#The Pokemon Company

[lastnightstoryart]

Team Rocket

[n64retro]

[cyndaquilism]

[csolarstorm]

The Six Sides of N Harmonia's Puzzle Box

N's Void Cube looked a lot different in development.  Not only was it a Puzzle Box instead of the Void Cube we know today, but it had six colorful, enigmatic patterns. And after more than ten years, I've finally been able to accurately recreate these patterns in 3D!

And I think I know what they're based on too! It's all about Tao. Black and White are known for their yin and yang motif, the primary inspiration for the Tao Trio. But as we know from the anime theme song, it's not always black and white. There's also the five elements.

Wuxing is the system of five elemental phases of being: Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water.

But first: all of this is based on internet research. I'm not an expert, and this isn't my culture, so definitely let me know if there's something I need to change for any reason.

In my last post on Wuxing, I explained that five Unova legendaries, the Therian Forces of Nature along with Kyurem, each have a gem on their body that reflects one of the elemental phases.

The exact five colors of these gems, with appropriate designs for their respective elements, happen to match the sides of N's Puzzle Box - along with a twist for the sixth. So let's go over each of them!

Green 木 "Wood" This is the front of the Puzzle Box, with the opening leading to the keyhole. N is very "Natural" kind of guy, so we can see why this element would be the face of the Puzzle Box, as well as the basis for the Void Cube design.

Fun fact - early civilizations rarely saw a distinction between green and blue. So although "Wood" is correlated with the Azure Dragon of the Four Auspicious Beasts, in this context "azure" can refer to shades of green and blue.

Red 火 "Fire" This one looks like a big flame wheel. See the big circle inside the square? It also reminds me of the Chinese zodiac, if each of the six rings on the outside represent two zodiac signs. Red is associated with the Chinese zodiac and the Lunar New Year after all. I'm not sure about the two center dots.

White 金 "Metal" Oh now this one's clearer to me. If the Red Fire pattern represents the Chinese zodiac and the Lunar New Year, this one represents moon phases! See the intersecting curved lines? It's like the inside of a dome. It looks like the moon changing shape as it crosses the the dome of the sky.

N's cube is likely a relic of ancient Unova, and many ancient artifacts are calendars or reference ancient calendars. As it turns out, the Green, Red, and White patterns all share this theme of eight dots arranged in circles - the eight moon phases. It's the lunar calendar.

Blue 水 "Water" It looks like a lot of bubbles! This one might symbolize the tides that come in and out with the phases of the moon. So the three rings might symbolize the Triple Moon, or the Waxing Moon, Waning Moon, and Full Moon.

Water is traditionally associated with the color Black in Wuxing, but some modern diagrams use Blue. Plus this is Pokemon, and in this franchise, water is blue.

Yellow 土 "Earth" Things are about to get intense. Earth is associated with the Yellow Dragon, the ascended form of the Yellow Emperor, who is the said to be the father of Tao. Very important.

So the Yellow Earth pattern looks familiar. Four circles around a center ring look like the Four Auspicious beasts around the Yellow Dragon, just the Yellow Earth pattern is surrounded by the other four elements around the top of the box.

The Yellow Dragon of course, is Kyurem with its yellow forehead gem, and the Four Auspicious Beasts are the Therian Forces of Nature, with the gems of the other four elements.

Then on the bottom of the box is this mystery Pink pattern. It's kind of a mirror of the Yellow Earth Pattern on top. Both have that big center circle, symbolizing Kyurem as the Yellow Dragon.

Well, something I didn't realize in my first post on Wuxing is that when Kyurem is shiny, its gem turns bright pink.

The gems on the Therian Forms, by the way, stay the same color when they're shiny. So what's going on here? Well, I think the Pink pattern represents a kind of reflection of the Earth element.

Earth is the only elemental phase composed of both yin and yang. (Source) While the other phases have their opposites, Earth is its own opposite. Except, in the early design of N's Puzzle Box, it seems that GameFreak split it into "Earth" and "Mirror Earth".

