Pikachu in Pictures Chapter 13: The Deadly Art of Allusion

Our fourth and final week of the Sinnoh region is nigh! The Fourth Generation of Pokémon ended well, with a disappointing movie after five fine episodes. It turns out people weren’t wrong about the oft-described “best region’s” TV adaptation. But how was it strong, and how did it end strong? Read on and find out.

Episodes reviewed:

1237: “Where No Togepi Has Gone Before!” (September 10, 2009). Team Rocket’s perfect kidnapping goes awry when a shockingly malicious Togepi enters their base. After pretending to be friendly, attacking the good guys and bad guys, and seducing several of their Pokémon, it reveals its actual plan: to shoot everyone into deep space.
1246: “The Needs of the Three” (November 12, 2009). Team Galactic’s plan comes to a head and pulls in the gang, Team Rocket, Gary, Cynthia, Looker, and Pokémon Hunter J. While J dies attacking Lake Valor and capturing Sinnoh’s Lake Guardians, Ash and Looker independently infiltrate the Galactic base.
1247: “The Battle Finale of Legend!” (November 12, 2009). Team Galactic boss Cyrus, with the Lake Guardians Uxie, Mesprit, and Azelf under his control, summons Dialga and Palkia to create a universe free of human strife. Ash, Dawn, and Brock commune with the Guardians and fight alongside Cynthia to free the masters of time and space—and stop Sinnoh itself from imploding.
1320: “A Grand Fight for Winning” (May 20, 2010). At the Sinnoh Grand Festival finals, Dawn, Piplup, and Dawn’s new Togekiss battle against Zoey. Zoey wins by a hair, making her the region’s Top Coordinator, while Jessie (who demanded Dawn win after losing to her) quits Pokémon Contests in a rage.
1331: “Battling a Thaw in Relations!” (August 19, 2010). Ash and Paul are facing off in the Sinnoh League with a six-on-six battle, and both of them have lost Pokémon. And after Pikachu loses to Electivire, it’s up to Infernape—Ash’s Sinnoh star, who suffered abuse from Paul as a Chimchar—to defeat Paul’s main partner in the region.

Congrats, Pokémon: DP Galactic Battles and Pokémon: DP Sinnoh League Victors. Ya did it. You actually pulled off a climax. Three, in fact!

The end of Sinnoh (and to be clear, only two episodes came from Season 13 because Season 13 is “short,” i.e. “only thirty-something episodes that are mostly tournaments and the like”) is pretty good. There’s stakes, drama, and real character development. But more to the point, it’s all pulled off rather well. This was the promise of the Hoenn era fulfilled, explored, and concluded successfully. Sure, the second to last episode where Brock decides to be a doctor is probably not great, and sure, people hated that Ash lost the League in the end by being crushed by a dude with a Darkrai (even if “The Semi-Final Frontier” has always sounded fun to me), but what matters works.

Image: BBC. Having Infernape be Ash’s star for the region was one of Diamond & Pearl‘s smartest plays. Setting up Electivire as Paul’s equivalent and Infernape’s rival was good, too.

Like, Paul? That’s great, at least ignoring the fact that he probably should lose his Trainer license and doesn’t. He and Ash finally have a battle where they walk in with mutual respect, they both use intriguing techniques (I quite liked Electivire electrocuting itself, not the shock-deflecting Gliscor, to boost Motor Drive), and the stakes are emotional. Chimchar, now an Infernape and firmly the protagonist of Ash’s Sinnoh party, wins the day by controlling the Ability Paul caught and abused him over. He beats Electivire, its rival and foil. But beyond that, there’s all sorts of switching, tactics, and tricks, even accounting for the fact that I only watched the final episode of a three-parter. Everyone, other than perhaps poor Torterra, feels equally capable. Ash’s big battle with Gary was also emotional, but the stakes were lower and the animation worse. This is just so much… more.

Dawn’s story ended strong, too. I’ve been harsh on Contests in the past, but the final showdown between her and Zoey was good. I really enjoyed how much of it was the two sizing each other up despite being rivals for the entire region. Zoey winning was also interesting, just because it’s new. None of the rivals before her won squat in these competitions. Gary was outdone by Ash both times. Drew never won; neither did Paul. Ash’s X&Y rival did, but that was basically a prelude to the actual finale. And the companions rarely had substantial foils. So many of these series-ending arcs are about gracefully losing and trying your best (certainly virtues worth having in a kids’ show), but it’s fun to actually have one of these idiots grab the brass ring. Dawn dealing with a loss that actually could have gone either way and Jessie quitting Contests—a decision the show promptly followed—are built off that.

