Pokemon S01 Special Episodes 01-02 Review: Merry Christmas

Pokemon, Season 1, Special Holiday Episodes: Holiday Hi-Jynx & Snow Way Out

Merry Christmas to you all! To celebrate, I am reviewing the two original Christmas episodes of the original Pokemon season. Depending on how you count them, they're either episodes 38.5-38.6, or 65.5-65.6. Basically, these are episodes that are supposed to air during the Christmas season of the original Pokemon broadcast, but when the whole Porygon incident happened, the hiatus and a bit of an episode restructuring caused these two episodes to be cut from episode lists, and later released as "bangaihen", special episodes that aren't counted in the normal episode count. And even moreso than any other 'filler' episodes, these two are clearly meant to just be special, wacky episodes that are non-canon by the series' very, very vague definition of canon.

"Holiday Hi-Jynx" (or Rougela's Christmas in the original Japanese) has Team Rocket hatch a plan to capture Santa Claus, who Jessie is very much convinced is a Jynx due to how a Jynx-Santa apparently stole her doll when she was a kid. To this end, they set up an attempted trap... but ends up abandoning it when they find out that Team Ash actually found that same Jynx holding a Santa boot on a random beach. Befriending the Jynx and making some rather weird kissy-kissy motions, Jynx ends up managing to communicate with our heroes with her hair allowing her to show images from her memories.

Jynx was apparently washing Santa's shoe when a piece of the iceberg broke off with her on it. Ash and company try to use a raft to help bring Jynx to Santa's Island, but the water Pokemon end up getting tired out, and Ash's hare-brained attempt to swim and pull the raft by himself causes him to straight-up fucking drown. He's rescued by... a random telepathic Lapras? Okay, whatever. The Lapras was a genuinely bizarre and random addition to this episode, but, hey, holiday special and all that. The Lapras takes our heroes (and Team Rocket, following in their Gyarados submarine) to Santa's workshop, where the Jynxes are basically taking the role of Santa's elves. So they're based on Zwarte Piet, then? Huh. Did not realize that.

We get a fighty-fight scene as Team Rocket ties up poor Santa and steal all the presents, and we get the revelation that somehow Santa remembers the little girl from ages ago -- Jynx apparently brought the doll for Santa to fix, but she moved away (didn't believe in Santa in the dub). It's... it's honestly pretty silly storyline. Team Rocket continues to be evil, but a combination of Lapras's ice beam, Charmander's fire spin and Santa's small Jynx army using psywave, and Team Rocket's sent blasting off again, while Santa rides away going ho ho ho on his Ponyta-pulled cart.

Overall, this is... it's a very obvious and honestly not particularly remarkable Christmas special episode, yeah? It's one that I think was actually improved a fair bit in the dub which plays up Santa's mystical qualities. Of course, thanks to Jynx having a prominent role, it's probably not one that's ever going to see air for international audiences... but I dunno. Seeing Jynx as being more of a Zwarte Piet inspired character honestly ends up being a bit more... innocent, I guess? The character design is still problematic, of course, but this is probably something that speaks out a bit more towards the original intent of the design.

"Snow Way Out" (Iwark's Bivouac in the original Japanese) isn't quite as off-the-balls crazy as Holiday Hi-Jynx, and ends up being more... more calming, I guess. Whereas Holiday Hi-Jynx is an episode that's all about the festivities and the fantastical myths of Christmas, Snow Way Out is actually a pretty solid, slowly-paced episode about Ash getting lost in a blizzard, ending up in a cave, and was fully prepared to suffer alone to protect his Pokemon, protected in their Pokeballs, but they all choose to instead keep him warm. It's definitely an iconic scene, and one I remember vividly... and I didn't realize how little actual content the episode actually has. Brock and Misty are written out pretty quickly, while Team Rocket has some long skits at the beginning and the end, but the focus is definitely on Ash running around trying to rescue Pikachu in the blizzard, before leading to that scene where he tries to survive and leading to a very heartwarming scene.

