June 25, 2023|

Filed under: Editorial, Featured

Pikachu in Pictures Chapter 25: The Great Secret of Pokémon

We’ve done it! “Pikachu in Pictures,” Source Gaming’s most Frasier-themed column, has concluded. We’ve seen so much of the Pokémon anime already; what else is there? Just a trip through something close to memory lane next to a movie I quite like. A rather wordy trip, so buckle up.

Episodes reviewed. This time, I’ve scoured a list from across the history of the show:

232: “Pikachu Re-Volts” (March 4, 1999). Landing on Mandarin Island turns ugly in Ash’s trip through the Orange Islands; Pikachu gets possessed and turns against him. While he and Officer Jenny try to find the cause of what’s actually a citywide problem, Jessie and James stumble onto the perpetrators: their rivals Cassidy and Butch.
Pikachu Short 7: Pikachu & Pichu (July 8, 2000). With Ash, Misty, and Brock on a mysterious errand, the gang’s Pokémon get to enjoy themselves on a fancy Johto terrace—except Pikachu’s fallen off! He gets led home by the precocious Pichu Bros. in an adventure that takes them through elevator shafts, a chase from a Houndour, and the near-destruction of an alley playpen made by the city’s Pokémon.
1533: “Crisis at Ferroseed Research!” (May 31, 2012). Following a recommendation from Iris’ archenemy Georgia, the Unova gang explore a research laboratory that studies the moss of Ferroseed. A freak accident upon their arrival causes one type of moss to spread throughout the building and across the city, harming all Electric and Ground-types in its wake, and it’s up to Iris and Georgia to stop its spread with the latter’s Ice-types.
2129: “Why Not Give Me a Z-Ring Sometime?” (May 3, 2018). Team Rocket is under orders during their stay on Alola to acquire a Z-Ring by any means necessary from Nanu, Giovanni’s old friend and the Kahuna of Ula’Ula Island. However, their thoughtlessness accidentally unleashes a notorious Gengar of ages past, it abducts the librarian Acerola, and defeating it becomes their Trial to earn the prize.
2516: “Radio Lulled the Mischievous Stars!” (April 15, 2022). A plot to use a radio show to attract potential Team Rocket members goes awry when Jessie, James, and Meowth fail to catch an audience. Undeterred, they reshape the show into a much less Team Rocket-related variety hour, one whose broadcasts are enjoyed by Cerise Laboratory, Brock, and even the narrator himself.

There are two reasons why I wanted to have the last week be a sort of bonus round spanning the show (well, three: it seemed appropriate for Pokémon’s live action movie, which took cues from the show). I wanted to see episodes that intrigued me. And I wanted to get a variety that spanned tones and years, even if I’m clearly biased towards the last decade of the run. But what somehow slipped my mind was that a week where five episodes covered five eras would be “Pikachu in Pictures” in microcosm. It was fascinating seeing this show change over the course of twenty-four weeks, but it’s so much crazier in one day. I jumped twelve years, twelve goddamn years, from Spell of the Unown’s “Pikachu short” to smack-dab in the middle of the Black & White era. Initially, I was planning to make this sort of a lightning round, focus on one episode at a time, but honestly? No, no. I’m too inspired for that.

Image: The Pokémon Company. Season 2 looks so… weird from today’s perspective.

The thing that jumped out at me most is just how much, and for the better, the show has changed. Sure, Pokémon Journeys was a bit of a downgrade from X & Y and Sun & Moon, but it’s shocking how… well, “primitive” Kanto could be. There’s the extremely inconsistent range of acting (Butch and Officer Jenny being the most glaring examples), the poor animation, and Ash’s general weakness as a character. Back in Week 1 I suggested that he was the best kind of protagonist for a Pokémon anime. I stand by that, but it really is remarkable just how much the twerp grew. They’re the same character, but Season 2 Ash and Season 25 Ash are worlds apart. And the latter’s far more fun to be around, lemme tell you.

At the same time, the early era clearly had an undeniable kick to it. And one that was absolutely necessary for making it watchable, it turns out. It’s thanks to “Crisis at Ferroseed Research” that I realize both how much that original era had and lacked, because while Unova was far more polished and professional and mostly non-psychotic, it’s just more… boring. I actually did enjoy the episode more as it went on and transitioned into a sort of light disaster thriller. Seems like the Black & White era did that a lot. Not a bad direction for Pokémon. But that’s not enough, especially for an episode that I had understood to be one of the Fifth Generation’s better outings. The “classic” years of the show desperately needed to change, just in ways where what was dumb or problematic was replaced by something better—or even something at all. My best friend described it succinctly: “Standard Kids’ Anime Product” not unlike Yu-Gi-Oh! (or, for an American equivalent, Ben 10, which aired alongside Pokémon over here), lacking any stylization and too stoic for much camp.

