Tag: Pokémon

Totodile, Croconaw and Feraligatr

These Pokémon bore me.

 Totodile, Croconaw and Feraligatr. Artwork by Ken Sugimori; blah blah copyright, blah blah fair u-CRIKEY, ME ARM!

I’m sorry, but it’s true.  Totodile, Croconaw and Feraligatr bore me.  I honestly think they’re the most boring starter Pokémon in the history of ever.  Why would I think that?  They’re crocodiles; crocodiles are awesome, aren’t they?  What with the biting, and the ripping, and the tearing, and the biting, and the shredding, and the biting, and the…

…and the…

…what… what else do these Pokémon do, exactly?  Game Freak, help me out here.

I’m dead serious; they bite stuff and that’s pretty much it.  I’ve looked through all the Pokédex entries for all the games, and every single one of Totodile’s entries, every single one of Croconaw’s, and about half of Feraligatr’s are about how awesome they are at biting things.  It’s like that was all they could think of.  The other traits of Feraligatr’s that the Pokédex describes are his ability to move around easily even out of water thanks to his strong legs, and the fact that he normally moves slowly but can strike with incredible speed.  So… he’s exactly like a crocodile.  I don’t know why they even bothered to design a Pokémon; you totally could have just put an ordinary real-world crocodile in Gold and Silver as the Water starter and it would have worked just as well.  I mean, yes, it would be a bit strange, but it could also be interesting; like, you could explore the position of being the only ‘trainer’ in the world who doesn’t use Pokémon at all but just sics wild animals on people, and the ethical issues of what happens when your random pet crocodile eats some poor kid’s adorable fluffy Pokémon, and I’m pretty sure I’m taking the piss now but sometimes even I can’t tell.  Remember how, when I did Blastoise, I complained about Game Freak designing Pokémon that are basically just a water animal that’s been given a Water Gun attack?  Well, this is it.  I mean, they’ve been done up in anime style and painted in bright contrasting colours, and I have to admit the art isn’t bad, but other than making them really spiky and standing them up on two legs, there’s not a whole lot of evidence for actual creative thought here.  If you check out the Bulbapedia article, they point out that Croconaw looks a little bit like a stereotypical caveman, and yeah, now that they put it like that, the pattern of spots on his body does remind me of Fred Flintstone’s spotted animal skin, but that just invites the question… why?  There’s a comment on the discussion page from this one dude who thought it might be because of the similarities between the words “caveman” and “caiman” but… what?  I’m not sure whether I’d rather believe that the caveman thing is just an accident, or that the only original creative insight put into this design is a relatively obscure pun that has a small but bizarre effect on the visual aesthetic of the Pokémon’s intermediate form and is then never referenced again.

You know how I said that I thought Johto had the worst starters?  Yeah.  This guy.  Blame him.

 A less stylised, more realistic interpretation of Croconaw, by Camus Altamirano (http://camusaltamirano.deviantart.com/).

I wouldn’t even mind if they had done a caveman thing with Totodile, Croconaw and Feraligatr.  It’d be a very odd choice, and it would probably wind up perpetuating some unfortunate stereotypes about prehistoric humans, but heck, it would still be better than “this Pokémon is a crocodile and does crocodile things.”  Alternatively, if they’d decided on reflection that the caveman thing was dumb, maybe a mystic, ancient Egyptian-style aesthetic, lots of gold, drawing on the cult of Sobek, the crocodile-headed god of the Nile?  If that doesn’t appeal, what about just pushing the boat out and turning him into a full-fledged death-dealing aquatic horror with webbed feet, spines and blades, a long body tapering to a whiplike tail, and heck, making him a Poison-type with vicious, dripping fangs… or going in completely the opposite direction and making him into the Barney the friggin’ Dinosaur of crocodiles?  Seriously, any of that would be fine by me, as long as the result isn’t just a crocodile.

 …okay, I think I’ve made my point now.

Breathe, Chris.  Breathe.

Okay.  Sadly the problems don’t stop there because Feraligatr, as he was originally implemented, had some serious flaws in his skill set.  Feraligatr is primarily a physical attacker, but he’s also a Water Pokémon, and the problem with Water attacks is that, until Diamond and Pearl anyway, all of them were energy-based.  As of Gold and Silver, Feraligatr was pretty bad at using Water attacks.  In fact, since Dark attacks (like Bite and Crunch) were all considered energy attacks as well for some bizarre reason, he was actually really bad at biting things too, which makes all those Pokédex entries terribly ironic, when you think about it (the same thing happened to Granbull).  Anyway, Feraligatr can dish out a pretty nasty Earthquake, he can get Rock Slide, and… you might as well throw in a Normal attack like Return?  Or I guess Surf, since it’ll still be useful against Pokémon with awful special defence?  Screech might be fun to soften up targets for his physical attacks, and I suppose there’s Curse, since Feraligatr’s not a particularly fast Pokémon anyway and he’s got worse options than trying to play tank.  Really, though, original Gold and Silver Feraligatr is a pretty mediocre Pokémon.  Emerald made him much less mediocre by giving him Swords Dance for pretending to be a sweeper; he’s not fast enough to be really good at that, but he is generally tough enough to set up Swords Dance without being killed right away, so there’s that.

 Just because Feraligatr isn't that *good* at using Surf doesn't mean he can't look badass while he does it... art by Matsuyama Takeshi (http://matsuyama-takeshi.deviantart.com/).

Diamond and Pearl were what fixed Feraligatr’s real problem, by reclassifying all attacks into physical and special based on individual characteristics rather than element.  All of a sudden, Waterfall, Crunch and Ice Punch are physical attacks, Feraligatr learns Superpower as a devastating (if somewhat inconsistent) Fighting attack, someone decided he should get Dragon Dance and Agility so now he can be fast if he wants to, and the icing on the cake is that, if you really want to stick with Swords Dance for the power, Heart Gold and Soul Silver added Aqua Jet to his list of egg moves, so he can even beat faster opponents if he’s had time to dance first.  A lot of Pokémon benefited from the transition to Diamond and Pearl and the way so many attacks suddenly started making sense, but Feraligatr got a better deal than most.  Like Typhlosion, Feraligatr hasn’t got much out of Black and White yet, but he’s awaiting the release of his Dream World ability the most eagerly of all three Johto starters because his is Sheer Force.  Sheer Force trades away the side effects of attacks that have them (like the rather insignificant 10% freeze chance on Ice Punch) for a 33% power boost, and incidentally also allows you to use a Life Orb for even more power without paying the item’s normal cost of 10% of your health for each attack (only attacks that work with Sheer Force get this last benefit; you still lose health when using attacks without side effects, like Earthquake).  Quite a few of Feraligatr’s core attacks are compatible with Sheer Force – Waterfall, Ice Punch, Crunch, and Rock Slide – so this may well be what he needs to finally get out from under the shadow of the other monstrous Water-type physical sweeper, Gyarados.

I suppose in some ways Feraligatr is a success story, in that he shows just how much more powerful you can make a Pokémon even after it’s been released and all the details of type and stats are set in stone.  True, he’s largely a beneficiary of a major change that needed to happen anyway, but Agility, Dragon Dance, Aqua Jet and Sheer Force are all sensible and thematically appropriate additions that give Feraligatr the kind of power a starter really deserves, so I have to admit that his development through the games has been fairly well handled.  I mean, it would’ve been better if they’d gotten that right from the beginning (I would have thought that making him good at biting things was a no-brainer since that’s his whole schtick), but we can’t have everything.  This design really is bottom-of-the-barrel stuff, though.  Why go to the effort of designing a Pokémon if you aren’t going to… y’know… design a Pokémon?  Several Water-types are like this, which is one reason I’m so annoyed that it’s the most common element – so many of those hundred-odd Pokémon are distressingly half-assed – but from a starter I really do expect more of an effort.

Cyndaquil, Quilava and Typhlosion

Cyndaquil. Artwork by Ken Sugimori; Nintendo is the way and the truth and the life, and no-one comes to Nintendo except through Game Freak.Cyndaquil has never caught my interest.  I’m not sure why; maybe I’m just prejudiced against mammals (Cyndaquil is, believe it or not, the only mammalian starter Pokémon of the first three generations; the vast majority were reptiles).  In principle, though, she’s based on a fairly neat idea; take a spiny mammal like a hedgehog or echidna and set its spines on fire, because fire is awesome.  A lot of Fire Pokémon earn their place in the ranks of their element purely by virtue of being able to breathe fire, so she’s clearly off to a good start in the creativity stakes by integrating her element with her design base in a pleasing way.  Personality-wise, although Cyndaquil herself is very shy and timid, her evolved forms, Quilava and Typhlosion, are stereotypical hot-headed Fire-types.  That’s not especially bad; there’s no point to Pokémon that defy the stereotypes without Pokémon who conform to them, and if you need to do something like that, the starters are the place to do it.  If there’s one place in the game where you want Pokémon to be exactly what players expect, this (arguably) is it.  On the other hand, Charizard did it so well that it becomes difficult to expect Typhlosion to live up to that standard.  I’m uncertain exactly what kind of animals Quilava and Typhlosion are based on; their colour scheme reminds me of badgers, but their general attitude makes me want to call them wolverines.  Either way, we’re looking at a feisty, tenacious animal that can be a terror when it’s cornered, but as far as “burn ‘em all, and let Arceus sort them out” goes, there’s just no contest when you pit them against a fire dragon.  Accordingly, those traits – stubbornness, defiance and the like – might have been better ideas to emphasise, especially since they would also make a more natural progression from Cyndaquil’s timid nature.  One of Typhlosion’s more unique tactics is her fondness for obscuring herself and distorting her opponents’ vision with heat haze.  This is one of Game Freak’s less clichéd ways of ramming down our throats just how hot a Fire Pokémon can get, but it feels like an intimidation tactic more than anything else, a way of avoiding fights, and not entirely consistent with the explosive rage that seems to be thought of as Typhlosion’s defining characteristic.  Again, I think Typhlosion would actually have made more sense and presented a more interesting take on Fire as an element if she’d been a far less aggressive, more reactive Pokémon.

