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

 book notes continued from Pt. I:

• "Cousins, identical cousins" Excellent Patty Duke reference! And some other good song refs I'm noticing (just queued up a couple on Spotify while flipping back through the Kalos chapter...) Into the Woods! ^o^
• Sableye, Charizard, Aggron, very possible Houndoom and Altaria, Alakazam...oh, just imagining some fave-character mega-evolution (not that they couldn't catch some of the other species capable of it...*cough Manectric cough*)
• Come to think of it, Gallade is weird because Kirlia is one of those species so feminine-looking, I can't imagine there being male ones unless it had sexual dimorphism. Strange when feminine mons evolve from masculine-looking ones or vice versa (e.g. the Popplio and Sobble lines.)
• "Together ever since"--well not really, just in Unova and the revengers reunion episode.
• "This is the boss, and I'm sick of waiting. I WANT PIKACHU! And this time, don't screw it up!"
• "[Giovanni] doesn't just show up and spread good cheer to everyone either"--even though that's what he usually does! ;D And defeat twerps, natch.
• "reversing years of him saving them" Wait, huh? When'd that happen? (That we saw?) Do we just mean that he's always supplying them with money and equipment? Good ol' Gio. <3
• Meowth has made it very clear that his partners are decidedly not his masters; he is his own.
• "Schwarz and Weiss make Jessie and James look good." Maybe if you meant morally good--but no, that too would be untrue...
• The VC claims that Ash got his hat in exchange for cereal boxtops (hopefully BoxTops For Education)--but in the show he said he mailed the Pokemon League "about a million postcards" for it (vs. Misty's one.) So which is it, postcards or boxtops?? Going with the show, even though the latter is an even cuter idea.
• Meyer best parent on pokeplanet? Prob'ly. So far.
• Prettiest balls?: master, net, great, dive, nest, dusk, quick, timer, premier, heal, repeat, safari, luxury, ultra? Idk, they're all rather nice.
• Best Kalos rivals?: Sawyer, Miette, Trevor, Tierno, Alain?
• Eeveelution-page mistake is kind of a wording inaccuracy. (There're just ever so very many of those, but they're most irritating on the TR and other most important pages. =p)
• XY was the most self-contained subseries, wuddinit?
• Lana & Sophocles, Kiawe & Mallow on the same spreads? Was that random or...? (Had been leaning toward Lillicles and Kiana myself...xD x-p But any of the 6 combos could potentially work...or none.)
• "He realizes that being a champion was never really his goal" Well actually yes it was, right up until a moment ago when he decided, "Aw shit...what now? Idk. Never thought I'd get this far. This means now I gotta sit tf down, fulfill the duties of a champion, attend real school because one cannot be taught everything one should be by age ten, work...bump dat, I gotta bullshit some reason to keep walking!" Revising his definition of "master" seems like a mature bit of character development. "Maybe the real Pokemon Mastery was the friends we made along the way." At the same time, "meet every pokemon and befriend them all?" If you mean every SPECIES, that's reasonable. You're already most of the way there for now. It's just Galar that got short-shrifted, and of course the next place to check out would be Paldea and wherever G10 is. But still. It's kind of a silly ending and would be much more satisfying with a visibly grown Ash doing all that stuff he's avoiding. And a character who never grows but remains on "eternal summer vacation" is not one that anybody could ultimately take seriously or relate to. Plus with a "definition" like that, a lotta people could become "masters" without even really intending to. ("Pokemon Whisperer?" "Friend to all?" Or just filling out a checklist?)
• "many years" Well, not quite as many as it was for us (still gotta be like, at least around 1/5-1/7 of that...) But at least you admit it has indeed been years, and Ash is no longer 10. We didn't forget about his and Pikachu's first-anniversary celebration in one of the shorts, either.
• "knows he won't have anything to control if it's destroyed" Yeah, y'know who else would've known that if she hadn't just been written into madness? >:@ Off-topic, but yeah...
• "What's in Pelipper's Mouth?"=best segment. Would definitely recruit me. Who gifted them Koffing and Ekans, we still wanna know?!
• James should've taken Growlie with him, the first and second times. Why did he promise Chimecho he'd return for it and then never did?! They hyped up his emotional connection with some of his pokemon, but... Like, Carnivine was left in its ball for Bob knows how many years and just forgotten...
• The "Team Rocket's Pokemon" spread in Timelines is a prime example of noticeably including only the barest minimum of detail. Turns into an error on Weepinbell--failing to mention that both of James' evolved, it makes it sound as if two Weepinbell fell in love (also as if James willingly traded a still-Weepinbell...) :b VC has the complete lists of their mons...almost. Lickitung and Cacnea are discluded for some fucked-up reason. I mean I can understand not counting Magikarp/Gyarados, but them? Poor forgotten things.
• A few people I kinda expected to be mentioned more than once weren't (e.g. Conway, Mina.) Plumeria is pictured twice but not mentioned by name. But on the whole the two books together contain most of what a proper series guide ought to.
• Slight inaccuracy/missing detail: Faba recognizes Molayne as an imposter, but then he himself becomes one in front of the crowd. And looks like they missed Ash's third Bea battle? Well, who knows how many such examples there are.
• Onix error: The sprinklers weakened it. (But weakening him is effectively similar to strengthening his opponent, so a minor one.)
• "Like a coward" Um, you realize that *leaders* do often need to hang back more, and it's got nothing to do with cowardice?
• Can't achieve world peace without a lil' destruction, baby. >:3
• That factoid re: baby pokemon seems to have been made up sans basis.
• Wow, some powerful irony in those "life lessons," especially in the "nature" category. xD
• Questionable descriptions...yeah, to be expected. Other stuff's pretty spot-on. And they somehow neglected to mention the true origin of Harley's vendetta against May--his tragic backstory!! D'x ;0;
• "Incredibly unsafe and easily destroyed" vs "sturdy"--which is it? It's a frickin' hot air balloon--like any other save for its shape, until it gets impressively tricked out once more.
• Well, it was more realizing they didn't want to work in the TR canteen anymore, then bumping into each other while Pikachu-hunting, and making up because of course they were gonna do that again. It's a team effort and their #1 purpose.