And what is Pink most associated with in Unova? Dream Mist and the Dream World. The Pink pattern even looks like the weave of a dreamcatcher. So it's not "Earth" and "Mirror Earth" - it's our world and the Dream World.

This would even explain why both Yellow and Pink patterns represent Kyurem and the Yellow Dragon with a center ring. Taking it back to my previous post on Wuxing, the Yellow Dragon resides in the center of the world, just like the center ring in Unova:

That's the Entralink: it's the center ring that is the constant between worlds: our world, the Dream World, even the worlds of other players. And on the Puzzle Box, the center ring is like an axis that goes straight through, from top to bottom, from world to world.

While the other sides of the Puzzle Box depict the lunar phases, the Yellow Earth pattern depicts the Earth itself, so it makes sense that it would be surrounded by the other sides.

The lunar calendar theme also ties into the Dream World, because many cultures associate the phases of the moon with our dreams. That's why the dream legendaries Cresselia and Darkrai are based on phases of the moon.

And that's it for my analysis of each side!

Wuxing is such a perfect theme for a puzzle cube, because it's all about rotating the sides of the cube around a central axis, just like celestial objects in their orbit. In fact "Wuxing" translates to "moving planets". There's a very astrological quality to it.

And each combination of colors is like the interaction of elements, transient phases of matter in a grand cycle, like planets in the cosmic order.

...

If you liked my animated model of N's Puzzle Cube, check out the full Blender animation in my post The Key to N Harmonia's Puzzle Box! The original was too long to fit into a GIF.

Can you tell I enjoyed researching Wuxing? This analysis took so long to get right. Is it too long, is it too short, what should I add, what should I remove - this draft is pretty much perfect. I hope you enjoyed my analysis as much I liked writing it.

Happy Year of the Snake! We might get a Pokemon Z-A trailer soon, hopefully to celebrate our favorite legendary snekky. The year of the Wood Snake is perfect for Zygarde's love of all things natural and green.

Analyzing Pokemon is fun.

Take care!

[figurecollection]

Eevee & Cleffa Figure by The Pokémon Company International, from Pokémon

[pacificvizsla]

for my migraine girlies

[jadeazora]

The Pokemon Company and Niantic are donating $1 million total dollars to organizations helping provide relief to areas in California affected by the wildfires.

[animationgirl89]

[they-have-the-same-va]

Aqua from Konosuba shares a Japanese voice actress with Nessa in Pokémon Masters and Pokémon: Twilight Wings.

Voiced by Sora Amamiya

[dorkynerd23]

Reblog If You Love And Adore The Pokemon Franchise (+ Anime) And Are A Fan!! 💛⚡✨

[lovelysticker]

Pokémon: Squirtle

[dailyfigures]

Pikachu & Eevee & Pichu & Aipom & Sobble & Chespin & Snorlax & Machamp & Yamper & Vulpix & Scraggy & Wooloo & Jigglypuff & Cubone ; Pokémon ☆ The Pokémon Company International

[satoshi-mochida]

Pokemon Legends: Z-A announced for Switch

From Gematsu

The Pokemon Company and developer Game Freak have announced Pokemon Legends: Z-A for Switch. It will launch in 2025 worldwide.

The teaser trailer description reads: “A new adventure awaits within Lumiose City, where an urban redevelopment plan is underway to shape the city into a place that belongs to both people and Pokemon. Please look forward to seeing it for yourself.”

Watch the announcement trailer below. Visit the official website here: English, Japanese.

Announce Trailer

English

Japanese

[enchantrum]

this is an official pokemon leak btw

[csolarstorm]

The Key to N Harmonia's Puzzle Box

You know what's cooler than N's Void Cube? The beta version of N's Void Cube. This concept art has been around since 2011, when Masuda shared it in the Japanase magazine Nintendo Dream. (Source)

Source: Bulbapedia "The Puzzle that N Carries"

As a fan of N, I've been hyped about this concept art for a long time. So I was thrilled when the Teraleak leaked a much clearer scan of this old concept art, giving me the reference I needed to finally bring this mysterious object of fandom lore to life.