Quilava. Artwork by Ken Sugimori.Since we’re here, let’s talk about Fire.  Fire traditionally has a wide range of symbolic associations that are consistent across many cultures; fire is destructive, but also creative because it provides the warmth that nurtures life; it symbolises passion – even today we talk about strong emotions ‘burning’ inside us – as well as invention, because of its importance to the development of civilisation, and purity, because it burns away the impure.  With a few notable exceptions, Fire Pokémon are a lot less varied.  Fire (in stark contrast to Grass and Water) is one of the more underrepresented elements in Pokémon, with fewer than fifty species (still a lot more than Ghost or Dragon, though), and most of them tend to place a lot of weight on the destructive aspect of fire, both in their powers and their personalities, some of the most notable examples being Charizard, Typhlosion, Magmortar, Entei, Houndoom and Camerupt.  Fire Pokémon also tend to be very fast, though not all of them are, by any means (Magcargo, for instance, is one of the slowest Pokémon in the game).  Pokémon that deviate from the idea of fire as a swift-spreading force of destruction are much fewer.  A few, like Ninetales, Arcanine and Rapidash, actually have little to do with fire in terms of their flavour; they just happen to breathe fire on top of everything else they do.  Magcargo and Torkoal are weird and clever and creative and really deserved to be much more powerful than they are, but in any case they have very specific associations with particular manifestations of the idea of fire, so they aren’t really a part of this.  The only Pokémon I know of that really embrace different symbolic meanings of fire are Ho-oh, Volcarona, Victini, and Reshiram (Moltres arguably counts too, for a story told by one of Blaine’s gym trainers about how Blaine was rescued by a fiery bird, presumably Moltres, when he was lost on an icy mountain).  Ho-oh and Volcarona, as a phoenix and an avatar of the sun, respectively, wholeheartedly embody the concept of life-giving fire, while Reshiram and, to an extent, Victini seem to draw on fire as a symbol of inspiration.  Notably, these are all legendary Pokémon (well, okay, Volcarona… arguably though Volcarona is thematically speaking a ‘legendary’ Pokémon in that she is a Pokémon of legend, and worshipped as solar deity).  The point I am by slow degrees trying to construct here is that Fire as an element does not automatically straightjacket you into creating a Pokémon dedicated to blowing things up.  A Fire Pokémon could easily be something that uses fire to keep others warm on cold winter nights, sear away mould to nurture plants, or captivate people by creating visions of beauty.  If I were constructing a history of the Pokémon world, I’d even be tempted to make a Fire-type the first Pokémon ever to take a human partner… but now I’m getting too tangential.  Let’s get back to Typhlosion.Typhlosion throwing out an Overheat, by SuellenB (http://suellenb.deviantart.com/).

Typhlosion. Artwork by Ken Sugimori.Typhlosion’s base stats are actually identical to Charizard’s, so she’s basically fast and likes blowing things up.  Her big draw over other Fire-types in Gold and Silver was her ability to learn Thunderpunch (which, remember, was a special attack before Diamond and Pearl) to smite Water Pokémon.  She also learned Earthquake but was held back somewhat by her lower physical attack stat.  She was a relatively simple point-and-shoot Pokémon, but by the standards of the time she was pretty good at it.  Ruby and Sapphire took Thunderpunch from her, but she got it back in Emerald, and like most Fire-types she was delighted by the introduction of Lavaridge Gym Leader Flannery’s signature move, Overheat, a move more powerful and accurate than Fire Blast which came at the tiny, tiny cost of half of the user’s special attack stat.  The third generation didn’t change her much, though.  Diamond and Pearl, on the other hand, shook things up considerably.  Thunderpunch was now a physical attack, which, combined with its relatively low power, took it off Typhlosion’s list of favourite moves.  In its place, along with most of the other Fire Pokémon in the game, she got Solarbeam, a very fun move for smacking around Water-types but one to be used with caution because of its reliance on fine weather.  Like many of the older starters, she also gained Focus Blast; it may be inaccurate but a strong Fighting attack is nothing to sniff at, even if you already have a way to break Steel-types as Typhlosion does.  Those aren’t the big changes, though; the big change to Typhlosion in Diamond and Pearl was the addition of Eruption to her list.  This highly exclusive move deals damage based on the user’s current health; an uninjured Pokémon with Eruption is capable of tremendous destruction.  The other Pokémon that get it are all either too slow to fire off an Eruption without getting hit first or physical attackers anyway, which gives Typhlosion a unique niche as the only truly competent user of this devastating attack.  This remains Typhlosion’s main draw in Black and White, which have so far brought her little of interest.  Flash Fire, Typhlosion’s Dream World ability, will make an awesome bonus once it’s available; immunity to Fire attacks is merely amusing when you already resist them anyway, but actually boosting your own Fire attacks when you absorb them is, as Rapidash and Houndoom will gladly attest, something else, especially for a Pokémon whose biggest draw is her ability to make one single massive Fire attack.

For reasons I’ve already discussed, Typhlosion doesn’t do much to dissuade me from my belief that Gold and Silver had the ‘worst’ starters, but, like the rest of them, she’s not actually a bad Pokémon.  Like Meganium, she’s one of those that prompt me to make exaggerated sighing noises and ramble at length about wasted potential.  I won’t deny, though, that there is something quite satisfying about Cyndaquil’s growth from a timid, trembling child into the intimidating walking explosion that is Typhlosion.  As a battler, I think Typhlosion really came into her own when Diamond and Pearl gave her Eruption, because that’s what made her unique and special; it’s a shame, though, that this coincided with the advent of Stealth Rock, which makes it very hard to keep her uninjured.  If Typhlosion’s your kind of driven pyromaniac, more power to you – she can be tricky to use, but those Eruptions are worth it.

Chikorita, Bayleef and Meganium

Chikorita. Artwork by Ken Sugimori; blood for Nintendo; skulls for their skull throne!Yay; more Grass-types!  Like Bulbasaur, Chikorita was part of my childhood (less so, since I started to splash out a little on Silver and actually picked one of the other two starters from time to time) so, of course, I love her to bits.  However, I must be strong.  I have to talk about what these Pokémon mean for me personally, but I’ll do my best to discuss them objectively too…

Here’s something you might not know about me: I was a dinosaur kid.  Now, I don’t mean that like how all boys go through the dinosaur phase and learn to rattle off the names of the dozen or so coolest ones that were in Jurassic Park and play with models.  I mean some of my first words were dinosaur names, I had the evolutionary lineage of the whole damn Order Archosauria memorised by the time I was ten, I used to get really ticked off with people who called Pteranodon a ‘flying dinosaur,’ I was genuinely remorseful that humanity only existed because dinosaurs had gone extinct, while all the other kids were playing with T-Rex and Triceratops I was into the really hipster dinosaurs like Scutellosaurus and Homalocephale, and I’m even worse now because I’ve studied Latin and Greek and know what all the names actually mean.  Chikorita, Bayleef and Meganium were basically my ideal partners, because as well as being Grass-types they were also clearly based on sauropods (‘lizard-feet,’ from the Greek σαυρος, lizard, and πους/ποδ-, foot – booyeah!).  Their plant characteristics are a little light, but add to their existing cuteness, and I like the way the buds of Chikorita’s ‘necklace’ grow larger and then burst into bloom, much like the pattern we saw with Bulbasaur’s bulb – it’s odd, though, that the leaf on her head grows when she evolves into Bayleef but then disappears entirely when she finishes up as Meganium, replaced by those weird antennae.  I mean, I guess they’re supposed to resemble the stamen and anther of a flower, which does fit, but attached to an animal they have a strange insectoid feel; still, they’re a small enough detail that they don’t mess with the design, and Meganium’s head would look too plain without them, so I’m okay with it (would’ve preferred something more obviously herbaceous, that’s all).  Anyway; Chikorita’s thing is scent.  Her leaves and buds release a sweet, relaxing aroma with mild soporific properties; breathing in Chikorita’s scent makes people and Pokémon calmer and friendlier, though not enough to have any effect in battle (bizarrely, until Diamond and Pearl Chikorita couldn’t even learn Sweet Scent).  Meganium’s flower has a similar effect, while Bayleef’s spicy aroma does just the opposite, stimulating and energising Pokémon to get them in the mood for fighting.  That reversal is strange, but I suppose you could handwave it as, like, Bayleef’s rebellious teenager phase or something; I don’t know.  Meganium’s other power is her restorative breath, which can miraculously bring dead plants back to life – again, not something tremendously useful in a fight, but awesome nonetheless, bringing out the same ‘forest guardian’ aspect as Venusaur has.  Like the sauropods they’re based on, Chikorita and her evolutions are very gentle creatures; they don’t like to fight and so have powers related to peace and healing.  It’s straightforward, and it makes sense.  This isn’t a design that makes me want to jump up and down singing about how clever it is, and it makes no particularly brilliant conceptual leaps.  Actually, I think Tropius, from Ruby and Sapphire, is a more interesting take on the same idea.  Nonetheless, for what she is, Chikorita is far from a failed design; she’s cute, she has well-defined character traits, and Meganium’s healing powers make her an ideal Grass Pokémon leader.

 Bayleef. Artwork by Ken Sugimori.

Meganium’s stat spread is almost exactly the same as Venusaur’s, but with two of the scores switched around – as you might expect, her special attacks are much weaker than his, in exchange for greater physical defence.  She’s pretty tough, though her attacks lack pepper (they’re not unusable, though – I mean, people stick physical attacks on Venusaur, and his stat is the same as hers).  As a defensive Pokémon, Meganium is attractive because of her support moves: she has Reflect, Safeguard and Light Screen to protect your team, Synthesis for recovery, good old Leech Seed if you want to be a pain, and Aromatherapy to cure your own side’s status problems.  Basically, we’re looking at a traditional Grass-type support Pokémon, with a particularly pronounced defensive bias – as of Gold and Silver, the only fully-evolved Grass Pokémon with a primary attack stat lower than Meganium’s was Jumpluff.  Meganium’s main problem isn’t her offensive capabilities, though – like I said, her attacks aren’t unusable by any means.  Her problem is that she’s, well, a dinosaur, in more ways than one.  Meganium has hardly changed at all over the years since she was created.  Picking up Counter as a hereditary move (via Breloom) in Ruby and Sapphire gave her a nice surprise to spring on powerful physical attackers, especially since there aren’t many who can one-shot her, Aromatherapy is nice, as mentioned, and Black and White’s addition of Dragon Tail gives her a new potential role shuffling opponents in and out of play, but that’s pretty much it.  Grass-types in general have benefited from the eventual creation of Grass attacks that, y’know, don’t suck, like Energy Ball and Leaf Storm, but offense has never been Meganium’s thing anyway.  Picking up a physical Grass-type move, Seed Bomb, in Platinum was cool, I guess, since Meganium’s only other Swords Dance material was (and remains) Earthquake and Body Slam.  Her (as-yet unavailable) Dream World ability, Leaf Guard, protects Meganium from status ailments while Sunny Day is in effect, which… is ‘nice’ but, because of Aromatherapy, Meganium doesn’t really give a fig about status effects anyway.  For the most part, Meganium handles exactly the same way as she did when she was introduced, while everyone else has been learning awesome new tricks around her, and since Meganium wasn’t exactly a top-shelf Pokémon when she was introduced anyway, that’s kind of a problem.

 Aquabat (http://aquabat9.deviantart.com/) shows Meganium catching some rays.