Team Rocket (J&J) timelines:
Born probably in same area, on opposite sides of the tracks (rich & poor.) Flunk Pokemon Tech entrance exams with worst scores ever. Each belongs to bridge bike gang for a bit, at different times. He flees home to join TR, rejecting his stuffy parents' lifestyle and especially not wishing to wed overbearing Jessiebelle. (His early crush on her was short-lived. The VC assumes/guesses that he ran away before joining the bike gang, probably due to the unlikelihood that his parents would've approved of him hanging out with awesome Tyra, Chopper, & co.) She joins TR after failing to become a nurse. She had previously also failed the theatrical audition which she'd chosen over going with Astin, the boy on whom she had a crush (and for whom she seems to still carry a torch. He went off to pursue coordinating and hasn't seen her since.) TR is where they meet. He joins later, since she burned through a number of partners before finding success with him and Meowth.
*Other details we know:
Jessie's sad Christmas story (and tbf, the Jynx should've delivered the gifts before bringing Santa the doll. But ofc she wouldn't relent even after Santa explained and apologized. xD)
A third Jessie failure was her stint as a weathergirl. (Her list of claimed gigs in episode 56 seems as dubious as her claim to be 17. Probably exaggerated, at least.)
He had at one point enjoyed being on a cheerleading squad. (Indeed there were obviously quite a few things he liked about his opulent upbringing and well-rounded education.)
They're supposedly 25 by the time they're in the Orange Islands, which feels suitable. An official handbook does call them a "teenage trio," apparently considering Meowth the equivalent of a teenager.
["Jessiebelle" is the correct spelling, IDC. "Jessebelle" would properly be pronounced "Jessabell," whereas they pronounce it like "Jessie" with "Belle" attached. Jesse is also the masculine form of the name, a la their namesake Jesse James. Thus in a feminine name that's supposed to be pronounced "Jessie-belle," there should be an I. That's far from the only dumb/wrong spelling, either, and I've decided to refuse to go with any of them any longer. Wouldn't even wanna get me started on stupid Pokemon name pronunciations.]

The Electric Tale of Pikachu is incredibly, extremely, unbelievably, enormously, completely, gigundoly different from the anime. It tells a vastly different version of some of the show's basic plot points.  There's stuff that could definitely have happened in the anime, and its characters have clear similarities to their primary counterparts, but they are distinctly different people from an alternate universe. And its ending reveals a glimpse of a "possible future" for that universe--one in which Ash has befriended Team Rocket, James confessed his love to Jessie (in front of Ash and Misty), and then they quit TR and got married and became parents. (Despite the mind-blowingly "wow holy shit" nature of such a statement...to this day I've never seen a single copy of any Pokemanga in person. Most fans who know of this do so only thanks to the www.) Somewhere between the Indigo League and Johto, that ceased to be a possible future for the prime canon. I was the world's biggest proponent of the idea for the longest time, but having now watched the entire anime, it's plain to see how they decided to answer the question of whether or not to take J&J in a romantic direction. I'll forever cherish my first ship, the one that introduced me to fanfiction...my precious, beautiful rocketshipping days...however, I can't seriously DO it anymore at this point. To me it only feels right to bother being invested in ideas that could plausibly take place.

