Pokemon Timelines+Visual Companion 5th Ed., PT. I

    I Christmas-gifted myself these two items off the official Pokemon gift guide. Timelines is clearly meant to be the 5th-Edition Visual Companion's companion. In a great many cases, what's notably missing from one is included in the other. In conjunction they do provide a comprehensive overview of the series. Neither attempts to tackle it episode-by-episode, which would essentially be like trying to print a massively condensed version of the Bulbapedia guide onto paper. And painstakingly correcting any errors *therein*, hopefully. But they handle it in what I suppose is the optimal manner--organizing all the important people, information, and most significant events region by region.
Errors of the grammatical variety (spelling, punctuation, vocabulary, and such) abound, in the VC especially. Its Kalos chapter was particularly egregious, with mistakes in seemingly every other sentence. There's much inconsistency, with some sections considerably better-written than others. On occasion some subjectivity, editorializing, and favoritism are evident. Then there are the factual errors, inaccurate wordings and statements, and things with which you can definitely take issue. Not as prevalent as the other type perhaps, but certainly present. I generally appreciate a good bit of snark, and multiple characters including Ashy-boy get some...but I'm a bit less of a fan when it's overdirected toward my Team Rocket darlings and really isn't even truthful.
    Timelines' use of images is superior. It has a good layout, with two-page spreads summarizing people and events by flowing through chronological developments. They are tempting to read out of order, though, due to the placement of bubbles; you really have to focus on the line and which pokeball is connected to each. Both are thick, but Timelines is a big hardcover while the VC is smaller and softcovered. VC includes every detail of every gym battle, and all the pokemon from each region--that is until you reach Kalos, where for some reason they start wasting pages by showing not only the new ones for that generation, but all the others occurring in the region. The only upside to this is that occasionally a repeated pokemon has a cool new drawing I don't think I've seen before. There's a frustrating lack of an index as well. And a funny misprint where the white of Bianca's right eye is black, so it looks as if she has a black eye or is some kind of creepy cyborg or something. The VC's worst crime has to be its Alola chapter, covering perhaps half of the storyline--what was the reason for having published an edition in the middle of a subseries, and what was the reason for not having gone back to complete it before publishing the final one? Fortunately Timelines does so, but neither tells you that they should be read as a pair. VC claims Tupp to be the leader of Team Skull; it never mentions Guzma. Tupp may lead his trio, but that's it. Compare Alola's chapter with Unova's lengthy one, which might contain the most relatively superfluous-feeling material.

The biggest and most bizarre mistake in either book is the statement that Jessie's mother died when she was five, and she was raised in foster care. For all we know her mother, the "snowgasbord" lady, could still be alive. She was never at any point in the anime said to have died, let alone when Jessie was five. And nothing was ever said about a foster home either. The woman and location in the flashback are portrayed as her biological mother and original home. COULD it have been a foster situation? Possibly, but there is no reason to think so. (Even in the original Japanese none of this was suggested, and while Jessie didn't directly refer to the woman as her mother, the closed captioning did.) The idea of her having been in a foster home or orphanage is just people misremembering, as they do all the time with everything. For that to be able to get printed in an official book is weird. Not that they've ever been 100% credible, but the detail of this example is peculiar.
The writer may have been thinking of the old Japanese radio drama that was created as a tie-in to the first movie. It was blatantly not canon to the anime, which offers no suggestion of Giovanni's mother having been Team Rocket's founder, or of Jessie's mother having been another TR agent who put her up for adoption and then vanished whilst searching for Mew. Gio's mom is never even mentioned, and he very much feels like the founder. If Jessie were still meant to have a backstory of this nature, it would 100% have been important enough to have included--especially given the perfect opportunity in Journeys. There you literally have the Mew-finding plotline, and a chance to have Jessie discovering a connected fact that obviously no one thus far in the series would have been aware of. But nope, nothing of the sort. The series' sole nod to this obscure, untranslated drama is young Jessie's hairstyle in that one DP Dustox episode. It's one of those interesting artifacts of Pokemon history--supplemental materials that are "canon" to themselves alone, representing at most a divergent parallel universe in which things are different from the primary anime canon to which one nearly always refers. Manga, the very early Japanese novelization, and the delightful Pokemon Live show (which I saw!) fall into this category. The Live show wasn't as far off, but did also contain details that don't jive with "Pokecanon Prime" (most remarkably, a relationship between Giovanni and Delia.) Such things are intriguing little windows into what could have been.