Objectively, I have to admit Meganium’s got her problems.  I’ve always had a vague notion that Gold and Silver had the least interesting starters, overall, and Meganium has to take some of the blame for that; other than being a dinosaur (which, let us not forget, is awesome) she just has a bunch of plant-themed traits and abilities that really aren’t all that unique or clever.  To be fair to her, no other Grass-type has the same degree of focus on the healing properties of plants; she does represent an important archetype and it’s another of the reasons I love her, but even that feels a little tacked on.  She’s not particularly strong, either; as a starter she’s automatically decent because of her good stats, but she lacks offensive presence, and that’s not just a question of her actual attack and special attack stats because they aren’t that bad.  Her problem is more that she doesn’t learn many moves with which to threaten her enemies; she has few direct attack options, and equally few indirect options.  With no Stun Spore or Sleep Powder, or for that matter anything bar Toxic (which everyone gets) and Leech Seed (which is annoying but difficult to use effectively, especially for slower Pokémon), there’s just not a whole lot she can do to threaten anything.  Part of the problem is that there are relatively few attacks that it’s ‘okay,’ thematically speaking, to give to Grass Pokémon, and “just give them all Sleep Powder and Stun Spore” isn’t really a solution (you could probably get away with giving Meganium, say, Calm Mind and Dragon Pulse though…).

 Meganium. Artwork by Ken Sugimori.

Y’know what, though?  I still love Meganium, and that’s not likely to change.  In a sense, the kind of comments I make on Pokémon are ultimately futile, because however rational and objective I try to be, and however I argue my points, there’s always going to be someone who loves the Pokémon I judge poorly – and the proof is that, today, that someone is me!  That’s why – in my opinion – it’s probably best to view what I do as more an exercise in prioritising.  There’s nothing wrong with making new Pokémon.  I could probably find positive things to say for just about everyone in the whole damn Pokédex (with… certain noteworthy exceptions); I just question whether forging ahead with 100+ new Pokémon in every generation is really the best use of the developers’ limited time and money when there’s actually a whole lot more that could be done with the Pokémon that exist already.  Very few of these designs are legitimately bad; it’s all a question of how much time and effort goes into developing them.

Eheh… had a bit of an introspective moment there.  What can I say?  Talking about Grass-types just makes me mushy, I guess.

Squirtle, Wartortle and Blastoise

Squirtle. Artwork by Ken Sugimori; do unto Nintendo as you would have Nintendo do unto you.It’s funny, but I’ve never been a big fan of the Water-type starters.  Funny, because some of my favourite Pokémon are Water-types.  Maybe it’s because they’re always juxtaposed with the Grass-type starters, which for me is no contest.  If that’s the case, then perhaps examining them in isolation will make the truth come out.  Let’s give it a try…

Squirtle is adorable.  As far as cuteness goes, amongst the first-generation starters Squirtle’s nailed it.  Of course, I think turtles are just adorable animals by nature, but it’s hard not to go all warm and gooey inside when you see him staring up at you in Sugimori’s art over there.  However, this does bring up my problem with Squirtle, since, sadly, I do have one; he’s… well, just a turtle.  Apart from the squirrel-like tail (which does, I must concede, further multiply his cuteness factor) the designers haven’t really done much with him, which I think is typical of the flaws in many of the less creative Water-types and symptomatic of a problem in the way Water Pokémon are designed: Water, compared to Fire and Grass, is an element with requirements that are relatively mundane and easy to meet.  All you need is for your Pokémon to live in the water.  This is part of the reason there are so damn many of them; more than 1/6 of all Pokémon are Water-types, which makes it the most common element by a comfortable margin, and a lot of them are just ‘this Pokémon is an animal that lives in the water!’  Not all Water Pokémon fall into this trap, of course (like I said, some of my favourites are Water-types), nor is Squirtle without merits, but I can’t help but feel that he is, overall, a less creative concept than Charmander or Bulbasaur.  Evolution to Wartortle makes him a bit more elaborate; the rudder-like ears and luxuriantly furry wave-crest tail are nice touches, and although his cultural association with longevity is a bit predictable for a turtle Pokémon, it’s still good background detail.  If Squirtle is too little changed from a standard turtle, I think Wartortle is just right; the development of the tail into an actual eye-catching feature that’s evocative of his element was exactly what that design needed.  Finally we have Blastoise, who feels a little odd to me.  Venusaur and Charizard both feel as though they continue the same changes that we see in Ivysaur and Charmeleon; the flower bursting into bloom on Ivysaur’s back as he slowly takes on a primeval appearance, the horns growing on Charmeleon’s head as he begins to leave behind his lizard form and become something more.  Blastoise, with his stubby tail and understated ears, reverses the changes we see as Squirtle evolves into Wartortle, in particular losing the physical aspects that are responsible for Wartortle’s connotations of age and experience, almost as though he’s just decided to go in a different direction entirely.  He suddenly begins to look a lot more like a real-world turtle again… except of course that Blastoise has high-powered water cannons, for no other reason than because they’re awesome.  What’s the deal with these, anyway?  Are they made of bone?  Metal?  Either raises odd questions, so again, it’s best to go with the awesome and not try to explain it.  The fun thing about Blastoise is that his cannons aren’t just for direct attacks; he can also use them as boosters to increase the speed and power of his tackles (so presumably he can rotate them backwards?), which makes him sound even more badass.

 Wartortle. Artwork by Ken Sugimori.

You might have guessed I’m a bit conflicted about Blastoise.  It’s impossible to deny that he’s a brutally awesome Pokémon.  However, I’m bothered by a lot of the details, particularly the way the whole evolutionary line fits together.  I do like Squirtle, Wartortle and Blastoise, particularly Wartortle, but I don’t think this design is as carefully thought-out or coordinated as those of the other two starters – and I think I know why.  This is the list of hexadecimal index numbers used by the game engine of Red and Blue to identify all of the first-generation Pokémon.  This list has prompted a lot of fascinating discussions I don’t really have time to get into, but what matters today is that many people believe it represents the order in which the first-generation Pokémon were designed and programmed into the game (mainly because Rhydon, who is independently known to have been the first Pokémon ever created, is at the top, and there’s no other ordering principle to the list).  What’s interesting is the position of the starters.  Ivysaur is one of the oldest designs, while Bulbasaur and Venusaur come in together at a much later point, suggesting that they were designed around Ivysaur, giving the whole line cohesion.  Charmander, Charmeleon and Charizard seem to have been thrown in almost at the last minute, all together (so they’re essentially a single design), at the same time as Squirtle and Wartortle – I’m guessing this represents the moment the Grass/Fire/Water starter paradigm was created – but Blastoise is much older.  You can construct a number of other interesting patterns from this list.  Dragonite predates Dratini and Dragonair just as Blastoise predates Squirtle and Wartortle.  Psyduck and Golduck were not created together.  Gastly, Haunter and Gengar were all designed at different times, and Haunter came last.  Assuming that the index numbers do indeed represent what they are often taken to represent, this might explain my frustrating little details; Blastoise was originally a stand-alone design, and Squirtle and Wartortle were much newer pre-evolutions that fit with each other, but don’t quite match the original idea.

 Wartortle being awesome but somehow also adorable, by Salanchu (http://salanchu.deviantart.com/).

That’s quite enough of my baseless speculation, though; if you’re reading this you probably want to know what I think of Blastoise’s capabilities.  Blastoise kind of fell flat in Red and Blue because he didn’t really do anything that other Water-types didn’t; all of them could learn Water and Ice attacks, most of them were tanks, and (unlike Charizard) Blastoise wasn’t unique in his ability to learn Earthquake.  Gold and Silver gave Blastoise the tools that have been his mainstay ever since: superior special defence, from the splitting of the special stat, and Rapid Spin.  Rapid Spin is one of the vital necessities of competitive Pokémon, since it’s the only way to get rid of ‘entry hazards,’ traps that damage your Pokémon every time you switch; relatively few Pokémon can actually learn it, so those that do are almost guaranteed a niche (except for Delibird, because he is silly), as Blastoise has been for all these years.  He also picked up a couple of amusing tricks like Curse, Roar and Mirror Coat, followed by Yawn and Iron Defence in Ruby and Sapphire, adding to his talents as a defensive utility Pokémon.  Most of the fourth generation’s presents for Blastoise were diversifications of his offensive movepool – Focus Blast, Flash Cannon, Zen Headbutt, Aqua Jet, Signal Beam and, in Heart Gold and Soul Silver, the coveted Water Spout – but he’s not fast enough or powerful enough for aggressive strategies to make sense for him, and he didn’t really gain anything that added to his specialist role.  Blastoise still is, and probably always will be, a support Pokémon first and foremost; in addition to all the utility powers he had before, he’s picked up Dragon Tail, so he can smack Pokémon around while forcing them out of play, and like most of the Water-type crowd, he now has access to Scald, a less powerful trade-in for Surf that can cause burns, crippling physical attackers.  What Blastoise lacks in Black and White is a conspicuously game-changing Dream World ability (also Shell Smash, which would let him do something with that aforementioned offensive movepool, but I guess Carracosta would still be better at that anyway).  Chlorophyll and Solar Power fundamentally alter Venusaur and Charizard’s capabilities, while Blastoise’s Rain Dish… well, if you were planning on building a rain team anyway, the extra trickle of healing will certainly help Blastoise to do his job better, but it’s no substitute for an actual healing technique, the absence of which is one of the main things holding Blastoise back.  It’s not a bad ability, especially not for a defensive Pokémon, but Venusaur and Charizard’s new toys kinda leave Blastoise in the dust on this one.

 Blastoise. Artwork by Ken Sugimori.

I really wish I could think of something as nice to say about Squirtle and his evolutions as I did about Bulbasaur and Charmander, because I don’t think they’re bad Pokémon by any measure.  I’m just… sort of ambivalent.  They’re… y’know.  They’re okay.  They don’t make me want to rave about how wonderfully designed they are, or how versatile and powerful they are; nor have they committed any real sins, and if I had been looking over Red and Blue prior to their original release, I probably would have passed over them without comment.  Whoo.

That is all.

You may go.

Charmander, Charmeleon and Charizard

Charmander. Artwork by Ken Sugimori; Nintendo is Luke's father.There’s something about Charizard.  Maybe it’s the inherent awesomeness of Fire as an element.  Maybe it’s the allure of his base set trading card, whose Fire Spin was pretty much the most powerful attack in the game.  Maybe it’s the fact that he’s a goddamn freakin’ dragon.  Charizard is easily the most popular of the first-generation starters and, despite my perpetual love affair with the Grass type, I have to admit that it’s easy to see why.  Charmander may be cute as a button but one look at his burning tail shows that he means business nonetheless.  Charmeleon has the look of a proud fighter who loves to punch above his weight.  Charizard simply demands respect, and incinerates anyone who denies him.  What more could we possibly want?