But while the League battle is the best climax, the end to the Team Galactic story is so wild, and the back two episodes of the three-parter show an ambition this cartoon has never shown me before. There’s a full-on, excellent Disney death when the Lake Guardians use Future Sight and blow up J, her men, and her entire flying ship. There are captures and rescues for both sides. There’s relationships built over seasons paying off: the rivalry between Brock’s Croagunk and Team Galactic’s Toxicroak, the odd adoration Team Rocket has for Looker, and our interest in characters like the evil Cyrus. That’s part of how this arc casts such a wide net; these episodes alone have Cynthia, J, Looker, a recurring Gary (putting those researcher bona fides to good use, I see), and plenty of minor characters and Galactic flunkies I never met from across the whole of Diamond & Pearl. These aren’t only references to the past or glimpses of a show I didn’t see. Together, they’re tangibly big in a way Lance showing up in Hoenn wasn’t.

Image: The Pokémon Company. Ash, Brock, Dawn, and Cynthia sending their Pokémon out to save Dialga and Palkia.

Actually, the two tournament episodes this week each had a bench of characters of their own. “Battling a Thaw in Relations” had Paul’s brother commentating the match to the Pokémon Paul used to bedevil Ash’s team throughout the region, while “A Grand Fight for Winning” featured all of Dawn’s rivals. There was Nando and his somewhat unfortunate mock Hispanic accent, the similarly French-accented Gym Leader / Coordinator Fantina, the mean Ursula, the princess who looks just like Dawn…

…Oh, right. See, Dawn got her delightful Togekiss from a princess who looks exactly like her. Pokémon!

What matters is that Diamond & Pearl handled themselves well not just at the start or in the middle but by the end, too. I’ve been on a short sampler every week, but that doesn’t change the fact that I’ve just seen this era of the anime stick not just one landing, but several in a way the others fundamentally didn’t. This is probably what people wanted most: quality and consistency. We’ve seen Pokémon have quality; some of those Johto fillers were delightful. And we’ve seen Pokémon be consistent, at least in its mercenary nature and Season 1 weirdness. But Sinnoh combined both into something just a bit greater. Every time it referenced the past, it came across less as just homage, or pandering, than proof that even this cartoon can indeed change for the better.

Movie reviewed: Pokémon—Zoroark: Master of Illusions (July 10, 2010

En route to Crown City, Ash and co. pick up the illusory Pokémon Zorua, who’s trying to rescue its abducted mother Zoroark. Blackmailed by the future-seeing magnate Grings Kodai, Zoroark has spread illusions of Crown City’s protectors Raikou, Entei, and Suicune to force a mass evacuation. Ash and Zorua look for Zoroark, Kodai looks for one of Celebi’s time ripples to restore his future vision and damn the city, and Zoroark suffers the onset wrath of the real Legendary Beasts.

Sinnoh’s movies started with The Rise of Darkrai, a film that whether consciously or not shared a lot of beats with every Pokémon film before it while still feeling of its own. It was followed by the largely generic and unimaginative Giratina and the Sky Warrior, which undersold its most interesting qualities, and the wild and frenetic Arceus and the Jewel of Life. I suppose, in that way, it’s fitting that we end on a movie that’s a bit less than the sum of its parts. Zoroark: Master of Illusions is a scratchy, patchwork quilt of a movie. As with Darkrai, it’s not clear how much is direct allusion, how much coincidence, or how much something lesser, but “something lesser” conveniently describes the whole product.

Image: IMDb. While Zoroark is very fun, tiny Zorua’s admittedly kind of a pain.

More than anything, the whole thing feels weirdly… artificial, even accounting for Pokémon being such a commercial anime, and especially when it comes to our star. Zoroark is a very blatant attempt to capitalize on the success Lucario had; she’s the second normal Pokémon to headline a movie, has special powers—she and her pre-evolution Zorua can create cinematic illusions and disguise their appearance—and along with Zorua was the first Fifth Generation Pokémon revealed to the public. The two were added to the movie, which wanted a Dark-type headliner, while they were still early in development. Zoroark is a cool customer in the games (and in the film), with its powers and a design courtesy of Atsuko Nishida, the best Pokémon creator at Game Freak. But while fans did like the fox, they also saw it for the obvious follow-up it was. They’re okay with being manipulated, but they don’t want to see the strings.

It’s not just Zoroark, whose illusions and trickery is still one of the film’s highlights. Her far less fun kid Zorua’s a very similar take on precocious movie Pokémon like Jirachi and Shaymin, but it lacks an interesting relationship with any of the leads. The Shiny Legendary Beasts are here (and Raikou finally gets its cinema debut), but more as plot devices and easy promotions, since you could get the uniquely colored Legendaries at the theater and use them to catch Zoroark in Pokémon Black & White. Celebi’s back, too, but its symbiotic relationship with Crown City isn’t as good as the one the Celebi of the fourth movie had with the forest. The idea of Pokémon Baccer, a Pokémon-y take on soccer, is relegated to the opening.