And yet, just one and a half seasons after this episode, Pokémon just jumped so high in quality. And three years after that, it did it again. “Why Not Give Me a Z-Ring Sometime” is also from the middle point of a Generation, but it might as well be a different franchise entirely. It’s funny, it looks great; even the plotting is novel; it seems almost like a Team Rocket spinoff episode, only to end on a cliffhanger ending of Ash and Pikachu on their way to meet Nanu. Maybe you could argue that this episode, and maybe the potential for this episode, took twenty-one years to make. Maybe. But that doesn’t matter. It’s just good. So’s “Radio Lulled the Mischievous Stars,” which has the unmistakable odor of a show knowing it doesn’t have a ton of time left for its main cast. It wasn’t the only Team Rocket-focused episode of Journeys, but this silly little fourth wall-breaking endeavor feels like a tribute. To a tone the show always had, a craft it didn’t, and an energy for which this property was always known.

Image: Bulbapedia. Pikachu & Pichu was the first of several shorts about the Pichu Bros., but it’s the most famous by far.

Of course, even while all these things were going on, the movies were chugging along. Cinema gives this franchise something special. I don’t necessarily know why, but the venue—and, perhaps, an even tacit consideration for viewers who aren’t committed fans—appears to have inspired the show’s writers. Stories about human / Pokémon relationships (yes, that old chestnut I won’t stop grinding) could be expanded. The extra budget for the visuals was a treat. But those lovely shorts they used to play before the movie were such a great way to start the movies back when I saw them in the theater. Pikachu & Pichu, like pretty much all the others, is effectively just a way to let these weird animals just be themselves, with all humans curiously shot so as to hide their faces. The idea that Pikachu goes on his own little adventures, befriending locals he’ll never see again and helping a community rebuild its home, is so charming. And that jazzy score is worth a chef’s kiss on its own. It’s an extension of what makes Pokémon so popular to begin with, that there are wonderful creatures right there, teeming in every corner of the world. I’ve heard the narrator make that very pitch plenty of times.

Perhaps it’s fitting that most of these were Team Rocket episodes. Because while Ash has become a strong lead, there’s stuff he can’t do as well. Like camp. Or constant shaggy dog stories. Or being a… how does the Sun & Moon motto go again? A single flower of evil in this fleeting world, the master of darkness fighting back against a tragic world, and the glittering dark star that always shines bright. Jessie, James, and Meowth are amazing, and there’s nothing wrong with watching the show just for them. They’re a delight whether fighting their sitcom rivals Butch and Cassidy—the Gary’s Olde Towne Tavern to our villains’ Cheers—or indulging in their own bizarre whims. Like this super-meta comedy episode about “Morpeko’s ASMR Time.” Or a mission to do evil where they unleash an evil emanation, save a girl from it, and get what they wanted out of their begrudging heroism.

Image: Bulbapedia. While the Pokémon games featured a radio tower being taken over by Team Rocket, this zany comedy story is far better for this show, and at this point.

Black & White may have significantly downplayed their role as dramatic characters (if nothing else, they were at least still silly in the Season 14 episodes I saw), but the Team Rocket Trio has been had that star power forever. From their Episode 2 debut in that besieged Pokémon Center to their final, and ongoing, trevails to catch Pikachu, they’ve always been there. Pokémon: The Series has been there, too, ever since 1998. There aren’t a lot of shows that big, that frequent, and that long in the tooth. A lot of things stayed from episode to episode, from year to year. And a lot of them changed. If most of the anime can be dismissed as dross or insubstantial, and it probably can, the growth spurts it took deserve praise all the same. Mediocre anime property though it be, it’s proven itself more than interesting.

Movie reviewed: Pokémon Detective Pikachu (May 3, 2019)

Insurance appraiser Tim Goodman comes to Ryme City, a Pokémon utopia free of battles, to settle family matters after the presumed death of his detective father. Instead, he finds himself able to speak with his dad’s partner, a self-important Pikachu who suspects foul play. The two investigate on their own and uncover a web of deceit linking a gaseous Pokémon steroid, an illicit laboratory studying Mewtwo, and the news corporation that runs the city.

After twenty-one animated movies of varying quality, the Pokémon franchise finally got to join the world of live action cinema. I believe it’s the first wing of the franchise of note to have done that since the ill-fated Pokémon Live!, an American stage show that could’ve made a good chapter for this series. Alas. While it could never match that musical in sheer insanity, the movie remains without a doubt one of the singularly weirdest video game films ever made. Thank god for that.