Charmander and his family are just what you’d expect from Fire-types: figuratively and literally hot-headed Pokémon who believe quite firmly that if there is a problem that can’t be solved with fire, it’s only because you aren’t using enough fire.  Although this seems like it would be the default stance for most Fire Pokémon, none of the other first-generation Fire-types (with the possible exception of Flareon) embrace “Flamethrower first, ask questions later” with the same gusto that Charmeleon and Charizard do.  Similarly, Charmander’s connection with fire is so strong that his tail flame is actually an indicator of his life force – the stronger and brighter the flame, the healthier the Pokémon.  It’s a very straightforward idea, but again, it helps to establish Charmander as the archetypal Fire Pokémon, to a much greater degree than Bulbasaur or Squirtle can be considered exemplars of their elements, which probably goes some way towards explaining his popularity.  The dragon factor is significant as well, especially since Charizard was – and arguably still is, even with Salamence around – the closest thing in Pokémon to a traditional Western dragon and, for much of Pokémon’s English-speaking audience, that’s a pretty big deal.  The actual Dragon-with-a-capital-D Pokémon of Red and Blue, for a Western audience anyway, don’t quite deliver; Dratini and Dragonair clearly have Eastern dragons in mind and, while Dragonite’s physical form owes something to the European conception of what a dragon is, he’s a softer-toned, almost ‘cartoonish’ (if I can even say that) representation of that idea; like a gentle parody of what Charizard is playing straight.  Dragonite’s personality, too, comes from a profoundly different tradition; he’s a benevolent ocean-dweller, very much at odds with the European dragons of, say, the Icelandic sagas.  Charmeleon and Charizard, on the other hand, have a definite malevolent streak, which brings me to something else I like about them, or rather about the way they’ve been handled – there’s definite evidence that the writers of the Pokédex have been trying to build up different aspects of their personality over the years to create a more detailed picture of these Pokémon.  The obsession with combat, for instance, seems to be something Charmeleon developed after the release of Red and Blue.  Also, remember the way Ash’s normally disobedient Charizard would voluntarily step up to the plate if he felt there was a worthy opponent on offer?  As of Ruby and Sapphire, that’s actually a recognised trait of Charizard as a species; in nature, they search constantly for powerful opponents to fight, and never use their fire against weaker enemies.  If you’ve been hanging around here long enough to be familiar with my philosophy of ‘doing more with less,’ well, this kind of thing – the gradual accretion of details that expand our view of a Pokémon’s nature and powers – is a big part of what I mean.  It’s really not that hard.

 Charmeleon. Artwork by Ken Sugimori.

As Pokémon types go, Fire is pretty high up in terms of awe-inspiring elemental fury.  However, in Red and Blue, Fire actually got shafted pretty badly.  In a world where a lot of Pokémon relied on Normal attacks like Body Slam and Hyper Beam for type coverage, having primary attacks that were resisted by Rock Pokémon was not an enviable position, especially since most of the Fire-types had nothing else worth using – Magmar got Psychic and our dear friend Charizard managed to score Earthquake, but that was it.  Charizard had a further specific problem, which was that in Red and Blue his attacks were – despite what that awesome trading card might suggest – actually fairly lacklustre.  Not exactly bad but Venusaur, believe it or not, could do better; Charizard’s strength was not power but speed – very useful if you wanted to abuse the way Fire Spin worked in Red and Blue, but honestly, if Fire Spin abuse is your thing you’d probably be better off with Rapidash or Ninetales anyway.  Charizard’s attacks were lacklustre because neither his attack stat nor his special stat was particularly high – pretty good, but nothing to write home about.  Then, of course, Gold and Silver split special into special attack and special defence, and suddenly Charizard’s Fire attacks started looking a lot more attractive.  Until Diamond and Pearl came along he still had few workable special attacks other than Fire-type ones, but Gold and Silver also brought Charizard the gift of Belly Drum, which can turn him into a devastating physical attacker at the cost of half of his health.  Again, speed is his strength – Charizard was, and remains, the fastest Belly Drummer in the game (well, tied with Linoone now, but who’s counting?), an important attribute to keep other Pokémon from preying on his weakened health bar.

 Charizard. Artwork by Ken Sugimori.

Diamond and Pearl eventually gave Charizard physical Fire attacks to use with Belly Drum and special Flying attacks (as well as Focus Blast and Solarbeam) to bulk out his other sets.  Unfortunately, they also gave the world Stealth Rock, a pox of a move that almost every serious player uses.  It’s similar in concept to Spikes, introduced in Gold and Silver, in that it creates a trap to damage Pokémon as they switch in, but with a number of differences.  Stealth Rock can be set up in a single turn, while Spikes takes two uses to match Stealth Rock’s average damage output, and three to exceed it.  Spikes is a relatively exclusive move, while Stealth Rock was available as a TM and therefore accessible to all and sundry.  Finally, Stealth Rock accounts for weaknesses and resistances.  Pokémon doubly weak to Rock attacks, like poor Charizard, lose 50% of their health just for switching in against a team with the foresight to set up Stealth Rock.  The notion of game balance has never really existed in Pokémon anyway, but if it had, Stealth Rock would have killed it by making a weakness to Rock attacks far more important than any other single aspect of a Pokémon’s resistance profile.  The point for us here today is that, from Diamond and Pearl onwards, you can’t use Charizard without a Pokémon with Rapid Spin to clear away Stealth Rock when it turns up.  Well, I mean… you can.  You’ll just lose.  Repeatedly.

 This little slice of awesome is from the Destroyed Steak Pokémonathon (http://destroyedsteak.deviantart.com/), a sadly short-lived attempt by two artists to draw every Pokémon in order. Seems to have been pretty epic while it lasted, though.

The transition to Black and White didn’t significantly alter Charizard’s movepool; he’s never been much of a tank, so losing the potential for healing with Roost doesn’t bother him much, and Thunderpunch was nice but it’s not like he doesn’t have plenty of other physical attacks to toss around.  The big change for him, as for Venusaur, was his Dream World ability.  There’s nothing wrong with the standard Fire starter ability, Blaze, which adds a little spice to Fire attacks when your health is low, but Charizard’s new Solar Power ability – like Chlorophyll for Venusaur – is something else.  Only two other Pokémon, Sunflora and Tropius, possess this lovely ability, and both of them are far too slow to take advantage of it.  Charizard is another story.  Solar Power burns a little of Charizard’s health every turn while Sunny Day is in effect, but in return boosts his special attack by 50%.  Meanwhile, the normal effects of Sunny Day will be jacking up his Fire attacks anyway.  Keeping a solar Charizard alive for any length of time is profoundly difficult, since Charizard isn’t exactly renowned for toughness anyway, but even the toughest of Water Pokémon will wither in the face of his Fire Blast.

In some ways I think that Charmander, Charmeleon and Charizard provide the best example from the first generation of what a starter should be, a Pokémon that embodies the essential characteristics of its element – in this case, Fire’s destructive nature and passion for combat.  Unfortunately Red and Blue let them down a little, as they let down all Fire-types, but ever since Gold and Silver, Fire has held a prestigious position as one of the few elements able to reliably damage Steel Pokémon, and Charizard has been generally well-supported throughout the games’ development, in spite of his present difficulties in dealing with Stealth Rock.  In summary, then, while they aren’t my favourites, I believe these Pokémon are the result of strong designs that have been quite well-handled from start to finish – good pieces of work.

Bulbasaur, Ivysaur and Venusaur

Oh, Bulbasaur; I know you aren’t as popular as Squirtle or Charmander, but my heart will always belong to you…

 Bulbasaur. Artwork by Ken Sugimori; we are all part of the Great Circle of Nintendo.

Today is basically going to be one huge nostalgia trip for me, since we’ll be looking at my first Pokémon ever: Bulbasaur, the first-generation Grass-type starter Pokémon.  It’s hard for me to express how much I loved this little guy; I honestly don’t think I ever chose a different starter on any of my myriad playthroughs of Blue version as a kid (I branched out a little on Leaf Green, but Bulbasaur remained my favourite).  It’s probably fair to say I’m slightly biased, but I will do the best I can to back myself up with sensible argument.  Here’s why I think Bulbasaur is awesome.

 

What made Bulbasaur stand out amongst the Grass Pokémon of Red and Blue was his heavy emphasis on the idea of symbiosis.  Most of the first-generation Grass-types (in fact, most Grass-types full stop) are plants – Oddish, Bellsprout, Tangela and Exeggcute may move, talk and fight, but they’re very clearly plants with a couple of animal traits rather than the other way around.  The subsequent Grass-type starters, and a few other weirdoes like Leafeon, all reject the trend and are animals with a couple of plant traits.  Bulbasaur is unique in being neither; his appearance gives the impression of two distinct but joined organisms, one animal and one plant, and this is explicitly what he is, with a seed “planted on its back at birth.”  Even today, there’s only one other Pokémon that balances its plant and animal aspects in the same way, and it’s actually one that’s been around from the beginning.  It’s Paras.  Truthfully, though, Paras and Parasect with their story of parasitism are even stranger.  They may be terrible Pokémon but they have one of the most fascinating designs of the entire first generation; they’re not the point of this entry, though.  The point is, although Bulbasaur is the first Grass Pokémon many trainers will ever meet, he’s not at all archetypal; in fact he’s the best example of an idea that the subsequent Grass starters never quite caught onto.  In Bulbasaur’s Mysterious Garden, Brock describes Bulbasaur, Ivysaur and Venusaur as a symbol of nature’s interconnectedness and the fundamental dependence plants and animals have on each other.  He’s perhaps poeticising a bit excessively, but I actually quite like this way of looking at them; if you wanted to come up with such a symbol, you could do much worse than Bulbasaur.  It might have been nice if the later starters had explored symbiosis in different ways to create contrasts with Bulbasaur – Torterra, actually, does this quite well – but he’s still fun on his own.  As compared to the other starters of his own set, Bulbasaur is a little odd.  Squirtle and Charmander follow broadly similar progressions from cute through tough to full-on badass; Blastoise with his heavy cannons and Charizard with his, y’know, being a freakin’ dragon.  Bulbasaur is different.  I think he is meant to be cute (well, I think he’s cute) but clearly not so overtly as Charmander or Squirtle; he almost seems to aim for the ‘tough’ aesthetic from the beginning (the fact that he’s the only quadruped in the group is probably a factor since it adds to his physical stability) and then just builds on it as he grows through Ivysaur to Venusaur.  ‘Badass’ is a hard adjective to define, but I don’t think it describes Venusaur, or at least not as well as it describes Blastoise and Charizard.  Instead Venusaur projects a sense of age, experience and self-control – this is a Pokémon that can fight, but chooses not to.  Venusaur is not for everyone, but for me it was his differences that made him my favourite.

 Ivysaur. Artwork by Ken Sugimori.

