One lunatic's love-hate relationship with the Pokémon franchise, and his addled musings on its rights, wrongs, ins and outs. Come one, come all, and indulge my delusions of grandeur as I inflict my opinions on anyone within shouting distance.
But where would be the fun in that!?
Seriously, though, I actually love the anime. I think the anime is great. It’s just the movies that I think are drivel (and not all of them, either; the second one – the one with Lugia – I thought was really good, although that might be the nostalgia filter talking).
The March of the Exeggutor Squad – The Problem with Paras – Attack of the Prehistoric Pokémon
Ash’s location: Belgium.
I have way too much to talk about in this entry so I’ll just get going.
Ash, Pikachu, Misty and Brock find a carnival! Hooray! Ash and Brock promptly get changed into… I don’t even know. Frills. Misty and Pikachu, in a fit of embarrassment, ditch them and run into a down-on-his-luck magician named Melvin and his Pokémon partner, an Exeggcute. Misty foolishly agrees to fill in as his beautiful assistant for a little while… and is mortified when Ash and Brock turn up to watch the show. Melvin has zero stage presence, lacklustre juggling skills, and a fire spell that singes the audience and sets off the tent’s sprinkler system, causing everyone to leave in disgust. Ash tells Melvin not to give up, and devises his own magic act by stuffing his Pokémon into a chest and pretending to conjure fire and water. Misty watches in mock amazement until Charmander accidentally sets the others on fire and the whole thing dissolves into chaos. Ash notes that Exeggcute doesn’t do much… so the Pokémon uses Hypnosis to turn Ash into Melvin’s obedient mind-slave. They run off into the nearby Leaf Forest, without Brock and Misty, where Ash helps Melvin to capture a herd of Exeggutor, so he can brainwash people into… enjoying his magic show. Dream big, Mel. Dream big. Team Rocket appear and capture the ineffectual magician, and his Exeggcute evolves to save him, but unfortunately his newfound powers drive the other Exeggutor insane and start a stampede. By the time Misty and Brock find Ash and get him back to the carnival, the ringmaster has planted a bomb to destroy the rampaging Exeggutor before they cause too much harm. Ash quickly realises that only Charmander’s fire can snap them out of their trance, but Charmander isn’t strong enough to deal with all of them at once. Misty convinces Melvin that his fire spell WILL work if he really tries, and he does, and it does. The stampede ends, the Exeggutor go home, un-exploded, and Charmander is rewarded for his perseverance by evolving into Charmeleon.
I really have only a couple of minor points to bring up for this episode. The first is that Hypnosis, which in the games just puts Pokémon to sleep, is used here (as in some other episodes) as a mind-control power. The fact that a power of this nature exists is clearly awesome, if a little worrying. The second is that Melvin’s Exeggcute apparently manages to evolve without the use of a Leaf Stone, as did, presumably, all the other Exeggutor in the herd. No-one questions this at the time; Ash is too stoned to care, Melvin probably doesn’t know how Exeggcute are supposed to evolve anyway, and Brock and Misty aren’t there. I can think of three explanations for this. 1) The writers screwed up… and, let’s be honest, this one has Occam’s Razor on its side here. 2) Stones aren’t the only way to make Pokémon that use them evolve; they’re just the easiest way, which, of course, massively affects the arguments in play in Electric Shock Showdown and the Battling Eevee Brothers. 3) The area is named the “Leaf Forest” because there are actually Leaf Stones buried there, or crushed and mixed through the soil, or something similar, and these unusual conditions allow Grass Pokémon to evolve there when they wouldn’t otherwise be able to (years later, it was established in an episode of the Johto series that Leaf Stones and Sun Stones can in fact remain potent if crushed and distributed on the wind, though obviously the writers of this episode didn’t know that yet). You may decide for yourself which seems most likely.
A few days later, near a hick town called Mossgreen Village, Meowth succumbs to a terrible fever. Jessie and James shrug; “he’s got eight lives left.” They are approached by a woman called Cassandra, who admonishes them for not taking better care of him and gives them some powerful medicine to cure the fever. Meowth, who has a bit of a human fetish, immediately falls in love with her. Later, looking for a Pokémon Centre and finding none, Ash himself meets Cassandra and learns she has a problem. Cassandra and her grandmother run a small shop selling herbal medicines, and she wants her Paras to evolve into a Parasect so she can use his spores in creating new miracle potions, but he’s too cowardly to fight, and can’t gain any experience points. Ash tries to challenge Cassandra and throw the match, but even the tiniest spark from Pikachu and the gentlest spray of water from Squirtle send Paras reeling… and then Ash tries Charmeleon. Charmeleon has no interest in toning things down and chases Paras off with a Flamethrower. In the woods, Paras falls in with Meowth. Meowth thinks that Cassandra will love him if he helps Paras, and drags Jessie and James into the scheme with promises of the vast wealth Cassandra’s miracle potion will bring. He quietly sabotages Arbok and Weezing when they battle Paras, and then pretends to faint from a gentle poke. Drunk on Exp., Paras goes to challenge Pikachu to a rematch, which Pikachu throws once again, this time successfully. Charmeleon remains unruly, but Team Rocket show up to cheer for Paras, who manages to stab Charmeleon into submission and evolves into Parasect at last, before finishing Charmeleon off with Spore. Unfortunately for Meowth, Cassandra refuses to take him on as the mascot of her company – she could never break up his team! Besides, her grandmother has just dragged in a random wild Persian that will serve just as well.
The Problem with Paras is a weird episode. It’s one of a scant handful of episodes that explicitly mention “experience points,” and seems to go out of its way to imply that they work exactly the same way as they do in the games, which is so counterintuitive it becomes absurd. How on earth is Paras ‘gaining experience’ or becoming stronger in any concrete sense by repeatedly having his ass saved by Meowth in his battles with Arbok and Weezing? The whole thing seems like a reference to the way we normally train weak Pokémon in the games – if you switch a Pokémon out of a battle, it will still gain an equal share of experience points, however little time it spent actually fighting (if any), but I doubt anyone thinks of this as anything more than an abstraction designed to simplify gameplay. I am convinced that this episode is actually a stealth parody of the whole concept of experience points. The repeated direct references to “experience points” are just so blatant, so far out of step with the series, and draw so much attention to the absurdity of what they’re doing that I really don’t see how they can be meant seriously. What’s actually going on here, then? The episode becomes far less logic-defying when viewed through the lens of evolution being a largely psychological phenomenon, which has always been hinted to be the case. Paras isn’t kept from evolution by needing more of some kind of abstract ‘points’ which are accrued when a Pokémon is formally declared the winner of a battle; he’s kept from evolution by a major psychological block, born of his own conviction that he is a poor fighter. When Paras appears to defeat Arbok, Weezing, Meowth and Pikachu, these false victories – although they do nothing to increase his actual strength – allow him to imagine himself as a winner (this remains true even if Paras is actually aware, subconsciously, that his victories are being staged; it’s still possible for him to become immersed in the fantasy). The lucky shot he gets in against Charmeleon finally pushes him over the threshold, causing him to realise that there’s no physical reason for him not to have evolved a long time ago.
