Time to go down.

And okay FINE I’ll talk to Oak.

Oak: Alola, young Bonnibel!

He starts chattering about regional variants.

They arise when the influences of a particular region cause a Pokemon’s physical aspect and even type to change. If you have caught one of the local Persians–the regional variants–I would quite like to see it!

Which I have. So, here you go!

I’ve heard that having a round face can be considered quite cute here in Alola! Maybe that explains the Alolan regional variant?

This is actually the worst possible option. See, the flat face of a real persian is a crippling deformity. Now, if we assume they’re like that naturally, we can put that aside – natural selection, brutal as it is, produces functional animals. But if you’re saying that this cat started off with a normal muzzle only to get that flattened, just like the real cat breed, then, just like the real cat breed, every one of them is the result of a bunch of humans decided they were okay maiming animals so long as they liked looking at the result.

And since Persians are so smart even before they evolve, it may be that they use the extra energy born during Evolution to instead help strengthen and bulk up their bodies… How very facinating and alluring!

Apparently the alternative explanation is that pokemon can shape themselves consciously as they evolve (based on a random thought that floated into his head because the pokemon world doesn’t really get the whole “research and evidence” thing) and they deliberately try to mold themselves to look pleasing, which, bizarre as it sounds, is something that actual animals do. At what cost, though? He says “instead” so, instead of what? Strengthening their bodies and bulking up sounds like it’s exactly what evolution normally does. The only way the sentence makes sense to me is if he’s saying that normally there’s some wasted energy and the Alolan persian manages to use it, but the Alolan persian has the same total stats as the original and almost the exact same layout. Or maybe he means all persians, in which case again, why do they suck so much?

And since this regional variant Persian evolves only with high friendship, I know what kind of wonderful Trainer you must be, my young friend!

…the kind who sticks a cat in a hot spring?

But it’s otherwise a nice sentiment.

Thank you, Bonnibel! Let me give you this in thanks!

A loveball. Which seems fitting and then a second later you remember it’s not the one for bonding with pokemon, it’s the one that works better if a pokemon is the opposite gender, so it’s strongly implied to be sexual love, and now giving it to me in the context of saying I’m close friends with my pokemon has made that all weird.

Oak: Oh, that cousin of mine in Kanto… He and I look remarkably alike, or some everyone always says. He’s Samuel Oak, though.

That’s actually a helpful thing to point out, just because the franchise is long and occasionally retconny. If you have a name that’s almost the same in addition to looking almost the same, it’s hard to tell if you’re a copy or a replacement version.

And he goes on to say that’s why he has a Kanto region pokedex that he’s using to compare Alolan pokemon to.

Sam has a grandson, in fact, who is a pretty astounding Trainer himself. Boy’s name is Blue.

Really going to be annoyed if it turns out only Red and Blue are bopping around in this and the girl protag has once again disappeared.

The pokemon games are really not good about this, and I feel like if anything they’ve been backsliding. It’s enough to make me almost okay with the standard of always giving Ash the token regional girl, since at least it means she gets to be the face of the region in the anime.

I actually sent him some Z-Crystals as well, so who knows?

So I’ll be fighting him before too long, I suppose.

Come to think of it, isn’t that super disrespectful? As it’s been presented so far, the crystals are something you’re supposed to earn through the trials, which in turn are also a way of honoring/amusing their gods.

I decide to head upward, as that’s the one area I haven’t been, and immediately find more trainers.

My morelull levels and evolves into shiinotic!

It emits flickering spores that cause drowsiness. When its prey succumb to sleep, this Pokemon feeds on them by sucking in their energy.

I’m not really clear on why this is the fairy mushroom. It sounds pretty much like every other mushroom pokemon we have. Admittedly, I’m pretty iffy on what fairy’s role is supposed to be – they retconned the cuddly ones into being fairies, but the new ones seem to be basically dark types slathered in pink glitter.