Even some of the movies are considered "non-canon," and I can see why. For instance the second one, always a favorite of mine, really should have used new main characters as originally pushed for by one of the guys involved. Ash of course won out. But it'd work a lot better on the whole for The Chosen One to be some other dude by the name of Ash. Afterward Ketchum just continued on as a regular kid and anonymous trainer rather than the guy who just, y'know, saved the world from destruction. xD Like I'm sure y'all did casually "see a Lugia" in the Orange Islands, sure. Odd we didn't see it, but not quite AS odd.
    The VC also incorrectly states that James attended Pokemon Tech. In truth, both he and Jessie failed its entrance exam, earning the all-time lowest scores.

NOTE TIME!

• The best "mistake" (which is actually more of a correction of sorts) in either book is the sentence "They have left evil behind and now run a cafe." Well, cafe for one and bakery for the other, but the implication of togetherness is what really matters. Because it's plain as day that they're soon going to end up as the title of the Al & Peggy Bundy sitcom. The "Botch" curse--placed upon poor Butch by either a pokemon or a witch (or a witchy pokemon?), and which had been growing steadily worse--will at last be broken by True Love's Kiss. 'Twas a powerful spell, so it may take his wedding kiss. ^3~
• Pp. 44-45 of Timelines: Most important of all! Just like JN095 is the most important episode of the entire series. ^w^ Again the itsy-bitsy summaries are most annoying when dealing with the best characters. x-3 (The rivalry had been going on before James got paired with Jessie, especially between the girls.) 'Trading Center'--well, that is more accurate. "Next scheme" Nep, forgot the Lugia one...and while the books reference Chronicles in other places, it's skipped over for B&C rather than trying to sum up those missions. Then the timeline hits Berate & Switch, Sleight of Sand, & Good/Bad/Lucky.
• Boy, you can see the decline from Johto to Hoenn. Shrinking audience and budget...and then the voice cast was so suddenly and jarringly replaced. Egads, that was awful. Eventually the replacements improved their imitations, found their stride somewhat, and you got kinda used to them by necessity...but man, there WAS no replacing the 4Kids originals. (And okay, I liked James' ORIGINAL-original voice of the first 8 episodes [Ted Lewis] as well, but when the theatre calls...) Some people who used to sound terrific would suddenly return with voices fit to make your ears bleed (e.g. Drew, Prof. Oak, Brock and especially Misty in Sun/Moon...) But the most absolutely unforgivable voice change of all time is Cassidy's third. The first two were great. The third is Snow-Miser-in-Miser-Brothers-Christmas-level bad, not even trying to be a suitable successor. Simply disrespectful and inexplicable irl. Like everyone involved in the production of Berate & Switch, my poor girl was on something in her last few episodes. ;; Something was making her loopy. But it's okay. Butch is gonna make it all better. Speaking of him, his second actor is actually...NOT a bad substitute? In a way I might even, sorta kinda prefer it slightly? Even though that feels so blasphemous to say. But it's definitely close enough.
• Re: the VC bit about my babies: Well, it wasn't that Jessie & Meowth "preferred" the bakery. They just lost Pelipper again, wound up there, stayed to repay Butch's kindness...Meowth intended to stay permanently until suffering another romantic heartbreak...yeah. And we don't know whether "owns" is true.
• Ugh. Teams Aqua and Magma are so insanely hot and sexy. **Shelly** and Archie are especially perfect. Aw, you don't think we should trust the "wishy-washy" leader even after all's said and done and disbanded? Hmph.