So, now that we’ve seen Charmander become Charmeleon, and his reaction to his newfound powers, let’s see how he gets the rest of the way. It all starts when Ash runs into Gary, who has joined in a Pokémon Fossil Rush at Grandpa Canyon. Because Ash and Gary compete over everything, Ash joins the dig as well. Team Rocket are lurking nearby as well, and planning to dynamite the whole place so they can scoop up the fossils at their leisure. Ash finds them and, one botched explosion later, he, Pikachu, Jessie, James and Meowth are trapped in an underground cavern, surrounded by supposedly extinct Pokémon. Pikachu’s electrical powers prove ineffective against the fossil Pokémon, so Ash brings out Charmeleon… who settles down for a nap. Luckily, the fossil Pokémon hear something that scares them off. Unluckily, that something is an Aerodactyl, who clocks Charmeleon on the head, grabs Ash, and breaks out through the roof of the cave, with Pikachu and Charmeleon clinging to his tail. Once they’re on the surface, Charmeleon challenges Aerodactyl, who just taunts him and flies away with Ash. Charmeleon decides he will take no more of this; he wants his wings NOW. He evolves into Charizard and pursues Aerodactyl through the sky, sniping him with Flamethrowers. Ash is overjoyed until he realises that Charizard will happily write him off as collateral damage. Misty realises the same thing, finds Jigglypuff, and convinces her to sing Aerodactyl and Charizard down. Aerodactyl drops Ash and falls back into the caverns, while Charizard grabs Ash as he falls and sets him down on the ground before falling asleep himself. When everyone wakes up, Officer Jenny #869 declares that IT WAS ALL A DREAM AND WE ARE SHUTTING DOWN THE SITE NOW BECAUSE OF REASONS. Ash remembers, though… and suddenly has a mysterious red- and blue-spotted egg in his possession…
First things first: this episode is basically the poster child for evolution being triggered by psychological factors. There is no way Charmeleon has gotten from level 16 to level 36 in three episodes; he evolves not by gaining experience but through a supreme act of will, brought on by his overwhelming desire to reduce Aerodactyl to cinders. What I really want to talk about, though, is Charmeleon’s character development. Ash is astonished by Charmeleon’s sudden disobedience in the Problem with Paras, which Cassandra’s grandmother puts down to Ash’s own insufficient skill and Charmeleon’s lack of respect for him. It’s true that, by game logic, Charmeleon is an ‘outsider’ and can’t be expected to obey Ash past a certain level, but considering Ash’s strong relationship with his Pokémon, and the fact that Charmander was always so nice, it’s still a striking turnaround. There is a hint at the end of March of the Exeggutor Squad that Charmeleon is going to be quite a handful, but I think the problem really starts in the next episode. Charmeleon has just evolved, and was already Ash’s strongest Pokémon aside from Pikachu. He was probably expecting to face ever stronger opponents in his new form… but instead, for his very first battle after evolving, Ash sends him against a cowardly weakling Paras, and tells him to go easy on it. I think he found this unbelievably insulting, and was still in a bad mood when Ash called on him in Grandpa Canyon. When he was able to evolve into Charizard all on his own, he came to the conclusion that he simply didn’t need Ash anymore, and decided to act accordingly until Ash was prepared to treat him with more respect. Notably, though, he does have the presence of mind to catch Ash when Aerodactyl drops him, and bring him safely to the ground, even as he’s drifting off to sleep himself. He still regards Ash as his human, and clearly still feels he has some responsibility to him. I suggested in a recent entry that Ash’s relationship with his Pokémon has an almost parent/child cast to it; this works with relatively few problems when his Pokémon are small and cuddly, but grows problematic when they take on more mature, powerful forms. It takes sixty episodes before he and Charizard finally start working as a team again.
It’s been a while since I watched it, so I’ll be brief.
I hate Arceus and the Jewel of Life because of its poorly-written dialogue, nonsensical plot, insulting dismissal of previous films in the series, irritating subplots, bland characters, and all-around abject stupidity.
Does that answer your question?
This question has fallen afoul of Tumblr’s arbitrary 400-odd character limit, and was supposed to end:
“…going extinct, and noone gave a crap about it cuz pokemons obviously the "superior species”, what if a field inhabited by wild boufalants was once a home for regular buffalos or something like that. idk, i get curious about these things cuz the creators are so vague in these areas"
Anyhow, I shall answer thus:
Well, yeah, the out-of-universe reason is probably more or less as you suggest. Bear in mind that, when Red and Green were released, no-one at Game Freak had any expectation that there would ever be more than 200-250 Pokémon if that, and they certainly didn’t anticipate that Pokémon would become the global phenomenon it has. I think that, in the early stages of the franchise’s development, they probably did assume that there were a bunch of regular animals filling all the ecological niches that Pokémon didn’t… fish, birds, insects, in the second episode Ash even mentions cows. It’s only in the last generation or two, I suspect, that they’ve consciously begun to think they can build an entire ecosystem out of Pokémon alone.
This is all very well for the designers, but we the fans now need an in-universe explanation for the disappearance of those animals.
Your interpretation is… rather dark, and also confronts us with the question of why the real-world animals haven’t already gone extinct long ago. Pokémon are basically animals that can defy physics in one or more ways, so there really shouldn’t be any contest there, regardless of human activity. I think it sort of implies, actually, that Pokémon are relatively recent additions to the ecosystem and are replacing the other animals one by one as their foothold grows, which might be a fun basis for a total reinterpretation of the setting, but can’t really explain the version of the world we have.
I guess if I had to explain it, I’d tell you that the real-world animals are there, all right, we just don’t care about them because they only fill the less eye-catching ecological niches (in short, there are no buffalo or giraffes, but there might be mice and snails). Whenever a particular area lacks the Pokémon necessary for filling a particular niche, there’s a real-world animal there to take its place, but no-one wants to hear about those. I have no explanation for the cows, because it stands to reason that farmers would import and export Miltank all over the world while regular cows would be herded only by a few die-hard traditionalists in the regions they originally came from.
I think for me the big question is whether Pokémon are a monophyletic group or not – that is, whether they share a single common ancestor with no descendants outside the group. The whole issue would actually become a lot simpler if we assume Pokémon are paraphyletic, like fish (that is, dog Pokémon are more closely related to dogs than they are to other Pokémon, and so on) but that seems to be at odds with the way scientists in the Pokémon world talk about them. So, yeah, I don’t know.
