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marchionessofmustache ([personal profile] marchionessofmustache) wrote2024-02-17 09:40 pm

[30] Do Coils Dream of Electric Rats?!

A popular reference in Japan, this episode's title is a play on Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?... Which I never knew was what Blade Runner was based on until I looked up this wiki article to link just now. I haven't read/seen either of those things, but am familiar with both names at least.



The episode starts out with the gang arriving in a place called Gunjou City, which doesn't exist in the games, and I'm not sure really where it's supposed to be in relation to the other places in Kanto. But we are here! It's a dirty city full of pollution.

The gang arrives in the middle of the night, and then notices that Pikachu seems sick somehow. They rush to the Pokemon center where a fairly apathetic Joy doesn't seem to care that much about Pikachu, saying it probably just has a cold.

Meanwhile, the Rockets are trying to ambush the group through the sewers for... some... reason... IDK, it was a lot of Nyarth talking and my imperfect Japanese led to me not really understanding on the first pass and I'm not making a point to rewatch and try to figure stuff out. Though even if they explained why they were diving through the sewers, it PROBABLY wouldn't make much real-world sense anyway.

Strangely enough, Musashi and Kojiro seem to be taking orders from Nyarth through this episode. They do everything he says and don't even try to beat him up when he almost gets them killed, etc.!

The power goes out, which means all the Pokemon in the Pokemon Center's lives are in danger. They specifically say their "life" is in danger and later on mention that they "could die" if nothing is done, so they really do refer to Pokemon death a lot in the series, at least early on.

Because the power goes out, the Rockets' oxygen machine dies and Nyarth barely rescues the two in time.



Despite telling Pikachu to stay behind, he sneaks out of the Pokemon Center and goes with the ggg to see Officer Junsa, who says she can't get through to the power plant in town, so the logical thing to do is to send three random children you just met to investigate this dire matter.

The three head to the power plant where they run into a Coil (after a bunch of being afraid of it and being jumpy) which seems attracted to Pikachu somehow. Kasumi suggests that the Coil may be in love with Pikachu, and they kinda go with it, calling it Pikachu's stalker.

Satoshi yells at it and it goes away, but they soon realize it ran away not because of Satoshi's snapping, but because there was an onslaught of Betbeter coming from the ceiling. The stinkies chase the group around for a while, when they eventually run into the whopping two people who seem to work at the power plant. They escape into a room, but they can't hold the door for long.



The Betbeters and their leader Betbeton break through, and the power plant workers convince the kids that they should take care of them since they're aiming to be Pokemon trainers. Instead of calling on literally ANY of their Pokemon, they utilize the almost-incapacitated Pikachu to shock a single Betbeter.

Thankfully though, a ton of Coils and Rarecoils appear and shock all the Betbeters, sending them away fried into little fuzzy blobs. It's kinda funny the way they look when fried. They only looked fuzzy for like 2 frames and I didn't catch it, but I promise you it was funny.

After the Betbeters run away, the only one left is Betbeton. Pikachu and his Stalker Coil shock it something fierce, and since it doesn't run away, Satoshi does an actually smart thing and captures the weakened Pokemon.



Everyone is freaking out that it stinks even through the Monster Ball, so instead of keeping it as the 6th member of his party, Satoshi transfers the 'mon to Ookido, who is in for a shock. It's a little bit of a shame they couldn't have come up with an excuse for it not to smell like Kusaihana (give it an air freshener in its Ball???? LOL) because I really like Betbeton. I have a thing for slime monsters (I may or may not mean this in a fetish-y way) and it just looks cool, and I love that it's a Pokemon made out of toxic sludge from humans' pollution. I love Pokemon whose designs are something other than just "cool animal with magical powers" (not that those are bad designs!) and purple Pokemon are cool, and I love the poison type... so overall it's one of my fav Kanto designs. I also love the super crazy bright-colored ones from... I think Alola region? IDK, it's been so long since I played anything post-gen-5 that I get them all mixed up. But they were super awesome and I remember raising one for my in-game team.

Anyway, we get a little gag scene at the end where Rocket Co. uses a giant magnet to try to suck up Pikachu, but it sucks up a million Rarecoils and Coils and sinks their ship.

Oh, and the power plant dudes explain that when a Pikachu builds up too much electricity in its body, it appears like it has a cold. But I guess all the attacks on Betbeton were enough to let out the electricity or something (I don't know if they even explicitly said how he got out of this state, but Pikachu is fine now!)

The group says goodbye to Junsa and Joy who promise to do a better job taking care of the city so it won't be a polluted dump that gets overtaken by Betbeters...

OH AND I NEVER MENTIONED but the city runs on water power, and the Betbeters had piled up so much in the waterway due to pollution that they blocked the flow of water to the power plant's turbine. That was... in there somewhere. And when the Coils and Rarecoils scared off all the Betbeters in the power plant, the ones in the water way... also fled for whatever reason. Thank goodness!

Overall, a fun episode, nothing too special, but it did feature some of my fav poison types, so I can't dismiss it too much :) And with that we've hit a whopping 30 episodes! To be honest, I didn't think I'd make it this far. But I still have plenty of energy left for the series!

My next big milestone will be the banned-everywhere episode about Porygon. I managed to find a VHS rip from somoene who recorded it off Japanese TV the ONE time it ever aired. I've seen an edited version of "the scene" before, but this one is unedited like it originally aired on TV. So I'm ready to have my eyeballs blasted in all its glory. If you don't know what I'm talking about, you'll just have to wait and see :) Or look it up. It's in 8 or 9 episodes so you won't have to wait TOO long. Then my next milestone will be the first movie I think :D I kinda don't wanna watch the movies since they're non-canon, and I wanna just get on with the show... but at the same time I want to watch the movies just because I've only seen like... 5 or 6 of them? (the first four I watched when they came out, then I've seen the Jirachi movie and the Zoroark movie). OK now I'm just rambling. Let's move on~~~~~

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thenicochan: {...} from Hanna is Not a Boy's Name (Default)

[personal profile] thenicochan 2024-08-20 05:08 pm (UTC)(link)
We have like three copies of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. It’s not a bad book! Can be a little dry, but I like it.

While the Rockets generally have bad ideas, they might be a little more successful if they let Nyarth do more of the planning. I mean, I guess a modicum of success within an overall failure is still a failure, but still.
The screen cap of Coil looking half-lidded and Pikachu’s blush looks like we’re about to head into full on Cinemax bow chicka wow wow mode.

Muk/Grimer (already forgot the Japanese names I literally just read them whoops) are really interesting from a lore perspective. Like. Did they come into existence because of humans effects on their ecology? Did they always exist? Did toxic waste just… generate sentience at some point, and then spread massively across the planet? Is this the future Ferngully warned us about?

Oh, and the power plant dudes explain that when a Pikachu builds up too much electricity in its body, it appears like it has a cold.

Not to be gross, but this is like what doctors say about men who never have orgasms and prostate health. So, y’know. Let this be a lesson to everyone, I guess.

thenicochan: {...} from Hanna is Not a Boy's Name (Kuai Liang/Hanzo Hasashi)

[personal profile] thenicochan 2024-08-21 04:58 pm (UTC)(link)
"x-rays from the moon". Wow. That's... scary?? Like, if it's enough to give toxic sludge actual sentience (and the ability to propogate??) then what is it doing to, like, everything else on our planet? Oof.

Man, maybe I need to get on your meds. I have an opposite issue. I might have too many orgasms haha. I figured it would level out as I get older, but my sex drive seems to grow in proportion with my age. Send medical help lol.