Image: IMDb. Our four main leads: Lucy, Psyduck, Pikachu, Tim.

A loose adaptation of the 2018 3DS game Detective Pikachu (whose sequel just got its first trailer!), Pokémon Detective Pikachu shares little with its source material beyond the two protagonists, urban setting, Mewtwo, the R drug, and comical Aipom harassment. As far as I can tell, the mystery game was largely an act of that disreputable practice we call “IP farming.” It was made to be adapted into a film from the start, as The Pokémon Company understood that a movie based around Pokémon battling or Ash would be a non-starter for anyone who wasn’t already plugged in. So we get an entirely new setting able to stand on its own: a metropolis where Poké Balls and Pokémon battling are banned in a kind utopian spirit. Some of the monsters are wild, others are legally owned, but the most problematic tenants of the franchise are restricted to places outside the purview of the law, like illicit laboratories or underground fighting rings. Naturally, there’s also an interesting meta element in that. You have to search for those things.

I really like Detective Pikachu, as I did when I first saw it back in 2019, so let’s get the bad out of the way first. It’s a mystery movie, and the mystery isn’t particularly strong. That’s perhaps for the benefit of younger viewers, but it is a weakness. Of course, the mystery is solved at the point where it transitions into a more traditional final battle setpiece. A fun one, to be clear; there’s a fight with a shapeshifting blob monster. But it’s still far more generic than the preceding hour had been. This puts it in league with the other Pokémon movies, of course, but it’s a problem most live action blockbusters have these days. Mewtwo’s role also feels somewhat obligatory, like they had to get all the big names from Red & Blue. At least the lighting is often fantastic; that’s one 21st Century filmmaking sin this movie isn’t committing.

Instead, the picture shines brightest through its style as a loopy, comic neo noir pastiche. It’s extremely fun (and very satisfying from the perspective of this huge noir and mild neo-noir buff), but it’s also fundamentally different from not just the Detective Pikachu game, or Pokémon, or video game movies, but all of those other film tentpoles. This is a bizarre spoof of hard boiled pictures where Detective Pikachu, an avuncular Roger Raboot, kvetches and chugs coffee whenever he’s not seeing conspiracy in every shadow. He literally says things like “…unless you want Johnny Law to give you a one-way ticket to the hoosegow,” or “he’d hug you so hard your bones would pop.” And it’s not just him; Tim’s fun love interest Lucy feigns an old timey intrepid reporter to hide her work as an intern who makes Pokémon listicles. Movies these days aren’t written like this. It’s somehow closer to the dialogue of Road House or the token “old timey” episode of a cartoon than Spell of the Unown. Riffing so hard on the world of tough guys and dangerous dames is the kind of thing I’d add to my scripts. If I wrote any. And fortunately, it absolutely pops.

Image: Legendary. An alley in Ryme City (not “Rhyme” City), bustling with people, Pokémon, and neon. It looks like a really fun place to live.

On a meta level, the liberties it takes not with Pokémon lore but Pokémon standards are wild. Detective Pikachu says “sweet mother of Arceus” in a franchise whose English side is skittish about religious concepts; he says “hell” in a franchise whose gigantic anime side is skittish about even gesturing to the concept of death. In the underground fighting ring (again, there’s an underground fighting ring), he decides to cheat his way out of a fight by repeatedly kicking a Magikarp in the hope it’ll evolve into a raging Gyarados. During the big final battle, Chris Geere from You’re the Worst whacks a Ditto off a bridge with a floor lamp. And then there’s the Mr. Mime torture scene… This is a movie with a shockingly loose rein. From that perspective alone it’s great. But none of that would work if it wasn’t executed so deftly.

It’s not really a dark movie—it doesn’t go full noir and suggest that things are fundamentally broken—but the writing and moments build a world with some real danger. Ryme City is pretty and refreshing, but its thoughtful bans against Pokémon battles haven’t been fully enforced. The fights there are a sight scarier than the regulation ones Ash has. Alongside doing the genre thing, this has a side effect of making the world feel a bit richer than most Pokémon settings. Without much in the way of catching or battling, Pokémon are much more like normal (if fantastical) wild animals and pets. And without being bound to the programming limitations of RPGs, they can act with far more life. Treecko can stick to glass partitions; Loudred can act as boomboxes. And the grime and smoke and lighting add a lovely texture the main entries have never even attempted. It all feels much more real.

This style goes hand in hand with the movie’s greatest point of controversy: the redesigns of the Pokémon. From the first trailer forward, viewers were shocked to see Pikachu and friends covered in fur, scales, slime, and an absurd level of detail. Detective Pikachu looks far more soft and lifelike than the actual Build-a-Bear Pikachu. It’s in sharp contrast to almost every other part of the franchise, where Game Freak is skittish about giving their game models even slight detailing. People were intensely divided over whether this was a good idea or a hellish abomination, but I think time has more than proven it right. They feel real. Each monster has a weight—Greninja makes loud, heavy footsteps and drools on the ground, Gengar occupies a space between solid and gas—that’s exciting.