You know, I keep meaning to do that. I mean, not designing a champion, specifically, but do a series of entries on how I would run the games if I were in charge. I just keep coming up with *other* things I’d rather do first. So, er… it’s in the pipes. So to speak.
Showdown at Dark City – The Song of Jigglypuff – A Chansey Operation
Ash’s Location: Somalia
I’m slowly learning that whenever I try to stuff three episodes into a single entry, the length of my synopses quickly becomes unmanageable. This isn’t going to stop me from doing it, but I am going to make an honest effort to cut down on that stuff, so I have time to… y’know… actually say stuff about the episodes. This is another one of those entries where I’ve just thrown three episodes together because I can just about cram them all into my vaguely defined “Pokémon and Society” heading. Without further ado…
In the first of today’s episodes, Ash and his friends have the misfortune to stumble into Dark City, where the locals hate and fear Pokémon Trainers because of a violent gang war between the city’s two unofficial Pokémon Gyms, the Yas Gym and the Kaz Gym. Each Gym has ambitions to become the sole official Gym of Dark City, and is desperate to destroy the other before the arrival of a Pokémon League inspector a few days hence. They’ve given up on formal battles, and mostly just brawl in the street, trainers and Pokémon alike. The kids run into some of the Kaz Gym’s trainers – who turn out to be Jessie and James – forcing a restaurant to supply their Gym with food, and Brock roasts them with Vulpix, which prompts one of the Yas trainers to recruit them. Misty insists that they use false names to keep their reputations from being damaged, so they enter the Yas Gym as Tom Ato, Ann Chovy, and Caesar Salad (I kid you not) to speak to the Yas leader. He tries to test Ash with his Scyther, but Pikachu uses a ketchup bottle he picked up in the restaurant to squirt Scyther in the eyes, driving him berserk and forcing the leader to recall him. Ash makes a big dramatic speech about how both sides are dreadful, ruins the effect by slipping on some ketchup, and gets chased out of the Gym. Ash learns from the Pokédex that both Scyther and the Kaz Gym’s strongest Pokémon, Electabuzz, are enraged by the colour red, so when the Yas and Kaz trainers meet up for their final showdown he and the downtrodden citizens drop barrels of ketchup all over both sides to sabotage the battle. The Gym Leaders unite to destroy Ash, but Pikachu smites them with Thunder, and the Pokémon League inspector is revealed to have been in Dark City the whole time, hidden behind a trench coat and a surgical mask – none other than Nurse Joy #1, the Supreme Joy. She declares both Gyms utterly reprehensible and orders the leaders to submit to Ash for instruction, forcing Ash to explain his theory of Pokémon training. “Sure, you try to win, but you don’t try to beat each other! Um…”
Dark City is a dreadful portrait of just how badly wrong this setting can go. The worst part is that it seems like an entirely realistic scenario. If it comes to a fight, very few people will have any hope of beating an experienced Pokémon trainer without Pokémon of their own. The only thing stopping the whole world from dissolving into chaos is the fact that, as a rule, the most powerful trainers tend to be decent people, since most Pokémon respond better to kindness than abuse. Sure, the ketchup strategy was clever and caused the gangs no small amount of pain, but if Ash and Pikachu hadn’t been there, the civilians would have been toast once the Gym Leaders decided to join forces. In fact, let’s put some thought into how this situation could have deteriorated without Ash’s presence. Nurse Joy seems to have no weapon in this conflict besides her authority. The anime has never portrayed Chansey, her only Pokémon, as a powerful fighter, and it should have been obvious to her within minutes of arriving in Dark City that both Gyms were nauseating stains on the honour of all trainers. Had she been able to end the fighting, she would already have done so. If either Gym had lost interest in winning official status, Joy would have been powerless. One hopes that she could have called in reinforcements from the Pokémon League, but given their conspicuous failure to deal with a powerful rogue Gym Leader in the past, it is difficult to be optimistic. The civilians might eventually have become organised; they might even have developed the same plan as Ash did to set the Yas and Kaz forces fighting amongst themselves, but they would have been crushed in short order once the two Gyms decided to join up. Eventually, one Gym would win the street war, unless they chose to unite permanently. Either way, Dark City would be ruled absolutely by violent robbers. They might even start handing out badges, claiming to be an official Gym, and reaping many of the benefits of being one without paying lip service to the Pokémon League. This is all prevented solely by the fact that, with Electabuzz and Scyther out of the picture, the highest-level Pokémon left in the town happens to belong to Ash. Hooray…?
Later, they go to Las Vegas!
Well, the show calls it Neon Town, but… it’s a big city in the middle of the desert filled with bright flashing lights and casinos. Trust me, it’s Vegas. Everyone in Vegas is a misanthropic sociopath because they’re all massively sleep-deprived, so the kids stay there for as little time as possible before returning to the woods, where they find a wild Jigglypuff. Misty wants to catch her, of course, so she summons Staryu and has it whack Jigglypuff, who bursts into tears (they all find this really bizarre for some reason). They realise that this Jigglypuff can’t sing. Misty says she’s still cute – which cheers her up a bit – but who wants a Jigglypuff who can’t sing? – which starts her crying again. Then this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fpoq_fcMixc happens (and ends exactly the way every other fight with Team Rocket ends). Misty and Pikachu try to teach Jigglypuff to sing and fail (and Jigglypuff is a real bitch to Pikachu about his singing, too), but Brock finds a rare fruit that can be used to soothe an inflamed throat, which works. Jigglypuff can sing at last! Unfortunately, no-one can sit through her song without falling asleep… not even Psyduck. Jigglypuff is enraged and scribbles on everyone’s faces with a marker as they sleep. The kids decide to take Jigglypuff back to Vegas with them, since those jerks never seem to sleep. Team Rocket disguise themselves as a rock band and offer to let Jigglypuff use their outdoor stage, planning to stay awake using earplugs and rob everyone blind, but the earplugs fail and they fall asleep, along with every other person in Vegas. When the kids wake up, Jigglypuff is nowhere to be seen, but the people of Las Vegas have suddenly become halfway decent after their first proper night’s sleep in decades. That, in a roundabout way, constitutes the kids’ good deed for the day, so they return to… whatever it is they were doing, now with Jigglypuff following them, ready to resurface whenever it’s most inconvenient for everyone.
