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Celebrating Service Pokémon Appreciation Day
Today the nation is celebrating the annual Service Pokémon Appreciation Day. The practice of training and maintaining service Pokémon has had a rich history across the world. Let’s catch up on its foundations, and the legacy it’s carried to modern day.
April 11th, 20XX
By, Penny Chase
Penny Chase: Thank you so much for meeting with me today, Mr. Evans!
Wally Evans: Please, just Wally is fine.
PC: Alright, Wally. For the sake of the record, would you like to introduce yourself?
WE: Uh, sure. My name’s Wally. I’m the founder of Encore for Kids, or EK. We train Mr. Mimes as service Pokémon for children on the autism spectrum.
PC: Some of the first service Pokémon of their kind! But most people in the audience may recognize your name outside of your organization, eh?
WE: Um, I g-guess?
PC: Oh, don’t be so modest! It’s not often we get to interview Hoenn champions. But you’ve given up that crown, right? What made you switch from competitive battling to the healthcare system?
WE: Well, Gallade and I still love battling, but… we’d been traveling for years. Life on the road is amazing, but…difficult.
PC: Did you have any particular challenges?
WE: Every trainer has some. But my health wasn’t very good when I was young. I spent a lot of time in hospitals.
PC: Ah, I see. Is that what caused your wanderlust?
WE: Part of it, I guess. I’d kept a little journal with sticky notes and everything, planning out all the places I wanted to see. Santalune Forest. The ruins of Geosenge. I’d even saved up to buy a pottery set from Lentimas Town.
PC: Did you ever get it?
WE: Yes, actually! It’s the star piece on my dining room table.
PC: Ha, that’s excellent. Did you go everywhere you wrote about in your journal?
WE: Just about. Gallade and I were very fortunate.
PC: What made you settle down?
WE: It was a…slow process, I think. Wherever I traveled, I’d try to volunteer at whatever local hospital was there. I wanted to bring pictures and souvenirs to the patients.
PC: Is that where you found your passion for children on the spectrum?
WE: Not exactly. During one of our trips, Gallade and I met a boy on the S. S. Tidal to Slateport City. It was mating season for tentacruel, and we’d gotten caught in one of their squads. They… didn’t like that very much.
PC: Oof. Did you put your trainer skills to use?
WE: Me and a few others. Thankfully, between the passengers and the sailors, we had enough Pokémon to fend them.
PC: I’m sure the tentacruel were… distracted by their other activities, too.
WE: You could… say that. By the time the waters had calmed down, it was pitch black outside. I heard crying all night from the next cabin over. When I checked to see if they were okay, I met Tim and his dad, Arnold. Tim would’ve been about…ten at the time? Arnold said he’d been panicked the whole day they were on the ship, and the tentacruels were his worst nightmare.
PC: Oh, the poor lad. He’d never want to set foot on a boat again.
WE: Not one bit. But Arnold was from Lilycove, and he said they were going to stay with their relatives for a bit. The boat was the fastest way to travel.
Gallade was Kirlia at the time. He could tell that Tim was upset. Tim’s nonverbal and had trouble communicating to his dad what was wrong. I didn’t tell Kirlia to do it—he just knew to use Charm to calm him down. After that, we could start finding out what we could do to make him feel better. Kirlia told me that Tim was hungry, so his dad ran to the cafeteria to get him his favorite snacks.
PC: When he was gone, did you and Kirlia stay with Tim?
WE: Yeah. Kirlia sat on his lap and wiped away his tears. Kirlia never liked being touched by strangers, but he didn’t mind Tim.
When Arnold came back and saw them like that, he was so shocked. Apparently Tim didn’t like anyone touching him, either. But he was calming down.
PC: He was lucky you and Kirlia were there for him.
WE: It was luck, yeah. And that… bothered me. How many kids like Tim could’ve had a Pokémon who understood them? I wanted to make them more than lucky—I wanted to give them something. If Kirla could help him, why couldn’t it happen again?
PC: Is that when you started your organization?