Image: Legendary. The movie heavily prioritizes the classic Pokémon from Red & Blue, but my fave Greninja also got in. Its musculature and proportions are notably different from the games to fit in the live action world.

There’s kind of a Frank Quietly element to the designs; they are grounded, emotive, animated, beautiful, ugly, and even more beautiful because they are ugly. They’d be great even if it wasn’t entertaining seeing the infamously controlling Pokémon Company give this movie so much slack. For all its weirdness it’s much more charming and pleasant than any fan-made attempt at “realistic” Pokémon I’ve ever seen (though at least one artist on the film got a job from some of those fanarts). And most importantly, I don’t really know what would look better. Certainly going for the light detailing of a Pokkén Tournament would look plastic and unconvincing next to the very good Justice Smith and Kathryn Newton. Maybe it’s bizarre and maybe it’s kinda gross at times, but any other option would probably be far more awkward.

Despite all the differences, despite all the brushing up against the series’ mores, the movie is very much a piece with the franchise as a whole. It takes plenty of cues from the anime, naturally, and the mainline games. Howard Clifford is a classic series villain: a charismatic man of means who wants to exploit Pokémon for some uncomfortable philosophical gain. But stuff like the outright murderous Pokémon and the less sanitized designs come right out of the early days of the franchise. Back then, the sprites were grotesque, the anime was nutso, and the manga chopped an Arbok in half. The idea of illegal, violent battles and an attempted murderer Greninja is straight out of that era where the Pokémon world felt dangerous. An era we only got back with this and Pokémon Legends: Arceus. That’s why there are jokes about how Detective Pikachu acts like a serial killer and risks overexerting his grape-sized heart, or why our heroes discover almost too late that the mountain range they’re on is a colony of horrifically super-sized Torterra.

These things make the movie a great adaptation of the Pokémon brand. But it’s also just fun beyond that. The buddy act between Tim and Pikachu is great; their bond is delightful, as is their complicated feelings towards the missing Harry Goodman. Lucy, her Psyduck, and Detective Yoshida (played by the titanic Ken Watanabe, who reprised his role for the Japanese dub and apparently taught the cast how to pronounce the word “Pokémon”) are a lot of fun, too. The acting is great. The look of Ryme City is gorgeous. And the writing and energy aren’t dependent on being plugged into this franchise. The scene at the beginning where Tim gets slowly, horribly licked by a Lickitung isn’t funny because any of us care about Lickitung. It’s funny because it’s a mixture of the disgusting and the charming, and all at this harmless young man’s mild expense.

Image: Legendary. Regardless of anything else, Pikachu is incredibly cute.

Detective Pikachu released to mediocre reviews and a fairly huge box office draw, making it one of the most successful video game movies ever made. Despite that, news of a sequel wasn’t forthcoming, and Justice Smith has been openly doubtful that it’ll happen. Perhaps the producers weren’t sure how to make a Detective Pikachu that wouldn’t have Detective Pikachu. According to Legendary the sequel is and has been in active development. I’d certainly hope so. I have no interest in the “we need more good video game adaptations” fight, but this world could stand to be explored even further. And with us inching towards the third year anniversary of the last Pokémon film after twenty years of annual releases, it’s not quite clear what the cinematic side of this franchise is going to look like. When it comes back, here’s hoping it’ll have even a fraction of this picture’s charm.

Conclusion: What did I learn from “Pikachu in Pictures?” I mean, I’m here to put out articles, but I do try to approach everything as a learning experience. Certainly I’d rather take more away from a six month project than just tsuris and worsened insomnia.

I suppose the first thing is proof positive of something I’ve always known: that any work of art, no matter how mercenary or commercial, can change for the better. Pokémon: The Series is so obviously, bluntly a creature of branding. We all know this. But like the no less branded games of which it is based, it has been capable of creating genuinely strong art. Some of these buckled against the constraints of The Pokémon Company, some subverted them, and others worked comfortably within them. This is good! It’s just one example of how any long term work of art or big franchise can turn itself around.

Image: The Pokémon Company. The anime had boring art styles for five Generations, then it suddenly jumped in quality for Gen VI. And then Gen VII had another jump. Any work of sequential art can get better.