In The Song of Jigglypuff, Ash and his friends use a Pokémon to cure insomnia. I just want to point out that the last time someone tried that, a whole bunch of kids went insane and ran away from home to live as Pokémon in the city park. Just so we’re clear on that. Anyway. Jigglypuff is a weird little Pokémon in the anime. Although her Doubleslap is useful against other small, physically weak Pokémon, she can’t really fight. Her trump card is her song, which Team Rocket try to capture on tape in this episode. I can’t think of anything that’s ever managed to stay awake through the whole thing and thus avoid provoking Jigglypuff’s fury. Strangely, even though she continues to follow Ash around for years, after this episode both Misty and Team Rocket seem to lose all interest in catching her, possibly because they’re all terrified of her. How anyone ever manages to train a Jigglypuff is beyond me; if their songs will put everyone within a good twenty metres to sleep, using one would surely put an end to most battles by rendering both trainers unconscious, as well as any spectators. They’re extremely rare Pokémon, it’s true, and tend to live far away from humans, but presumably trainers must bring them into towns from time to time. In order to maintain some semblance of sanity, you almost have to assume that the Jigglypuff Ash meets in this episode has an especially enchanting voice, and that a typical Jigglypuff isn’t quite so soporific. The kids clearly don’t anticipate the sheer power of her song; they go back to Vegas fully expecting that many of the citizens will be able to shake it off, and haven’t given any thought to what might happen if anyone happened to be driving a car during Jigglypuff’s performance.
A Chansey Operation, my last episode for today, begins with Pikachu swallowing a whole apple and nearly choking to death. Ash panics because there’s no Pokémon Centre nearby, so they rush to a hospital instead. There is exactly one doctor in this hospital, and he refuses to do anything because he’s off duty, until Misty uses her cute girl powers on him. Dr. Proctor (for this is his name) sticks his hand down Pikachu’s throat and retrieves the apple. Once Pikachu is saved, the emergency phone line rings. Dr. Proctor, however, is still stubbornly off duty, so Ash answers it. Jessie and James have caused a horrible accident on a highway by means of their massive incompetence, badly injuring a truckload of Pokémon. The Pokémon Centre in the next town is overwhelmed, so Nurse Joy #29 is pressing Dr. Proctor into service as backup. Since he is still the only doctor in the entire hospital, he gives lab coats to Ash, Misty and Brock and declares them to be doctors. Medicine is easy, right? Especially as Dr. Proctor’s solution to every injury imaginable is copious amounts of superglue. When Arbok and Weezing come in for treatment, Ash gets a crash course on the Hippocratic Oath (from this guy? Mr. “screw that, I’m off duty”? I get the distinct impression he was “off duty” when his class swore the damn oath) and Jessie and James join the team. At some point Dr. Proctor accidentally anaesthetises himself trying to get close to an angry Dodrio, and goes to sleep for several hours, leaving Ash to figure out how to calm the thing down himself (Ash’s panacea turns out to be “Pikachu, THUNDERBOLT!”). Team Rocket, inevitably, betray the kids eventually and attack them with evil hospital equipment, but Arbok and Weezing are unwilling to fight the Chansey who helped to heal them. Dr. Proctor wakes up and reveals that his lab coat contains a veritable arsenal of scalpels and syringes, which scares off Jessie and James quickly enough. All the injured Pokémon have been patched up now, so Dr. Proctor says goodbye to the kids – but not without suggesting that they stay and be doctors at the hospital. Medical school? Pfft. Dr. Proctor got his MD watching reruns of Doogie Howser.
By some appalling mischance, this episode was my very first direct exposure to Pokémon as a child.
You can imagine my reaction.
I… I would comment on this episode but I honestly think it speaks for itself. It’s one of those delightfully mad episodes you get from time to time which reminds you that, really, everyone in this universe is just a little bit nutty. I don’t think A Chansey Operation really tells us anything meaningful about how the Pokémon world works, but if nothing else, it’s a lot of fun to watch.
(For reference, this comment is in response to one of my older entries: http://pokemaniacal.tumblr.com/post/17760667917/timburr-gurdurr-and-conkeldurr)
That… would make sense. I suppose if that is what they were aiming for then Conkeldurr is… shall we say… less awful than I made him out to be.
I still think the whole clown thing makes him look unbelievably stupid, and I still think they haven’t really done anything with it – that is, if you take away the clown noses and the funny hair, it would do nothing but improve the design; he has no traits or abilities that would stop making sense without them (I mentioned Mr. Mime in the entry, and you might make a comparison with him; his powers are way more specific than “this Pokémon is physically strong” – do you see what I mean?).
So, yeah. I still hate Conkeldurr, but I hate him less now. Good job. 🙂
The Battling Eevee Brothers – Bulbasaur’s Mysterious Garden
Ash’s location: central Anatolia.
Evolution is one of my favourite themes. It’s apparently a very simple concept, but the way it’s treated in the anime has all kinds of fascinating implications that you can draw into an extremely complicated and morally nuanced vision of how this world works. As usual, much of what I have to say here is totally made up, but regular readers will know by now that I’ve never let that stop me before…
In the Battling Eevee Brothers, Ash, Misty and Brock find an Eevee tied to a tree in the woods with a bowl of food next to it. Brock suggests that the Eevee has been abandoned, at which Ash and Misty are horrified. They notice a gold tag on Eevee’s collar with an address engraved, in a place called Stone Town (at the foot of Evolution Mountain, claims Brock – three guesses what this episode’s going to be about…). Misty is tempted to keep Eevee, but they agree they should try to find Eevee’s owner first. Following Eevee’s tag leads them to an opulent manse with a spacious garden, where three triplets and their Pokémon – Rainer and his Vaporeon, Pyro and his Flareon, and Sparkyand his Jolteon – are hosting an evolution party, with free evolutionary stones for all comers. Eevee, who belongs to their younger brother Mikey, is the guest of honour; today is supposed to be the day he chooses his Eevee’s evolved form. Mikey himself is less than thrilled, and confides to Misty that he doesn’t care about battles, doesn’t actually want Eevee to evolve at all, and hid him in the woods to keep him out of sight, just until the party was over. Ash and Brock, meanwhile, argue with Rainer, Sparky and Pyro, who have offered them a Thunder Stone and a Fire Stone to evolve Pikachu and Vulpix. Team Rocket crash the party, have Weezing lay down some smog cover, and steal a dozen Pokémon, including Eevee and Misty’s Horsea, and as many evolution stones as they can carry before hightailing it out of there. Horsea, however, is clever enough to leave a trail of ink for the heroes to follow. While Jessie, James and Meowth are arguing over how to evolve Eevee (they eventually decide to use all three stones at once, just to see what happens) the good guys show up, and Vaporeon, Jolteon and Flareon give Arbok and Weezing a thrashing. Remarkably, though, Jessie and James manage to turn things around… until Mikey’s Eevee enters the fray and slams Arbok and Weezing with a powerful Take Down. As Misty had suggested, Mikey finally admits to his brothers that he’d rather just keep Eevee – and, after seeing what their brother’s Pokémon is capable of, they’re pretty cool with that.
