Tag: Mother

Animini: Flip Flappers – Episode 12 – Pure Howling

Hello my Island Guests!  Sometimes you want to address a show as if it was a person, and if I could I would say “Flip Flappers  Dai-Dai-Daisuki”  My Arceus this episode yet again is so amazing… if the last episode can stick the landing at least a bit this will become one of my favourite shows ever, alongside Tengen Toppa Gurren more recently Kyousougiga. Sometimes a show resonates super strong with you and the message of Flip Flappers is basically the way i want to live my life. Dai-Dai-Daisuki!

The Summary

Jeesz.. this one is a bit trickier to describe without sounding like a raving lunatic!  I will do my best though! In this episode Yayaka and Papika chase Cocona and Mimi into Pure Illusion while the real world is still invaded by the snow monsters. While they are chasing their dear friend , Mimi is brainwashing Cocona to only listen to her mother.. she is one Disney song removed from Rapunzel’s mother.  Salt meanwhile has his mind set on finding the Elpis.. held by the evil organisation which seems to me like it is the original Flip Flappers now. He takes Nyunyu, Buu-Chan .. and the tracksuit Flip Flap girl whose name I forgot along on a perilous journey!  His leads him eventually into descending into the enemy base where Buu-Chan finally transforms into a muscle mode mecha.. and that gets defeated right away.. but Salt manages to get into Elpis. The Amorphous twins meanwhile can peer into deep Illusion as they try to recover their injuries and they actually see Yayaka made the right calls.

Inside pure Illusion we essentially get a boss-rush!  Evil Mimi makes Yayaka and Papika fight through the original stages of Papika and Cocona’s adventure.. but when facing that desert lady that brainwashed Cocona in episode 3.. Yayaka and Papika really struggle.. that is until an Amorphous shard lands into Yayaka’s possession. Papika tells her to think of her treasure and draw power from that. Yayaka realises her treasure is not the Amorphous but here dear friend Cocona.  Determined to take her back, Yayaka manages to Flip-flap into a magical girl much like her two friends. The Boshrush now gets pretty easily cleared until they end up in the cyberpunk world of episode 7.  Here Mimi alters Papika’s memory to break her resistance and make her believe she is right. This prompts the good Mimi to show in front of Cocona and tell her she should fight to make her own choices in life.. she might lack the courage but mother will give her that.  Mimi steals the magical girl powers of the girls.. but when Papika and Cocona confess what they mean for each other .. they transform into a new form of magical girls!  Together they easily punch the boss of the cyberpunk world away.. paving the path to the final episode and the fight against evil Mimi. Who wanted to use her power of Pure Illusion to create the perfect safe space for Cocona.

The Positives

I loved practically everything about the episode! Basically everything I had wished for in previous reviews of this show have been handed to me. It is confirmed that Cocona has a father, the Amorphous Twins got their head out of their ass, we got to see more magical girl stuff and best of all Yayaka got her magical girl powers.  Her power relaying around speed is a perfect accompaniment to the girls who respectively form the sword and shield together.  Now we have Strength, Bulk and Speed… amazing!  I really really liked her design as well. Her switching to a green hair colour was a bit odd..  but since Cocona swaps colours with Papika.. it kinda is fun to see how Yayaka combines colours with Cocona and giving her a green hair colour. Seeing Buu-chan transform but easily be defeated I like because this kind of reminds me of the powerscaling in Dragon Ball Z.. or Super.. how people suddenly become relevant again.. Flip Flappers basically just says… NAH! Just kidding this character still kinda sucks in terms of battle prowess.   

I still really like the choice of having Mimi who was captured and experimented on all her life as someone that is quite broken and it does work wonders in this episode. Clearly deep down she never was able to make her own choices so it makes sense that a part of her really wants to see Cocona do that. Yet she was als tremendously hurt, betrayed several times and she had a pretty horrible life. It makes sense that she would not want that life for Cocona either. Those choices are preventing each other.. those who make their choices freely will eventually end up getting hurt. And those who try to avoid being hurt at all cost never have a real choice in life. So it does make sense that these sides conflict with one another. I also like that these conflicts have been in Cocona from the start. She wants to have fun with Papika.. but she is also afraid to do the wrong thing. The new magical girl form looking more like their regular selves is also pretty empowering.. just be yourself and trust in who you are!   I haven’t even begun to talk about the awesome battles in this episode!   There is just too much goodness here!

The Negatives

I would love to say there are non.. but unfortunately one thing kinda missed the mark. Nyunyu tags along with Salt on her adventure and the way she does it is cute.. but also kind of annoying. It results in a few visual gags that while I did not mind in particular I did not really care for either. It’s there and I realise I rather would see something else than her sitting on a drone or using Buu chan as a helicopter swing thing…. which is weird because Nyunyu is my type of character. So the only conclusion I can make here is.. that I don’t really dislike her.. I just like the rest so much more that those scenes seemed annoying by comparison.  We are talking about her being like an 8.2  of entertainment while the rest of the show constantly is around 9.5 or higher. It’s not bad at all but it kinda feels like a big dip?!