WE: Yeah. Gallade and I picked a place in Verdanturf. It was nice to relax after so many years on the road. But…we weren’t very good at lying still anymore.
PC: Sick of hospital beds?
WE: Terribly. The sheets are always scratchy.
But we kept thinking about Tim and his dad. I spent hours researching. I already knew a lot about ralts, thanks to Gallade, but I wanted to know everything . When I finally paired a longtime friend’s newly hatched ralts with my cousin’s daughter, I was so excited.
But…studying only gets you so far. Ralts was good for her, but after more trials, we found that the ralts line could be a bit… too attuned. Ralts are very empathetic. They feel everything their partners feel. Some of them had trouble with their partners’ anxieties.
PC: Did they have to be rehomed?
WE: One or two, but thankfully my friend and I are ralts fanatics, and we found some better placements for them. The others were already attached to their partners and didn’t want to leave them. I know how that feels. We helped the pairs however we could, and thankfully they’re all doing fine now.
But we did learn something else. Ralts were helpful for patients with dementia.
PC: Really! How’s that?
WE: They’re amazing, aren’t they? One of our client’s grandparents had dementia. The ralts we’d given to the family ended up spending most of their time with the grandparent instead. We had to find another Pokémon for the child, but we noticed that the grandparent was happier with Ralts around. After some trial and error, we found something remarkable.
Ralts could pick up the threads of their partner’s mind, retain some of their memories, and psychically transmit them back when they forget. It eased the confusion for the patients, and calmed down the ralts. They could even interpret their partner’s emotional states so the patient’s caretakers could support them more effectively. A perfectly symbiotic relationship.
PC: That’s amazing. So your ralts found purpose after all?
WE: I’m not sure “found” is the right word. They would’ve helped someone with or without us. We just offered a hand.
PC: But you didn’t stop there. You went on to start Calm Minds and Healing Hearts.
WE: Yes. I co-found it with my cousin, Wanda. We help each other run the organizations. I find ralts and Mr. Mimes from trustworthy breeders and train them, while she handles all the logistics that give me a headache.
PC: Ha, that sounds like a great partnership.
WE: It is. Wanda’s always looked out for me, and I’m happy when I can return the favor.
PC: Wish I could say the same about my brothers. But, speaking of Mr. Mimes, can you tell me more about how you got started with them?
WE: Of course.
It took a lot more research and trial and error, but I eventually settled on the Mime Jr. family. Once the ralts program found its feet, I had enough time to adopt and train a Mime Jr.. They may not have the same telepathic abilities as the ralts line, but they can still sense people’s emotions. Their Barriers help, too.
PC: Barriers?
WE: Yes. Some children on the spectrum—not all of them, but some—can put themselves in unsafe situations when they get too overstimulated. It can be hard for people to help without overstimulating them more. The Mime Jr. family is unique in that they can make Barriers to keep them safe without touching them. Then they can help them calm down.
PC: That’s pretty impressive.
WE: They are. They also have astute observation skills, and can even teach some people with ASD social cues by modeling behaviors.
PC: You really make up for lost time, Wally! But it’s one thing to train Pokémon, and something entirely else to get them established in actual hospitals. How’d you manage that?
WE: Well…it helps when the kid you shared a hospital room with grows up to be that hospital’s director…
PC: Wow, small world.
WE: Isn’t it? When I told him I’d successfully paired Mr. Mime with a client, he put me into contact with a nursing home. A few trials later, and I received a grant to continue my work.
PC: Do you ever have to worry about Mr. Mime Double Slapping someone?
WE: Ha! They’re not afraid to slap a rude stranger, but they know the bounds within their own family. They’re trained not to touch their partner unless they initiate it first. In that case, they’re excellent huggers.
PC: We all need some more hugs in the world. Thank you for taking the time to speak with me today, Wally.
WE: Thank you, Penny.
Next time!
We travel from Wally Evans’ organization, Encore for Kids, to Unova. There, we find a cutting-edge training program that started off with a single herdier, and has grown to include special services with herdiers, retired growlithes, and even audinos and rotoms!