Some weeks later, Ash’s Bulbasaur collapses, quivering, after winning a difficult battle against a hiker’s Rhyhorn, and his bulb starts glowing softly. Ash rushes him to a Pokémon Centre, where Nurse Joy #292 concludes that there’s nothing wrong with Bulbasaur at all: he’s preparing to evolve. It’ll soon be time for him to journey to a place called the Mysterious Garden, a semi-mythical grove where Bulbasaur gather every year to evolve into Ivysaur. Ash is overjoyed. That night, Bulbasaur slips out of the Pokémon Centre to brood. Pikachu follows him, and they talk for a while (Pikachu seems to be comforting him, and offering support). Without warning, a gang of wild Bulbasaur seize Ash’s Bulbasaur with their Vine Whips and carry him off. Pikachu runs to fetch Ash and the others, and together they track the Bulbasaur through the forest, even as the plants themselves try to keep them from following. They narrowly manage to slip through a solid wall of vines as it knits itself together, and find themselves in the Mysterious Garden. They see hundreds of Bulbasaur in the valley below them, singing, as the plants around them grow and blossom in moments. An ancient Venusaur emerges from within an enormous hollow tree in the centre of the valley and roars. The Bulbasaur roar in response, and all begin to evolve… except for Ash’s Bulbasaur, who seems to be struggling not to. Venusaur is furious, and Ash runs to Bulbasaur’s side to block a Vine Whip. Ash apologises to Bulbasaur for getting so excited about his evolution without considering his feelings, and tries to convince Venusaur that he shouldn’t be forced to evolve. Venusaur responds by demonstrating his miraculous abilities, causing a bare cherry tree to burst into bloom, and Misty wonders “don’t you want to have that kind of power, Bulbasaur?” As they argue, Team Rocket once again crash the party, floating over the wall of vines in their balloon and sucking up as many Ivysaur as they can with one of their ridiculous vacuum devices. The situation looks dire… until the sun rises. With a tremendous battle cry, Bulbasaur blasts Team Rocket with his first Solarbeam. The balloon is destroyed, the Ivysaur fall back to earth, and Venusaur finds it in his heart to forgive Bulbasaur for disrupting the ritual. Bulbasaur leaves with the kids as the wall of vines shrinks away, and they realise why no-one has ever been able to find the Mysterious Garden: once the ceremony ends, it simply ceases to exist.
Let’s look at some quotes from Eevee Brothers. The conversation Ash and Brock have with Rainer, Sparky and Pyro makes it plain as day that their views on evolution, particularly on induced evolution, are wildly different to the brothers’. Ash is asked “one of these days you’ll turn that Pikachu into a Raichu, won’t you?” in a very matter-of-fact tone, to which Pikachu reacts with obvious worry. The brothers also ask Brock “why don’t you just make [Vulpix] evolve?” as though it would be the easiest thing in the world – and, well, they’re offering him a free Fire Stone, so why not? After all, “evolution is what Pokémon are all about!” If you’ve been playing the games, this makes a lot of sense. If there’s a move you want your Pokémon to learn, you might hold off on evolution until it’s learnt it, because most Pokémon stop learning new attacks after using stones. In the long term, though, there’s no downside. If you mean to use a Pokémon for fighting, you will eventually evolve it, no ifs, no buts. That’s not how Ash and Brock see it. Ash tells the brothers, somewhat defensively, “we just don’t evolve our Pokémon that way,” while Brock says firmly “you like your way of evolving and we like ours.” You can read this either as making sense or as being utter bullshit. Personally I would rather read it as making sense but, y’know, to each his own. It makes sense when you think about what actually happens when Pokémon evolve; their physical bodies grow and change their proportions, sometimes drastically, and their mental state often undergoes a profound shift as well. Normally in the anime this seems to have some kind of psychological trigger; Pokémon evolve when they’re ready for it, and sometimes seem to be able to forestall evolution on their own – but when a trainer uses a stone, the Pokémon simply evolves on the spot, without any choice in the matter. It’s not really unreasonable for Ash and Brock to think that using these things is a little bit morally questionable, especially if it’s done for the sole aim of making the Pokémon in question better at battling.
Where the argument breaks down – and where Ash and Brock’s position starts to make less sense – is that, for Pokémon like Pikachu and Vulpix, there is no other way to reach their final forms. If Ash and Pikachu aren’t willing to use a Thunder Stone, Pikachu’s never going to become a Raichu; no two ways about it. Brock’s statement suggests that he believes there is some other way for Pikachu and Vulpix to evolve, but if so, no-one ever hints at what that might be. Moreover, Ash’s statement suggests that refusing to use the Thunder Stone Sparky offers him is not simply a matter of waiting for the right time; he has absolutely no intention of evolving Pikachu at all, now, later, or ever. Surely Pokémon are supposed to reach their final forms eventually? Why else would they even have them? On the other hand, clearly evolution isn’t actually necessary for Pikachu to become an ‘adult’ since, as we just saw in Pikachu’s Goodbye, a community of wild Pikachu can get along just fine without a single Raichu. Obviously they’re capable of surviving without the protection of their more powerful cousins, and presumably they also reach reproductive maturity without any hiccups (indeed, if we can trust the games, there are very few Pokémon that do need to evolve before they can reproduce – only the ‘babies,’ such as Elekid and Bonsly). My newest pet theory on this is that Pikachu’s ability to evolve into Raichu is actually vestigial. At some point in the history of their development, for one reason or another, they stopped needing to evolve (maybe Pikachu fill an ecological niche that Raichu are less suited to, or maybe some kind of Ground-type predator made speed and small size more valuable than greater electrical power). They still have all the genes they need to become Raichu, but they’ve lost the genes that tell them when and why to evolve, so unless they’re triggered by some outside influence, they just don’t. Basically, what I’m suggesting is that Pokémon like Raichu, Ninetales and Poliwrath are throwbacks – forms that have become extinct in the wild, because they’re no longer suited to a changing ecosystem, but can be recreated via human intervention. That definitely leaves Ash and Brock plenty of room to feel a little bit uncomfortable about evolutionary stones, especially if the Pokémon have no choice in whether to use them.
The degree of choice Pokémon have in when they evolve is another tricky question that the anime implies things about, but rarely explains outright. Most of the evolutions we’ve seen in the series so far have happened at moments of high emotion; it’s often implied that they’re triggered by strong desire or need – most notably, Ekans and Koffing evolving in Dig Those Diglett, in response to their trainers’ uncharacteristic outbursts of affection. Bulbasaur, it seems, are very different. They have little freedom to decide; evolution, for them, is an extremely ritualistic thing that all of them go through together – to the point that, when Ash’s Bulbasaur decides he doesn’t want to evolve, he provokes the outrage of the entire community. That isn’t merely because his refusal somehow disrupted the ceremony either. The scene between Bulbasaur and Pikachu is a little tricky to interpret because, y’know, they don’t speak, but I’m pretty sure that Bulbasaur is explaining to Pikachu that he doesn’t think he really wants to evolve yet, but doesn’t want to disappoint Ash either, and Pikachu is telling him that it’s okay and Ash will be cool with it. The other Bulbasaur who overhear the conversation are apparently so discomforted by the whole idea that they immediately kidnap him and drag him to the Mysterious Garden. Venusaur isn’t just upset about the ritual; he and all the Ivysaur are actually somehow offended that Bulbasaur doesn’t want to evolve. For them, it’s the most natural thing in the world, the way they attain the powers that are their birthright, and trying to deny it is just asking for trouble. Of course, if that’s how they do things, where the hell does Ash get off trying to stop them? Or, conversely, if we do let the Bulbasaur get on with their strictly enforced mass evolution ceremonies in peace, what kind of ground are we standing on if we say that Mikey’s Eevee shouldn’t be forced to evolve?