That really is it though so since I have another paragraph I am gonna just rave about how awesome this episode was. The callback to old locations can be called cheap but I am the type of person that likes Boss Rushes.. because it can show how much you have grown and that is exactly what chain of events meant for me.  The ease with which Papika transforms, the way how they strategise now. That is delightful and I kinda disliked how Cocona constantly flipped between hating and loving Papika I get it now.. that is once more Cocona lacking the courage to make a choice.. following what society would say about their relation or having a friend that is so odd.. or doing something  not normal. It fixed my biggest issue with this show!  The ending might be a bit sudden.. but  it is quirky enough to work and it leaves expectations wide open.

The Score

I would like to give this a score beyond Star Fruit.. this episode while not my favourite in the long run did so much for the show for me.  It is more than just an episode.This episode for me is my favourite moment off all those Ocean Eleven movies.. you know when the jazzy funk music begins playing and they explain how they did it and we see some awesome shots of them sitting in a vault when we thought they failed the heist.. That is this episode for me.. I love that kind of thing and this is it’s own unique spin on that kind of thing so I love it even more!

I mean I could just rave about Yayaka finally being a magical girl and yelling Flip Flapping for the second time and I would be right to do so but….. aww .. who cares I am going to do it! SQUEEEEEE  YAYAKA FINALLY BECAME A MAGICAL GIRL! THATS MA GIRL! WEEE! This to me is one of those episodes where you scream and your screen  hoping to “send some energy” to transform along with them… I did not transform yet.. but I know one thing.. if the last episode is even half as good as this one I might very well choose Flip Flappers as my treasure to transform with!

The Kangaskhan Cubone Theory

Greetings little monsters, it is time to go theorycrafting again. Though this is the category I seem I will struggle with most to keep up, mostly because I weave all sorts of theories together, I do think we have a good one today. We will take a deeper look into pokémon evolutions and mythos. This just might be a tricky one.

The Rumor
Pokémon is filled with the most horrible stories you can ever imagine. From cute balloons stealing children’s souls, to children starving in the woods and their spirits merging with the trees, wandering around as phantump forever. Death is ever present in the world of Pokémon. One death in particular is known by both fans and casual followers alike. The death of Cubone’s mother. A narrative that was explored in the original GEN I , Red and Blue ,  games and which was heartbreakingly recaptured in Let’s Go Eevee and Let’s Go Pikachu. In the latter we literally saw cubone chasing after the departing spirit of Marowak.Yet some believe that Cubone’s mother wasn’t a Marowak at all. It was a Kangaskhan.With cutscenes already proving us wrong, why would we even discuss this theory? Both Nintendo and Game Freak employees keep hinting that there still might be truth to this rumor.
‘How can this be Pinkie! You just told us Marowak was in the cutscene and there even is a pic below… BAD PINKIE!’ Hold on now before you make me cry by shouting at me…*snif*… it’s thursday ..so that means I got a theory.’ To present some evidence I need to jump forward to the sixth generation and a mechanic we learned about there. Mega-Evolution.

Poor Cubone, finally seeing its mother again….
Just to lose her forever… Pokémon can be cruel!

Proof: Mega Evolution
By now we all know Cubone is donning the skull of it’s dead mother. If you didn’t… here you go.. another wonderful titbit of pokémon lore that is absolutely canon and confirmed. The quick theory was that Kangaskhan baby fell out of it’s pouch as it’s mother was killed then worre her skull as a mask. However this would invalidate game canon so as a theory it just doesn’t work for me. Mega Evolution kinda proved something I was suspecting all along , which is massively important to this theory.  Gen VI allowed us to use a piece of jewelry and an empowering stone to alter the forms of final evolution empowering them for the entire duration of the battle, as long as they carried that stone. To many’s dismay when Kangaskhan got it was just the baby getting out of the pouch to fight side by side next to its mother. People nagged and complained that this was not an evolution. Yet maybe…it was? What if Kangaskhan could not separate from her baby. What if they are in fact on Pokémon with two minds. We’ve seen the existence of two separate thinking entities in a single pokémon before, Slowbro and Girafarig just to name some. Dodrio is even known for those minds arguing with another. The fact that the beloved mother pokémon needs the power of mega evolution of separate from the baby, validates this theory. The suspicion had always been there since gen II where Kangaskhan would hatch as both mother and offspring already nor do we see any of the two ever wandering alone.
Possible anime episodes were the baby gets stolen we will exclude because in my eyes those DO contradict what the game provides us. The anime would after all be compelled to write interesting narratives, and concerning a mother and baby bond pokémon those storylines come very easily.Back to what has been more or less established in the game. The two being quite inseparable We now can begin to wonder, if Mega Evolution is the right way of separating them could there be a wrong way?. 

Maybe this could have been Cubone”s life!
But it was never meant to be!

