Happy JPR Friday? Which protagonist is your favorite?

1:20
Red ascended to godhood. Or he blacked out and returned to the nearest Pokemon center

In the Gen 3 manga, Zinnia tanks a hyperbeam to the chest, and is impaled by Rayquaza and somehow doesn't die.

Not really related to anything, but it was pretty nuts to see.

Lysandre says this in the post-game after you battle him: "Five years ago, a group of children stood against me in defiance." So Legends ZA does acknowledge Calem and Serena, but doesn't say what happened to them.

Are we sure Paxton/Harmony didn't go mad from Urbain/Taunie's cooking and end up in an insane asylum like many French Poketubers?

No matter the continuity May and Brendan always have something going on. The only exception being the Anime where he doesn't even exist outside of 1 second in a movie

It’s so strange the only protagonists that we ever got to see return in the games was Red. I’d really like to see former protagonists return. Dawn and Lucas being the protagonists of PLA always made sense to me.

There's no way Brendan and May stayed as friends. Have you seen their interactions? Literally the first thing they tell you is "You don't have a pokemon? Oh, I'll catch one for you! Oh wait, I'm busy right now. Well, maybe later, don't worry.", and after your first ever battle they're like "Your Pokemon already loves you, see? No wonder! You're amazing!" that's not something you say to a somebody, man

I think the confusion with the sinnoh and hisui protagonists, is that the rival in legends arceus is the character you didn't pick, and they aren't from the future. So when it's rey and akari, they aren't the protagonist. They're the rivals, who are the ancestors of the protagonists.

Actually Calem/Serena is kinda mentioning by Lysandre when we fight him and also the peinture of the museum when we can see Calem

It is kinda funny that Paxton/Harmony wanted to go on holiday and almost immediately became involved in the plot of Legends ZA. Like they just wanted to relax but now they have to battle all these people and save Lumiose City and run a hotel

12:15 this is truly the worst situation to be in, you can't leave Paris

This was the right balance of research and humor for this open ended topic. A JPR classic

The problem about it being Rei and Akari being dawn and Lucas is the introduction.   Arceus basically tells the player character you will enter a world with creatures called pokemon which are unfamiliar too you,  the introduction kind of hints that the player character is not from the Pokemon word sp obviously can’t be Lucas.    Though this only applies if Rei and Akari and there same as the player character, which also is not confirmed.

6:18 there's a slight problem with using Masters EX for this theory: Dawn is established as the Sinnoh hero and Lucas as Rowan's assistant, but for Hisui it's Rei who takes on the hero role and Akari as the assistant.
Then again, Lucas only has two sync pairs in Masters EX, so maybe Arceus took pity on him and gave him a few more in another persona.

Honestly if I were to choose a protagonist to be the “Red super boss” in another game it would be Hilbert/Hilda, I find the disappearance surrounding them pretty interesting. Makes me wonder if they are still out missing looking for N. I guess you would fight them in a Legends Unova game, if said legends game wasn’t set in the past

9:26
Doesn't Lysandre mention the five children from two years ago in the post game (haven't played Z-A myself (only watched a couple of gameplay clips here and there) so I'm not 100% sure)

9:24 what do you mean bro after beating lysandre in legends za Lyandre literally said that he should’ve listened to the children back then before he activated the ultimate weapon so there was at least a reference

The Pokemon Masters interpretation of Rei and Akari is interesting because it treats Akari as the one who was the ingame rival and thus the ancestor of her counterpart, meaning that Rei is then the isekai'd protagonist, but that would make you think Lucas was the protag of DP... but in Masters, he wasn't, because it's going with his NPC appearance from those games where he's the Professor's assistant. So assuming they are indeed somehow the same person at some point or another, this leaves two potential outcomes: either Lucas got isekai'd later in an alt timeline where Masters's events aren't happening, or this Rei is the Lucas from the DP timeline where he indeed was the protag (and Dawn was the assistant) meaning Rei is technically a different Lucas from the one already in the game (which is my preferred option as I think it makes Masters feel a bit more cohesive in representing the entire franchise; now if only the RS versions of the Hoenn crew could show up anytime soon...).
Either way, it's intertemporal shenanigans. (Also, in defense of Arceus choosing Ingo, the Battle Subway is a Battle Facility and those are basically the pinnacle of Pokemon battling, so Arceus could've simply been looking for "a" strong Trainer that could maybe do the job and didn't immediately think of any of our protags because why throw basically the nuclear option in immediately)

Also, in PMEX's defense (again), they kind of got stuck with Hilda (her battle craze is pretty much madeup for Masters itself) and Nate exactly because the "opposite gender protag" basically doesn't exist in Unova anywhere except the Battle Subway, so that's TWO designs they gotta find an explanation for; especially since they also wrote themselves into a corner by giving Rosa both the "was the main protag during the game events" role AND the Pokestar obsession which in turn left nothing for Nate to even get, ouch.

1:38 I think the reason for Red and Blue's Pokemon being leveled down is because even though their Pokemon are in their 80's or 90's, Elio or Selene's Pokemon have been through so many tough challenges (The Island Trials) that they can take on Pokemon that are high leveled but have never experienced the Island Trials. Remember, the Island Trials are so hard, that Team Skull wanted to tear down anything involving the Island Trials and create a new challenge in Alola that they can handle. This is supported by the fact that Nate and Rosa can only battle Red and Blue in the Pokemon World Tournament in Black 2 and White 2, which nerfs their levels down to 50 to make battles fair, but even at 50, Red's team is still tough.