I’m sentimental, of course, but there are plenty of reasons to like Bulbasaur’s line other than their design characteristics.  Venusaur is a starter Pokémon, and as such high stats are his birthright – solid all around, with a bias towards his special stats.  Back in the olden days, Venusaur was the fastest Grass Pokémon in the game, which made him a good choice for using Grass’s two big trump cards: Sleep Powder and Leech Seed.  He was also one of only two fully evolved Grass Pokémon (the other being Victreebel) with Razor Leaf, easily the best Grass-type attack at the time because of Red and Blue’s idiosyncratic critical hit mechanics and the absence of any way to speed up a Solarbeam.  On the ‘con’ side, Venusaur was a Poison-type Pokémon in a world ruled by Psychic-types, an uncomfortable place to be, and Poison had no powerful attacks in Red and Blue.  Over the years, Venusaur developed into a versatile tank who can focus on physical or special, offense or defence.  With the advent of Sunny Day, Razor Leaf was replaced by Solarbeam as the Grass type’s strongest offensive option, then Solarbeam eventually by Giga Drain and Seed Bomb, but Leech Seed and Sleep Powder remained potent weapons in Venusaur’s arsenal.  He gained the ability to rebalance himself towards slow, bulky physical offense with Curse in Gold and Silver; with the addition of Earthquake to his movepool in Ruby and Sapphire, he can act as a competent physical tank.  Power Whip and Leaf Storm present devastating options for Grass-type damage.  As a Grass-type, Venusaur is also one of the few Pokémon who actually appreciates having Poison as a secondary offensive element in the form of Sludge Bomb, since it can swiftly deal with other Grass Pokémon, who are immune to Leech Seed and resistant to Earthquake.  Finally, Synthesis lets Venusaur heal – it may be unreliable, dependent as it is on fine weather, but it backs up his reasonable defensive stats nicely.

 Venusaur. Artwork by Ken Sugimori.

Black and White brought Venusaur two major gifts, the first of which is Growth.  Growth has been a part of Venusaur’s movepool from the beginning, but its usefulness decayed after the special stat was split into special attack and special defence in Gold and Silver, since it then increased only special attack, not both.  Black and White have given Growth – and with it, many Grass Pokémon – a new lease on life; it now increases both physical and special attack, giving Venusaur more diverse options for putting together an offensive moveset.  Even better, Growth’s effect is now doubled in bright sunlight, allowing Venusaur to slot quite neatly into almost any sun team as a dangerous bulky sweeper.  The other great blessing Venusaur received was his Dream World ability, Chlorophyll.  When Ruby and Sapphire introduced abilities Venusaur, like all the other starters, received an ability that boosts the damage of his elemental attacks when his health is low (for the Grass-types, this ability is called Overgrow).  While this is nice to have, it’s difficult to plan to make use of it.  Chlorophyll, on the other hand, an ability available to many Grass Pokémon which doubles their speed in bright sunlight, compliments the newly-improved Growth perfectly to make the Grass-types that possess both extremely dangerous.  Several other Grass Pokémon have this combination, but few of them can compete with Venusaur. Victreebel is stronger, but he’s also much frailer and doesn’t learn Earthquake, which limits the usefulness of his excellent physical attack score.  Tangrowth is so slow that he still risks being outrun even with the Chlorophyll boost, and his special defence is shockingly bad (though it’s worth noting that Tangrowth can sit and get pummelled by physical attacks all day without blinking).  Shiftry is fast and has a nice movepool, whether you want to go physical, special, or both, but curls up and dies after even the weakest attacks.  This is not to say that all three don’t have advantages of their own, of course, but Venusaur is definitely up there with the strongest solar Pokémon.  Getting your hands on a Dream World Bulbasaur may not necessarily be easy, but they are out there, so see if you can find something valuable to trade for one.

As my very first Pokémon, Bulbasaur has inevitably become something of a gold standard for me.  A simple but well-executed design with pleasing symbolic connotations, coupled with measures of power and versatility that, for most of his history anyway (the additions from Black and White change this somewhat), have proven generous without creating an unachievable benchmark for the poor rank-and-file Pokémon.  Even today, even if I must admit to having soft spots for many of them, given the choice of any of the fifteen starter Pokémon of the past and present, I would find it very difficult not to stop looking at #001.

Anime Time: Episodes 26 and 32

Pokémon Scent-sation – The Ninja Poké-Showdown

Last anime review for a few weeks so we can look at something else, so let’s make it a good cut-off point: Ash’s next two Gym battles, against Erika of the Celadon Gym and Koga of the Fuchsia Gym.  Can he defeat these fearsome foes?  Don’t be silly; of course he can.  He’s the main character.

 Erika and her homies chilling at the Celadon Gym with their Grass Pokémon, by Dark Lugia (http://darklugia1.deviantart.com/).

When the gang arrives in Celadon City, Misty immediately drags them into a perfume shop to do girl things while Brock ogles the shop assistants.  Ash scoffs, declares to everyone in earshot that perfume is foul-smelling, overpriced garbage that “turns guys into zombies,” and is thrown out of the store by the bitterly offended manager.  He doesn’t care, because he’s only interested in getting to the Celadon Gym anyway.  Unfortunately, it turns out that the Gym manufactures perfume, and the trainers there are none too pleased with him.  They refuse him entry and he wanders off, dejected, until serendipity strikes.  Jessie, James and Meowth have been trying to infiltrate Celadon Gym to steal their secret perfume recipe – unsuccessfully; they ran into the Leader’s Gloom, whose stench was bad enough to overpower even Koffing.  They concoct a cunning plan to get both Ash and themselves inside.  Because they are Team Rocket, this plan involves cross-dressing.  They disguise themselves as parents wanting to enrol their ‘daughter’ – Ash in a dress and a blonde wig – in a Pokémon training class at the Gym, so they can slip inside too.  Ash is permitted to enter the Gym’s inner rooms, where he finds not only that the Gym Leader, Erika, is the manager he insulted in the perfume store, but also that Misty, Brock and Pikachu are there already, participating in one of Erika’s classes.  Misty asks why Erika’s Gloom doesn’t stink, and she responds by telling the story of how Gloom saved her from a wild Grimer when she was a child, and explains that Gloom’s stench is purely defensive and won’t trigger if Gloom feels safe.  Ash can’t maintain his disguise for long once Misty and Pikachu start talking to him, so he drops the act and challenges Erika.  Bulbasaur is unable to defeat Erika’s Tangela, but her next Pokémon, Weepinbell, quickly loses to Charmander.  Erika grudgingly acknowledges Ash’s skill, but declares that “there’s one thing you don’t have – empathy for your Pokémon!”  Erika’s… kinda full of it; Ash has many shortcomings as a trainer but empathy is probably his greatest strength.  Anyway, she calls out Gloom and Charmander passes out within seconds.  Pikachu volunteers to step into the ring, but the battle is interrupted by Team Rocket appearing and blowing themselves up by mistake (although they do escape with a vial which, sadly, turns out to be only one ingredient of Erika’s perfume – “essence of Gloom”).  The Gym is now on fire.  The trainers rush around frantically to evacuate the Grass Pokémon, and once they’re all outside Squirtle and Misty try to put out the blaze.  In the chaos, however, Erika… somehow left behind her Gloom.  Y’know, her partner Pokémon, her dearest friend.  Ash charges back into the burning building, finds Gloom, manages to calm her down enough to get her to stop filling the area with noxious fumes, and carries her out.  Erika is sufficiently impressed by all this to concede that Ash really does possess true empathy, and decides to write off their battle and award Ash a Rainbow Badge for going beyond the call of duty (for those counting, that’s 1/5 badges so far that he’s earned by winning a legitimate Gym battle).

 Koga with his Golbat and Soul Badge, by Fox0808 (http://fox0808.deviantart.com/)

Some weeks later, we find Ash and his companions lost in the forest, as usual.  They’re looking for the Fuchsia Gym, but the problem is that, in the anime, there doesn’t seem to be a “Fuchsia City,” or if there is, they never visit it; the Gym is very remote.  As they weave across the landscape, they find a walled mansion built like an old Japanese castle, and enter through the front gates to see whether anyone’s home.  The mansion is full of traps – rotating false walls, Voltorb concealed under the floorboards, glass panels that spring up to block their path – and the only inhabitant seems to be a Venonat who keeps leading them into trouble (we know, from our privileged position as the audience, that this Venonat has been watching Ash and his friends for some time).  Venonat turns out to belong to a pink-clad ninja girl named Aya, who introduces herself by nailing Ash’s jacket to the wall with a fistful of shuriken, and refuses to let them leave without a battle.  Ash’s Bulbasaur counters Venonat’s Stun Spore with… Whirlwind… which is not a thing Bulbasaur has ever been able to do in any version of the games, although, to give them credit, it doesn’t come completely out of nowhere because Bulbasaur actually pulled the same thing on Butterfree when Ash first met him (Bulbasaur’s Whirlwind just involves puffing up his cheeks and blowing really hard).  Finally Bulbasaur saps away all of Venonat’s power with Leech Seed.  Aya’s older brother, Koga, shows up to critique her battling, and explains that the mansion is, in fact, the Fuchsia Gym and he is the Gym Leader.  He accepts Ash’s challenge and meets Pidgeotto with another Venonat, who rather dramatically evolves into Venomoth the moment the battle begins.  Venomoth’s powder attacks are too strong for Pidgeotto’s Whirlwind, and Ash is forced to switch in Charmander, who is rapidly becoming his powerhouse Pokémon and can handle Stun Spore quite effectively with his Flamethrower.  Jessie and James show up to interrupt and hurl sticky webs around the room to disable everyone’s Pokémon, and the heroes are forced to retreat from Arbok and Weezing through the Fuchsia Gym’s traps.  Eventually, to Misty’s dismay, her perennially confused Psyduck is the only thing standing between Team Rocket and the good guys.  Ash flips open the Pokédex to help her figure out what Psyduck can actually do, and his pathetic attempts at Scratch and Tail Whip attacks reduce Jessie and James to hysterics.  Meowth is getting impatient, however, so Arbok eats Psyduck’s head.  This turns out to be a mistake, because – as the Pokédex helpfully explains – when Psyduck’s perpetual headaches become worse than usual, he gains phenomenal telekinetic powers, which he uses to crush Arbok and Weezing and send Team Rocket flying.  Ash and Koga resume their battle outside, and although Koga’s Golbat proves quite a challenge with its blistering speed and horrible Supersonic attack, Charmander manages to overcome it with Fire Spin and earn Ash his Soul Badge.

 A little reminder from Jake Richmond (http://jakerichmond.deviantart.com/) of just why Psyduck is a badass.

The Ninja Poké-Showdown is the first of many episodes with subplots that revolve around Misty and Psyduck.  Misty never wanted Psyduck and it’s not entirely clear that Psyduck understood what he was doing when he climbed into Misty’s Pokéball either.  She tolerates him, barely, but his tendency to leap out of his Pokéball when she wants a different Pokémon (usually Starmie) grates on her nerves, especially since he invariably has no idea what’s going on and can’t actually fight.  Whenever his headaches get bad enough to unlock his powers, however, he becomes probably the strongest Pokémon in the whole party.  At the beginning of this episode, Misty suggests that she trade Psyduck for Brock’s Vulpix in order to get rid of him, but by the end, she’s turning down Koga’s generous offer of a trade for his Venomoth.  Although she never stays happy with Psyduck for long, I feel that his sporadic successes do gradually wear her down over the course of the series, softening her less attractive character traits, like her impatience and her superficiality, and increasing her capacity for empathy.