But, hey! We do have one of the movies’ better bad guys in Kodai. Instead of being the kind of philosophical antagonist the franchise likes to use, he’s a Bond villain—specifically, the ersatz-Rupert Murdoch in Tomorrow Never Dies who causes disasters his news empire can scoop. Kodai has a neat power and goal in his future vision, and it’s fun having one of these villains go after something both so immaterial and mundane (since all he wants from the power of time is to accumulate wealth) He also, perhaps, feels more relevant of a villain than many of the ones we’ve had. He’s a tycoon addicted to power and control; he acts almost addicted to the power that comes from Celebi’s time ripples. There’s always a value in an evil, selfish rich bad guy who controls a system and gets defeated by people playing a different game. His downfall by way of the Pokémon he abducted, the Legendaries whose identities he stole, and a bit of hard hitting journalism is comparably satisfying. Plus, he’s got a Hookshot.

Image: IMDb. Not pictured: Kodai choking out Celebi to stop it from ending the time ripple.

If only the rest was so entertaining. The infiltration through Crown City is fine, but nothing special. There’s no real sense of mystery or intrigue. The various intrepid reporters who join up with Ash are not much on their own. And overall, there’s no real throughline I can see beyond the motif of Kodai, Zoroark, and Zorua using deception and mendacity to various ends. It feels inorganic, which is arguably worse than being inorganic. So it’s a lesser beast, Master of Illusion. But better than Giratina, so it’s still on the higher end of the low tier. Either way, though, it’s not an amazing end to the Fourth Generation.

Conclusion: Overall, what was Sinnoh’s theme? I’d say it was “consistency.” It was a bit darker, certainly. It punched a bit higher. There was a greater emphasis on serialization (one part of the Contest that stuck out to me was a scene where Ash learns that he can finally challenge the Gym Leader, who he last met several episodes earlier. The writers clearly tied things together as much as possible). Rivals were strong. But the thing that connected all of them wasn’t just that it was a bit stronger, but that it was so much better at being reliably stronger. Pulling off the denouements previous regions failed to execute or never bothered to include is just part of that. Pokémon Diamond & Pearl gave people a lot—mostly what they knew they wanted, which is not a bad thing—and that’s what fans remember.

That’s great, but it’s also fair for the next iteration of the show to change. Sinnoh was quite strong, but it’s never good for a show this long to stick to what it knows. That way lies boredom, and I can imagine the sheer amount of episodes, serialization, and (comparative) darkness looming a bit over fans who’d like something else. Pokémon could stand to do something new—and it could stand to do it in a more compact timeframe. Remember, DP was the longest single era of the show by quite a lot, and being so serialized in such huge a time is a lot. Unfortunately, the changes Pokémon the Series: Black & White brought to the table often failed to resonate with viewers.

Image: The Pokémon Company. Zoey’s team, the one that fought Dawn in the finals, is really cool.

I’m looking forward to next week because of that. Black & White doesn’t just lack Sinnoh’s reputation; it barely has one at all. It was extremely hard to pick out episodes because viewers in the English-speaking world seem to mostly hate it. Plus, unlike the four weeks I had with Hoenn and Sinnoh (and the greater ability to learn about characters I didn’t know, like Dawn), I have only three for the next three Generations. Not as much time to learn about Iris, Cilan, or Serena as you’d think, especially when I need to also watch famously liked or hated episodes too. But that’s the appeal of this half a year-long charcuterie board.

Errant thoughts:

