[Nintendo Everything Christmas Special] The true meaning of Christmas is potential racism

As a show that has been running for over 600 episodes, it makes sense that the Pokemon anime series would have its fair share of Christmas specials, but this time around I only want to focus on the show’s first Christmas special. Holiday Hi-Jynx (I appreciate the restraint in not calling it “Jynx-le Bells”) aired fairly early in the series’ run —early enough for the episode to actually be broadcast.

You see, this episode ended up being removed from rotation in some countries because of its focus on the Pokemon Jynx, which at the time had an unfortunate resemblance to an offensive “blackface” caricature. Future episodes that focused on Jynx went unaired until the Pokemon was redesigned to have purple skin. Honestly it’s more likely that Jynx was based on a Nordic princess, or at least Japanese “ganguro” fashion, but I totally get why Jynx’s design didn’t go over too well in countries that can’t get away with things like this.

Anyway, on to the actual episode

It’s the night before Christmas and all through the… castle placed dangerously close to the edge of a cliff, not a creature was stirring, not even Team Rocket lying in wait to test out their Santa trap. Recurring villains (or running joke) Jessie and James are planning to kidnap Santa to steal everyone’s presents.  You see, Jessie claims that Santa is a fraud who steals presents instead of giving them on account of the fact that a Jynx dressed like Santa snuck into her house once and took one of her dolls that looks an awful lot like Brock.

OK, sure

Meanwhile, aspiring Pokemon master Ash and his season one crew Misty and Brock are chilling out in some vague location so this episode could be inserted anywhere in the series. Ash spies a Pokemon messing around with a boot on a beach – it’s a Jynx! And so naturally Ash engages in the only activity he knows.

POKEMON BATTLE!

Ash tries to capture it but his canned Pokeball-throwing animation is magically blocked by the power of the boot. After careful inspection, the boot contains a photo of Santa Claus so clearly it must belong to him.

Actually, 4Kids just pasted Santa’s picture over his name in katakana. Thanks, Bulbapedia!

Did I already mention that Jynx is a psychic-type Pokemon? Well it uses its psychic powers to tell Ash and company that it was working at Santa’s workshop but found itself stranded in Not Japan after floating away on an iceberg. After seeing Jynx’s psychic projection, they decide to take Jynx and the boot to the North pole (even though at the rate they travel it’d take about 20 seasons to get there) because how will Santa ever deliver all those presents without his precious boot? Team Rocket, who I guess were just watching them the whole time, follow the crew in an attempt to find Santa’s workshop.

Team Rocket’s pedal-powered Gyarados sub is still cool, even though this stock footage repeats about five times throughout the episode.

So Ash and friends are seriously trying to sail to the north pole on a raft pulled by aquatic Pokemon. Once they get tired Ash takes over, which goes about as well as you’d expect.

“OH GOD WHY CAN I ONLY FLY TO TOWNS AND CITIES?”

Unable to pull the raft, Ash starts drowning but ends up being saved by a talking plesiosaur (or the Pokemon, Lapras, I suppose). Through the magic of telepathy it tells Ash that Santa dispatched it to search for the Jynx. Why is every Pokemon in this episode telepathic?

Anyway, Ash and friends finally reach the North Pole because I guess Lapras used Surf or something. Suddenly Team Rocket show up and capture Jynx because Jessie thinks it’s the one who stole her Vegeta figurine. Of course, less than a minute later they reach Santa’s workshop and meet the real Santa, who works alongside the Jynx.

Then they give him the boot, so to speak

Ash and the others show up but it’s too late – Team Rocket are already loading up all the presents into their submarine. Now nothing can stop them except for a lecture about the true spirit of Christmas! Actually, that doesn’t end up working at all as Jessie is still furious about that Jynx taking her figurine of Akira from Virtua Fighter all those years ago. Through (again) telepathy, Jynx shows her that it actually just took the doll in to be repaired and never returned it because she didn’t believe in Santa anymore.

Except for the fact that she spent the whole episode looking for Santa because she still thought he existed

The revelations from Jynx and Santa are so powerful they move Team Rocket to tears and Jessie pleads for forgiveness. Just kidding, they make off with the presents anyway.

Jynx was devastated

Unfortunately for Team Rocket, they quickly find out that if you mess with Christmas, Lapras will freeze you to death. Though Lapras’ icy breath encases the submarine, Team Rocket still escape because Ash commands his Charmander to set their submarine on fire, accidentally defrostinng them.

GEE THANKS, CHARMANDER

All the Jynxs use their psychic powers to levitate the submarine, shake the presents out and once again send Team Rocket flying off into space with a half-assed explosion that looks like it was ripped straight out of Chargeman Ken. With the presents returned and his foot not covered in frostbite, it’s time for Santa to go and make a few deliveries and so he sets off on a sleigh pulled by a single Ponyta, one that apparently knows Fly.  Despite Santa stating “no reindeer” before he takes off (which is already weird because it acknowledges that actual animals exist in the Pokemon universe), the Ponyta was later retconned into being an reindeer Pokemon. Then it starts snowing while everyone receives presents in a sequence that’s completely unnecessary.

But oh so adorable

Holiday Hi-Jynx sure doesn’t break from the standard Pokemon filler episode structure of “Ash encounters a new Pokemon, Team Rocket cause trouble and end up defeated, kids ask their parents for merchandise”, but of all the Pokemon Christmas specials it’s still the most entertaining pick if only due to the weird logic and unintentional racism. That said, I wouldn’t recommend watching it unless you want to, say, turn it into some kind of drinking game (Nintendo Everything is not responsible for any liver failure as a result of drinking any time Jynx says its own name).

Despite being banned for several years, Holiday Hi-Jynx is apparently available as part of a box set. Watch it and have your nostalgia destroyed.

If you want even more Pokemon-related Christmas Cheer, Amazon still has the utterly atrocious Pokemon Christmas Bash album in stock. I was going to devote a whole article to it, but I just couldn’t handle Meowth singing, the Pokedex rapping, more Poke-puns that you can shake a Joltik at, and a Farfetch’d with great Agility. It may or may not be more tolerable in German.

From everyone at Nintendo Everything, we wish you a Marill Christmas and a Hoppip New Year.