Tag: about the author

I’m sure you’ve seen your share of laughably scientifically inaccurate portrayals of pokemon in movies, but do you have any particularly hilarious highlights?

Ah, anonymous, I could very well explain to you all the inaccuracies rampant throughout the sci-fi genre in the 50s and 60s, the deliberate campiness of the kaiju genre, or the frustrating portrayal of dark-, psychic-, and ghost-types in the horror genre since … the beginning of cinema, but I feel that there is one film that many people would expect me to address in particular. This, of course, being the classic 80s thriller, The Ninjask. You’ve probably heard of it—the early Schpielbunk film starring Joe Golbunk as the misguided scientist who combines himself with a ninjask in a freak lab accident? There were a lot of parodies about it in the late 80s and early 90s.

Granted, technically, the actual ninjask was only seen for about five seconds, and the rest of the film involves Golbunk’s character slowly becoming a strange human-ninjask hybrid. Still, the “ninjask facts” were entirely laughable, and I still don’t fully understand if the point was that Golbunk was supposed to be turning into a ninjask psychologically or if he was simply being driven insane by the pain and loss of his own humanity. Either way, his famous speech about “bug-type politics” makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. What does “bug-type politics” even mean? Certainly, some bug-types live in structured colonies, sometimes led by a single pokémon (like the vespiquen, beedrill, and durant lines), but one bug-type’s culture isn’t analogous to another bug-type’s. And then there were all of the scenes where Golbunk’s character ran about attempting to assert dominance over women or satisfy some sort of insatiable bloodlust, both of which I suppose are obligatory for a monster film, but ninjask are generally not driven by either—sex or violence, I mean.

Then there’s the general science of it! To be fair, yes, this was far before I’d published any of my papers on teleportation technology, but to have a teleporter “destroy” matter in one pod and “recreate” matter in another? There are laws of conservation at work here! Surely, given the fact that a poké ball’s storage mechanics have been known to digitization researchers for literal centuries, the movie could have taken some time to do any sort of proper research.

And that’s just the premise of the movie! The rest of the film hardly makes any sense on virtue of the issues related to the mentality of the scientist character himself. That is to say, it makes absolutely no sense that he would gradually become half-ninjask psychologically as well unless he was from the outset. You don’t gradually become half of a pokémon upon fusion! The core essence of your identities are kept separate because while your brains may be combined, your memories and specific personality traits are not, as those are intangible concepts!

…Bill, I feel like there’s a story behind some of this. —LH

No. Why on Earth would you say that? —Bill

Is there a story behind this: “As a reminder to all trainers, it is both inadvisable and irresponsible to reignite your cyndaquil by feeding it coffee. If your cyndaquil’s fire goes out, allow it to sleep.” That just seems like something said from personal experience or a story passed around at family gatherings.

There is indeed a story, anonymous. That story is: “I have lost count of how many times there have been incidents in Johto of people doing exactly this.” They did a special on it in the 90s, alongside an entire campaign about it. “Friends don’t let friends feed their cyndaquil coffee” and “just say no to coffee” and so forth.

Say Lanette. Tell me a story of when Bill got drunk once.

Well, seeing as I’m not allowed to tell you the story of what happened in Lavender Town, allow me to tell you another. Once, when we were scouting for an administrator for the storage system in Sunyshore City, Bill got drunk with two of the candidates. He proceeded to punch out one of them over an argument concerning the proper pronunciation of the term “tamato berry,” and the second candidate helped. We hired the second one. Her name is Bebe. As for the first, that candidate went on to become the city gym leader, and suffice to say, Bill isn’t exactly welcome back in Sunyshore anymore (even though two of the Elite Four members, including a friend of the candidate’s, thought the whole thing was hilarious). —LH

For the record, this is not how we met Bebe. —Bill

Do you drink tea?

Yes, but it’s proper tea.

As in, not the kind in tea bags. The kind you pour into the cup, add boiling water to, stir, and serve with virtually no additives, unlike the style consumed by certain people in certain regions who prefer to throw it into the harbor. Or worse—serve it with milk.

Editorial Note: On behalf of the writing and editorial staff, we would like to extend our apologies for Bill’s tone in this response. This is what an entire childhood of tea ceremonies with tourists will do to an impressionable youth. I am certain it was somehow horrifying. —LH

Bill, do you have something against Lugia by any chance?

Oh, goodness no! I respect Lugia as much as I do Ho-oh. It is, after all, a cornerstone of Johtonian culture.

It’s just that when you’re a child and you’re told that there’s a bird in the neighboring sea that can level entire cities with the wind generated by a gentle flap of its wings and that this same bird has an unfortunate habit of carrying misbehaving children to the depths of its watery lair, you have reservations concerning talking about it. Or giving much thought about it, for that matter. All of which linger into adulthood.

Okay Bill, I see you throwing shade. Maybe someone just needs to bring Tohjo some FREEDOM and throw YOUR tea into some dumb harbor.

Fact #1: I’m from Goldenrod City, one of the most industrialized urban areas in Tohjo.

Fact #2: In the 70s, Goldenrod City suffered a major environmental crisis when it was discovered that, due to the factories and industrial shipping lines along its coast, the neighboring Goldenrod Bay contained extremely high amounts of lead that threatened the city’s water supply, as well as its population of fish and water pokémon. Consequently, particularly due to the danger pollution posed towards the resident pokémon, strict laws and regulations were enacted in order to control water quality in not just the bay but also the systems throughout Johto. Nowadays, you would be arrested rather quickly if you were caught throwing anything into Goldenrod’s harbor.

Fact #3: Goldenrod’s harbor is a popular destination for both tourists and locals, and because of this, there are quite a few witnesses there at all hours of the day.

Conclusion: Please inform me when this tea throwing will take place. I would love to watch.