Anyway, this entry was supposed to be about Gyms, so let’s look at those some more.  Again, we see that Pokémon Gyms are fundamentally very independent.  No-one questions Erika’s decision to bar Ash from the Gym for insulting her profession, or her later decision to confer a Rainbow Badge, even though he was actually losing their battle (hey, the guy did run into a burning building to save a Pokémon; he deserves something).  More importantly, one can suppose that Erika isn’t reliant on Pokémon League funding to maintain the Celadon Gym, because the high-quality perfume the place produces probably earns her and her trainers a fair amount of money.  I’m not sure I even want to guess what Koga and Aya might do to supplement their income, but presumably they don’t live in the middle of nowhere practicing ninja arts just for their health, y’know?  The isolation of Fuchsia Gym is another interesting point; the games like to portray Gym Leaders as pillars of the community, but anime Koga is almost a hermit and the Fuchsia Gym doesn’t even announce itself as a Pokémon Gym.  In both the games and the anime, it’s a historic ninja training ground, presumably with a long tradition of Pokémon training, and probably predates the formation of the Pokémon League.  It’s odd that the League would award official status to such a remote compound; it’s unlikely they get many visitors or take many challenges.  It seems like common sense that a Gym is supposed to provide a place for local trainers to practice their craft, and the way Erika runs the Celadon Gym – offering classes on Pokémon training – seems to back this up, but the Gyms Ash visits in the anime have such wildly varying administrative structures and community roles that it’s difficult to work out what on earth is supposed to constitute ‘normal’ for these people.  We can strike off the Saffron Gym right away because it’s inhabited by a maniacal cult; likewise the Viridian Gym, which is a crime lord’s den.  The fact that the Cinnabar Gym even exists is one of Kanto’s best-kept secrets.  The Pewter and Vermillion Gyms seem like dark, forbidding places occupied only by the Gym Leader and (in Vermillion) a couple of sidekicks.  The Cerulean Gym, worst of all, is run by Misty’s sisters.  No-one has a particularly clear idea of what a Gym ought to be or do other than that it should accept challenges and give out badges, as appropriate.  Celadon seems like a good model for how a Gym should be run, but it’s the exception, not the rule, and I doubt the Pokémon League has much say in any of this.

I can’t help but assume that Koga, like Sabrina, has some excuse for operating his Gym the way he does, because his is one of the weirder situations.  If I can be allowed to speculate a little, the Fuchsia Gym – since we know it has a long history – might have been involved in creating the Indigo League in the first place; it’s been a Gym for as long as there have been Gyms, and has stayed the same as conceptions of ‘what a Gym should be’ have changed around it.  Any attempt to get rid of it now would deny its historic contributions, so Koga is free to sit in his ninja castle and give Soul Badges to anyone crazy enough to trek out to the Gym, pick through all his traps, and get past his lunatic pink ninja sister.  It’s a little unfortunate I haven’t had much to say about Celadon Gym today but, well, I’m drawn to things that require explanation and, frankly, Erika’s Gym is almost freakishly normal considering what whacked-out places most of the Kanto Gyms are…

Anime Time: Episodes 30-31

Sparks Fly for Magnemite – Dig Those Diglett

 This fanart of a Grimer in a place not unlike Gringy City, by Quinnzel (http://quinnzel101.deviantart.com/), actually looks marginally less repulsive than most Grimer. It's almost cute... y'know, in a... hideous misshapen travesty of nature kinda way...

Sparks Fly for Magnemite sees Ash, Misty and Brock visit Gringy City, an industrial town that is almost as pleasant as it sounds.  Dirty, smelly, and blanketed with choking smog, the place seems to be all but abandoned, and as if today weren’t bad enough already, Pikachu’s cheeks are discharging sparks at random.  The distressingly ineffectual Nurse Joy #222 lazily diagnoses Pikachu with a cold and tell Ash to leave him at the Pokémon Centre overnight… but then, to add a finishing touch to what is already the low point of the week, the power cuts out and leaves all the Pokémon in the ICU without vital life-support machinery.  Ash leaves Pikachu at the Pokémon Centre, but he sneaks out and follows them because he’s kind of insecure and is worried Ash might ditch him.  After stopping at the police station to consult Officer Jenny #400, who’s almost as unhelpful as Joy but at least gives them directions, they head for the seemingly abandoned power plant.  As they walk through the dark corridors, they sense something following them – a wild Magnemite.  Ash initially wants to catch it but Misty points out that it doesn’t seem to want to battle (yes, this matters; trying to capture a Pokémon that doesn’t want to fight you almost seems to be thought rude, if not downright impossible).  In fact, Magnemite just wants to hit on Pikachu.  Before anyone has time to ponder Magnemite’s choice of love interest, a swarm of Grimer, led by a Muk, burst into the corridor and, insulted by Ash and Misty’s failure to appreciate their charming aroma, attack.  Ash, Misty and Brock flee and find their way to the control room, where a pair of cowering engineers explain the situation: the huge numbers of Grimer have clogged the power planet’s seawater intake.  The Grimer break down the door, and it seems all is lost; there are just too many for Ash, Misty and Brock to deal with… until Pikachu’s strange boyfriend reappears with an army of Magnemite and Magneton.  Together with Pikachu, they send the Grimer scurrying away, restoring power, and weaken the Muk enough for Ash to capture it (since it turns out that Muk’s smell leaks through the Pokéball – how the hell do those things work, anyway? – Ash quickly sends it back to Pallet Town for Professor Oak to deal with).  Magnemite loses interest in Pikachu, since the sparks were actually symptoms of overcharging, which altered his magnetic field (it actually makes a lot of sense that Magnemite would recognise each other by their magnetism; I quite like this), and he’s burnt up his excess in the battle with Muk.  Our heroes suggest keeping the charming little town cleaner to reduce the numbers of Grimer, Useless Joy and Useless Jenny thank them for making everyone in Gringy City a better person just by meeting them, and they go on their merry way.

 The most adorable possible interpretation of the question "what does the lower half of Diglett's body look like?", by YiYang1989 (http://yiyang1989.deviantart.com/)

Of course, they promptly get lost again.  Ash is looking for the Fuchsia Gym, but unfortunately “Fuchsia City” doesn’t actually appear to be a thing in the anime, and the Gym is in the middle of nowhere, which makes it rather difficult to find.  As they wander, an explosion rocks the hills (disturbing Team Rocket’s lunch and prompting them to seek revenge), and as they run to look they see a convoy of trucks being wrecked by a troupe of Diglett.  The Diglett are interfering with the construction of a dam nearby, and the foreman has called for Pokémon trainers to help drive them off, including Gary, who remains as insufferable as ever.  In the English continuity this is the first time Brock and Misty have met him, because Beauty and the Beach was axed.  They hate him instantly.  Fortunately, Gary isn’t around for long: none of the trainers present, including Ash and Gary, can get their Pokémon to emerge from their Pokéballs, much less actually fight the Diglett, and Gary leaves in disgust, along with most of the others.  While Ash, Brock and Misty try to understand, Jessie and James are having a nervous breakdown because none of their evil schemes ever bear fruit.  They conclude that their Pokémon aren’t powerful enough, and decide to invoke “The Principle of Induced Evolution!”  This turns out to be a rather dull textbook.  They learn that Ekans and Koffing will only evolve if they gain enough experience, but also that evolution might change their personalities.  Jessie and James become conflicted and start sobbing over Ekans and Koffing, who begin to evolve when the tears touch them.  Meowth says smugly that “their time to evolve just happens to be now;” he seems to be suggesting that they were about to evolve anyway, but Ekans and Koffing haven’t fought anything for two and a half episodes, so this seems to be less a matter of gaining experience and more about making their masters proud.  Anyway, Ash and the others follow one of the Diglett away from the construction site and find a landscape being tilled and cultivated by Diglett and Dugtrio.  They realise that all the forests in the region – which the new dam would flood – are gardens built and maintained by the Diglett, who are understandably protective of their lands.  The other Pokémon refused to fight them because they agreed with what the Diglett were doing.  The foreman, seeing everything his plans would destroy, gives in and decides to halt the construction.  At this point Jessie and James show up with their new Pokémon, Arbok and Weezing, and try to go after Pikachu, but only seconds into the battle Jessie makes the supreme tactical mistake of sending Arbok underground, invoking the wrath of the Dugtrio, who summarily crush Arbok and Weezing before they can bring their new powers to bear (not sure what I think of this – on the one hand, it makes their evolution distressingly anticlimactic; on the other, it emphasises that power isn’t all that matters).  Order is restored and, well, the dam couldn’t have been that important anyway, right?

 Magneton fanart, by Kairyu (http://kairyu.deviantart.com/ - I don't think this dude's been using his account for some time but his Pokémon fanart is awesome, so check it out). For those of the audience who had no childhood, three Magnemite make up a Magneton, their evolved form.

In the Pokémon world, the environment is a very fiddly thing to deal with – and not least because it will fight back!  Some (most? all?) Pokémon are sentient, which makes the notion of compromising their habitats an even trickier ethical question than it is in the real world.  It’s effectively conquest, which is the same kind of theme as we got in Tentacool and Tentacruel.  Of course, when your tools of conquest are, themselves, Pokémon, the whole thing doesn’t work so smoothly.  The refusal of the trainers’ Pokémon even to come out of their Pokéballs implies some very curious things.  First, they know what’s going on around them even while inside (again, how the hell do those things work, anyway?).  Second, they already know what the Diglett are trying to do, and since I doubt they would immediately understand the implications of the construction project on their own, this further suggests that they’re already familiar with the Diglett as regulators and protectors of the environment.  Attacking them is in some sense ‘not part of the deal.’  That’s not the interesting part, though.  The interesting part is how this episode differs from Tentacool and Tentacruel.  Until the bizarre accident with Team Rocket’s stun sauce, the Tentacool are essentially a passive part of the environment; everything they do is reactive.  The Dugtrio, on the other hand, are active agents in all of this, just as much as the humans are.  They deliberately manipulate the environment in order to create and maintain habitats for themselves and for many other species – and Brock speculates that this isn’t just a local phenomenon either, but something that Diglett and Dugtrio do all over the world.  They have a large-scale, systematically implemented plan for the management of the landscape, and mount a co-ordinated defence of that plan when it is threatened.  In fact, I think it’s a mistake to see the Dugtrio as part of ‘nature,’ or to see the ‘natural’ landscape of the hills and forests in the region as any less of a created, artificial environment than it would have become if the dam had been completed.  The way the Dugtrio handle things revolves around balancing the needs of multiple species, and is much more subtle than what the humans have learned to do.  Bear in mind, however, that the dam would probably have provided hydroelectric power and thus lessened the atmospheric pollution created by human dependence on fossil fuels (made so very prominent in Gringy City).  In short, although ‘nature’ and ‘civilisation’ form one of the core dualities that Black and White focus on, and although that same contrast is a theme that Pokémon as a franchise has always dwelt on often, I don’t think we should view Dig Those Diglett in quite those terms, since the Diglett and Dugtrio as presented here are, dare I say it, ‘civilised’ in their approach to the world around them.  Complications like this are – I think – exactly why trainers, who can act as mediators between Pokémon and humanity, are a vital part of society in the Pokémon world.