• Well, it's always tempting to picture the "evil team" leader with one of the lady members. (Or some of the members paired.) In Shelly's case, I'm sure there could've been something between her and Archie, but would she wind up marrying him afterward? I also can't shake the thought of her and...Flint. x-} Choices 3+4 would be Matt and Tabitha (omg, worst name ever for a man, worse than a boy named Sue; let's say he goes by his surname.) #archelly #sharchie #shint #flelly #melly #shatt #shabitha #tabelly Tbh Maxie's a hottie too, but...Idk. Don't forget Courtney for him or any of these dudes.
• "Evil incarnate?" Oh, come now. Why must all the "evil" teams include some of the most attractive people and even...attractive ideas? At least on paper. Shame Cyrus betrayed his faithful underlings. ;; Team Galactic wants to create a world without war. But Ash and friends get in their way because they love war. They think strife and violence are the Beedrill's knees. Our planet needs a Team Galactic (or Flare, or any/all of 'em) to join, man.
• I love all the Science Guys! Charon, Colress, Zager, Namba/Samba/Mambo, Xerosic (felt bad for him when he got arrested)...professors...Faba!
• "A brilliant but wayward mind......even if it means putting others in peril" Oh c'mon, inadvertently! [Yeah, he went cuckoo in the pursuit of summoning and capturing an Ultra Beast for his precious president. However, he was only willfully endangering himself. He got barged in on both times, and for whatever reason the space jellyfish is more interested in stealing girls. Think about it though, to summon a UB all alone...what a brave (and crazy, perhaps stupid) son of a bitch you have to be.] Carry on, my wayward son. <3
• Bit of an unfortunate shot on Lillie's page. xD Even if Faba's favorite hobbies still include harassment and sexual harassment, it'd be of her MOTHER, mmkay? (And it most certainly would not be, anyhow. =b No subordinate ladies, no one!) I do like that in the manga he was madly in love with Lusamine--except that holy shit, it's literally MADLY, in a murderous "If I can't have you nobody can" kind of way. *.* So glad the anime decided to give the poor dude a break and made him a complex and interesting, but ultimately very lovable guy. While it'd make a lotta sense for him to have felt a similar infatuation, to a little saner extent, in animeverse, it'd be sad since she's, y'know, married, and only loves her husband that way. And soon brings him home. Most likely such feelings have been or will be totally transferred to Miss Wicke. (Not unlike the part of my hc involving Cassidy's crush on Giovanni transferring to Butch, and developing into true love.) Luckily she's right there, and it's a great match. In no time she'll have him whipped (into shape...as she pretty much already does, and also... #winkwinknudgenudgesaynomore) REALLY wish Fabwicke had known first names! For some reason I'm feeling Leonard and Claudia. (Also considered Martin and Martina, Lydia, Marlene, and Marietta. Practically any 2+-syllable name goes well with Wicke, so I narrowed to German ones.) From their original conceptual profiles, definitely keeping the "German" because that fits. But he's obviously way less evil, and neither is married or a parent YET. Because Olivia may have caught Burnett's bouquet, but the next wedding's gonna be theirs. (Or, y'know, right after Liv marries some rando I guess, whatever.) Physical descriptions, ages, and certain other details also for sure changed.
• C'moooonnn, Georgia, it'd be so platinum if you (or even Burgundy) were to become the next Unovan Champion.
• Best pokedex=Kanto. Sinnoh and Johto look like handheld video games, also cool. Unova too resembles a Gameboy. Hoenn looks like a flip phone, which is neat. Kalos is okay. Alola is an actual character. Galar...meh. Kanto, Sinnoh, Johto, Hoenn, Unova, Kalos, Galar. That order. I think. Can't exactly include the one that's a pokemon itself. Maybe 6th design-wise?
• Timelines glossary (and index, whoo!)=YES, correct definition of Pokemon Master. The one that was intended from the start, anyway.
• Orange & Alolan League victories--why does Ash have the best luck in tropical archipelagos?
• Ash's original Kanto/Johto outfit forever rules. (Original anything is best most of the time in general, obviously.)
• Frankly, Jessie's most deserved contest/performance win was that spooky-themed one in Kalos that got no votes just because she's a villain.