There wasn’t a place for it in the main review, but I’d like to also highlight the extremely fun “Where No Togepi Has Gone Before,” a delight even amongst the best of the filler I’ve seen. Whole thing’s an allusion to the first season, but specifically to how delightfully deranged they could be. An evil version of a goddamn Togepi, the most innocuous Pokémon in the world, gaslights and tortures all the leads in a giant funhouse before trying to shoot itself into space? It’s probably good Pokémon turned away from that kind of storytelling, but it’s so fun here.
With crazy Pokémon localization changes in short supply lately, I’m gonna get nostalgic by instead doing crazy The Good Place localization changes!
- Okay, so if you look at the list of stuff I watch each week, you’ve probably noticed I’ve started a rewatch of The Good Place. If you haven’t seen it, do so; it’s one of the best comedies of the modern age. NBC seemed to think so, too, but they were apparently skittish of a cast of international characters (albeit played primarily by American and Canadian actors). So when they announced the show, and made the first trailer, the cast list had “Chidi Anagonye” and “Tahani Al-Jamil” listed as “Chris” and “Tessa.” The characters’ names aren’t given in the trailer, but I’m pretty damn sure those ones were never in the script. Like, they need to be. Basically, NBC pulled a 4Kids on their own trailer, and only on their own trailer.
- …But, there actually is a crazy localization change this week. When the film premiered on American TV, Cartoon Network cut the first ten minutes! Ten whole minutes! We lost the opening montage, Fake Soccer (and a scene with Kodai and the Beasts, which is how you’re supposed to be introduced to them), the kidnapping of Zoroark, even why Zorua was disguised as a Skiploom. After strong words from The Pokémon Company International, Master of Illusions would air in future screenings as intended. But, thanks to early rips—including, specifically, one available on YouTube!—guess which version I saw!
In related news, this movie marks the debut of a made up language that replaced the Japanese characters 4Kids and (to a lesser extent) TPCI erased. Some fans were frustrated, suspecting this was done only out of request by localizers and removed a quintessentially Japanese aspect of the show. That’s fair. I also think the fictional script is fun world building, and that the franchise is still pretty overtly Japanese.
After many years without it, Master of Illusions is the first film since Voice of the Forest and the last film entirely to end on a Team Rocket coda. The writers have clearly struggled to include them, including here. But it’s worth having them on the big screen, so I only wish they could be included more organically.
Terrible finale new opening, perfectly fine new title image.
Going back to my comment about Ash’s Torterra, perhaps it’s the biggest narrative failing of Sinnoh (beyond Brock’s presence). As Turtwig, it was fast and small and spunky, like everything Ash catches. Then it became a Grotle and subsequently a Torterra, which is too heavy and slow to do any of Ash’s tactics. It got advice from Paul’s Torterra on using its weight, but it still never won a single important battle the second it turned into a Torterra. Not a one. “Character assassination” and the like are horribly asinine terms, but damn did the cartoon do it dirty.
- Gliscor, on the other hand, rules. I love whenever Ash gets a weird, gross, utterly not photogenic Pokémon, and the hyper-affectionate demonic flying scorpion is up there.
I like that even as a grown-ass scientist, Gary still sounds so whiny.
Okay, the animation bump isn’t that big; Team Galactic’s army of Golbat all spin upside down and fall like the 4Kids sandwich JPG when Azelf hits them. Fortunately, the last two episodes had better stuff, notably when Brock gives a speech that doesn’t cut away from Infernape and Electivire brawling.
Ah, I hear former replacement narrator Mike Pollock as Charon, the Team Galactic flunky and Rotom enthusiast from Pokémon Platinum. I liked that guy.
It’s pronounced “you-xie?” I guess it’s more sensible than “Uck-see.”
The super-heteronormative Attract is a crappy move, and the show pressing that is the one blemish on “Where No Togepi Has Gone Before.” Of course, it would be a huge part of the Black & White years, since Ash’s Snivy uses it.
James’ parents literally gave him a rocketship as a child?
And, as this is our final week in the Fourth Generation, here are my favorite Sinnoh Pokémon: Weavile (my second favorite Pokémon overall!), Togekiss, Rotom, Roserade, Lucario, Gallade, Mamoswine, Garchomp, Toxicroak, Porygon-Z, Mismagius, Staraptor, Buizel, Tangrowth, Electivire, Yanmega, Gliscor, Empoleon, Infernape, Froslass, Gastrodon, Luxray, Driftblim, Honchkrow, Spiritomb, Abomasnow, Magmortar, Palkia, Heatran, Darkrai, Arceus. Juked though it may be by so many worthwhile cross-generation evolutions, Sinnoh’s got a lotta good stuff.

Next movie: Either Pokémon the Movie: White—Victini and Zekrom OR Pokémon the Movie: Black—Victini and Reshiram (July 16, 2011). Is there a version you think is best? Well, tell me!

Next episodes:

1401: “In the Shadow of Zekrom!”
1406: “Dreams by the Yard Full!”
1426: “Scare at the Litwick Mansion!”
1430: “A UFO for Elgyem!”
1438: “Movie Time! Zorua in “The Legend of the Pokémon Knight”!”

Other movies watched:

Bloodfist V: Human Target (Don “the Dragon” Wilson AND Steve James from American Ninja? Sign me up! (NOTE: don’t sign up for Bloodfist V: Human Target))
Cyborg
Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning
Furies
KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park. Produced by Hanna-Barbara! Now I wanna see Bruce Springsteen and the E-Street Band Meet Dracula.
Lovely But Deadly
Our Sons
Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation