Tag: Pokémon

Interlude: The Pokémon Power Bracket – Round 2a

Unsurprisingly, the internet has failed to take my advice and tossed Mesprit, Raikou and Jirachi.  There is still hope for my other picks, though, so let’s talk about the next round…

Arceus vs. Celebi

 

Okay, so, anyone who’s been paying attention will know that this part of the entry is a total sham anyway because I have an irrational vendetta against Arceus, but let’s pretend for a moment that I’m not horribly biased and talk about these two.

Arceus is a creator god.  To say otherwise is to argue semantics.  I don’t think Game Freak ever actually use the word “god” of Arceus, and everything they tell us is couched in “it is said that” and “described in mythology.”  However, we do know from direct observation that Arceus can create complex life from nothing and imbue it with the power to rewrite the universe.  This goes well beyond just “Pokémon are wondrous creatures from whom we have much to learn.”  The problem is that Game Freak seem to hold two conceptions of Arceus simultaneously – as they do for most other legendary Pokémon, actually, but it’s most blatant for Arceus.  There’s the mythical Arceus, who created Dialga, Palkia and Giratina in the void to bind space, time and antimatter, shaped the world with his thousand arms, and brought about the birth of life and the soul.   There’s also the mundane Arceus, who is a Pokémon like any other, was born and will die, and is exceptionally rare and powerful but can be caught, befriended and trained.  This latter Arceus – or a member of his species – may in ancient times have accomplished some fantastic achievement that inspired an early version of the creation myth, but he’s not actually the creator.  When we capture Arceus and use him in battle, we’re clearly meant to have the mundane Arceus in mind.  The problem is that Game Freak shove the mythical Arceus in our faces at every opportunity and readily provide us with apparently solid proof of his existence, while repeatedly failing to provide similar evidence for a mundane Arceus.

Celebi, by contrast, has done nothing more heinous than introduce the possibility of time travel into the franchise.  I must emphasise that I think this was a bad idea, but at least Celebi has the grace to keep it low-key, unlike “now I shall unravel the universe” Dialga.  Celebi’s role is to “watch over the forest from across time,” which I take to mean that she moves back and forth, always appearing in the right place at the right time to ensure that there have always been and will always be enough forests in the world to provide habitats for forest Pokémon and keep the earth’s climate in balance.  Believe it or not, despite this potentially enormous power and this possibly vital role, she’s one of the legendary Pokémon who won’t give me too much of a headache at all if you capture her.  She’ll just wait for you to die and then get back to what she was doing.  She won’t even be upset about all those years spent waiting.  She’s a time traveller; she’s not exactly in a rush.  She’ll also let you believe that she can’t take anyone with her on her little time jaunts.  Celebi is thus, surprisingly, one of the few legendary Pokémon who actually make total sense.

Can anyone say “forgone conclusion”?

My vote goes to CELEBI!

Kyogre vs. Darkrai

 

I’ve been trying for a while now to pin down what it is that I like about Kyogre, and I think I have it.  Kyogre – like Lugia, actually – evokes one of the most mysterious parts of the known world, the deep ocean, and the fact that something like this could actually be down there and we wouldn’t know it.  I mean, it seems very unlikely from a modern scientific standpoint, but a) most people are not modern scientists and b) it has been said, with a fair degree of justification, that we know more about the surface of the moon than we do about the deepest parts of the ocean.  It’s a dark, forbidding, mysterious, wonderful place and you could hide some pretty massive things down there (as evidenced by our painful lack of detailed ecological data on giant squid) – Kyogre isn’t actually all that big, but he’s big compared to most Pokémon, and gives an impression of size because of his whale-like design.  In short, Kyogre taps into a series of ideas and emotions that have held humanity spellbound since ancient times, and captivates us (or… well, me, anyway) in a way Groudon can never match.  Darkrai evokes a similar place: the world of nightmares, a place most of us visit but few can remember in detail, where we are most often powerless against the whims of our own subconscious minds.  Darkrai, fittingly enough, takes the shape of a spectre, vague and insubstantial, like a shadow in a dream.  However, I take issue with Darkrai’s characterisation.  According to the games, Darkrai’s nightmare powers are just a means of self-defence, meant to chase people and Pokémon away from his territory, and he actually hides himself away from others to protect them from his power.  Now, this type of characterisation – the misunderstood noble pariah who is hated and feared by those he tries to protect – is fun in itself, but I don’t think it was the best use of the concept.  First of all, I think Absol did it better.  Second, it doesn’t totally make sense: he has these powers to keep people out of his territory, and he needs to keep people out of his territory to protect them from his powers.  It’s like a bizarre, sadistic, evolutionary Catch-22.  I actually prefer the way Rise of Darkrai interpreted Darkrai’s nightmare powers – the horrific dreams he sends are actually visions of the future, sent to warn people – because that evokes all sorts of wonderful old ideas about the purpose of dreams and the fearful nature of prophecy (again, this is sort of Absol’s schtick, but Absol experiences the visions herself while Darkrai inflicts them on others).  The movie, of course, has problems of its own that I discussed in more depth a while ago.  For today, my point is that I think Darkrai would be more interesting and have more potential if he were morally ambiguous, and that Kyogre has enjoyed a more flattering interpretation of his concept.

My vote goes to KYOGRE!

Mewtwo vs. Latios

 

I hinted earlier that I have problems with Mewtwo.  Let’s talk about that, because there’s nothing I love more than complaining.  In truth I don’t hate Mewtwo, but I think that his backstory invokes another one of those awkward tensions I like to natter about: Mewtwo’s backstory belongs to that class of moralising tales that characterises scientists as hubristic ivory-tower academics who overreach themselves in their single-minded quest for knowledge and are destroyed by their own creations (you all know the story; Jurassic Park is one notable example).  This is all very well in itself.  It does rather clash with the overall portrayal of science in the Pokémon franchise, which almost universally presents it as wondrous and beneficial, particularly as the Pokémon world’s technology is, in general, more powerful than ours and has fewer side-effects and drawbacks (this is hardly surprising coming from a company that makes its money out of the proliferation of ever-improving technology).  This arguably provides opportunity for interesting conflicts, though.  What really irks me is the more specific clash with fossil resurrection, which works on essentially the same principles as the science that created Mewtwo but is consistently portrayed as cheap, easy, risk-free and not at all ethically contentious.  After all, it wouldn’t do to have the player forced to do anything shady to complete the Pokédex.  Fortunately for Mewtwo, Latios is not guilt-free either.

As I mentioned the last time Latios came up, against Jirachi, my issue with the Eon Twins is quite different, and one on which I’m aware there are many who would disagree with me.  I am of the opinion that legendary Pokémon should have legends, which add something to the background and general aesthetic of the whole Pokémon world.  I hold this opinion because legendary Pokémon (with many notable exceptions, though Latios is not one of them) simply enjoy massive advantages over most mortal Pokémon, with superior stats and often with powerful type combinations and excellent movepools (I am making the tacit assumption here that we want the game to be balanced, an assumption which I am aware is not self-evident and does not seem to be shared by the game’s designers).  In brief, I think that if legendary Pokémon are going to have these advantages, they need to justify them, and that if they are going to harm the game’s balance they should offset this harm by improving its background and lore.  Latios does not do this.  Latios’ characteristics are as follows: he understands human speech (most or all Pokémon implicitly do), he can outpace a jet (this quality is shared by a number of flying Pokémon), he can detect the presence of others through telepathy (a quality shared by a number of Psychic Pokémon), he dislikes fighting (so does Togepi), and he can create illusions.  This last characteristic is interesting and a perfectly valid concept to build a Psychic Pokémon around.  However, there is nothing in this list that requires ‘legendary’ status, ludicrous stats, Latios’ fundamentally obscene movepool, or the insanity that is the Soul Dew.

It’s funny, but the more I think about legendary Pokémon, the more they stick in my craw, so to speak.  My arguments in this match-up have been broadly analogous to those I made in my shorter “Mew vs. Heatran” passage, so I suppose I ought to follow the same rationale in casting my vote: a problematic story is better than none at all…

My vote goes to MEWTWO!