HOLY SHIT PPL ON PINTEREST AND EVERYWHERE. WTF. J&J probably grew up in the same area but didn't actually meet until joining TR. Makes sense given that he would've been on the rich side of town, and she the poor side. Each belonged to the bike gang for a while, at different times. And both flunked the Pokemon Tech entry exam, with the worst scores in its history.
    Jessie didn't grow up on the streets. "incredibly poor, had to eat snow to survive" Methinks this Visual Companion line is one that seems a wee bit exaggerated. Clearly they were poor. Her mother would "make do" by crafting "snowgasbords" with soy sauce. We don't know precise details such as what the snow foods were supplementing (which was plainly something, because if you're literally starving you won't be saved by frozen water. Thirsting, sure.) The memory sounds sad, but it's actually one of her happy ones. Snow still makes her dance and sing for joy despite wearing a short skirt and crop top. In the flashback she's outside doing the same thing--hardly resembling a sickly, low-energy, malnourished child.
    This idea that JJM are inept clowns, hopelessly bad at their jobs, pathetic and pitiful, bumbling blithering buffoons worthy only of mockery and scorn...um, all that's to be rejected. They're a good balance of genuinely menacing, yet still likable and very funny. They began as top recruits. If the show could treat them fairly, you wouldn't be left with this impression of them being complete bungling doofuses--but good must always win and so there must always be a way to defeat and get rid of them. (Indefinitely, 'specially 'cause Head-Twerp Ash in particular has that no-visible-aging, super-duper plot armor Ho-oh magic. Which extends to his friends. xD) If they could be permitted to be effective, the rest of the show would have to revolve around Ash trying to get Pikachu back or something. :p Ya wanna keep villains around, they've got to continuously fail, regardless of who they are or what they do.
    Johto chapter: "used to be bumbling, ineffectual knuckleheads who couldn't pour water out of a shoe if the directions were on the heel; thankfully they seem to have become more competent" Pretty good insult. Sure they're knuckleheads, but they're *my* knuckleheads. Their competence may have increased, but again, from the beginning, they weren't that bad. And oh, Meowth is definitely your favorite of the triad. xD
    Unova chapter: "have turned over a new leaf and are striving to be taken seriously" No, the SHOW has turned over a new leaf and is showing them some respect! Taking the baddies more seriously! Unfortunately, the TRio's comedy was unnecessarily toned down. Like, they can still be funny! They're havin' a real good time now, even though there'll still be slip-ups along the way and they can't ultimately win. But they've always taken their jobs seriously--like, TR is practically their whole lives and identities. You can't ask much more. "silly methods" Say what? Even when they're humorous, it's not in a "that could never possibly work" way. Your so-called "serious methods" didn't work either. What do you want from them?
    Jeebus, dafuq was this earlier and slightly different version of the VC with the exact print format of Timelines? (They had even published the exact VC in hardcover, titling it an "Encyclopedia.") TR pages fulla weird choices, errors, falsehoods, inaccurate descriptors, off-the-mark characterization, etc. Shocker. And ofc they ain't the only ones. Plus it misgenders Mandi and puts Faith, Hope, and Charity in the wrong order. Etc. Plenty more errors of all kinds, predictably. Ha, Burgh and Elesa swapped. Oh yeah, the proofreading was once again nonexistent. Here a falsehood, there a badly worded sentence, everywhere an erroneous error. Gladio! Mimey's "first-ever/only" battle=lie. Just gets worse as it goes. Loads missing, yet some sections very detailed.

+ In honor of Valentine's Day, I've been reviewing my ship list and names. Amongst everyone else, particularly the best unpaired characters (and I listed all of the best ones in the previous two pokeposts), there could be any number of potentially great pairings within the basic age brackets of 'adults' and 'minors.' They'd just lack a specific reason beyond "It feels good to imagine," and would have to meet (for possibly the first time) and become involved. The toughest could be if it were two from different regions who have important jobs/positions representing theirs. Oh, and apparently Wallona/Winollace is an item in the manga. Okay, we can go with that.
~*figuring out where to live on the pokeplanet*~  (Gotta be Kanto, Alola/Orange Islands part-time)