I could go on, you understand. It’s just that this entry is clearly getting far too long.
Pikachu’s Goodbye – Snow Way Out
Ash’s location: Switzerland.
Oh, no. Not this episode. Please, not this episode. I still tear up just from remembering this one. You’re meant to be together, Ash, don’t you see that!?
*Ahem*
Ladies and gentlemen, Pikachu’s Goodbye.
Ash and his friends, travelling through deep woodland, encounter a large group of Pikachu, whom Ash’s Pikachu tries to befriend. Except for one very young Pikachu, they all flee, but when the little one comes to talk to him, the rest begin to gather around as well… until Ash decides to stick his ugly mug in and scares them all off again. Pikachu is depressed for a while, but when the group sets up camp later on, he gets his chance to be a hero. The little Pikachu he met before falls into a fast-flowing river, and he jumps in to save her… and… fails miserably, getting swept along with her in the current. Luckily, the rest of the Pikachu colony manage to snag them by grabbing onto each other’s tails and forming a chain, anchored in a tree by the side of the river. Pikachu is once again accepted into their culture, and joins in as they sing Pikachu songs under the light of the moon. Brock makes a remark about how wonderful it is for Pikachu to be with his own kind, which… is kind of a douchebag thing to say, actually, because it gives Ash the idea of leaving Pikachu behind and presents him with a horrible dilemma that keeps him from getting any sleep, and really Brock would have to be pretty much the most insensitive person on Earth not to realise that would happen, but hey, whatevs. While Ash is staring glumly into the campfire, he hears a Pikachu screaming, and runs back to where he left them. Team Rocket, of course, have shown up and trapped all the Pikachu in a shockproof net, declaring “everything in this forest is public property!” “And we’re members of the public!” As they fly away in their balloon, Ash gets Pikachu to chew a hole in the net, then uses the net Jessie and James had thrown at him, Misty and Brock as a trampoline so all the Pikachu can jump out safely. Pikachu finishes off the balloon, and another half-assed plot is foiled by our plucky heroes. The Pikachu all start celebrating, and Ash smiles sadly before going back to the campsite to pack everything up. Pikachu follows him, but Ash tearfully tells him not to make this any harder than it already is, and runs away.
No, Ash, no! What are you doing? This is your best friend! Pikachu’s your soulmate! Screw Brock and Misty; they’re douchebags and they’re only going to leave you anyway! You’re going to cry yourself to sleep and then wake up in the morning and Pikachu won’t be there, every night and every morning for the rest of your life, and you’ll regret it forever! No other Pokémon is ever going to understand you like Pikachu does; heck, no human is ever going to understand you like Pikachu does! You’ll never truly be happy again without him, DON’T YOU SEE THAT?!
I’M FINE!
I’m fine.
Where’s my handkerchief…?
Anyway. Just when Ash thinks he’s run far enough, the whole Pikachu community run up over the crest of the hill, with Ash’s Pikachu at their head, and cheer as he runs back to his trainer. The world is set to rights, and that, I can guarantee you, is the very last time Ash gives even a second’s thought to what life would be like without Pikachu.
The second of today’s episodes, Snow Way Out, has always aired as episode sixty-something, but that’s clearly a lie since Togepi still hasn’t joined the team and Charmander hasn’t evolved yet; it’s probably meant to have happened shortly after Pikachu’s Goodbye. At a fork in the road, Ash decides to lead the group over a mountain, despite Brock’s objections, and gets them all lost in a blizzard. Meanwhile, Jessie is singing to James and Meowth about how much she loves snow, because during her ridiculously impoverished childhood her mother used to make food for her out of snow and-
Wait, what?
Anyway, they fire up the balloon, say their motto, and realise that the balloon is floating away with all their food. Jessie declares that she will make snow rolls with soy sauce, and they build an igloo and attempt to stay warm through the night with the power of imagination. That is pretty much their contribution to this episode. Back to the kids. To Ash’s annoyance, Brock wants to build a snow cave and bunker down for the night because, really, trying to get off the mountain at night in a blizzard is not Ash’s best plan ever. Unfortunately a blast of wind blows Pikachu down a slope, and Ash chases after him. Brock tells Misty not to follow, because… because he’s sure Ash will be just fine on his own, and knows that splitting the party never has any negative consequences, I guess? Wow, Brock is being a real douchebag in these episodes. Ash finds Pikachu dangling off a cliff and has Bulbasaur save him, but realises they can’t climb the slope to get back up to Brock and Misty. They decide to dig their own cave. Charmander blowtorches his way into a snowdrift, Ash calls out Bulbasaur and Squirtle, and they all seal up the entrance with packed snow before gathering around Charmander’s tail to stay warm. After a couple of hours, Charmander’s flame begins to fail. He insists he’s fine, but Ash recalls him, Bulbasaur and Squirtle, despite their protests, and… takes off his jacket and wraps their Pokéballs in it to keep them warm… because… okay, yes, whatever. Ash and Pikachu argue for a while, until the wind blows a hole in the cave mouth. Ash chooses to block it with his body rather than with more snow, and orders Pikachu to get in his ball. Pikachu refuses point blank, while Bulbasaur, Charmander, Squirtle and Pidgeotto rebel and burst out of their Pokéballs. Ash gives in, and they all huddle together for the rest of the night. In the morning, they find Brock and Misty, and learn that they had a warm, comfortable night after Onix tunnelled into some hot springs. Apparently they never tried to find Ash. They have, however, found Team Rocket’s balloon. Brock has his Vulpix fire the thing up, and the kids drift safely down from the mountain on the wind.
Okay, I could whine for a bit about how there are no Pichu in the community of wild Pikachu and that makes absolutely no sense, but I think we all know that’s a cheap shot since Pichu didn’t exist when this episode was made, and anyway these episodes are about Ash’s relationship with his Pokémon in general and Pikachu in particular, so let’s talk about that.