The Team Rocket stuff... it's more impactful in the original Japanese -- the English dub plays down Jessie's childhood by making her more aware and bitter about her 'wretched childhood' (the dub version of this episode was where I learned the meaning of the word wretched), but the Japanese version, having her completely oblivious that "snow sushi" is not something that regular people eat, and that her mother is just lying to her that this is a delicacy, adds a huge amount of pretty sad implications to her. Of course, this is Team Rocket and they ham it up with Jessie charging after their missing hot air balloon shouting SHOYUUUUU and the whole little matchstick girl parody... and ends with Team Rocket 'feeling bad' once more. Poor Team Rocket, give them a victory every now and then, please and thank you.

Overall, though... these two episodes are definitely not particularly remarkable. The moment in Snow Way Out was pretty powerful, but the rest of the episode was just pretty much padding. Holiday Hi-Jynx is just bizarre all around, but nowhere as nuts as some other specials would be. Definitely not the best that Pokemon anime has to offer, but, what the hey, it's Christmas. Merry Christmas to you all!

Pokemon Index:

• Holiday Hi-Jynx/Rougela's Christmas:
• Pokemon: Meowth, Jynx, Pikachu, Charmander, Squirtle, Staryu, Starmie, Goldeen, Psyduck, Lapras, Weezing, Ponyta
• Humans: Jessie, James, Ash, Misty, Brock, Santa Claus
• Snow Way Out/Iwark's Bivouac:
• Pokemon: Pikachu, Pidgeotto, Meowth, Bulbasaur, Charmander, Squirtle, Onix, Vulpix
• Humans: Ash, Misty, Brock, James, Jessie

Random Notes:

• In addition to the whole rescheduling thing, "Holiday Hi-Jynx" was taken out of international broadcast thanks to it featuring the possibly-a-racist-caricature Jynx prominently. Not going to take any sides on whether Jynx is racist or not, but while Japanese digital copies of this episode have edited Jynx to have her modern (purple skinned, white-armed) appearance, the episode still hasn't been released for international audiences. 
• A huge error in the Jynx episode is, of course, Jessie pulling out Weezing's pokeball and summoning him. 
• A hilarious running gag in the Jynx episode is that the machines in Santa's background are actually making faces. 
• So what's up with Lapras having telepathic powers? I know the pokedex notes that it can "understand human speech", but it's bizarre that the actual Psychic-typed Jynx can only send images, while Lapras can straight-up communicate. 
• The episode was released in Japan after episode 65, but Ash still clearly has his team from earlier in the series -- most egregiously, the presence of an unevolved Charmander. 
• Dub Changes:
• Jessie's doll was originally an "Achaaaa doll" in the original Japanese, which, of course, is a parody of Bruce Lee and his wachaaaa battlecries.
• The English dub adds a lot of traditional random Christmas-themed dialogue. Also, "Santa's Island" is changed to "North Pole" in the dub.
• Santa in the English dub is far more traditionally supernatural, instantly knowing Ash and Jessie's names without introductions, as well as telling Jessie that he was unable to return the doll because Jessie has stopped believing in her. In the original Japanese, Santa just called everyone "children", and told Jessie that when he returned, she had moved to another house. 
• Puns to the similarities of "Iwark" and "bivouac" ends up being cut out in the dub.
• Also cut out are a lot of the jokes about Jessie's family feeding her "snow sushi". In particular, in the original Japanese, Jessie was actually clueless and deluded, thinking that snow sushi is an actual, proper dish. In the dub, she recognizes that it's a symptom of her poverty. 
• Cutting out nearly half a minute's worth of screentime are any scenes where Team Rocket pulls out matches and does a parody of the Little Match Girl, cutting straight from them talking to their hallucinations.
• I usually don't mention "who's that pokemon" segments, but the dub changes both "who's that pokemon" segments... into bizarre ones. Holiday Hi-Jynx changes the featured Pokemon from Jynx (the star of the episode) to... Pidgeotto, who doesn't even show up. Meanwhile, Snow Way Out changes the featured Pokemon from Pidgeotto (who has a relatively prominent role)... into Muk? Okay, what?