5 Best Scenes From The Pokémon Anime
Earlier this month, the multimedia sensation Pokémon celebrated its 30th anniversary, an event that has led many fans to reflect on their favorite moments from the series' games, TV shows, books and Burger King toys.
Today, I read the website Polygon's list of the 30 Most Iconic Moments from the Pokémon anime. "Finally," I thought to myself thirty consecutive times, "confirmation that other people take this show as seriously as I do." They gave shout-outs to some of my favorite moments, like this one:
and this one:
and even this one:
After reading Polygon's list, I found others that highlighted the maturity hiding right under the Pokémon Japanimation's surface. SyFy, for example, made a beautiful list of the show's 10 Saddest Moments. I thought I was the only person who remembered this:
Still, these lists inevitably had oversights. I thought it would be valuable if I filled in some gaps. Here are my five favorite moments of the Pokémon anime that show this Kids WB program about a shouting child and his friend what was on all that Japanese stationary was actually pretty deep.
- Mr. Mime Breaks Rank At My Lai
from season 4, episode 12, "The Only Crime I Have Committed Is In Judgment Of My Values, Pikachu! Apparently, I Valued My Troops' Lives More Than I Did The Lives Of The Enemy!"
Real fans know Pokémon's fourth season, retroactively dubbed "The Johto Adventure," is when the show started to deal with analogs for real-world events in a smart, mature way. In this episode, we learn about the Pokémon universe's version of the Vietnam War after Charmander befriends a Mr. Mime who served two tours in VietMon. This Mr. Mime still carries the mental scars of the time his vicious commanding officer, Lickitung, ordered their unit to fire on unarmed civilians. Mr. Mime bravely stood up to Lickitung, but was court marshalled for his disobedience. They could take away Mr. Mime's title, but they couldn't take away his sense of right and wrong. - Ash Learns About Racism From Brock's Growlithe
from season 2, episode 3, "Safari Zone Success!"
Brock's Growlithe was always poised to become one of the monster-catching show's break-out characters, from his can-do attitude to his bevy of impressive fire-based attacks. You could just tell the writers had big plans for this burning barker! As season 2 was beginning, Growlithe finally got his big break-out moment, when he tagged along on Brock, Misty and Ash's trip into the Safari Zone. Up to this point in the anime, every Growlithe we'd seen had been a handsome shade of dark orange, but once in the Safari Zone, the Poké-crew runs across a herd of yellow Growlithes. When Brock's Growlithe attempted to become friends with them, he was shunned, presumably because he did not look exactly like the new pups. Ash, having never witnessed discrimination like this, wondered aloud why all Pokémon couldn't be friends with each other, and at that point, the anime showed its trademark knack for handling serious subjects with grace and maturity, as Brock's Growlithe used Quick Attack on one of the other Growlithes. - Jesse and James Finally Explain Why Team Rocket Wants To Capture Ash's Pikachu
from season 3, episode 2, "The Marvelous Mystery of Silph Co.!"
Let's be honest, Team Rocket's Jesse and James seem a little... silly. Week in and week out, these two knuckleheads (along with their Meowth, who taught himself to talk as an act of love, remember) come up with hare-brained schemes to catch Pikachu, but they just can't do it! It was only in season 3 stand-out "The Marvelous Mystery of Silph Co.!" that Jesse, trapped in an abandoned mineshaft in Veridian Forest with Misty and potentially on the verge of asphyxiation, revealed her motives. She looked about at the dark forest in which they were bivouacked. She nodded toward the Pokémon she'd collected. These anonymous creatures, she said, may seem little or nothing in the world. Yet the smallest crumb can devour us. Any smallest thing beneath yon rock out of men's knowing. Only nature can enslave man and only when the existence of each last entity is routed out and made to stand naked before him will he be properly suzerain of the earth.
Whatever exists, she said. Whatever in creation exists without my knowledge exists without my consent. A giant bead of sweat slowly fell from Misty's face and then she suddenly fell over, her legs hanging crooked in the air. - Voltorb Returns Home After Two Months On An Alaskan Crabbing Boat And His Daughter Doesn't Remember Who He Is
from season 1, episode 9, "The Shocking Return of Voltorb!"
This one doesn't need much explanation. If you were a 90s kid, you remember when Voltorb's crabbing expedition was stretched from its intended three weeks to a whole two months, initially due to low yield and then because the weather was so rough. Voltorb hadn't even wanted to go, but Electrode's arthritis made it impossible for him to take his regular place on the team and, as the strongest electric-type Capt. Chansey knew, Voltorb was the natural replacement. That didn't make it any easier when Voltorb's daughter, Voltorb, finally saw her dad again after two long months and, not recognizing him, called him "Voltorb," which is his name but Pokémon can only communicate by saying their own names, and she wasn't actually saying Voltorb's name, she was saying "Who are you?" - Ash Realizes He Doesn't Need To Exaggerate The Merits Of A TV Show He Liked As A Child To Justify His Feelings On it
from season 7, episode 18, "For Our Salad Course Tonight, The Chef Is Offering A Base Of Gengarugula Or Swiss Charizard!"
In this filler episode, Ash, Misty and Brock go to Officer Jenny's new restaurant and eat hamburgers that I guess came from cows and not Tauros, Miltank or another cow-like Pokémon. We never see any animals that aren't Pokémon, but the show wouldn't introduce us to all of these species with self-awareness and full emotional ranges and then have its main characters eat them, right? What meat are all of these people eating?
As they chow down on their Poké-snacks (and cute little Pikachu is treated to a delicious potion!), the heroic trio talk about Digimon, a television show Ash watched as a child. Ash explains to his friends that it seems silly and, ironically, infantilizing to look back on a TV show for children, that meant a lot to him as a kid, and try to ascribe more maturity to it than it warranted. Ash starts to reminisce about the episode of Digimon where the main character's Agumon gets hurt for the first time and then he stops himself and points out it's kind of reaching to talk about the thematic depth of a story where a hundred writers and artists, working over the course of 30 years, never explained where the meat the Digi-Destined eat even comes from. It's great Ash enjoyed Digimon as a kid and there isn't even really anything embarrassing about continuing to enjoy it as an adult– God knows Ash bought the recent Switch re-release of an old Digimon WonderSwan game and he isn't in a position to judge anybody for indulging in nostalgia for the property– but it cheapens art with actual maturity when we pretend all the fan-servicey toy ad cartoons we loved were emotionally intelligent in any real sense. Brock chimes in that it's like when people argue the Avatar movies should be winning Best Director and Best Original Screenplay Oscars. If you're still thinking about Omegamon's relationship with a squealing tween boy who always wears huge goggles and has at least two belts on as if it's the pinnacle of anything, you're also doing yourself dirty. There's so much art out there and you're focusing on the smallest sliver of it because it makes you feel comfortable and you're afraid the next thing won't.
This is also the episode where Misty delivers Narcan to Team Rocket's Wheezing.