To a broader extent, the anime is just one more example of how franchises and series are living things. Between the responses to the audience, the retcons, and the tonal changes, these things are in a constant conversation. This means it’s generally not good as either a creator or a consumer to have too hard a grip on the work. I’ve spent over half my life not liking Gary Oak; he was always a bad rival with little else to him. This really isn’t meant as a hot take. But now he’s so much stronger and more interesting. Conversely, plenty of characters who started out strong got worse over time, and that’s also just a part of life. Misty being boring in Johto doesn’t nullify her being fun in Kanto, but the reverse isn’t true either. So be willing to make, accept, and yes, reject changes—so long as you at least engage with them.

Third: Pokémon is a weird franchise, and it always needs to be weird. Much like The Legend of Zelda, it runs on an engine of oddness and eccentricity, and while that doesn’t always work in its favor it’s additive far more than when it isn’t. What was the most fun part of Pokémon Scarlet & Violet? It was the tangible strangeness to Paldea and its denizens, whether they were neurotic teachers, self-mutilating hake fish, or a living “Kilroy Was Here” graffito. And that’s often true of the cartoon; the best part of the “original series” certainly isn’t the plot or animation but the surreality. And, of course, what forms that weirdness takes has evolved over time, too. Sometimes the weirdness is bad! That creepy-ass Exeggutor episode was viscerally unpleasant. But I don’t think there’s a Pokémon project worth a damn that isn’t at least a bit strange.

Fourth, and this is less specific to the anime, but it is important: after years I’ve consciously realized the greatest appeal of Pokémon, more than the battles or the Types. It’s that these adorable, powerful, magical creatures live everywhere. Some can only be found through hard work, and some are less friendly, but you can’t go anywhere in this world without finding a few of them. Franchises like Twin Peaks enchant us with a hidden world beneath the world. Franchises like The Owl House try to keep their magical sides and mundane sides separate or in conflict. But in Pokémon, the magical side is the mundane side, and the world is openly teeming with animals just there to befriend. You never have to hide that they exist. I’ve realized this watching Ash interact with the characters of the day, seeing the hustle and bustle of Ryme City, and thinking back on the games I’ve played. It’s a popular meme, how much every person in Pokémon just f___ing loves Pokémon. But wouldn’t you if you could wake up from the caw of a Dodrio or nestle in the fur of a Stoutland?

Image: The Pokémon Company. This is one of the reasons why non-combative sides of the franchise are compelling. You get to see them in other, sometimes more naturalistic ways.

This is probably the most important for this project, if only because it affects the entire franchise. That’s why the world building in Detective Pikachu is so much greater than that of other “game to movie” adaptations. It takes this core idea of a world opening teeming with creatures and then creates a setting within that idea that’s easy to understand, unique, interesting, and not dependent on your familiarity with the IP. This idea, which was ultimately born more out of The Pokémon Company’s demands than those of the writers over the film’s long production cycle, is key. This is not “a movie about the world of Pokémon.” Of course, it’s not as though the hidden world doesn’t exist; there’s the evil conspiracy. Stuff like that exists in the games, too, with the secretive Legendary Pokémon and the grand mythology. Both levels enrich each other. It’s just that the hidden world is no more or less magical than the surface one.

Finally, while Pokémon was probably always going to be a poor cartoon, that was never some pure inevitability or a condition it couldn’t survive. The conclusion I take from this? Things can be good or bad, they can defy the circumstances that led to their existence, and we as critics and consumers should always recognize that. That means we can enjoy and hate and snark on things, but we should often try to avoid thinking of art as destined to be bad. Maybe Pokémon is a poor cartoon, but the hand of God didn’t make Black & White a boring, often lifeless slog and Sun & Moon a delight. The people who made them and the circumstances around them did. And many of those people were involved in both shows. I’m not saying not to dismiss things or that preemptive cynicism never has merit (I can certainly be cynical when I think the evidence supports it, and I do have blind spots in this area), just that we should expect more of the art we consume to try. Because that goes hand in hand with demanding that the art we consume try. Remember, the same corporation that made every one of those bad episodes also produced something as stylish and dramatic as this:

Ultimately, I’m leaving “Pikachu in Pictures” exhausted but proud. I look forward to deleting the page in my Notes that I’ve used to dutifully write comments and the TV episodes I’ve watched. I’m happy with what I’ve written and the conclusions I’ve found. And it’ll be nice having more free time, even if the scheduling for this was much nicer than last year when I was devoting so much time to powering through unpleasant boss fights. But what’s perhaps oddest is that I’m actually interested in watching more of the Pokémon anime once this is done. I’m thinking of going through a more traditional watch after some time has passed—heavily trimmed of course, but there are a few episodes I want to see on their own first. It’s not that I’ve caught the bug, or that I think it’s great. But there was usually at least one good and fun episode a week, and, well, it’d be nice to see a few more of those. I suppose that’s as big a compliment to the show as I could give.