Dialga vs. Giratina

 

Up until now, I’ve been judging members of trios primarily by the characteristics of their trios, but Dialga and Giratina are both members of the same trio – the one that infamously raised Pokémon to the level of deities and forevermore rendered the setting’s cosmology utterly incomprehensible.  Nonetheless, I’m sure I can pick one of them to hate more.  Quite apart from simply giving us the opportunity to capture and command celestial beings, Dialga and Palkia draw attention to one of the more egregious rifts in Pokémon’s conception and style: it keeps thinking it can be science fiction.  Pokémon is not science fiction.  Pokémon barely passes as science fantasy.  This would not be a bad thing, except for the fact that it sometimes wants to be.  Thus, we get Pokémon who are described entirely through myth in order to create ambiguity about what they can actually do (see my complaints about Arceus) but have power over extremely abstract concepts like space and time – did “space becomes more stable with Palkia’s every breath” really come from the commonplace campfire stories of ancient Sinnoh?  I can in fact think of at least one ancient reference to time travel; Pythagoras – yes, the triangle guy – was said to have been able to move freely through time (I’m serious; it’s in a fragment of Aristotle), and many cultures have a mythic personification of time, so maybe this is more a problem for Palkia than Dialga.  I will bet my copies of the Iliad and the Odyssey, though, that no ancient civilisation ever had a mythic personification of antimatter, which is what Game Freak have told us Giratina is supposed to represent.  I don’t believe them; I think Giratina is the personification of death in the Pokémon universe and was quietly retconned when the designers began to wonder whether they’d gone too far.  I mean, really.  “It appears in an ancient cemetery”?  How about “it was banished for its violence”?  If Game Freak try to claim that isn’t a reference to the Devil, or some equivalent mythic being, I’m calling ‘Death of the Author’ on them.  What would make the most sense out of this, though, would be to claim that Giratina was viewed by the ancients as a personification of death.  This would make Giratina the only one of the trio to have a believable distinction between his mythic role and his actual powers, thus escaping (to a small extent, anyway) the trap that I spent Arceus’ section ranting about.  Like Dialga and Palkia, he still occupies a ridiculously high place in the setting’s cosmology and it makes little sense for anyone to be capturing him in a tiny ball, but I’d regard him as slightly better done (even if only by accident).  I also think Giratina has – and achieves – far better-defined aesthetic goals than Dialga; he’s meant to be creepy and he is, while Dialga looks like a robot space dinosaur and is meant to be… I don’t even know.

My vote goes to GIRATINA!

Anime Time: Episode 54

The Case of the K-9 Caper

Ash’s location: Rhode Island.

 The illustration on Growlithe's card from the Secret Wonders expansion of the TCG, by Kagemaru Himeno.

I can’t remember ever actually seeing this episode as a kid.  I was missing out; I really like this one.  It makes for a great opportunity to get back into one of my old favourite subjects, the ethics of Pokémon training, and to start asking new questions about whether the series considers Pokémon to be ethical agents in themselves, or merely instruments of their trainers.  Seriously, if I had my way this is what the whole series would be about.

Ash and company are innocently strolling through the woods when they hear the cry of “stop, thief!” and see a suspicious-looking man carrying a bag of loot fleeing pursuit.  Ash, not one to take this sort of thing lying down, commands Pikachu to stop him, but the more observant Pikachu has noticed that the man is carrying a handgun and, to Ash’s annoyance, refuses to attack… until a Growlithe bursts from the undergrowth and tackles the thief, causing him to drop his gun.  Pikachu merrily begins blasting away and brings him down, but the nine other Growlithe who arrive immediately afterward, led by Officer Jenny #40, don’t seem particularly happy.  It turns out that Ash and Pikachu have just interrupted a training exercise and assaulted a plainclothes police officer.  Whoops.  Jenny quickly gets over it once she realises it was an honest mistake, and invites Ash, Misty and Brock back to the police station for a hot meal.  This particular Jenny runs the academy that trains Kanto’s police dogs, specially drilled Pokémon capable of taking on humans with firearms at relatively low risk to themselves.  Jenny and Misty both admonish Ash for ordering Pikachu, who has no such special training, to attack an armed man, which annoys and offends him.  He asks for Jenny’s permission to enrol Pikachu in her training program so he can become stronger.  Jenny warns him that the training is difficult, but gladly allows it.  The next morning, she wakes Ash and Pikachu at 4am for a race against one of her Growlithe – and Ash and Jenny will be running too, because a trainer should never expect more of his Pokémon than of himself.  Ash and Pikachu are faster than Jenny and Growlithe, but are defeated by their obstacle course (which Jenny completes in her high heels).  While Ash and Pikachu recover, Brock tries to remind Ash that Pikachu is great even without special training.  Ash responds that he wants Pikachu to keep getting even better, though Pikachu himself doesn’t seem so sure anymore.

 You have to hand it to them... they've got style. Screenshots from filb.de/anime.

Then Team Rocket crash through the wall of the academy in the Mutt Cuts van from Dumb and Dumber, pull on some gas masks, and start blasting away at everyone with canisters of Gloom spores.

I really feel sorry for other anime shows that have to trudge through the bleak desolation of existence without Jessie and James to brighten their lives.

This week, Jessie, James and Meowth have gotten it into their heads that it would be a good idea to steal all of Jenny’s Growlithe and use them to commit crimes, because the irony is just too delicious to pass up.  Jenny insists that her Growlithe would never be party to Team Rocket’s criminal schemes, but Jessie and James seem unconcerned, and pull out more gas canisters – this time to dose everyone with helium.  Between the overpowering stench of the Gloom spores and the helium raising the pitch of her voice, the Growlithe can’t recognise Jenny’s scent or the sound of her voice, and stop responding to her commands.  Jessie and James then change into police uniforms, produce voice synthesisers and use Jenny’s own voice to command the Growlithe to arrest her, which they do, taking ropes in their mouths and tying her up.  Meanwhile, Ash, Brock and Misty have stupidly left their Pokéballs back in the station’s dormitory, so Pikachu is all they’ve got.  Jessie tries to command him too, using Ash’s voice, but Pikachu is not impressed; Brock claims that Pikachu knows Ash by what’s in his heart, and can’t be fooled by a cloud of foul-smelling gas and a voice synthesiser.  Pikachu unloads a Thunderbolt on the Growlithe, but there are just too many for him to handle on his own and he quickly runs out of power.  Jigglypuff appears, tries her song, finds that the helium renders her enchanting voice powerless, and wanders off again.  Finally, Jessie orders one of the Growlithe to attack Jenny, but as it bites down on her wrist, she looks into its eyes and invokes the Power of Friendship to remind it who she is.  Team Rocket try to command the others to deal with her, but their synthesisers choose this moment to malfunction, and the Growlithe turn on them and chase them away.  The episode ends with Jenny commending Ash and Pikachu on the strength of their partnership: “you two recognise what’s in each others’ hearts, and that’s what count.  I’ll try to keep that in mind.”  Also Brock uses one of the discarded voice synthesisers to deliver an incredibly creepy ode to himself in Jenny’s voice.  Because he is Brock.

 Lock and load, bitches.

Let’s talk about these Growlithe.  Jessie, James and Meowth have – for once – actually come up with a pretty damn solid plan for their daily mischief.  To a human, it seems ludicrous that a Growlithe could have trouble telling Jessie in a police uniform apart from Jenny – who is, after all, their trainer – but humans rely on sight a lot more than most animals do and consequently have unusually good vision compared to other mammals.  Most mammals – like dogs – compensate with their keener hearing and sense of smell, and this episode suggests that many Pokémon are much the same.  Once Team Rocket have deprived the Growlithe of their usual means of identifying their masters, they have only their sub-par vision to fall back on, and they are left following orders given in the voice they were trained to obey.  Then Pikachu comes in.  Pikachu isn’t fooled; although Ash sounds and smells nothing like himself, Pikachu can recognise his trainer anyway – not immediately, he has to think about it for a few seconds, but he gets there.  I suppose the obvious explanation is that Pikachu is simply much more intelligent than the Growlithe (an attribute that is sorely neglected in the games’ portrayal of many Pokémon).  He’s been paying attention to what’s going on, and although he doesn’t exactly understand what Team Rocket have been doing to confuse him, he knows they’re an underhanded lot and is on his guard for tricks.  As a result, he’s able to decide to ignore what his trainer’s voice is telling him and do what he figures makes sense, whereas the Growlithe latch onto a voice they know and follow its orders, even though Jenny has been standing right there the whole time and they should know who she is even if they can’t hear or smell her clearly.  What’s interesting is that the Growlithe eventually figure it out too – or, at least, one of them does – by staring into Jenny’s eyes and having a touching flashback montage of all their happy times together.  The obvious explanation – the Growlithe aren’t as intelligent as Pikachu – doesn’t quite seem to make sense anymore; the tone of the scene doesn’t fit with Growlithe suddenly putting together the information and figuring out that Jenny’s voice is being faked.  It’s a lot more consistent with Growlithe knowing who she is the whole time and only now wondering why he’s being ordered to attack her.

 These guys seriously never get old. Wait; does James have breasts in this scene?

Pokémon follow orders; this we know.  The Growlithe, in particular, are probably being trained to follow orders from any police officer (or perhaps simply from any Jenny; there are non-Jenny police officers in this episode, but I get the impression that the Jennies are the ones who most often work with Pokémon), so they aren’t necessarily supposed to have the same deep personal relationship with their handlers as Pikachu does with Ash.  There’s a further point to this, though.  Jessie and James are both quite convinced that they will be able to order the Growlithe to commit robberies, and Jenny is equally convinced that the Growlithe would never do such a thing.  The story is structured so as to suggest to us that Jenny is actually wrong – her comment is immediately followed by Team Rocket successfully taking control of her Pokémon and ordering them to restrain her.  The difference between their views is that Jenny regards the Growlithe as moral agents in and of themselves, capable of understanding that certain actions are ‘wrong’ and refusing to take part in them, while Jessie and James think that they’ll be able to order the Growlithe to do just about anything once they establish themselves as authority figures (and I feel I should emphasise again that the structure of the episode immediately shoots Jenny down).  I’m reminded of Ekans’ dialogue in Island of the Giant Pokémon – “Pokémon not bad; Pokémon do bad things because Master bad” – which suggests that, although Ekans and Koffing are totally aware that they are aiding their trainers in committing morally repugnant acts and would never do such things on their own, this is trumped by the principle of loyalty to their masters.  The Growlithe – who have been taught to view anyone who knows how to command them as ‘master’ – would find themselves in just the same position if they were taken by Team Rocket.  When you think about it, this has to be the case in order for Team Rocket even to exist as an organisation: their modus operandi is to steal Pokémon for use in other crimes with more direct rewards.  This could hardly be practical if a significant number of stolen Pokémon were likely to rebel against trainers who committed crimes.  As Pikachu and Growlithe remind us, though, Pokémon are in fact capable of understanding that an action is ‘wrong.’  It’s much easier for Pikachu – probably because Ash places an unusual amount of emphasis on treating his Pokémon as friends and individuals – though even Growlithe, raised specifically to be part of a squad, can do it when ordered by a new ‘authority figure’ to attack an old one.

In short, Pokémon do understand human morality – it’s just that most of them are used to thinking that it doesn’t apply to them.  They simply don’t see themselves as moral agents – thinking about that stuff is their trainers’ job – unless they’re been strongly encouraged to, one way or another.  I think this is what Brock and Jenny are talking about when they say that Ash and Pikachu “understand what’s in each other’s hearts;” Pikachu recognises Ash not merely as his trainer, but as an objectively good person, and would continue to emulate Ash’s moral character even if they were somehow torn apart.  As she acknowledges at the end of the episode, Jenny and her Growlithe could stand to learn a lot here.

Anime Time: Episode 50

Who Gets to Keep Togepi?

Ash’s location: Sweden.

 Ash realises with a start that he doesn't know where he is any better than I do. Screenshots from filb.de/anime.

This episode gets an entry to itself not so much because I think it’s really interesting, more because it was sort of awkwardly left over after I blocked out all of the others for this chunk of the series, and I suppose it is a fairly important one.  I may yet think of something clever to say in this entry, though – I never really know until I write the damn things.  Here goes nothing…

At the beginning of this episode, Ash calls Professor Oak to check in.  The professor has a gift for Ash: the latest patch for his Pokédex, which contains updated information on dozens of species of Pokémon.  Ash delightedly downloads the upgrade and goes on his way.  He, Misty and Brock briefly discuss the possibility of heading for another Pokémon Gym… after all, it has been eighteen episodes (close to four months, by my reckoning) since Ash earned his Soul Badge… but they have something way more important on their minds today: the egg Ash found at Grandpa Canyon.  As the party’s breeder, Brock has been responsible for looking after the egg since Ash found it, going so far as to sleep with it to keep it warm.  Misty’s hoping it will hatch into a Tentacruel, a Pokémon she inexplicably finds adorable, while Brock wants a Golem (you’d think a Pokémon breeder and a Rock-type specialist would know better than to expect a fully-evolved Golem from an egg… I mean, I know the games hadn’t laid out the mechanics of Pokémon breeding yet, but surely there are reasonable assumptions you can make), and Ash is simply praying that it won’t be another Aerodactyl.  As they speculate, they run into a pair of old women carrying baskets filled with brightly-coloured Pokémon eggs.  When Ash insists that he doesn’t want one, the women fling their baskets in the air, knock Ash’s egg from Brock’s hands and reveal themselves as Jessie and James.  With eggs flying everywhere, they manage to grab the real one while the kids are sorting through the fake ones, and abscond.  James wants to cook the egg so they can have a decent meal for once in their miserable lives, but Meowth wants to mother it instead, keeping it warm in the remote log cabin they suddenly seem to own.  Meowth spends all of his attention on the egg, singing to it, cuddling it, bathing with it, and genuinely seems to find a spark of actual decency in himself.  However, Ash, Pikachu, Misty and Brock eventually track Team Rocket down and attack their cabin, leading to a confused mêlée in which the egg is tossed back and forth across the room several times, until it eventually ends up in Pikachu’s hands… and starts to hatch.  Everyone crowds around to look, Misty butting in to get closest.

I would like to point out that the “who’s that Pokémon?” silhouette for this episode, which appears at just this moment, is Aerodactyl.  I never noticed this as a kid, but it made me laugh out loud when I saw the episode again.

 Even having seen this episode before, I was still a little disappointed that she wasn't an Aerodactyl.

Most of the eggshell stays intact, but a set of tiny arms and legs pop out, along with a rounded, three-horned head.  No-one can identify the baby Pokémon, but the kids don’t mean to hang around with Team Rocket to figure it out, so Pikachu drops a Thunderbolt and they flee the scene with their child.  Once the kids get back to civilisation, they ask the Pokédex – after all, it’s just been upgraded.  It successfully identifies the baby as a Togepi, but is unable to produce any further information.  For some reason, the kids immediately start arguing over who owns the damn thing.  Ash found the egg and Brock cared for it, but Togepi seems to like Misty best.  Team Rocket soon show up, and declare that they deserve a say as well, citing Meowth’s tender care of the egg.  The kids eventually decide on a six-way tournament, but Meowth declares that neither Jessie nor James ever did a thing to help look after Togepi’s egg, and consequently they have no right to compete, so instead it comes down to a four-way tournament between Ash, Misty, Brock and Meowth in an empty stadium.  As Meowth stares down Brock’s Onix, he suddenly realises that he doesn’t own any Pokémon, and looks to Jessie and James for help, but they are sulking over being excluded.  Meowth eventually remembers that he is himself a Pokémon, and spends the match jumping in and out of the ring, alternating between shouting commands and carrying them out.  He quickly realises that he can’t harm Onix, but notices some buckets of water by the side of the field, and throws them over Onix, weakening him enough to finish up with Fury Swipes.  Ash and Misty step up next.  Ash chooses Bulbasaur, and Misty means to pick Staryu, but gets Psyduck in its place.  Misty tries in vain to get Bulbasaur to attack Psyduck’s head and trigger his powers, but Ash instructs Bulbasaur to lick and tickle Psyduck into submission instead.  Finally, Meowth faces off against Pikachu… and gets fried to a crisp in five seconds flat.  When Ash tries to claim his prize, though, Togepi gets visibly upset whenever anyone other than Misty tries to hold her.  He consults the Pokédex, and learns that Togepi imprint on the first things they see when they hatch – and the first thing Togepi saw was Misty.

…which… y’know, would have been a really good thing to know earlier, when the Pokédex told them it didn’t know anything else.  I swear the thing was designed by a nitwit.

 An adorable Togepi chasing a sparkly butterfly, by Janice268 (http://janice268.deviantart.com/).

So, aside from the fact that Brock apparently doesn’t know much about how Pokémon actually breed, what did we learn today?  Well, Ash and Brock are surprisingly slow to consider Togepi’s feelings in the question of who gets to be her trainer.  Misty points out from the start that Togepi likes her the best, and it’s clear from the end of the episode that Ash is willing to let that sway his decision, but that doesn’t stop them from having a tournament over her anyway.  Considering that Togepi is just a baby, it does make some sense that Brock would put what he feels is best for her over what she wants, and as a breeder he is probably the best choice to care for a baby Pokémon from a purely objective standpoint.  That viewpoint also makes sense for Ash if we accept my past arguments that he generally believes he knows what’s best for his Pokémon better than they do, though his motivation here seems to be more “I found it; it’s mine.”  Strictly speaking, he found Togepi’s egg on a palaeontological site, which probably puts him on shaky ground as far as ownership goes, but he likely neither knows nor cares.  I can’t think of any real reason Togepi should be particularly desirable to him; she clearly isn’t going to be ready for training for quite some time.  He’s probably just exercising his famous stubbornness.  Brock’s being a little weird about it too, since he cares for the whole group’s Pokémon anyway, and would presumably help look after Togepi as long as the three of them stayed together, regardless of who was formally her owner.  I suppose Ash and Brock may have simply assumed that Misty was just making stuff up as an excuse to take Togepi for herself because she’s so cute, which… well, okay, that…wouldn’t really be out of character for Misty and might actually be true.

 I think the way Rock-types and water work in the anime is that water doesn't hurt them all *that* much (though more so than it hurts most Pokémon) but screws them over by rendering them more vulnerable to standard attacks..

What this episode doesn’t tell us – and which I don’t think we ever actually learn – is where the heck Togepi came from in the first place.  At the end of Attack of the Prehistoric Pokémon, while Ash is slumbering under the influence of Jigglypuff’s song, her egg just… sort of rolls down from somewhere and gently comes to a stop resting against him.  I think maybe the implication is supposed to be that the egg was unearthed in the excavation, and had somehow been preserved in the same way as the fossil Pokémon who attack Ash and Team Rocket (who were supposedly in some kind of incredibly deep hibernation).  As for how the egg got into the site… well, although Togepi was introduced to the games in Gold and Silver, the species isn’t native to Johto or Kanto.  I suppose it’s possible that Togepi and Togetic used to live in Grandpa Canyon and were subsequently driven out by climate change – probably quite recently, since Togepi aren’t actually extinct (seeing as how every fossil Pokémon ever revealed has subsequently appeared in the show, alive and well, I’m not sure extinction is even really a thing in the Pokémon world, but let’s pretend that it is for a moment).  The idea that the egg was in some sort of dormant state does make some sense in relation to the rules the games later established for Pokémon eggs, which are stimulated by the activity of other Pokémon and can gestate for an indefinite period without suffering any harm… of course, Togepi is rather pushing it to the limit.

The other thing that’s important today is how the addition of Togepi to the party affects Misty.  In the past, I’ve characterised Misty as snarky, cynical and, in general, a great deal more pragmatic than either Ash or Brock, both of whom have very strong idealistic streaks.  Two moments that define the difference between Ash and Misty (for me, anyway; there are others, but these are the two that stick out in my memory) are her comment to Ash after he trades away his beloved Butterfree – “look on the bright side; you got a Raticate!” – and her question to Bulbasaur when he confronts the ancient Venusaur in the Mysterious Garden – “don’t you want to have that kind of power?”  Misty does have a sentimental side and we do see it from time to time, but until now her relationships with her Pokémon have tended to suppress it rather than exhibit it.  Her signature Pokémon are the inscrutable, alien Staryu and Starmie, whose emotions – assuming they even have them – are impossible for the audience to see.  Goldeen gets so little screentime as to be a nonentity, because she can only fight in water.  I suspect Horsea was meant to provide Misty with an outlet for her softer emotions, but she falls into the same trap as Goldeen and almost never does anything.  I think Togepi may have been brought in when the writers realised they didn’t have enough flexibility with Horsea (and, lo and behold, Horsea actually leaves the team permanently ten episodes later).  Finally, the idea of Misty openly admitting to any sort of tender feelings towards Psyduck is almost laughable.  When Togepi becomes her sixth Pokémon, however, Misty takes to her new role as Togepi’s ‘mother’ wholeheartedly.  She’s as prickly and sarcastic as she ever was, but we get to see in her the same concern for Togepi’s safety as Ash has for Pikachu, which she never shows for her other Pokémon.  Misty is used to thinking of Pokémon primarily in terms of their relationship with her as a trainer, but Togepi – who can’t fight – gives her the opportunity to think about Pokémon in an entirely different way, as well as indulge the stereotypically ‘feminine’ traits she’s preferred to downplay for most of her life to keep her sisters off her back.

Interlude: The Pokémon Power Bracket – Round 1b

This week’s Pokémon will be all those involved in the tournament who didn’t compete last week, so we’re looking at a completely different set of match-ups, some interesting, others… a little bit one-sided (although, with both Kyogre and Arceus on the other side of the table, the most absurd ones have already been decided).  Here we go…

Deoxys vs. Suicune

 

I never liked Deoxys.  Maybe I was just annoyed at not being able to get one (Nintendo rarely bothered to hold events in New Zealand, so event-exclusive Pokémon were pretty much off the menu until the Wi-Fi age), but that hasn’t tarnished my opinions of Mew or Celebi.  Maybe the whole “shapeshifting psychic virus from space” thing was too weird for me, but normally I like quirky designs.  Did I hate it for being so gimmicky?  Usually I hate gimmicks because Game Freak think they’re a valid excuse for a Pokémon to be terrible (see: most of my Top Ten Worst Pokémon Ever), which Deoxys isn’t.  Anyway.  All of Deoxys’ four forms are quite superior to Suicune, though she’s certainly not a bad Pokémon either.  Possibly the strongest of her trio, Suicune, like Raikou, is known for Calm Mind tactics, though hers tend to emphasise gradually building power while absorbing hits with her brilliant defences (unfortunately for Suicune, Rest has lost its lustre in Black and White).  I’ve mentioned already why I like the Johto beasts, so I won’t rehash it, and Suicune, the embodiment of the north wind, has always been my favourite, but even though it makes me vaguely uncomfortable for reasons I can’t put my finger on, I have to admit that Deoxys is a really interesting Pokémon who dares to be different, and you could probably do a lot of cool stuff with the concept if you wanted to.  I actually like Suicune better, but objectively…

My vote goes to DEOXYS!

Heatran vs. Mew

 

Mew is sort of a problematic Pokémon, because she’s supposedly the common ancestor of all Pokémon, which clashes rather unfortunately with Arceus, the Original One and creator of the universe, whose first children were Dialga, Palkia and Giratina, followed by Mesprit, Uxie and Azelf.  All of these are Pokémon, Arceus definitely came before Mew, and the others probably did as well.  My working theory is that Mew was the first creature to be born with a complete soul consisting of intellect, emotion and will, courtesy of the lake trio, and that the seven primordial Pokémon are either ‘soulless,’ or possess something else fundamentally different from a soul.  Anyhow.  Heatran’s story, mercifully, is contradicted by nothing because there is nothing there to contradict.  I think he’s something of a throwback to the days when “legendary Pokémon” just meant “Pokémon with ludicrous stats” but even Articuno, Zapdos and Moltres had the decency to be mysterious creatures, spoken of in hushed tones, whose existence remained a subject of conjecture.  Heatran just kinda chills in his volcano being awesome, with his phenomenal Fire attacks and incredible toughness.  Mew, of course, can traditionally do everything and do it well, but she’s stayed a jack of all trades and master of none while other Pokémon around her have been mastering more and more as the generations roll by.  She remains a brilliant Pokémon, though, and although her flavour is hard to reconcile with the creation myth, I sort of prefer a problematic story to none at all, because it at least provides fodder for speculation (besides, she was there first; it’s not her fault Game Freak disregarded her established backstory).

My vote goes to MEW!

Groudon vs. Regigigas


Oh, Regigigas, you poor sad creature.  You towed continents in your time!  You shaped the face of the earth as we know it!  Or… wait, wasn’t that Kyogre and Groudon?  Ah, whatever.  Regigigas, master of the legendary golems, has clearly fallen far from his glory days.  He is utterly useless in a fight, with his Slow Start ability making him totally unable to use his ludicrous attack and good speed unless he stays in play for five turns straight… which, without any healing (no, not even Rest) and without Protect, just isn’t going to happen.  Though his physical design is more complex and interesting than his rather bland progeny, he has none of their intriguing backstory; he’s just a great big Pokémon who dragged continents in ancient times, presumably for reasons, created three other Pokémon in his own image, presumably for other reasons, and then went to sleep far beneath the Snowpoint Temple, presumably for further reasons.  Against this, we have the creator of the continents, Groudon.  Like Kyogre, he has a powerful presence, as well as a fascinating dual characterisation in his Pokédex descriptions, being portrayed as a destroyer in his own game, Ruby, and as a saviour (from flooding) in Sapphire.  He is, almost unarguably, weaker than Kyogre, because he gets relatively little direct benefit from the brilliant sunlight he creates around him – his Fire attacks are mostly for backup, while Solarbeam is at best a gimmick.  Still, though… are you really going to argue with him with Ho-oh and Reshiram at his side?

My vote goes to GROUDON!

Ho-oh vs. Uxie

 

Little Uxie is probably my favourite of the lake trio, partly because his sleepy eyes and large, creased skull give him a little character-appropriate differentiation that his siblings, sadly, lack.  What I really love about Uxie, though, is his frightening hidden power.  “It is said,” the Pokédex notes, “that it can wipe out the memory of those who see its eyes,” leaving them totally lost, not even knowing who they are or where they come from.  This also clues us in on how to interpret one of the myths found in the Canalave library, so we learn that anyone who touches Mesprit’s body will lose all emotion, while anyone who harms Azelf will slip into a coma.  Sadly, none of these abilities come up in fights; Uxie is sadly underwhelming in battle, as a supportive tank whose excellent defences are undermined by his difficulty with healing.  Ho-oh not only has obscene special defence, as well as Recover to rid herself of Uxie’s problems, but also packs a huge punch with her Sacred Fire.  Ho-oh’s flavour seems pretty one dimensional – the rainbow phoenix is a source of joy to all who see her, a being of absolute purity, goodness, and light.  Actually, though… there’s no other Pokémon like this.  Most legendary Pokémon are portrayed as primal forces; Cresselia and Shaymin are possibly the only others who are unambiguously benevolent towards humankind.  Ho-oh does fill a necessary niche, and I feel that she also represents the ‘sweet spot’ after the designers started making legendary Pokémon that were really ‘legendary’ but before they decided every game had to include an ‘avert the apocalypse’ plotline and started creating Pokémon with the power to unravel the universe or what-have-you.  I love Ho-oh just for that.

My vote goes to HO-OH!

Lugia vs. Manaphy

 

So, two rival ‘guardians of the sea’ – Lugia, who despite being an ocean spirit is not a Water-type but a Psychic-type, and Manaphy, who despite having notable psychic abilities is not a Psychic-type but a Water-type.  Hmm.  The thing to get out of the way straight off is that Lugia is possibly the toughest Pokémon in the game, though Manaphy can be pretty damn dangerous if he gets a free turn to cast Tail Glow, which sends his special attack score through the roof.  One-turn Rests as long as it’s raining, courtesy of Hydration, is great too.  I don’t think there’s really enough to choose between them to decide this contest on battling ability.  Lugia’s place in the world is… odd.  It’s stated repeatedly that he stays hidden beneath the ocean to protect others, since his power is so great he can inadvertently cause storms when he surfaces.  Then again, he’s also said to have the ability to calm storms.  I’m left imagining that Lugia’s relationship with storms and the ocean is actually rather complicated; possibly he’s the lynchpin of some sort of fragile balance, and has to create and calm storms to regulate the climate of large areas.  If Lugia has oddly large-scale powers, Manaphy’s are oddly low-key.  His one significant ability is that he’s really good at making friends.  I’m sort of left feeling that he’s a little out of place in a game that gives only cursory attention to emotions and relationships, as Pokémon does – which is a shame because that’s one of the very things that I think Pokémon should give more attention to.  Theoretically this is a game about partnership, and I think Pokémon with abilities like Manaphy’s are quite underutilised… so, much to my own surprise…

My vote goes to MANAPHY!

Latias vs. Phione

 

…wait, what?

Phione?

Game Freak, what is Phione doing here?

Phione… Phione isn’t just bad, she’s barely even usable; her stats would be average even on a mortal Pokémon; her movepool is pretty bland, with all the Water-type standards and nothing of real interest bar U-Turn; Hydration is great, but Lapras, Vaporeon and arguably even Dewgong do it better (and when you’re being outclassed by Dewgong, it’s time to pack up and go home).  Heck, I’m not sure Phione is even officially a legendary Pokémon!  Apparently Game Freak have both confirmed and denied her legendary status at different times.  She’s inexplicably banned from the Battle Frontier and Battle Subway, as well as from most official tournaments, which pretty much eliminates most of the chances she ever gets to do anything.  I don’t think she’s ever been the star of anything, and she has no interesting powers, other than the ability to dissolve her body into water, which she shares with Vaporeon.  She’s basically just Manaphy’s useless, gimmicky little sister, and Game Freak have tossed her into the Pokémon Power Bracket and put her up against one of the bloody Eon Twins, for goodness’ sake, probably just so they can laugh at her.

Ah, you know what?  Screw it.  If any other Pokémon wins this tournament, it’ll be “just another awesome thing I did.”  If Phione wins, it’ll be the one and only moment in the sun she’s ever likely to get. 

My vote goes to PHIONE!

Palkia vs. Regirock

 

(I’m coming to think I gave Registeel a bit of a raw deal in the last entry, so take everything here as going for Registeel vs. Dialga as well)

I don’t actually hate Regirock, Regice and Registeel.  I think the concept is very interesting.  The fact that they were entombed by humans to keep them controlled has fascinating implications for the history of the relationship between humans and Pokémon.  Even the fact that they’re so inscrutable and alien arguably helps by emphasising the divide between them and humanity… but that’s something of a double-edged sword.  It’s hard to look at them as living things, near impossible to relate to them as we can to more expressive Pokémon designs.   Other Pokémon pull it off, somehow; maybe it’s because most of them have eyes and humans are obsessed with eyes, but Staryu and Starmie have none, and manage to be mysterious but also attractive.  Honestly I think I would really like the legendary golems if Pokémon were less of a breeding-training-fighting game and more of an exploration-discovery game, but we are where we are.  Against this, we have Palkia.  Apart from undeniably being ludicrously powerful in comparison to Regirock, she, like Dialga, represents the way Diamond and Pearl pushed the boundaries of sanity to their absolute limit by introducing Pokémon that might actually be legitimate divine beings.  I’ve always been a little annoyed by this because I feel it’s symptomatic of Pokémon’s irrational need to be ‘epic’ when ‘epic’ is neither inherently desirable nor a particularly good fit for the basic premises of the franchise… that’s a discussion for another time, though.  For now, the point is that Regirock and Palkia each annoy me in their own ways, but Palkia clearly blows Regirock out of the water as far as battling goes.

My vote goes to PALKIA!

Rayquaza vs. Azelf

 

Undeniably the strongest of his trio, Azelf, the embodiment of will, is good at blowing things up.  That includes himself, because Azelf has always been quick to pull an Explosion when things start looking bad.  He’s noted for using his excellent attack and special attack to commit serial murder, but also has a useful support movepool and can use it quite well thanks to his great speed.  Rayquaza is a similar idea on a grander scale, with his fundamentally ridiculous offensive scores, access to Dragon Dance, and wide offensive movepool.  Rayquaza is stronger, obviously, but I’ve always maintained that mechanical strength matters to me much less when analysing legendary Pokémon, since power is their birthright anyway, and I care more about their background and story.  Rayquaza, unfortunately, has offended me: I must doggedly insist that, as I suggested long ago, his presence in Emerald is actually detrimental to the storyline, rendering the events of the Sootopolis crisis upsettingly anticlimactic and denying the player agency in their resolution to a large extent.  Deus ex machina stopped being trendy when Euripides died, people.  Azelf and his siblings do something similar in Diamond and Pearl, but there the player still has to fight Cyrus and Palkia/Dialga to resolve the climax, and the lake trio are implied to have shown up in the first place because of their gratitude to the player for saving them earlier (and possibly because the player has a special bond with Mesprit).  To get Rayquaza to help you just have to show up and say “yo.  Ray-dogg.  Shiz be goin’ down.”

…I’m paraphrasing, but you see what I’m getting at.

My vote goes to AZELF!

Interlude: The Pokémon Power Bracket – Round 1a

We interrupt your regularly scheduled Pokémaniacal post to bring you a word from our sponsors…

Okay, so, Pokémon.com is currently running an event called the Pokémon Power Bracket, which you will find here: http://www.pokemon.com/powerbracket.  Basically, they’ve got thirty-two legendary Pokémon competing in a tournament-style setup, with the winner of each matchup being decided by the votes of the fans over the course of a week (you can vote once a day).  Now, initially, I was only mildly amused by this until I took a look at the criteria for choosing a winner: “There is no set criteria for how you vote. Cast your vote for whatever reason you want!”

So, what you’re saying is… you want us to judge these Pokémon based on whatever nebulous and ill-defined criteria should strike our capricious fancies as we stagger blindly through the Pokémon universe, violently lashing out at anything that violates our unappeasable expectations of “good design”?

That’s what I do all the time!

So, yeah.  For the next two months I’m going to spend some of my entries (not all – Anime Time will continue in between) commenting on this little popularity contest they’ve got going, and talk about where my votes are going and why, in the hopes of influencing my small-minded minio- sorry, my charming and learned readers to follow my lead.

Now, without further ado, the current matchups being contested are:

Arceus vs. Raikou

 

Whoo, yeah.  Way to give Raikou a fair bite at the apple, Game Freak.

So, Arceus against Raikou, whether in a one-on-one fight or in a comparison of how they each contribute to a team, really is no contest.  Raikou’s fast, has a vicious special attack score and can boost up with Calm Mind until his special defence is nigh untouchable and his Thunderbolts can shred boulders, but the fact is… Arceus can grab a Zap Plate, become an Electric-type, and do all of that, only better.  Pretty much the only thing Raikou has over Arceus is Volt Switch, which… well, don’t get me wrong, it’s a game changer, but Arceus still flattens Raikou.  So, which has the better, more pleasing design?  Well, they both look majestic and mythical enough.  I particularly love Raikou’s storm-cloud, though, and his trio have a pretty cool backstory – they were killed in the fire that destroyed Ekruteak’s Brass Tower, resurrected by Ho-oh, and given new powers, symbolising the lightning that started the blaze, the fire that destroyed the tower, and the rain that extinguished it.  Arceus, on the other hand, I can’t help but feel goes a little bit too far.  I could just about accept everything up to and including Rayquaza, but capturing and training the creator of the universe has always been a bit of a blow to my suspension of disbelief.

Of course we all know the factor that really decides this matchup for me:

I still haven’t forgiven Arceus for Jewel of Life.

My vote goes to RAIKOU!

Celebi vs. Cresselia

 

Well, this seems a little bit fairer.  Celebi and Cresselia are both excellent defence and support Pokémon who can be tremendously difficult to take down, but there are a couple of important differences.  Cresselia is all-defence.  Her resistance to damage is much greater than Celebi’s, but she doesn’t have a lot to fight back with; her offensive scores would actually be pretty mediocre on a mortal Pokémon.  She’s basically got Toxic, Thunder Wave, and Calm Mind-boosted attacks to hurt stuff with.  Celebi, on the other hand, has access to a devastating Leaf Storm, and can heal much more easily with Leech Seed, Giga Drain and Recover against Cresselia’s Moonlight.  Again, they’re both lovely designs, though with rather different goals; Celebi is playful, fey and lively, while Cresselia is untouchably beautiful.  I also think that both designs support their in-game abilities.  Cresselia’s dream/nightmare duality with Darkrai is interesting (it seems incomplete, though, since Darkrai represents the new moon, while Cresselia represents the crescent moon – shouldn’t there also be a full moon Pokémon?), as is Celebi’s ability to travel through time (although, granted, letting time travel into the franchise was probably a bad idea), and I honestly can’t choose one over the other.  That being the case, I have no choice but to vote for the stronger battler…

My vote goes to CELEBI!

Kyogre vs.  Regice

 

…oh boy.

Kyogre is just about the only Pokémon who legitimately might be as good as or better than Arceus.  The ruler of the deep ocean is constantly surrounded by violent rain that powers up his already devastating Water attacks and lets him use Thunder with absolute precision.  Not only that, it makes him the absolute best Pokémon ever, no argument, to put on a rain team.  Whereas Regice… I guess is a pretty awesome special wall, or at least it would be if only Ice weren’t the worst defensive type ever?  Anything with both Ice Beam and Thunderbolt is generally fun to handle, and it really is a cool Pokémon, but it’s also a defensive Pokémon with few support moves, multiple common weaknesses, and no easy way to heal.  As for design… well, Regice and its siblings were imprisoned by humans in ancient times because they were too powerful to control, and represent three ages of humanity’s past – Ice, Stone, and Iron – which is neat and clever and implies some cool stuff about the influence of Pokémon on humanity’s development, but they’re just so expressionless, so much more like lawn ornaments than Pokémon, that I just can’t find it in me to like them.  Kyogre, on the other hand, has all the majesty they lack (partly because whales are just awesome), and he and Groudon actually provide similar storytelling and world-building opportunities to the legendary golems anyway.

My vote goes to KYOGRE!

Darkrai vs. Mesprit

 

Hmm.  Tricky.

Okay, Darkrai is stronger than Mesprit, yes.  Better stats, a less vulnerable element, a wonderful signature move that would be incredibly useful even if it didn’t tie in with his powerful ability, and basically every move a special sweeper could want.  Mesprit is no slouch either, of course; she’s one of the most underappreciated Pokémon in the game, I feel (probably because of her Psychic-type vulnerabilities), and makes for a powerful and versatile supporting tank; her main problems are her lack of healing powers and that she’s so thoroughly eclipsed by the other crazily versatile legendary Psychic Pokémon, Mew.  In flavour terms, though… I’m not a fan of the way Darkrai’s been handled.  Saying that Darkrai’s nightmare powers are just a defence mechanism opens up the whole noble pariah characterisation he gets in his movie, but I think that actually makes him less interesting – if we go to such trouble to say that nightmares are not part of Darkrai’s true nature, he’s really just another Pokémon who happens to have certain mental powers.  Mesprit, Uxie and Azelf, however, as the embodiments of emotion, knowledge and will, bring up my old favourite theme of the influence Pokémon have on humans, particularly when you trace the implications of their legendary past (not to mention, they can be just as terrifying as Darkrai if you cross them).

My vote goes to MESPRIT!

Mewtwo vs. Entei

 

…y’know, if anything, this is even worse than Arceus vs. Raikou, because at least Raikou is actually a good Pokémon.  Entei suffers from what I’ve just now decided to call Flareon Syndrome, which is where Game Freak give a Fire Pokémon a massive physical attack stat and an abysmal physical movepool, including no physical Fire attacks better than Fire Fang (okay, yes, that one shining Entei that you have to transfer from a fourth-generation game has Flare Blitz, but COME ON!)  The fact is, Entei is a bad Pokémon.  I don’t even mean “bad by legendary standards;” he’s just bad; I’d prefer Arcanine any day.  It sort of doesn’t seem fair even to mention how terrifying Mewtwo is by comparison.  I’ve mentioned already why I like Entei, Raikou and Suicune, I’m impressed by how well Entei manages to convey physical strength and stability without coming off as a brute, which is surprisingly difficult, and I admit I’m honestly not that fond of Mewtwo, whose backstory is basically “science is evil BLARGH; now I will angst in the dark for twenty years,” in a world that is utterly dependent on its ludicrously advanced technology… but I don’t have nearly enough of a problem with him to eclipse Entei’s massive and blatant incompetence.

My vote goes to MEWTWO!

Latios vs. Jirachi

 

Latios is a nasty Pokémon to face.  If he’s allowed his signature item, the Soul Dew, he effectively gets a free Calm Mind boost and can shrug off most energy damage while blasting away with some of the most powerful special attacks in the game.  Even without it, though, he’s a frightening sweeper whose only notable flaw is the vulnerabilities that come with being a Psychic-type.  Jirachi isn’t so obviously devastating, but her incredibly resistant Steel/Psychic typing and neatly balanced stats make her a brilliant supporting tank.  Jirachi’s signature is abusing Serene Grace and Iron Head, but with Calm Mind, multiple good special attacks, and a wide support movepool, the sky really is the limit with this one.  Jirachi is said to sleep for a thousand years at a time, waking for only a single week, but can grant any wish in that time.  Personally, I just think wishes are fun to work with, as a long-established feature of fantasy and folktale with a rich cultural background.  It’s sort of a shame Game Freak are stuck in the whole “gotta catch ‘em all” mentality because it really limits what they can actually do with Jirachi.  Latios and his sister Latias don’t really seem to have a story or background… just a bunch of cool powers.  They’re wonderful Pokémon and I have no desire to talk them down, but I’ve always judged legendary Pokémon mainly on their potential for storytelling (and I don’t think Latios and Latias actually have any characteristics that require them to be legendary Pokémon anyway), so purely for reasons of design philosophy…

My vote goes to JIRACHI!

Dialga vs. Registeel

 

…

…

…Dialga wins.

Giratina vs. Shaymin

 

Both Giratina and Shaymin are effectively two different Pokémon: the absurdly tough Altered Giratina, whose Dragon/Ghost typing and small but useful support movepool make him pretty much the toughest Pokémon in the game barring Lugia, the serpentine Origin Giratina, who picks up an extra immunity from Levitate and can dish out some fierce attacks, the neglected and unassuming Land Shaymin, whose only real selling points are his bulkiness and the horrifying Seed Flare, and the flimsy but powerful Sky Shaymin, affectionately nicknamed Skymin, who utterly steals his earthbound cousin’s thunder by flinching everything to death with Air Slash and Serene Grace.  Land Shaymin is pretty depressing for a legendary Pokémon, but Skymin is downright evil, and at the very least gives Giratina a run for his money.  Giratina is just about the closest thing the Pokémon universe has to the devil, though officially he’s the ruler of antimatter, which is… weird, but cool, I guess, and his characterisation – trapped outside, staring back in at the old world from which he was banished – is creepy, evocative and fascinating.  Shaymin, who is the embodiment of gratitude and guardian of meadows, is interesting too, if only because it’s an unusual idea to base a Pokémon around, and his ability to break down toxins into water and light is a very dramatic way of showing his role as a protector of nature.  Much as I love Shaymin, though, I can’t actually see what gratitude, supposedly the centre of the design, has to do with his powers, his role, or… well, anything.  Sorry, Shaymin…

My vote goes to GIRATINA!

This round of the tournament is only going to be up for a day or so longer, so my next entry will probably be another one of these, but after that I think I’ll be alternating, for the most part, between this and anime reviews.

Anime Time: Episodes 49 and 52

So Near, Yet So Farfetch’d – Princess vs. Princess

Ash’s location: Oregon.

Misty and her Psyduck have something of a love-hate relationship, thanks to Psyduck’s total dearth of useful skills, constant debilitating headaches, and inexplicable habit of bursting from his Pokéball at the worst moments imaginable.  On the other hand, he does occasionally get to be awesome, thanks to his latent psychic powers, which is generally enough to mollify Misty for about five minutes and convince her not to pitch him off a cliff.  Today’s two episodes are among Psyduck’s rare but glorious good days.  Let’s take a look.

 This Farfetch'd appears in one episode, and manages to accomplish more than Team Rocket normally does in twenty. Maybe *he* should be the villain. Screenshots from filb.de/anime.

So Near, Yet So Farfetch’d sees Ash, Misty and Brock travelling through a forest where a rare and extremely delicious bird Pokémon called Farfetch’d can be found.  When Ash and Brock leave Misty alone for a moment, she sees one twirling its leek like a baton.  Intrigued, she follows the Farfetch’d, but loses it when she collides with a young boy in the woods (his name is never actually mentioned, but Bulbapedia calls him Keith) and drops her bag.  Misty returns, downcast, to Ash and Brock, only to find that Keith has switched bags with her: he has her Pokéballs, while she has only rocks packed in newspaper.  Meanwhile, Team Rocket stumble into Farfetch’d and Keith, who leads them to his rowboat tied up on a riverbank.  Claiming to have left something in his tent, he runs off, leaving his bag with Jessie, James and Meowth, who promptly steal it, the boat, and Farfetch’d.  Their gloating soon turns to anger when they realise that Keith’s bag is full of rocks and his boat is full of holes.  As their own Pokéballs float away, Farfetch’d scoops them up and flies off.  By this point, Misty and the others have learned from Officer Jenny #354 that Farfetch’d and Keith are notorious thieves…

“We’ve been together for a long time, Farfetch’d,” Keith tells his Pokémon, in case he has forgotten, “right after I found you injured on the road and nursed you back to health and started stealing.  I wish there was some… other way for us to get by, but… how else will we survive?  You’re just too weak to battle.”  Oh, cry me a river of clumsy exposition…  Anyhow.  Team Rocket find them and demand compensation.  Keith returns their Pokémon, along with a whole bag of Pokéballs.  Psyduck finally tracks down Farfetch’d, and Ash challenges him despite Keith’s objections.  To everyone’s surprise, Farfetch’d turns out to be more than Bulbasaur can handle, with his brilliant Agility technique.  Farfetch’d then pummels Psyduck for a while, until Psyduck flips out and mind-crushes him.  At that very moment Team Rocket, who are floating overhead, realise that all Keith’s Pokéballs contain explosive Voltorb, and frantically start pitching them out of the balloon… right onto his head.  Keith surrenders and agrees to return all the Pokémon he stole to their trainers.  Everyone, including Jenny, instantly forgives him, because he’s really sorry, and he promises to go off and live the life of an honest trainer with Farfetch’d.

I like to think he murmured the word “suckers” under his breath as he walked away.

 Lickitung in heaven, by the ever-brilliant Endless Whispers (http://endless-whispers.deviantart.com/).

In Princess vs. Princess, the day of the annual Princess Festival rolls around: a celebration of rampant commercialism, where women buy clothes, accessories and delicacies by the tonne at rock-bottom prices.  Misty and Jessie both eagerly join the shopping spree.  Jessie’s doesn’t end so well – she takes the opportunity to buy expensive gifts for Giovanni, to help the trio ooze their way back into his good graces, but runs into a wild Lickitung who slurps up the lot.  Jessie, furious, hurls a Pokéball and captures the Lickitung, whom she threatens to deal with later.  When she returns to the shopping malls, she and Misty get into a fight over a blue dress, and agree to settle the matter in the Queen of the Princess Festival Contest.  Both of them are independently desperate to win the contest because of the prize: a one-of-a-kind set of extremely valuable Pokémon Princess Dolls.  For Jessie, dolls like these are a symbol of everything she could never have during her childhood of poverty; for Misty, of everything she always got as a ragged hand-me-down from her three older sisters.  The contest appears at first to be a beauty pageant, which Misty and Jessie enter in their finest clothes, however it turns out that there is a second component: a Pokémon tournament!  How exactly the two halves of the contest fit together is never explained; and the winner of the tournament is the one who takes home the prize, so… maybe the pageant is just a qualifying round?  Anyway, Misty co-opts Pikachu, Bulbasaur and Vulpix to create a balanced team of four with her Staryu, while Jessie seizes Weezing from James and literally throws Meowth into the ring.  Predictably, Misty and Jessie squash all comers and make their way up to the finals, where Pikachu unceremoniously fries Arbok, Weezing and Meowth in quick succession.  Jessie despairs, but Meowth reminds her that she has one more Pokémon: Lickitung, whose stupefying Lick attack puts a quick end to Pikachu, Bulbasaur and Vulpix.  Misty calls on her final Pokémon, Staryu… but instead, out pops Psyduck.  Psyduck proves to be unaffected by Lickitung’s numbing slurps, which leads to a stalemate since neither Pokémon possesses any other useful attacks… until Psyduck’s powers kick in and Lickitung is walloped.  Misty wins the contest and the dolls, and promptly ships them back to Cerulean City, for the express purpose of making her sisters mad with jealousy.

…gods, she’s weird.

 Psyduck hits Farfetch'd with his Limit Break.

