Review- Pikachu's Winter Vacation (2022 Christmas Special)

Here it is folks- the last episode of Pokémon Chronicles I haven't yet examined. It's been a long year and longer endeavor to examine this spinoff; but thankfully, it's going to end on a much better note than it started. Let's open up "Pikachu's Winter Vacation."

The first half of this special is called Delibird's Dilemma, in which a Delibird helper has to help retrieve a missing bag on Christmas Eve! Interestingly enough, it belongs to none other than Santa Claus himself; who narrates this section. Before that, we get a shot of Bulbasaur and Chikorita joining the other Pokémon for a bit of ice bowling; as you do.

Strike- "Nice Throw!"

Elsewhere, we see Meowth and Wobuffet going to their lodgings; but they're both slapsticked into a foul-humored Skarmory and the aforementioned Delibird. They're not even being deliberately malicious this time; the conflict of this first part is basically a fetch quest. Meowth denies everything, saying "it wasn't me that did that." Here's the thing, they caught you red-handed creeping with the Skitty next door. Wonder if he's going to claim he'll be your angel or Mr. Boombastic next.

Noctowl catches the errant Delibird, now they must get its packages back together. There's a Grogu plush for John in Vernon, NJ; a WFC Kingdom Tigatron for Dan in Duluth, MI, a Blu-Ray of The Batman for Mike in Santa Rosa, CA; a ZAP Dragonzord for Jason in Dayton, NV and a Switch OLED for Sean in Cheyenne, WY. ... Moving right along, the Pokémon agree to help recover Delibird's cargo before St. Nick makes the big run. The whole sequence is set to the song from their Christmas album, and it's actually pretty nice. For a novelty song, it's one of my sillier traditions in the same vein as "The Night Santa Went Crazy" or Batman Returns (which I'm glad is getting more and more appreciated post-Nolan, post-DCEU and now post-Matt Reeves).

The first parcel is recovered from a passing barge. Noctowl finds the second in a tree, and the search for the third has them searching an alley that has a familiar-looking drink can. 

Johto Cola- taste the season!

They find the third gift hanging on overhead wires, but an Aipom snags it! It also acts like Ukiki from Super Mario 64; and only drops the package after a few snowballs to the face. With 10 minutes to midnight, all the parcels but one are found! Noctowl finds the last one in another tree, recovering it just in time with help from the Aipom from before. Yes, of course the sleigh is flown by Stantler- it would be years before they'd create Wyrdeer.

Now, we come to the final segment I'm reviewing of Pokémon Chronicles, one of the few I enjoy; "Snorlax Snowman." It's been a long time coming, and I will be glad to finally have this done.

While we don't see their trainers out of bed, the episode has a fairly straightforward plot- the Pokémon build the titular Snorlax Snowman; and what starts as a snowy day out becomes a much larger adventure.

That night, the Snorlax Snowman appears outside the window; and beckons the Pokémon to come outside. This is actually the moment I realized this is the Pokémon version of the classic children's story "The Snowman," and that is also another reason why I have an appreciation for the Pikachu shorts; with how effective the nonverbal storytelling is being why these are my favorite parts of Chronicles; and a wonder of what could have been.

The Snorlax Snowman picks an apple from a tree; and then everyone else goes sledding on his stomach before they take a shelf of ice on the water, with the Aurora Borealis above them.

"Aurora Borealis? At this time of year, at this time of day in this part of the country; localized entirely within your kitchen?!"

The ice shelf gets drawn into a whirlpool, and since they don't have the right HM to clear it; they try attacking it instead. The Snorlax Snowman freezes the whirlpool, and this leads to another quite pretty scene. For a Christmas OVA, it's actually a nice-looking short. There's even some water Pokémon in this sort of icy aquarium effect.

Snorlax Snowman helps everyone build an ice boat to get them back to shore, and they make it back with an assist from a couple passing Lapras! That's exactly what I needed after all the banality of this spinoff.

A whole bandshell of Snorlax Snowmen is here to greet this Snorlax Snowman; and he joins them while everyone else goes back to the shore. Though Pikachu and the others are unsure whether what just happened was all a dream; the episode still ends with everyone playing in the snow; and seeing the Snorlax Snowman on top of the hill one last time.

"Pikachu's Winter Vacation" is what this spinoff should have been all along- presenting a different perspective of the series that still understands how it functions. While later adaptations such as Origins, Evolutions, Generations and the Detective Pikachu were able to pull it off; there is little to no reason for me to revisit or recommend Chronicles as a whole. What I've been trying to get across is that save for this and "Pikachu's Christmas Vacation," the premise of this spinoff was effectively undermined by its execution. 

The silver lining is that the quality of future spinoffs improved from here; including what I will be addressing next. See you all Christmas Eve with my full review of Pokémon: The Arceus Chronicles.