…Eh, who knows if that’ll pan out. I said the same thing about playing Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory and watching more Disney movies last time, and I dropped them like a hot potato. But if nothing else, at least I’ve got Team Rocket.

Errant thoughts:

I’m gonna put the rest of the Detective Pikachu bullet points near the bottom since the movie’s ultimately less important for this chapter, but this one gets the top position because it’s the best Pokémon story ever. Namely, Bill Nighy knew nothing of the franchise when he signed on, but the research he took to prepare for the part made him a world-class fan. He even got to take those statues of the Sinnoh Legendaries home!
Pikachu & Pichu has a far less fun story: the Japanese narrator was convicted of drug possession years later, and given Japan’s draconian laws and social mores when it comes to drug use, it has been banned from re-release in Japan for over a decade. It’s a far more severe reaction than the response The Pokémon Company had to the admitted child predator composer.
Naturally, there were many episodes I had considered for this project, several of which I also considered and rejected for this week. Some of them are on a shortlist of ones to potentially watch when this is over. Here are a few of both, and why I didn’t pick them:
- “Pillars of Friendship!,” which threw in Paul, Hunter J, and the final boss of the Battle Frontier filler arc. There wasn’t space for it in the very tightly constructed Sinnoh showings, so I wanted to include it here. I replaced it with the Alola episode right at the end—literally, like minutes before the last article went up—because as good as Diamond & Pearl was, Sun & Moon was better still. But I was interested in seeing some of that classic Sinnoh serialization. Had Pikachu & Pichu and the other shorts been watched for the movies, it would’ve made it in.
- “The Dream Continues!,” the last episode of Black & White. It’s generally liked for closing a largely unpopular chapter, and I did want to see Ash with all his old team members, but I had to get at least something from the Decolore Islands and cut it a week before it was scheduled. Worth it in the end, I think. I did enjoy that episode.
- “The Good, the Bad, and the Lucky!,” the one where Butch and Cassidy finally retire from Team Rocket. Was never seriously considered for the main Journeys week, and while I did think about it for this chapter, it ultimately sounded less exciting than the radio one and a bit redundant with “Pikachu Re-Volts.” Of course, it really didn’t hit me that the Sun & Moon episode would also focus on the trio. I just wanted to see Nanu.
- “Malice in Wonderland” / “The Lost World of Gothitelle” / “The Spectral Express.” I’m a big fan of surreal episodes, certainly for this show. The first two each lost out to “Ghoul Daze” and “Scare at the Litwick Mansion,” respectively.
- Another Johto filler: “One Trick Phony,” “For Crying Out Loud,” and “Ring Masters.” Look, from what I can tell a good Johto filler is a high water mark for the era. But, well, we kinda had a lot already. Because Johto had a lot of filler.
“Pikachu Re-Volts” features something that apparently completely passed me by as both a child and writer of this program: “Pikachu’s Jukebox.” It’s, uh, something! “What if the Poké Rap” was even more atonal?”
She’s not interesting in the episode, but Iris’s rival Georgia has a kernel of a cool idea: instead of specializing in Training one Type, she specializes in fighting one Type. So she has two Ice-Types to attack Dragon-Types and a Steel-Type to tank hits from them. Neat concept, and it’d be fun to see other characters explore that.
Despite the Type having debuted in 1999 with Pokémon Heroes, the anime had passed over every Dark-type specialist, from Karen to the incomparable Grimsely. Not that I, a Dark-type fan, noticed, of course. Nanu was their first crack at it, and what a crack it was. He’s perfect. I’m so happy for my grumpy, lazy, almost passive aggressively religious ex-cop Kahuna.
Tracey’s outfit is shockingly boring. No, it doesn’t matter, but that’s all I see.
My new headcanon: Cassidy and Butch have the original Team Rocket motto; Jessie and James merely perfected it.
A fun part of doing series like this is when the stars align and real life interacts with the article. Getting a full trailer and official announcement of Detective Pikachu Returns roughly ten hours before I planned to watch Detective Pikachu was one of them.
- On that note, I am cautiously if mildly optimistic. It’s a bit disappointing the level of detail and texturing hasn’t really improved at all from when the game was on 3DS. On the other hand, the best part of the original game’s graphics were its surprisingly strong animation, so hopefully that’s been retained and furthered.
When I first saw the movie in the theater, the biggest laugh was when Pikachu sings the “Pokémon Theme” while wallowing in misery. Oddly, in Japan he doesn’t sing its counterpart, “Aim to Be a Pokémon Master,” but translations of the English song’s lyrics. Apparently it went over audiences’ heads.
Presumably Ditto takes the forms of other Pokémon we’ve seen for budgetary reasons, but it works well. Everyone knows what each form can do by that point.
Movie was, somewhat rarely for the era, shot on film. I’m not a purest when it comes to film vs digital, but I think it looks really good here. And it helps the hard boiled tone.
One of Detective Pikachu’s highlights is the interrogation scene between Tim, Detective Pikachu, and a recalcitrant Mr. Mime. It’s a fun blend of Pokémon lore (the notoriously hated mime makes psychic invisible walls), hard boiled storytelling (they’re trying to rough him up for information), and hilariously off-brand comedy (Tim gets the skinny by miming tortures, culminating in him accidentally setting Mr. Mime on fire with invisible gasoline). It was also a hard scene to justify to The Pokémon Company, which was wisely skittish about using such an off-putting monster in any capacity.
Seriously, though, Detective Pikachu is so darn cute. I couldn’t even add any of the anime characters into the header because it’d take away from him.
I’ve been extensively using Bulbapedia, the premiere Pokémon encyclopedia, for reference. A thing I’ve noticed is how inconsistent it can be in providing detail, particularly depending on the subject. The Detective Pikachu movie, for instance, is surprisingly ill-supported; there are few images (even official screenshots), and word counts for related articles are somewhat thin.
- In general, the structure of Bulbapedia is weighted very heavily for explaining mechanics or plot details, not unlike how the Smash Wiki is weighted heavily towards competitive play or (to a lesser extent) the Zelda Wiki to the timeline. It’d be nice if it was a bit closer to something like the Mario Wiki or actual Wikipedia and gave more time for behind the scenes information. That’s otherwise relegated to the catch-all “Trivia” section.
- On a related note: Psyduck can use Psychic powers on the Dark-type Greninja. This is fine, Bulbapedia; they don’t need to have the Protean Ability that alters their Types. Immunities should be different in adaptations.
- That being said, when it comes to the anime they are fantastic at getting screenshots. I might have been frustrated by some of their structural decisions, but they undeniably have a lot of useful material.
Oh, there’s one more thing! I went through all my list of favorite Pokémon over the course of this series, but I thought it might be fun to show that in a different way. A friend of mine introduced me to the Ultimate Favorite Pokemon Picker, an app that lets you select your favorites by Type and Generation, several months ago. I found it fun, so I decided to do one of my own. Consider trying this one out yourself.