The first thing the concept art shows us: it wasn't originally a Void Cube. The familiar Green pattern with the "void" in the center is only in the front, and the other five patterns are solid through the middle.

Fellow N fan @steogem noticed that when Sugimori decided to use the Green pattern for the whole puzzle, the "void" in the center naturally ended up on every side. That's probably what gave it that iconic "Void Cube" design.

In the beta design, this "void" leads to a keyhole, and a diagram indicates that a special key is needed to unlock it. If the canon Void Cube design works the same way, you can kind of imagine that the "void" itself is functionally the keyhole.

According to Bulbapedia, the caption underneath says "Something mysterious is concealed in its core... a Pokémon?" (Source) And what Pokemon is that? That's a theory for a different time!

Sources: (1) "Spining die" by Akio Kamei (2) "pod" by Hideaki Kawashima

A puzzle with a hidden compartment is a Puzzle Box. As it turns out, N's Puzzle Box shares a lot of similarities with modern Karakuri (Trick) Boxes. Puzzle Boxes in general have a long history in Japan and China.

It's also a Puzzle Cube, which is often a generic term for modern puzzles based on the Rubik's Cube. So it's basically a Puzzle Cube that doubles as a Puzzle Box. Kind of like the Oskar's Treasure Chest Puzzle Cube.

Except, there aren't many Puzzle Cubes that double as Puzzle Boxes that are locked with a key. And the front of N's Puzzle Box literally draws attention to the keyhole. So I knew, in order to truly bring this Puzzle Box to life, I needed to make the key too.

The only problem is…the key looks like this:

Concept art obtained from jadezora's Tumblr.

So, I decided to make my own interpretation. From the shapes I could see in the key, I decided to base it on N's planet necklace.  This fits with my analysis of the Puzzle Box, where I compare the patterns to the concept of Wuxing, which means "moving planets".

I thought that maybe when the key turns, it would look like this little moon was making part of its orbit around the big planet.

To clarify!  The design of the key is just one interpretation. It is not a recreation of the concept art.

That's another thing @steogem mentioned. It's hard to imagine how N would actually open the Puzzle Box, especially the canon version where every side is the same! So maybe he just needs the key? That would answer a lot of questions actually.

We assume that N is trying to solve the cube during the story, but at least one source contradicts that.  In Pokemon Evolutions, N already matched the sides of the Puzzle Box as a child before Ghetsis found him.  After all, N was a child in the wilderness with one toy.  Of course he solved it.

Source: Pokemon Evolutions Episode 4, "The Plan"

Except, as we know, the key didn't even have a full design. You might say that maybe the concept art for the key was on a different sheet, but all of N's accessories are here - why make a point of adding a keyhole to the Puzzle Box and omit the key?

Maybe they didn't think they needed to design one yet. According to Bulbapedia, the concept art says this about the box: "It's decorative, but it has a mathematical motif and might eventually become significant…" It doesn't say anything about being significant in Black and White. (Source)

In fact, this is kind of similar to the way Masuda talked about the Abyssal Ruins lore in the documents also uncovered in the Teraleak.  According to the translation, he says "I want to put out a sense of contiunity…it will be revealed over several years in a different version in the future."

Source: Bulbapedia

So just like the Abyssal Ruins, it seems likely to me that N's Puzzle Box wasn't actually an abandoned plot device like everyone says…it was specifically designed to be a hanging mystery. That might explain why Masuda showed us the beta version way back in 2011.

Which means, N might still open his Puzzle Box.  GameFreak just needs to make him that key.

...

Thanks to @steogem for making a bunch of good points!

There was so much to analyze about the symbolism in these six colorful, enigmatic patterns that it needed its own post! Check out The Six Sides of N Harmonia's Puzzle Box!

[pyrabluearts]

My favourite Pokemon soaring through the skies