Hypothesis: The Nincada method
Could Kangaskhan really be related to Cubone?  How was Marowak cubone’s mother, yet Nintendo keeps putting the family pokémon and the lonely pokemon together in the same fields. Why can Kangaskhan show up in Pokémon Sun and Moon as an S.O.S. call for Cubone? S.O.S calls with a few exceptions (like Mareanie who shows up to eat wounded, calling for help, Corsola) only monsters from the same evolutionary line show up. Could there actually be a link? We have seen pokémon evolve before when they merge with other pokémon, but can the opposite also be true? What if Kangaskhan  in fact could evolve into Marowak by separating their child from them in an attempt to protect them? This could make sense were it not that Marowak only has a base stat total of 420 and Kangaskhan has one of 490. Where does the baby go?  Let’s consider a single pokémon, evolving into two? Unheard of you say? That’s not right, in Generation 3 we have seen this before, when the bug Pokémon Nincada evolves, as long as you have a free slot on your team, it evolves into two seperate pokémon being Shedinja and Ninjask. Shedinja being the byproduct terribly weak with only 1hp but a very special ability. Now let’s see if it even remotely makes sense, say Kangaskhan can separate when it’s panicked and fears for it’’s child which causes it to evolve. Not only do we see Marowak we also get a “new” pokémon, that for this blog we will give a placeholder name for the species. In this blog it shall be known as a Beybiroo. Beybiroo would be a baby pokémon, like  budew, smoochum, pichu and the likes. It moveset would be moves like Tearful Look, Curse and maybe Round. Not a great Pokémon but it allows you to bring Curse onto Marowak or Kangaskhan later on.  “Hold on Pinkie, before we talk about movesets, lets see if Kangaskhan evolving into Marowak even makes sense? You said it’s base stat total drops, even if we get a baby pokémon with it ? Why would it evolve in Marowak then if it was stronger before?’ Well my sweet little monsters, there is one stat that firmly increases if Kangaskhan would evolve into Marowak. It’s defence!

With Beybiroo hurt it’s mother knew what to do.
She would fight untill the bitter end to protect her baby!

Completing the circle
Woah… the defence rising of a Pokémon defending her child that actually kinda makes sense! But what about Beybiroo then? How does it evolve? Well we have known about item evolutions already and then I don’t mean the evolutionary stones.  I am talking about items like your Metal Coat, Dragonn Scale, Magmarizer and so on. How about making an item based around a skull and when Beybiroo holds it while leveling, it will evolve into a cubone? It would fit in the lore after. Yet of course it still needs to be implemented in the game.  How could we do that? First we need to give Kangaskhan a move to seperate Beybiroo from her. Gameplay wise it makes the most sense to make this a learned move, akin to self destruct and explosion, but as a ground type move instead. A name like Mothers-Love would probably be preferable over Baby-Toss.  Once used Kangaskhan faints and directly after the battle it used that move, it evolves. If you have a free slot , you also get the Beybiroo added to your team. A Marowak who is evolved this way (and thus always is female)  can get a new ability as well. This ability would allow it to get the skull item you need once it faints and it has an item slot available. The item works in essence like a focus-sash, that would your pokémon take a one hit knockout attack Marowak is switched in to take the hit (with its own defences instead, consuming the item)  However when Beybiroo levels up with it..it can evolve into cubone. At level 28 if your Cubone is male, it will evolve in a Marowak like normally. If Cubone is female AND you have a Beybiroo in your party, Cubone evolves into Kangaskhan at the same level, without the baby it will transform into a Marrowak like normal. Thus completing the Marowak family circle. 

This would be my evolution table! Complex but could make sense.
Keep being strong Cubone!

Good and Bad Separation
I think by doing it this way, the theory of them being related could actually work very well. The themes of orphan and parent would create a synergy between the paring and with Alolan Marowak being a thing this life cycle could create a very interesting bond between your Pokémon, where you can use Beybiroo, alongside the move tutor  as a method of getting better moves onto your Kangaskhan or Marowak. Having an alternate method of obtaining a baby-mon is also something that could be very nice, without us having to find a new form of incense. The mother pokémon being the origin of the story. Will you go for good separation and use the mega stone only, or will you separate the pair to gain the better abilities and useful items? A moral dilemma that when executed right could be tremendously fun to play around with adhering to the duality Pokémon has had since the beginning.
Having the cycle work this way also mean we finally have an explanation for the link, without harming any of the cutscenes. Saying goodbye to Marowak would remain intact, yet the story of a loving mother giving up her live to save her child would never have been more powerful.

What if they are actually the same, and one had just less luck in life?

Thus ends today’s theory.  It was nice to add my own spin to an older theory, trying to make it work. I hope you enjoyed as well.  What theory would YOU like me to shine my light on?
Give my day a little bright powder and leave a like or a comment.
Stay pink my little monsters!

X

P.S.
Have a happy drumming Cubone cause it deserves a smile too!

Have Fun Pal!