Image: GitHub. Seeing it like this is interesting, as it forces me to abandon some favorites (several Gen III Grass-Types) and highlight some that I don’t think about much otherwise (the Gen V Water-Types). Side note, but I see the creator switched Grass and Electric from the original Gen I Type Chart, presumably to group the Starters. It’s arguably sad that I know that.

And finally, thank you all so, so much for reading these. Weekly series are a pain in the ass to go through, but I’m proud of the work I did and the conclusions I found. I know this isn’t the most popular side of Source Gaming, but I’m always happy knowing that even a few people were taking note. I think I’m gonna need to take a long time before starting one of these again, maybe the one on fishing mechanics in games (I could call it “Fishing with Wolf” and reference one of the best TV shows of all time). But until then, I’ll keep chugging along at the more typical kinds of articles for me. Ya know, not to walk back my “don’t treat badness as an inevitability” statement entirely, but I hear Nintendo’s coming out with a party game soon that has quite a bit of notoriety behind it…

Pokémon movies ranked:

The Power of Us (21). Tour-de-force.
Spell of the Unown: Entei (03). The standard of “classic” Pokémon movies, the ones where the main characters from the show all exist. Great animation uplifts a charming fairy tale.
Detective Pikachu. It’s at number three only because its plot is ultimately weaker, but the dialogue and style are unlike anything else in this franchise. In a great way.
Lucario and the Mystery of Mew (08). The well-used cast, strong plotting, and element of high adventure really elevate this one.
Jirachi Wish Maker (6). Sure it has a great central couple and some amazing animation, and the music’s great, but more importantly, this made even Max tolerable.
The Rise of Darkrai (10). One of the most successful entries at making the setting real, the cast strong, and the adventure satisfying.
Secrets of the Jungle (23). Why is this one so high? I think the surprisingly effective aping of Disney’s style syncs really well with this franchise.
Arceus and the Jewel of Life (12). While it has some weak characters, it manages one of the series’ most gripping depictions of conflict between people and Pokémon.
Destiny Deoxys (07). Definitely a flawed movie in a lot of ways, but the action and propulsion do a lot for it. As does one of the better city-wide fights in any of these movies.
I Choose You (20). A somewhat shaggy plot and bluntness of the tugs at the heartstrings keep this one from getting higher, but it’s a surprisingly strong reboot.
The Power of One (02). After an embarrassing first step, this gives a much greater glimpse into the potential of Pokémon in theaters.
Celebi: The Voice of the Forest (04). Arguably the start of Pokémon sequels feeling less essential, with somewhat bland time travel shenanigans.
Volcanion and the Mechanical Marvel (19). Very derivative, and it is very much a nineteenth movie in a series, but I really like Ash’s acrimonious relationship with Volcanion.
Pokémon Heroes (05). Not great, but it manages to scratch an itch really well.
Black—Victini and Reshiram / White—Victini and Zekrom (14). Does just enough to work, but it’s fairly slight and the weird “two in one” gimmick is meaningless.
Hoopa and the Clash of Ages (18). The dividing line for me on good and bad Pokémon movies. It’s not good, but it’s fun. All the ones below should take note.
Zoroark: Master of Illusions (13). An evil billionaire who tries to steal future vision and runs his own broadcasting empire? Great! But the execution is painfully middling.
