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When it comes to the Poliwrath evolution thing, I somehow find the later explanation of "actually this totally fits with the games because it's later revealed there were actually a ton of evolution stones underwater" more bullshit than "Poliwhirl just really gave a fuck about saving Red and so evolved through sheer will like it did the first time," though most anons would probably disagree. It's bullshit either way but at least the way the sequence played out in the original chapter feels, like, emotionally coherent bullshit or something, and so is easier to accept when the rest of the chapter is actually really good. And with stuff like Pikachu obliterating Onix before etc., it's not like Special was always 100% game accurate before this and so that moment absolutely HAD to be explained retroactively.
Also there's kind of a fucked up joke at the end where it's played for laffs that the Chairman's Abra evolved into Alakazam, somehow, when it was kidnapped and he freaks out when he learns this because it's not cute anymore or it must have been made to fight or something I guess, when actually having your pet just totally change species without you knowing would be pretty messed up. As far as I can tell the official English translation that's pretty loose actually tried to explain this MORE than the original Japanese did by adding more dialogue about the fan club not being into evolution or something, while it seems like in Japanese that's not there to the same degree that I can tell (just mentions they're not into battling)