Pikachu’s Goodbye and Snow Way Out prominently display Ash’s sense of responsibility, which seems to be a significant part of what being a trainer means for him. He is supposed to keep his Pokémon happy, healthy and strong, and faced with a potential life-or-death situation his top priority is to protect them (I’m not convinced that wrapping his Pokéballs in his jacket actually affords his Pokémon any additional protection from the cold, but clearly Ash believes it does, and cares more about that than about keeping warm himself). Way back in I Choose You, Ash related to Pikachu as a master to an underling, and Pikachu very nearly died; the traumatic events of Ash’s first day as a trainer have almost certainly stayed with him, and I suspect those memories may be a factor in his overwhelming instinct that he has a duty to keep his Pokémon safe, especially Pikachu (nearly losing Metapod in Challenge of the Samuraimight well be weighing on him too). This doesn’t apply so much to battles; any reasonable trainer will pull a Pokémon out of a fight if it’s taking too severe a beating, and Ash is no exception, but he’s generally fine with having his Pokémon stay in and tough it out until things get truly dire. This is presumably because Ash, like most humans in the Pokémon universe, regards battles as being beneficial for Pokémon on some level; it’s how they grow stronger and learn about their own powers. The moment he begins to feel that one of his Pokémon is in genuine danger, though, Ash will act quickly and often recklessly to deal with the threat.
An important point for these episodes is that this relationship I’m describing, as sweet and loving as it generally is, is still a relationship where Ash sees himself as the superior – almost like his Pokémon are his children. In Snow Way Out, this is obvious; he takes it upon himself to shut his Pokémon up in their Pokéballs to protect them, even when they make it clear that they would rather stay outside and endure the cold with him. Honestly, I can’t help but wonder whether this gently, quietly patronising attitude is part of what sticks in Charmander’s craw so badly after he evolves into Charmeleon. In Pikachu’s Goodbye too, Ash agonises over what’s best for Pikachu, watching him immerse himself in community life and weighing up the obvious benefits Pikachu would enjoy if he stayed against the friendship they share and their experiences on the road together. However, he never takes what would seem to be the obvious course of action by asking Pikachu about it. He listens to what Brock has to say on the subject, he spends hours making up his mind, and he eventually decides to leave Pikachu behind because he genuinely believes that Pikachu will be better off without him, but throughout the episode he seems to consider it entirely his decision. He also seems to feel that the downsides of releasing Pikachu are entirely on his side; he’ll lose his best friend and most powerful ally, but is prepared to endure that so Pikachu can reap the obvious benefits. Again, you could make a parent-child comparison out of this; once they’ve taught their children everything they can, most parents want their children to leave and make their own lives, because it isn’t right for them to be under their parents’ thumbs forever. I suspect Ash’s logic here, while obviously different, is nonetheless parallel.
Pikachu himself never seems to have considered leaving Ash even for a moment. He clearly enjoys his time spent with the wild Pikachu, but more as a nice break and a good way to spend some down time than anything he’d actually want to do long term. Near the end of the episode, when Ash is packing up to leave, Pikachu bounces out of the bushes ready to leave with him, giving not the slightest hint that he suspects anything is wrong, and won’t hear anything Ash has to say on the subject of parting ways. Likewise, in Snow Way Out, Pikachu refuses Ash’s direct order to get into his Pokéball, and all the other Pokémon burst out of their Pokéballs soon after, reminding Ash that they don’t actually have to do anything he says. They follow his orders because they trust him, but if he’s clearly doing something stupid, they are quite capable of ignoring him, because as far as they’re concerned, they’re not his children; they’re his friends. This, I think, is the lesson Ash is supposed to take out of these episodes. Although his heart’s in the right place, his ideals are often rather simplistic. In this case, while few trainers understand better than Ash the need to care for Pokémon and raise them with kindness, Ash doesn’t quite realise yet how independent a Pokémon’s mind can be and how important it is to consider each individual’s distinct values and desires. Luckily, Pikachu loves him enough to be patient while he learns.
Ditto’s Mysterious Mansion – Wake Up, Snorlax
Ash’s location: Czech Republic, or thereabouts.
For today’s show… two weird-ass episodes about two weird-ass trainers and their two weird-ass Pokémon!
In Ditto’s Mysterious Mansion, Ash, Misty and Brock take shelter from a sudden, violent rainstorm inside a worn-out, creaking old mansion, which appears deserted until they see a teal-haired boy wearing clothes exactly like Ash’s standing in the shadows. “Yeah, except it’s a girl,” Brock notes. How does he know? “Men’s intuition.” Indeed, the ‘boy’ is a young girl named Duplica, who has an incredible gift for imitation, and lives in the mansion with her Pokémon partner, a Ditto. Ash is disdainful when Duplica explains that Ditto’s only power is Transform; he doesn’t see the point in a Pokémon that can only ever be a cheap imitation of something else. Duplica shows him his mistake by challenging him to a battle and having her Ditto block Bulbasaur’s Razor Leaf with Vine Whip, then use its vines to restrain Bulbasaur. Ash surrenders and sulks for a little while, until Brock points something out to him: Ditto may have been imitating Bulbasaur, but Duplica wasn’t simply imitating Ash; she used another of Bulbasaur’s powers to counter what the real one was trying to do. In order to battle like that with Ditto, Duplica must have encyclopaedic knowledge of all Pokémon species and their capabilities. She isn’t really the battling type, though; Duplica wants to be a performer. When travellers stop at the mansion, Duplica entertains them with her Pokémon cosplay and Ditto’s transformations. Unfortunately, Duplica’s Ditto can’t mimic faces, which has wrecked their act on more than one occasion. As she is telling Ash her woes, Team Rocket make their obligatory appearance and nab Ditto. They want it to Transform into a mythical Dratini so they can present it to Giovanni, but Ditto, presented with a picture of Dratini in a book, can only Transform into the book. They also quickly learn of Ditto’s inability to mimic faces, but eventually succeed, using threats of physical violence, in getting it to Transform into a perfect copy of Meowth. When the kids arrive – wearing Team Rocket costumes from Duplica’s stash and reciting the Team Rocket motto, just for the hell of it – Duplica is overjoyed and even thanks them for helping Ditto learn to Transform properly. Jessie and James try to give Meowth to Duplica and fly off with Ditto in their balloon… but she isn’t fooled for one second, and lobs him at the balloon, causing Jessie and James to drop the real Ditto. Furious, they deploy a cannon from the balloon’s basket, but Duplica has Ditto Transform into the cannon and blast Pikachu at them, with predictable results. Duplica goes back to her mansion to re-open for business, the kids get on with whatever it is they claim to be doing, and Jessie and James attempt to stuff Meowth into a Dratini costume…
Let’s talk about Ditto. Ditto is one of those Pokémon who’s gotten something of a raw deal in the games, because Ditto in the games really is just a cheap imitation of whatever it Transforms into. It’ll probably have less HP, it can match but not exceed its opponents in all other respects (including, most importantly, speed), and it’s overwhelmingly likely to be at a one-turn disadvantage because of the time it takes to Transform. Contrast the way Ditto’s Mysterious Mansion portrays this weird-ass little Pokémon. The way Brock and Duplica describe how Ditto battles seems to imply that Ditto can imitate any technique a Pokémon is physically capable of, even if the opponent doesn’t actually know it – if they had been fighting outside in fine weather, for instance, Duplica might have had Ditto hammer Ash’s Bulbasaur with a Solarbeam. What’s more, Ditto’s ability to imitate inanimate objects is something entirely unique to the anime (and with good reason; it’d be merry hell to add something like that to the games). Whatever it’s imitating, though, it seems clear that – as in the games – Ditto can only Transform into what’s actually in front of it. A picture of a Dratini won’t cut it; Ditto can only manage a copy of the picture. However, when Jessie shows Ditto a photo of her old school crush and asks it to show her what he’d look like aged up a few years, Ditto is able to accommodate her; it can still only Transform into a photo, and it fails, as usual, to imitate his face, but it does manage to age the boy in the image as Jessie asks. Clearly, then, Ditto can take some licence with its transformations (for instance, it could probably Transform, if it chose, into a ‘shiny’ version of a Pokémon standing in front of it, or make other superficial changes); it just can’t create a whole three-dimensional form from scratch, or from memory. The other fascinating thing Ditto is able to imitate is Meowth’s ability to speak, which is an extremely unusual skill that Meowth learned only with incredible effort. When Jessie and James present Duplica with two identical Meowth, Ditto mimics everything Meowth says, though it doesn’t appear to be able to add anything (suggesting that it’s just parroting the sounds without understanding them, but even that is beyond the abilities of most Meowth). Clearly, then, Ditto has some degree of access even to complex learned abilities, but may not be able to use them effectively without some sort of instruction. Some questions to ponder, then: would Ditto be able to speak if it Transformed into a different Meowth? What if Team Rocket’s Meowth had been there with them to show it how? In short, does Transforming actually allow Ditto to take knowledge from the template Pokémon’s mind? More importantly, why isn’t this the kind of thing Professor Oak and his ilk are researching?