Genesect and the Legend Awakened (16). For all the vitriol this movie’s Mewtwo got, its film is eminently, entirely boring.
Giratina and the Sky Warrior (11). Has one fantastic location and an enjoyably obnoxious star, but it’s empty beyond that.
Diancie and the Cocoon of Destruction (17). Truly a nothing of a film.
Mewtwo Strikes Back—Evolution (22). Take what was already a bad movie and just cover it in bad CGI. This one does get higher thanks to following the still bad Japanese script instead of the one 4Kids wrote all those years ago. And the sailor suits.
Kyurem and the Sword of Justice (15). There’s so little here. No real characters or setting.
Pokémon Ranger and the Temple of the Sea (09). In some ways, this isn’t as bad as a few of the ones right above it; it’s less boring. But it’s not fun, and the ending utterly sinks it.
Mewtwo Strikes Back (01). As the higher positioning of the remake suggests, this really isn’t the absolute worst Pokémon movie, plot, writing, and deep hypocrisy aside. But that dub…

Eras of the Pokémon anime, ranked (because I can’t go so granular as to rank by season):

Sun & Moon. The height of animation and characters and writing. For all of my “it’s almost like a real show!” cracks, this one actually is fun television. Congrats, Pokémon.
X & Y. The runner up is what so many kid’s anime secretly want to be: shōnen. Except it manages to outclass most of that genre, especially when it comes to them fight scenes.
Diamond & Pearl. All that serialization and darkness would mean nothing if it wasn’t good, and Sinnoh was such a leap as a work of storytelling.
Journeys. I really wanted this one to be Number 3, but I just think Goh and the slight declines hurt it a bit too much. Even still, when it’s on, it’s on.
The Johto Journeys. Yep, I’m putting this one over Kanto, specifically because like Journeys, it’s really good in its “strong filler” niche.
Indigo League and Adventure in the Orange Islands. The classic, the unimpeachable, the… pretty bad. Still, there’s that kick.
Advanced Generation. The birth pangs of a new, better form of Pokémon: the Series, but damned if I can recall a ton that was concretely good.
Black & White. A lot of polish and little else.

Next… wait, there is no next! We’ve finished!

Other movies watched:

Alien
The Bad Pack
Children of the Corn V: Fields of Terror
Dead Heat
The Faculty
In the Line of Duty 2: The Super Cops
M
UHF
In addition, I got a sneak peak at a currently unreleased documentary short.

Other television episodes watched:

Cheers 106, “Any Friend of Diane’s”
Columbo 905, “Uneasy Lies the Crown”
Columbo 1004, “Death Hits the Jackpot”
Frasier 105, “Here’s Looking at You”
Frasier 219, “Someone to Watch Over Me”
Frasier 401, “The Two Mrs. Cranes”
Frasier 804, “The Great Crane Robbery”
Frasier 818, “Forgotten But Not Gone”
Frasier 1016, “Fraternal Schwinns”
G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero 139, “Cobra Claws Are Coming to Town”
The Good Place 306, “The Ballad of Donkey Doug”
The Good Place 307, “A Fractured Inheritance”
The Good Place 308, “The Worst Possible Use of Free Will”
The Good Place 309, “Don’t Let the Good Life Pass You By”
Regular Show 705, “The Dome Experiment”
Regular Show 723, “Gary’s Synthesizer”
Twin Peaks 103, “Episode 3” (or “Zen, or the Skill to Catch a Killer”)
White House Plumbers 105, “True Believers.” Definitely a little thick on the conspiracy theories (which are admittedly stock in trade of the era and players), and it does that frustrating thing where it’s a “comedy-drama” in that it’s a comedy and then a drama instead of interweaving them. But it’s still reasonably fun.