advertise a Japanese website? It's a mystery! There are also advertisements for Pokemon Stadium 2, Pokemon Crystal and Pokemon 3: The Movie (also known as The Spell of the Unown). These all aired on TV. You can view the Pokemon Stadium 2 ad as I extracted and converted from the disk here. If you convert the game's price with inflation, it would have costed a staggering £81.65. Christ. Given this game was being imported from Japan, there are no differences from the final game, and this remains consistent with the rest. I believe I have seen the Pokemon Crystal ad before somewhere, but the time and place eludes me. It may have been a...Digimon VHS? I'm not sure. It shows Suicune and the Unown from the intro, before a comedic scene about the Unown text, hinting at their lore. £30 actually converts perfectly to £49.99 via inflation, by the way! Lastly, the Pokemon 3: The Movie ad, is the same as the ones on the VHSes of the Indigo League anime. It talks about the Unown being unstoppable and powerful, which frankly made me laugh like a maniac given how they turned out. It's a pretty awesome ad outside of that animation-wise. I remember it being on a "The Little Vampire" VHS at one point. I wanna look at this disk for myself!And you most certainly can! I have uploaded the disk's contents as well as converted media over to Mediafire here.
The videos and wallpapers were converted to mp4 and PNGs respectively for easier file use over the internet, as their file types are...archaic to say the least. The disk contents can be burned to just about any CD-R for use yourself. I would strongly recommend viewing the 50.Grind interview, as it is quite interesting! I did upload the mp4-converted video footage out to YouTube with intent to have it running on this article, but...you can guess what happened. My fault though, I should have known they had the copyright on deck for those ads. |
About meSo I really, really like researching Prototype Pokemon information. That's about it. I also do things on Smogon, I guess. Archives
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