ill337erate asks:

I’m so happy you’re writing up your Moon playthrough!! Your posts already made me laugh out loud a few times and, as always, you make make thorough observations & bring up interesting points. Side note, did you notice Rotom call Ilima a dreamboat? Anyway, I wanted to let you know that different forms of the same species get their own dex entries in Sun and Moon. I strongly suggest looking at them all at some point! Several shed a new light on some of the pre-existing Pokémon forms.

I did notice, and he is. And that’s good to know; I’ll look out for it. I think maybe when this playthrough is over I want to do a sort of Alola Pokédex appreciation post, because some of this stuff is gold (and possibly dethrones the original Ruby and Sapphire in my personal rankings for best-written Pokédex).

Pokémon Moon, Episode 6: In Which I Offer Charity To A Character of Dubious Virtue

When I reach the entrance to the quiet valley of Brooklet Hill, a Water Pokémon paradise, I am greeted by none other than the local Captain herself: Lana, a dreamy young woman with blue hair. Lana needs help with something, and apparently won’t take ‘no’ for an answer. Well, the sooner I make her happy, the sooner I can attempt her trial, and the sooner I can get out of here… I follow Lana down into the valley, past tranquil pools and rumbling waterfalls, until we reach a large pool being disturbed by a strange thrashing out in the deepest part.

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Anonymous asks:

After reading and writing so much about Pokémon, are there any traditional Japanese folktales or myths you find particularly interesting? Would love to know what a classicist like yourself think about Japanese folklore! 🙂

Honestly for me the takeaway from it all has been that I clearly don’t know enough about Japanese folklore to talk about it properly – mostly I just know the bits that have Pokémon based on them. If anyone would like to recommend some introductory books…?

nasat asks:

A few days ago I finally evolved a Gloom into Vileplume on Pokémon Go. I can’t help but wonder if you’ve acquired one yet, and how the “catching them all” is going on that front?

I kinda fell out of the habit of doing anything with it regularly. There was a period of a couple of weeks back in October when one particular patch was incompatible with my phone for some reason, and I couldn’t play. By the time it was fixed I’d sort of lost interest.

Anonymous asks:

As you’ve often mentioned, a predominant theme of Pokemon is that humans and Pokemon both prosper by working together and treating each other with respect and friendship. It’s not only the ethos of most inhabitants of the world, but built into the metaphysics of the game itself (friendship evolution, etc). Why is it that (most of) the evil teams seem so convinced that it’s better to treat mons like tools or slaves instead, when their ideology is demonstrably wrong? Obviously, it shows that the evil people are, in fact, evil, but Team Rocket, who cares solely about money, should at least be able to crunch the numbers and see which technique is more profitable in the long run. Plus, who’s on the buying end of these smuggling rings? Do you think something else is going on? Either something implied or an unintentional interpretation?

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LadySeychelles asks:

Hey, what are youre thoughts on the gym leaders? I always have fun thinking what they could do in Pokemon society

Well, there seem to be basically three things Gym Leaders do in a community: they test and certify trainers wanting to challenge the Pokémon League, they provide instruction and a learning environment to junior trainers, and they solve people’s Pokémon-related problems. Most of them – with some notable exceptions, particularly in Kanto – are pillars of the community, well-known and generally trusted. The last few generations, particularly V and what I’ve seen so far of VII (if we say that the Captains are basically equivalent to Gym Leaders), have been making a very deliberate effort to show that most Gym Leaders also have “day jobs” in addition to their Pokémon-related responsibilities – Cilan and his brothers run a restaurant, Clay is a mining tycoon, Viola is a photographer, Clemont is an electrical engineer, Ilima is a painter, etc. So it might well be that, in some regions at least, Gym Leaders actually work as volunteers. These are people who just care so much about Pokémon training that they will devote a significant portion of their own free time to running what is basically an entire sports facility (or, in Alola, administering trials) so that members of the community can learn more about it. Which I think is pretty neat.

Anonymous asks:

Have you ever read “Children of the Lamp”? I’m really, REALLY new to pokemon, so perhaps there’s something in the anime that I’ve missed, rendering this impossible, but I’ve always thought the inside of pokeballs similar to the inside of the lamps in those series; larger on the inside, with the pokemon having the ability to modify the inside to their liking. Pokemon go in, see it’s comfortable, and like the trainer’s willingness to accommodate them, and end up appreciating the trainer a lot more

I’m afraid I’m not familiar with that series. It’s sort of fine in theory, but official sources are always very cagey with how Pokémon experience the inside of a Pokéball. The image below, with Iris’ Dragonite, is the closest thing I’m aware of to an actual depiction of what it’s like (though note that, if it looks grumpy, that’s not necessarily because of conditions inside the Pokéball – “grumpy” is this particular Dragonite’s baseline). I think originally Pokéballs were imagined to store Pokémon as data in a similar way to the PC network, but then the anime did things that made it clear they were still aware while inside, and could leave at will. Probably several people at Game Freak have thought something along the lines of what you’re talking about at one time or another, but I’m not sure anyone has ever gone through to see whether it’s consistent with how Pokéballs are portrayed and how they work throughout the series.

Pokémon Moon, Episode 5: In Which I Agree To Help Resurrect An Ancient God

There doesn’t seem to be a whole lot to see in Heahea City. Part of the town is blocked off by some douchebag with a perfectionist Stoutland that won’t move until it’s sniffed literally every square centimetre of the main road, and most of the buildings I can access are standard services: there’s a Pokémon Centre, and a clothing shop, and a tourist bureau like the one in Hau’oli City. Hau just wants to find somewhere that sells malasadas, but Lillie, for her part, has more interesting ambitions: she wants to take Nebby to Akala Island’s guardian ruins, the home of the island’s patron god-Pokémon, Tapu Lele, and she’s hoping that I’ll accompany them when the time comes. For Nebby’s sake, I make a noncommittal “mrrmmhmm” noise and wiggle my head in a way that could plausibly be interpreted as either a nod “yes” or a shake “no.”

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Pokémon Moon, Episode 4: In Which I Learn, Rapidly And Under Duress, To Ride A Bull

Once he and Captain Ilima have finished explaining Z-moves to me, Professor Kukui suddenly remembers that he has an urgent task that cannot possibly wait: he’s lost Lillie. Somehow. I’m still not 100% certain that Lillie isn’t a terrorist, so in the interests of making sure someone is watching her, I agree to help look for her in the northern part of Melemele Island. This area, route 3, is cordoned off by barricades. Not for any particular reason, mind you. Someone appears to have decided that the Pokémon beyond are too strong for civilians to tangle with unless they have an escort – a certified trainer who has completed the island’s trials. Which… sort of raises the question of how Lillie got through, since she not only hasn’t completed any trials but insists that she’s not actually a trainer at all (which I’m pretty sure is not true; I’m not sure of the legal status of their relationship but for all practical purposes she certainly seems to be Nebby’s trainer). Evidence that she has secret and subversive abilities continues to mount. In any case, at Ilima’s command, the barricades open for me, and I am given access to the northern coastal road.

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RandomAccess asks:

I thought about Pokémon ethics and something occurred to me, Pokémon are dangerous. Of course humans use devices to contain them, it’s the one way we can survive in that hostile world, where there are creatures that can destroy you mind, body, and even soul. The fact that they become tame after capture despite obviously still having free will is incredibly lucky on our part, and shows it’s mutually beneficial, because if they wanted to, they’d destroy us and be rid of us, and we couldn’t stop it

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