So, what about the Grimer?  Where do they fit in all of this?  Grimer and Muk (along with Koffing and Weezing, for that matter) are another of those strange little corner cases that make the Pokémon word so interesting.  Like the Diglett, they blur the lines between civilisation and nature, in that they’re a product of civilisation but not a part of it; in fact they’re a product of that most undesirable aspect of civilisation, industrial pollution.  You could even make the analogy that, just as Diglett create environments that are suitable for Rattata, Pidgey and other typical forest Pokémon, humans create environments that are suitable for Pokémon like Grimer, Koffing and Magnemite.  Sparks Fly for Magnemite clearly has an environmentalist moral; the people of Gringy City get their comeuppance for all the pollution their town vomits into the air when the Grimer, who feed on that pollution, multiply out of control.  The message is clear: we want a world without Grimer.  They’re still Pokémon like any other, though, presumably with the same rights from an ethical perspective.  Although Ash doesn’t often have reason to deploy his Muk, the Sludge Pokémon is a fantastic ally when he does (and an interesting… friend… to Professor Oak the rest of the time), so I don’t think we should necessarily assimilate the undesirable nature of their origins to the Pokémon themselves.  Is it right to clean up the polluted areas that constitute their ‘habitat’?  I’m not sure I have a satisfactory answer to this one yet, but for now I’m going to suggest seeing Grimer and Muk as regulators of the sensitive balance between humans and the environment – they can’t create toxic waste from nothing, and in fact they consume industrial waste.  One can only assume that they actually break the stuff down, resulting in products that are less harmful to other Pokémon.  They appear to make a situation worse because of the way they concentrate toxins, but I suspect that they’re really a positive influence.  Too much pollution, though, and they’ll just multiply and swallow your city, and you’ll be no better off.

I’m not sure how far my conclusions today match the writers’ original intentions (if at all); rather, this is an outline of a starting point for questions the franchise could ask and elaborations that could be made on its existing themes.  When I reviewed all the Unova Pokémon last year, I often talked about ‘doing more with less’ – this is sort of what I mean.  New Pokémon are great, but we don’t actually need them when the existing ones still have so much untapped storytelling potential.  Or at least, that’s what I think.  You may have other ideas.

Anime Time: Episodes 27-28

Hypno’s Naptime – Pokémon Fashion Flash

 (Apologies for the delay on this entry – internet connection conked out last night and I wasn’t able to post it.  Of course, that hasn’t stopped me from writing, so my next entry will be up on schedule.)

There’s little to connect these two episodes other than the fact that Misty and Brock each happen to gain new Pokémon, so for the most part I’ll be dealing with them separately.  That’ll take time, so without further ado…

 Yikes, Hypno is creepy. For this picture, thanks are due to =Snook-8 at http://snook-8.deviantart.com/.

In a place inexplicably known as “Hop Hop Hop Town,” Ash is suddenly accosted by an enormous pair of breasts calling him Arnold.  Once Ash explains that he is not Arnold, the woman attached to the breasts calms down and tells his group that her son has disappeared recently.  Ash wonders whether Arnold might have just wandered off to become a Pokémon trainer, which is apparently not an unreasonable thing for a young boy to do on a whim without telling anyone, but the mother has her doubts.   In fact, as they soon learn from Officer Jenny #309, Arnold is only the most recent of several young children to go missing over the last three days.  Ash, in his official capacity as a random wandering trainer, offers to help Jenny solve the case.  They check the Pokémon Centre for kids who know the missing children, but none of them have any information.  Nurse Joy #558 doesn’t know anything either, and has her hands full with her own crisis; all the Pokémon in her care are becoming lethargic, and she can’t understand why.  It all started – gasp! – three days ago.  Jenny suddenly remembers that she possesses a piece of technobabble known as a Sleep Wave detector, and that it’s been acting up recently.  She hasn’t been following up on it because, honestly, she’s just a terrible officer, but now she decides to follow the Sleep Waves to their source:  a mansion on top of a skyscraper.  Because, y’know, what better place to build a mansion.  Ash storms the mansion, and finds that it houses a society of well-to-do aristocrats, who term themselves the Pokémon Lovers’ Club, as well as a Drowzee and a Hypno, their favourite Pokémon.  Apparently, the members have been using Hypno’s powers to combat their crippling insomnia ever since their old Drowzee evolved… three days ago.  Brock suggests that their mysteries might be connected to Hypno modifying his Hypnosis for use on humans… so they do the sane thing and sit Misty down in front of him to see what happens!  Misty promptly becomes convinced she is a Seel and flees the building, leading the team to a park where they find the missing children, who all think they’re different kinds of Pokémon.  Brock has the idea of dragging Misty back up to the mansion to have Drowzee zap her, on the theory that Drowzee’s “Dream Waves” will cancel out Hypno’s “Sleep Waves” because… whatever.  Despite a characteristically incompetent intervention from Team Rocket, Drowzee cures Misty and puts the other kids to sleep.  When they wake up, they all remember who they are and rush back to their homes.  Nurse Joy’s Pokémon, likewise, all recover after a short nap… except for a single Psyduck, who remains totally dazed.  Psyduck doesn’t seem to have a trainer and no-one really wants him, but he manages to capture himself in a Pokéball Misty drops by accident, so she’s stuck with him.

 

This is one of many episodes that I think would make a good one-off side quest to stick in a game; it’s fairly simple, there’s a clear motive for most reasonable people to help, and most importantly you learn something about a particular species of Pokémon in the process.  Given the chance, I’d probably stuff the games with diversions a lot like this.  What we learn from Hypno’s Naptime specifically is that Psychic Pokémon are really friggin’ dangerous if you don’t know what you’re doing with them.  Granted, I can’t make head or tail of why Hypno’s powers affected either the kids or the Pokémon in just the way they did, and I’m pretty sure the writers didn’t know either, but it’s clear that exposure to his abilities can cause chronic psychological damage at tremendous range even when he’s aiming at someone else.  Even though the aristocrats seemed healthy, it’s possible they too would have begun to suffer some other totally unpredictable mental disorder if they had kept using Hypno to treat their insomnia.  I’m inclined to suggest that this is at least partly due to the absence of a proper Pokémon trainer or Psychic-type specialist to help Hypno learn to control his newly enhanced powers, and that practice will keep his Hypnosis from causing negative effects on the townspeople.  However, if this were the real world, I’d want to keep all Hypno away from major population centres if at all possible until I had the results a couple of independent studies on the effects of long-term exposure.  In the Pokémon world, of course, no-one does studies like this because, hey, if a Pokémon drives your kid insane, why not just throw other Pokémon at him until you find one that fixes him?  Although Hypno is clearly a risk, no-one even considers trying to get rid of him.  Legislating to restrict the freedom of people to own and use Pokémon is probably unthinkable in this world; Pokémon are just too great a part of their industry and culture.

 All0412 (http://all0412.deviantart.com/) turns on the charm with his adorable Vulpix art.

The gang’s next misadventure is all about fashion, and the things people will do to stand out.  Brock has dragged his companions to Scissor Street, a district famous for both breeders and fashion, so he can meet one of his idols: a young woman named Susie who runs a Pokémon grooming and healthcare shop.  She and her Vulpix, according to Brock, are world-famous in breeder circles.  Brock is here to tell Susie that, in his words, “I wanna breed like you!” (I mean, breed with you!  I mean, wanna come back to my place and check out my rocks?)  Brock wants to become Susie’s apprentice.  She’s not interested, but invites them all out to lunch anyway, where she forlornly tells them that she’s been losing a lot of business to a big new salon.  Salon Rocket (pronounced “Ro-KAY”) makes its money selling gaudy Pokémon makeup, clothing and accessories, and is making Susie wonder whether she’s right to spend all her time focussing on a Pokémon’s ‘inner beauty’.  Ash affirms that yes, of course she’s right, but Misty muses that looking pretty on the outside can be nice too.  Even though she’s not actually saying he’s wrong, they have a massive argument and Misty eventually stalks off to Salon Rocket to check out the latest trends.  Meanwhile, Brock and Ash plan to draw customers back to Susie’s shop with seminars on Pokémon healthcare, and the line outside Salon Rocket dwindles as people wander over to Susie’s lecture on Pokémon massage technique.  She eventually calls on Ash to demonstrate what he’s learned by massaging Pikachu’s electrical cheek pouches.  Ash performs perfectly, Pikachu seems to enjoy the attention (I like to think this becomes part of their daily routine), and several members of the audience sheepishly remove the tasteless decorations from their Pokémon as they listen to Susie and Brock discuss Pokémon nutrition and grooming.  Meanwhile, Misty is having the time of her life at Salon Rocket.  Jessie and James (who else?), presented with only one customer to spend their time on, are enthusiastically covering her with face paint, glitter, bracelets, bangles and every other item of tween fashion they can lay their hands on.  Tragically, Meowth grows impatient, blows their cover and has Jessie and James take Misty hostage.  Meowth explains their dastardly plan to make obscene profits peddling trashy fashion items, then steal any rare Pokémon a trainer brought in, which… would have worked exactly once, I expect, so I hope they were waiting for a good one.  Psyduck escapes and dashes off for reinforcements.  Ekans and Koffing apparently get some kind of defensive edge against Pikachu and Geodude from all the frills and other nonsense they’re wearing, but also trip over themselves a lot.  Eventually Susie gets annoyed and commands Vulpix to burn them to ashes with her Fire Spin.  Later, Susie reveals that she’s going to close down her shop to go on a journey and learn more about breeding… and has decided to give Brock Vulpix, since he’s the only other person who’s ever managed to gain Vulpix’s trust or appease her discerning palette.

 Misty: paragon of style. Screenshot from www.filb.de/anime.

This seems like a good time to talk about how the series portrays Brock and Misty, because their reactions are actually important to the plot in this episode.  Pokémon Fashion Flash really does its best to show off Misty’s superficial side, which raises its head from time to time throughout the series: she gets along with Jessie and James astonishingly well up until Meowth has them break cover.  Her new look is played for laughs when Ash and Brock arrive, but Misty sincerely thinks it’s great, and so do Jessie and James.  In general, Misty likes Pokémon that are “cute” and distastefully rejects ones that aren’t, like poor Caterpie – with the corollary that she thinks all Water Pokémon are cute – and regularly has lines suggesting that she doesn’t really ‘get’ a lot of the things that are important to Ash.  She’s the least idealistic of the group, tends to adopt a ‘whatever works’ approach to the rules, and doesn’t regard her Pokémon as close friends or understand how much Ash cares for his.  Although generally practical, she’s as stubborn as Ash and can be irrational where Water Pokémon are concerned (see Tentacool and Tentacruel, where she’s worried about protecting the Tentacool who are destroying the city).  None of this makes her a bad person, though – just flawed, like anyone.  Her heart is very much in the right place, and if nothing else she’s loyal, which this series values highly.  Brock, likewise, has his issues.  If a pretty girl – Susie, for instance – needs help, he will happily drag the whole group out of their way to take care of things, which gets him into a lot of trouble in the Ghost of Maiden’s Peak.  His desperation to get a date notwithstanding, Brock is generally patient and level-headed.  Although he has powerful Pokémon, he rarely fights except in episodes that are particularly important for him personally; he’s not a serious trainer and just wants to become a good breeder.  He prepares meals for Ash and Misty’s Pokémon as well as his own, and presumably keeps an eye on their general conditioning as well – based on this episode, advising people on how to take better care of their Pokémon seems to be a breeder’s primary role in society.  Brock’s strong sense of responsibility probably plays into this; he’s passionate about teaching people how to raise Pokémon well and bothered by the idea that a renowned breeder like Susie could be forced out of business by people who don’t really know what they’re talking about.  Although a lot of what Brock and Susie say about raising Pokémon in this episode, like the importance of healthcare and nutrition, seems like common sense, it pays to remember that most people who own Pokémon aren’t actually dedicated trainers and would probably never put much thought into it of their own accord, which makes Pokémon breeders tremendously important players in the relationship between humans and Pokémon.

