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.
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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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