In both of these episodes, Psyduck gets the opportunity to prove his worth: he’s probably Misty’s strongest Pokémon once he gets going.  He’s not the only one, though: Farfetch’d and Lickitung both dramatically exceed the expectations of their respective trainers when they enter the ring.  Farfetch’d has been with his trainer for some time, but despite their experiences together, Keith remains convinced that Farfetch’d is too weak to battle.  Sound familiar?  Like Keith, Misty seems to feel responsible for her dead weight Pokémon; even though she clearly doesn’t want Psyduck, she never appears to think that releasing him is a viable solution, and in spite of her constant biting sarcasm towards him she seems no less protective of Psyduck than she is of her other Pokémon when he’s in trouble.  Unlike Keith, she has yet to find some way for Psyduck to be useful in non-combat situations, which probably isn’t helping their relationship.  Both Farfetch’d and Psyduck reveal their true strength only when things get desperate, which is when they prove to be ridiculously powerful.  Farfetch’d, who has presumably never been trained for battle and probably hasn’t fought in a long time, wipes the floor with a well-trained, experienced and extremely disciplined Bulbasaur.  I mean, yes, Flying beats Grass, and yes, the tone of Keith’s expositional onslaught implies that he’s been massively underestimating Farfetch’d for a long time, but that can’t change the fact that Farfetch’d has very little battle experience and, in all probability, doesn’t really know what he’s doing.  We’ve all heard the stories about mothers temporarily gaining super-strength when their children are in danger; I think this may actually be something similar.  Farfetch’d has realised that Keith is cornered and has nothing to fall back on, so he pulls out all the stops, physiologically and psychologically, to keep his partner safe – and, until Psyduck takes the field, it works.  Psyduck, of course, is quite different in that he isn’t really conscious enough of what’s going on around him to be particularly set off by a threat to Misty, though the connection between his psychic abilities and his headaches does imply that they’re a mechanism for dealing with very stressful situations.  In either case, the enduring message is that Pokémon, like people, are capable of being however strong they need to be.

 "Right. Okay; that's it. This was *not* in my contract. Ash, if you ever make me fight one of these things, I swear I will murder you."

Lickitung is something quite different.  When Jessie uses Lickitung, he’s clearly something of a Hail Mary play on her part.  I don’t think she really expects to win by that point, but is hoping at least to go out with some dignity.  Lickitung, however, astonishes everyone by defeating not only Pikachu but Bulbasaur and Vulpix as well.  Despite Lickitung’s apparent power, Arbok remains Jessie’s main Pokémon in subsequent episodes, and his addition to the team doesn’t result in a marked change of Team Rocket’s fortunes; they stay useless and Lickitung is never so effective again as he is in Princess vs. Princess.  Why?  All things considered, I think it has to come down to the element of surprise.  None of Misty’s Pokémon knew what they were getting into with Lickitung.  His unconventional fighting style is a challenge to deal with, since they don’t know its weaknesses or limitations, and this is compounded by the way it works – delivering a slobbery Lick that leaves an opponent helpless from the sheer grossness of it, which is undoubtedly much worse as a surprise (if you know what’s coming, it probably doesn’t seem so bad).  Psyduck, in turn, overcomes Lickitung because he is remarkably weird as well, and simply doesn’t care about being licked.  Deprived of his one big trick, Lickitung has no other viable tactics in his arsenal.

 Misty's Psyduck, inexplicably, cannot swim. Luckily, Musical Combusken (http://musicalcombusken.deviantart.com/) has kindly given him a life preserver.

“Are you going somewhere with this?” you may well ask.  The thing about the anime is that it often gives weak or highly unusual Pokémon – and their unique powers – a moment in the sun.  As far as the games go, Farfetch’d has never been worth using except in masochistic self-imposed challenges, and probably never will be, but here we see that he is actually very intelligent and therefore a useful partner in Keith’s cons (amusingly, the inspiration for his design – the Japanese expression kamo negi, literally “a duck with a leek,” figuratively “a person naïvely walking into danger or a con” – refers in this episode not to Farfetch’d but to Misty, which is a rather nice twist).  Lickitung fares much better in the games, but still isn’t exactly ‘good;” moreover his mighty tongue, which was supposed to be the point of the design, never really came through in the way he fights until the comparatively recent additions of Wring Out and Power Whip to his movepool, since Wrap, Slam and Lick are, let’s be fair, terrible attacks (for heaven’s sake, in Red and Blue he didn’t even get Lick).  Arguably, for a long time Lickitung never got to be Lickitung in the games.  That brings me to Psyduck, because for Psyduck the relationship between the games and the anime is actually a very interesting one.  This is the original Pokédex entry on Psyduck from Red and Blue: “while lulling its enemies with its vacant look, this wily Pokémon will use psychokinetic powers.”  That’s… an extremely different portrayal from the Psyduck we know and ‘love,’ suggesting that his dim-witted appearance is just a facade.  It’s only in Yellow version, which is based on the anime, that we first get “always tormented by headaches. It uses psychic powers, but it is not known if it intends to do so,” which has dominated since.  Furthermore, when Misty originally met Psyduck in Hypno’s Nap Time, Nurse Joy #558 introduced him as one of the Pokémon adversely affected by Hypno’s psychic waves, who for some reason never fully recovered.  I don’t think Misty’s Psyduck was ever supposed to be typical of his species; rather, the whole species was subtly rethought with the release of Yellow version to bring them in line with his individual characterisation, and this shift has persisted to this day.

So, I totally intended for this entry to be about Misty’s relationship with Psyduck, but then it was about the games’ relationship with the anime instead.  That’s okay, though, because it’s one of the topics I really want people to think about when reading my Anime Time entries.  Occasionally the anime just plain defies reason, but a lot of the time the nature of the medium gives the writers more freedom to portray the Pokémon the way they’re supposed to be, and in at least one case, they apparently did a good enough job of it that the games actually followed suit.

Food for thought.

Anime Time: Episodes 43, 44 and 46

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.

...I...I don't know. I just don't know.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.

Ash, stop it. Where are you even getting these clothes?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.

Paras in a secluded grotto, surrounded by glowing spores, by Aeris Arturio (http://aerisarturio.deviantart.com/).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.

"Hooray! Charizard's evolved! He's going to save me!" FWWOOOSH! "Oh God! Charizard's evolved! He's going to kill me!"

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…

The terrifying awesomeness that is Aerodactyl, by Kezrek (http://kezrek.deviantart.com/).

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.

Anime Time: Episodes 42, 45 and 47

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…"I am so inconspicuous right now. Yep; Joy, you are one badass master of disguise. If my identical twin cousins-in-law could see me right now, they'd look right through me." Screenshots from filb.de/anime.

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…”

Electabuzz and Scyther attack... not each other, but... their own reflections in each other's eyes. Yeah... it's kinda like that.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!

Part of me actually thinks the series would be improved if they were like this in every episode. Someone must have agreed with me, because that's pretty much what the Go-Rock Quads in Pokémon Ranger are.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.

Alternatively, this works too.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.

"What do I look like, a DOCTOR!?"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.

Anime Time: Episodes 40 and 51

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…

 Yes, they are wearing colour-coordinated tights. Hey, don't look at me; I'm not going to be the one to say it. Screenshots from filb.de/anime.

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.

 Pikachu and Bulbasaur having a bromance moment.

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.

 "Evolve your Pokémon or we will continue to shout at you!"

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.

Eevee, Vaporeon, Jolteon, and Flareon, in all their glory, by Creepyfish (formerly IceandSnow, http://creepyfish.deviantart.com/).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.

 A Venusaur readying a Solarbeam, by Maquenda.

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.

Anime Time: Episodes 39 and ???

Pikachu’s Goodbye – Snow Way Out

Ash’s location: Switzerland.

A Pikachu colony living wild and free. Screenshots from filb.de/anime.
A Pikachu colony living wild and free. Screenshots from filb.de/anime.

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.

"Isn't Pikachu having a wonderful time here in the woods with his own kind? Yep, Pikachu sure would have a swell life if he just stayed here. Far away from civilisation. Without Ash. Oh, I'm sorry, Ash, what were you saying?"
“Isn’t Pikachu having a wonderful time here in the woods with his own kind? Yep, Pikachu sure would have a swell life if he just stayed here. Far away from civilisation. Without Ash. Oh, I’m sorry, Ash, what were you saying?”

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-

"No, Misty. It's too late for him now. We have to save ourselves!" "But we can catch up with him if we-" "Can't you see this is something he has to do on his own?"
“No, Misty. It’s too late for him now. We have to save ourselves!” “But we can catch up with him if we-” “Can’t you see this is something he has to do on his own?”

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.

Can’t… think… too… adorable… must… look… away…

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.

This piece is by Pikachu6123 (http://pikachu6123.deviantart.com/) and is so adorable that my head is actually about to explode.

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.