So much for Ditto… now for a distinctly more vexing Pokémon.
After a brief run-in with an old hobo, who plays them a song on his Poké-Flute before demanding food (which they do not have) as payment, Ash, Misty and Brock wander into a town, delirious with hunger, and find that no-one there has any food either. Luckily for them, they run into the mayor, who is generous enough to give them a meal from his family’s private stores. The mayor explains that the river that flows through the town has dried up for some reason, ruining their farmland and causing massive food shortages. “No-one dares go upstream anymore. There’s no telling what you might find.” Luckily, Ash and his friends are random wandering Pokémon trainers – the best people for any dangerous and loosely-specified task! They follow the dry riverbed for some time, hacking through the oppressive tangles of thorny vines in their path, and find what seems to be the problem… a Snorlax blocking the river (where… is all the water going, exactly?). Ash tries to capture Snorlax, but his Pokéball just bounces off. As the kids puzzle over his monstrous bulk, Team Rocket arrive in their balloon and declare that they have come to take Snorlax. Ash is reluctant to let them steal the massive Pokémon, but- wait, steal? Isn’t it a wild Snorlax? Surely it’s fair game? Clearly, as far as Ash is concerned, there is a definite ethical distinction between battling a wild Pokémon to capture it in a Pokéball and simply carting it off in its sleep, as Jessie and James mean to. Regardless, Ash has to admit that getting rid of Snorlax is more important. The balloon can’t lift his fat ass, though, and nothing they try can wake him up. When he shifts his weight, though, they find a “Do Not Disturb” sign underneath him, with the instruction “in case of emergency, please use a Poké-Flute to wake.” The kids remember the hobo, rush back to find him… for some reason, get into a battle with Team Rocket for control of the hobo, which of course they win… and lead him to the Snorlax. The hobo claims that the Snorlax is his, and that he wakes it with his flute once a month. He does so now, but it turns out that Snorlax was never the problem… the stream is being blocked by another dense thicket of vines. As the kids scratch their heads, Snorlax takes matters into his own hands and devours the entire thicket, releasing the river and restoring the town’s lifeblood, before going back to sleep. Finally, the hobo’s Snorlax-shaped pager beeps and flashes “No. 7,” to tell him that he has to go and wake up another Snorlax.
Wait, what?
Okay, guys, I know you probably meant that as a throwaway joke, but… you do realise you just implied that this hobo is responsible for travelling around Kanto regulating the sleep cycles of at least seven different Snorlax?
Because that is AWESOME!
Seriously, though, let’s put a little thought into this. Snorlax is an interesting Pokémon, from an ecological perspective… by which I mean, the damn thing eats everything. Luckily they also sleep for months at a time, giving the ecosystem time to recover from their onslaughts. However, in an episode from the Orange League series, Snack Attack, we see how absurdly destructive a single Snorlax can be when it gets peckish in the wrong place at the wrong time; these things can devour forests in a matter of days. The flip side of this, though, is how Snorlax fit into ecosystems that are used to their presence. Snorlax presumably don’t often move very far. One imagines that the one Ash encounters in Wake Up, Snorlax has been living in the area for quite some time. Its presence is probably what has been keeping the thorn weed under control and stopping the river from turning into an overgrown swamp long before now. The removal of such a major consumer from an ecosystem could only be disastrous; if Ash actually had captured the Snorlax, and then found a way to clear the vines himself, chances are they would have grown back within months, choking the river once again. There are probably many grassland and meadow environments in Kanto that can exist in their present state only because of Snorlax living in the area and regularly trimming back more aggressive types of flora. Think about that for a moment the next time you’re playing Fire Red or Leaf Green and decide to catch that wild Snorlax. The hobo’s role in all this is a little harder to guess at, unless you’re prepared to accept that Snorlax will actually sleep indefinitely unless disturbed. It might be that their natural sleep cycle is easily disturbed by human activity, or that they’ve been moved from their original territory (maybe to make room for a city, or maybe as a deliberate attempt to alter the environment) and need to eat more or less often than usual because of the different vegetation. In spite of their size and power, I could actually see Snorlax being tremendously vulnerable to environmental disturbances because of their massive energy requirements, and perhaps being a very high-maintenance species to protect, like the giant pandas they vaguely resemble.
What I like about the anime is that it often gives more detailed portraits of particular species of Pokémon than the games are capable of providing in their current state. I think there’s actually plenty of room for the games to do this as well, but that’s neither here nor there. Ditto and Snorlax are both very interesting Pokémon to think about – Ditto because of the unanswered questions about the extent of its powers, Snorlax because of his unusual lifestyle and needs – and, in keeping with the spirit of learning and discovery that’s been part of the point of Pokémon from the beginning, such portraits are a tremendously important part of the franchise as a whole. Or… that’s what I think, anyway.
Pokémaniacal 