I then discover a building and someone who’s really touchy about me seeing a building. His dad, who he apparently is supposed to refer to as “sir” and not dad, tells him to be hospitable and so he explains This is where we take care of all of the garbage produced in the Alola region, young lady. So…they ship each island’s garbage over the ocean to process it in a single place. That’s weird, inefficient, and must be prone to a lot of disaster. No wonder there’s grimer everywhere.

We Janitors work together with our Pokemon toward this goal, in fact. The garbage that we human workers gather is consumed by Muk and Grimer, like this one here. Our president here beside me has a Muk that can eat 10 tons of rubbish in a single day!

If they’re not even processing the trash, I’m even more confused by why they need it all sent to a single building. Or buildings at all. Why not just have a pit on each island that you shovel trash into?

It is cute to get a look into where the pollution pokemon fit into the system, though.

Though, me and Grimer here are still just temporary contract workers.

…and then raise whole new questions about that! Is eating garbage an actual job? Do you need the job to get fed, or can you lose the job if you can’t eat enough? Or are they actually paying the grimer for their time?

The other guy promptly changes the subject to the fact I have an island challenge amulet. Crankyface says he too did that as a child.

Though…it was a bit too much for me, and so I actually ended up giving up right away…

Hm. I wonder if that’s a matter of kids not knowing what they’re in for, or society pushing everyone into it even when they’re obviously not ready.

And the other guy then changes the subject a second time: Look here, kid. Seems to me that my Muk’s had a bit too much to eat today… How about you join me in a battle and provide it with a bit of exercise to aid the ol’ digestion?

My lovely lizard wins easily.

Heh! Not too shabby…just like I’d figured! You’ve got something in you, kid.

This seems kind of mean to be doing right after your son confesses to washing out of the trials himself.

He too compliments me.

What’re you doing standing there like a lump?! You’re up next, you useless dullard!

Wh-what?! Me… Me and Grimer?! There’s no way we could win against this kid!

You see! It’s just like when you did your trials when you were a kid! The moment something starts to look tough, you give a cry and off you run! You give up! And you’re supposed to be my son!

So is this part of the general theme of bad parenting or something?

How can I leave this plant to you if you never learn the value of hard work?

These things have nothing to do with each other.

It’s not like he’s saying he doesn’t want to bother, or giving up at the first suggestion of a problem. He’s pointing out, correctly, that my pokemon easily won against a pokemon much stronger than his pokemon, so there’s no way he can win. If the idea here was that, win or lose, a battle would help his pokemon burn what it’s eaten and be ready to gobble more trash, then it’d make sense to criticize him for not wanting to. Or if there was a chance in hell he could win – if I hadn’t just beaten the muk, it’d be wholly plausible that the years he’s spent with his pokemon would add up to one that’s tougher than he realizes…but again, I just beat his dad’s pokemon, and his dad likely had far more years with it.

I can’t ever leave things in your hands if you don’t give me reason to trust you can handle it!

I assume this is all meant to come off as like, affectionate gruffness or whatever, where the dad really cares deep down, but seriously, fuck this guy.

I will not run away anymore! I will give this everything that I’ve got! I am a man now!

Wow I was not expecting this to be so full of useful fodder for my theories about a certain level of engagement with trainer culture being mandatory.

Just you watch, Father! I mean, sir!

Also god you poor thing, you need therapy so bad.

His grimar turns out to be higher level than his dad’s…but, not enough to matter, especially when unevolved pokemon are generally far weaker than their evolved forms. Salandit knows toxic now, though.

Father…that was my best shot!

When we return to the overworld, he spikeybox screams, Blast it all! But of course, his dad just wanted him to try…and get his pokemon smacked around pointlessly.

You…

I…I’m sorry, Father… I really am…just a weakling…

You’re hired!

F-Father?

Which produces another spikeybox: I’m not your father! I’m your boss! And I’m saying that you are hired, boy! From this day forth, I’m making you the head of the plant! And I won’t hear another word of complaint about it from you!

“And then have a kid, who you’ll only express your stunted emotions to through constant criticism so that it also grows up anxious and afraid of failure!”

The kid is, understandably, still confused by this, so he continues to explain:

You saw that this Trainer was stronger than you or even me…and still you and your Grimer went up against her with everything that you had in you.