You will have noticed by now that I’ve skipped over episode 26 – Ash’s battle with Erika in Celadon City.  I want to do that episode together with episode 32, the Fuchsia Gym episode, so those will both be coming up soon.  Before that, though, we have two environmentalist episodes to get through: Sparks Fly for Magnemite and Dig Those Diglett.  See you next time!

Anime Time: Episodes 25 and 29

Primeape Goes Bananas – The Punchy Pokémon

Ash has been messing around with only five Pokémon for three episodes now, and it’s time for him to get a new one to refill his party (what, use Krabby?  Don’t be ridiculous!).  Unfortunately, the Pokémon he winds up catching to fill his sixth slot… presents certain methodological issues for Ash’s training style; put it that way.

(…he’s insane!)

Primeape. Artwork by Ken Sugimori; six rings for the dwarf lords in their halls of stone, one ring for Nintendo on their dark throne, etc.

So, on the way out of Saffron City, Ash stops at a payphone to check in with Professor Oak and show off his Marsh Badge.  Oak gives him a kindly old man smile and a “well done,” but explains that Gary already has five badges, a few dozen Pokémon, and a Krabby about five times as big as Ash’s.  Ash isn’t really that far behind in terms of badges, but clearly his efforts at capturing new Pokémon aren’t even on the same scale as Gary’s, and the Professor is noticeably disappointed.  I’ve argued this before, but it bears repeating: I believe Gary’s training style (catching and regularly using dozens of Pokémon) represents what’s normal and expected, at least for a full-time trainer, while Ash is something of an oddball.  Misty and Brock are broadly supportive of Ash’s more idiosyncratic style, but hearing about how many Pokémon Gary has caught gets Ash in the mood to capture something – and, wonder of wonders, a wild Mankey chooses this moment to appear before the group.  Mankey seems like a far less volatile Pokémon than the games make him out to be, more mischievous than irritable, and Brock shares a rice ball (which the English translation charmingly refers to as a “donut”) with him.  Of course, while Mankey is eating, Ash – because he is Ash – decides to lob a Pokéball at him.  Mankey blocks the Pokéball with the rice ball and furiously prepares for battle.  I can’t help but think he’s insulted – not only did Ash attack Mankey while he was eating, he apparently didn’t think battling Mankey was worth the effort and figured a Pokéball right off the bat would be all he needed.  Mankey’s subsequent behaviour reinforces my belief; he isn’t happy with just beating Ash up, but also steals his hat and imitates him in a mocking dance.  This doesn’t ring of self-defence to me; this is a deliberate response to a personal insult.  Now, I’ll repeat part of that in case you missed it: Mankey steals Ash’s hat.

He steals Ash’s hat.

Ash won his hat in a competition by sending in an ungodly number of postcards.  It is a piece of exclusive Pokémon League merchandise, emblazoned with their official insignia and probably worth more than all of Ash’s other worldly goods put together, and gives him limitless street cred (or so he would have us believe).  He can deal with not catching Mankey but he will not abandon his hat.  Damn right, too.  Behind each and every one of history’s great men and women is a nice hat.  Unfortunately Mankey is simply far too acrobatic for Ash to catch him, and he doesn’t try to use any of his Pokémon to help (Mankey stole his hat; this is a matter of honour).  At this point Jessie and James show up for their daily attempt to steal Pikachu, and Jessie gives Mankey a good solid kick when he gets in the way.  This… turns out to be a mistake.  See, as we’ve seen already, although Pokémon in the anime do need to gain battle experience to evolve, the actual moment of evolution is often triggered by strong emotion.  Mankey hasn’t actually defeated a single Pokémon yet, so he hasn’t ‘gained experience’ in this episode… but being kicked aside by Jessie makes him furious enough to push him over the edge and evolve him into Primeape.  The situation quickly deteriorates and soon everyone’s mind is focused on that timeless adage, “I don’t have to outrun the Primeape; I just have to outrun you!”  Eventually Ash decides that, damnit, he’s a Pokémon trainer, and trainers don’t run from Pokémon – they battle their asses and catch them!  Primeape is remarkably unconcerned by Bulbasaur and Squirtle’s attacks, but Charmander’s Rage allows him to grow stronger and stronger as Primeape pummels him, and he eventually strikes back with a devastating Flamethrower (with Ash’s hat still sitting on Primeape’s head – luckily, Pikachu dives in to rescue it at the last minute).  Now that Primeape is weakened, Ash manages to catch him in a Pokéball… but soon learns that controlling him is something of a tricky proposition.

Mankey and Primeape, by Ninjendo (http://ninjendo.deviantart.com/ – not to be confused with Nintendo). Because she is a good person, Jen has drawn Mankey with Ash’s hat, in memory of this episode.

Ash thinks about using Primeape a couple of times during the next few episodes.  However, he never actually pulls him out because it’s not worth the risk and, frankly, Primeape Goes Bananas has left some pretty heavy mental scars on the poor kid.  A few days after leaving Celadon City, however, Ash and company run into what they assume is a wild Hitmonchan jogging down the road, occasionally stopping to practice a flurry of jabs.  Ash wants to catch the Hitmonchan – and fair enough, too – but instead of just having Pikachu fill his face with lightning like he usually does, he decides to have Pikachu engage Hitmonchan in a boxing match.  This goes about as well as you might expect.  I could tie this in with one of my pet theories by saying that Hitmonchan would never acknowledge Ash as a worthy trainer and submit to capture unless he was beaten at his own game, since there are no other skills he respects, but at some point my ideas get too far-fetched even for me, so this time I’m just going to go with the good old standby, “Ash is a moron.”  During the battle, a man named Anthony – who turns out to be Hitmonchan’s trainer – arrives to berate him for letting his guard down and finishes up the battle.  His daughter, a young woman named Rebecca, appears soon after to beg Anthony to come home, but he ignores her and returns to his ‘gym’ (the “Fighting Spirit Gym”, which is more like a real-world gym – and a pretty dingy one at that – than a Pokémon training facility).  Rebecca explains that Anthony is obsessed with winning an upcoming tournament for Fighting Pokémon, the P-1 Grand Prix, and has basically ditched his family so he can train with Hitmonchan (y’know… kinda like how Ash leaves his mother all alone for months at a time).  Because he hopes someday to go on a date with her, Brock declares that their group will help Rebecca.  His hare-brained scheme is for him and Ash to enter the tournament themselves and defeat Hitmonchan… using his Geodude (a Pokémon weak to Fighting-type attacks) and Ash’s notoriously insane Primeape.  I’m honestly not sure how they imagine this would help, assuming it even worked, but hey, at least they’ll be doing something.

Meanwhile, Jessie and James also want to get in on the tournament so they can win the fabulously expensive championship belt, so they beat up another contestant, leave him trussed up and gagged in the men’s room, and steal his Hitmonlee.  The tournament begins, and Ash’s Primeape is matched up against a Machop, who beats him up for a while and then lobs him straight out of the ring with Seismic Toss.  Ash runs to break Primeape’s fall, and thus manages to earn his trust; Primeape then leaps back into the fray and becomes pretty much unbeatable for the remainder of the tournament.  Jessie’s Hitmonlee wallops Brock’s Geodude in the first round, predictably enough, and goes on to win all of his matches as well, as does Hitmonchan.  When Hitmonchan and Hitmonlee fight in the semi-final, Meowth slips under the floor of the ring and uses some glue to slow Hitmonchan’s steps and give Hitmonlee the edge.  Then… Rebecca inexplicably leaps in front of Hitmonchan to block a Mega Kick, and Anthony has to leap in front of her to keep Hitmonlee from pulverising every bone in her body.  I think this is supposed to be the moment when he learns his lesson and becomes a good family man again.  I don’t know; the whole moral of this one is pretty screwy.  Anthony surrenders, and Jessie faces Ash in the finals.  Meowth tries to cheat again, this time by electrifying the floor at a prearranged moment when Hitmonlee leaps into the air, but Pikachu spots him mucking around beneath the ring and sabotages his plan, levelling the playing field.  Primeape does his thing and beats Hitmonlee to a pulp, winning the P-1 Grand Prix and the bejewelled championship belt.

Hitmonchan. Artwork by Ken Sugimori.

Then… then Anthony compliments Ash on his Primeape’s awesomeness and suggests “hey, why don’t you let me train it for a while?  I’ll turn it into a true P-1 Champion!”

Quite aside from the fact that Primeape already is a P-1 Champion… he and Ash have finally started making some progress towards a healthy relationship, the whole point of the exercise was to get Anthony to cut down on training to spend time with his family, and Primeape would, without a doubt, be Ash’s strongest Pokémon by a significant margin once they trusted each other enough for Ash’s superior tactical expertise to be a factor (yes, I just credited Ash Ketchum with “superior tactical expertise” but I’m comparing him to an insane man-ape-pig).  The truly boneheaded thing about all this is that Ash says yes.  Before I saw this episode again, I had planned to tie this back to the argument I made when I looked at Bye Bye, Butterfree, and point to this as a natural and healthy example of a trainer and Pokémon parting ways once they’ve each learned something from one another to allow the Pokémon to get on with its own life, but when I watched it I realised that, actually, no, this conclusion pretty much undoes everything positive Ash and his friends have just achieved.  We can’t even really say anymore that getting rid of the insane Primeape is a plus because Primeape actually likes Ash by the end of the episode, enough that his eyes water when he waves goodbye.  So instead I’m going to take this episode as showing the effects of addiction to Pokémon training on a person’s family.  Honestly, Rebecca is getting off fairly lightly compared to Brock and his siblings, Ash’s mother, and Sabrina’s parents (oh, Sabrina’s parents…) but it’s clear that her family is suffering from all the hours Anthony spends with his Hitmonchan rather than looking after them.  Now that the tournament is over, he’s happy to make promises to be a better father in the future, but what will happen when the next big event is coming up?  Especially now that he’s managed to sweet-talk Ash into feeding his addiction by handing over a proven Fighting Pokémon champion?

This ending just annoys me.  I hope you’re happy, Ash.