See, in other contexts, “I double dared you to knowingly shove your pet into harm’s way, and you totally did!” does not sound so great.

That’s what I’ve always wanted to see from you! That kind of persistence and drive!

“That willingness to throw away the wellbeing of your underlings because it could benefit you!”

And that’s why you and Grimer… That’s why you’re going to take over for me.

Confused, emotionally abused kid stammer-screams thanks, and his horrible dad turns to me: Sorry for using you to teach my boy a lesson. But when I saw that island challenge amulet you had there, it just hit me, you know?

Oh, I know what you just did. And now I feel icky for being involved in it.

Take this for your troubles. It may be twisted, but it’s not garbage! Twisted spoon, naturally.

“It may be twisted” does sum the whole thing up.

The cutscene ends and they’re gone.

Oh, they teleported sideways. There’s also a guy saying something about battle styles, and posing, and how he’s the choreographer for everyone and then he teaches me “elegant style” and says I have to get more experience to learn more and I don’t know what any of this means beyond that maybe this is why Gladion is so dramatic.

Oak: Did you know that Alolan Grimer are in fact not native to the region at all, but instead are what we would call naturalized Pokemon?

I’m torn between thinking that’s interesting and pointing out that given how baffled professors have been at everything pokemon do in every previous game, I don’t see how you could possibly have the data to know that.

There is not so much sludge and pollution for Grimer to feed on here in Alola, though, so they have grown to feed on garbage instead.

But…we have a different pokemon whose whole thing is that! I mean, yeah, I like grimer better, but you should have some better justification for this! Plus Alolan grimer are obviously based off melting asphalt.

They do not give off a foul stench, thanks to the way they contain any poisons within their bodies, but their crystals are terribly poisonous!

I really think these guys should’ve been poison/fire. And yeah, we do have that with precious lizard, but they come at it in a different enough direction it should be fine. If the idea was that grimer were melting down the garbage and that’s why they’re more pleasant garbage disposals than trubbish (just like actual facilities usually involve a lot of burning), then that’d fit well with the way grimer look like melting asphalt, and then the reason muk is rainbow is that its higher internal temperatures are causing chemical reactions.

Oak then gives me a friendball. Really, wouldn’t switching the balls have made more sense? He then says he wants me to complete the pokedex, and a loveball is more useful for that because it’s the one with the bonus to a capture. Also, he says, For Rotom’s sake as well! so, does Rotom get smarter the more data gets put in? It sure sounds the same given it says the same thing over and over as I add pokemon.

Time to head to where I’m supposed to go. Also, I talk to the woman who wanted her pokemon returned, and she gives me a never-melt ice and some money for my trouble.

Cute and strong and just a little bit wild… That’s what a Pokemon should be like! And that’s why Stufful is the best.

Much as I complain about the story, this one really is doing a good job of the general feel of humans who actually care about their pokemon and have relationships beyond using pokemon for things.

Right, so, to the kids trying to steal the bus stop. Now that I’ve completed the previous event flag, the cutscene is different.

Hey yo! You trying to steal our bus stop? Best go find your own, ya heard?!

When they ignored me before, they were an immovable force. But now that they engage me, they are but chaff upon the wind.

We stand up to even the strong, yo! We stand up, but not for long, yo!

It’s good to be realistic.

Upon my victory, he tells me, I don’t know if you care, but that bus stop weighs about as much as Golem!

I really am enjoying them more than I expected. I think it’s that they’re a dumb team, but their dumbness is grounded and realistic feeling rather than making a very fantastical team based around standard evil tropes and then saying that furthermore they’re a pack of idiots. They’re just not very high achievers.

Yo, think about the bus drivers! If we take this bus stop, they can all chill!

I wonder if this is marginally more sane in Japan. I know they have better public transportation than the average place around here, do they also not do stuff like let you off midway between stops?

Oh, I’m over this! Back to livin’ large at the mansion! Hmmph!

And then leave.

Kukui: Bonnibel!

Nope. Not writing out the next cutscene, game. Tomorrow.