This next post is a follow-up to my Interesting Specimen post from last Saturday on the Clefairy evolution line. In the comments for that post, my friend SmallxLady told me about this one notable incident involving Clefairy from the Electric Tale of Pikachu manga. That got me to thinking that perhaps I didn’t give the Clefairy family enough coverage in that last post, so I’ve decided to go a little more in-depth with these fascinating Pokemon. The following covers the most colorful incidents involving Clefairy outside of the mainstream Pokemon games.
The Clefairy Evolution Ceremony: The first incident I’ll be covering comes from a chapter of the Electric Tale of Pikachu manga that SmallxLady told me about. She even gave me a link to where I could read that manga online. Unfortunately, a lot of those scans were fairly low quality and the site was missing the chapter in question. I will say though that from what little of the Electric Tale of Pikachu manga I did read, I can see why that series is so unpopular (sorry S.L.). Despite this roadblock, I was able to at least find a good summary of the chapter on Bulbapedia that at least provided me with the details that I needed to know for this post.
The following details the evolution ceremony observed by the manga’s version of Ash Ketchum, Professor Oak and Bill (the guy who made the Pokemon Storage System in the games). The ceremony took place in a Clefairy village located southwest of Mt. Moon in the Kanto Region, and was conducted on the night of a full moon. As Professor Oak explained in the manga, this ceremony is conducted as a rite of passage for the unpaired Clefairy of the village who have reached a certain age or level. The ceremony begins with six Clefairy dancing before a decorative rock while other members of the village play drums. Whether or not these Clefairy doing the dance are the ones undergoing the ceremony, I cannot say. The summary on Bulbapedia didn’t have that information. At the climax of the ceremony, the Clefairy undergoing the rite are presented with Moon Stones, which they can use to evolve into Clefable so they can venture outside of the village and see the world. According to Bill in that chapter of the manga, only the bravest of Clefairy choose to undergo this rite of passage through evolution, as leaving their secure home makes them vulnerable to predators.
As bad as the Electric Tale of Pikachu manga is (again, sorry S.L.), the portrayal of this evolution ceremony is still very fascinating. The fact that the Clefairy have such an elaborate ceremony for their evolution into Clefable in the manga’s continuity, and their ability to construct and play drums, shows that the Clefairy and their evolved and pre-evolved forms are very intelligent creatures. Looking at it now, it does make one question the idea of keeping the Clefairy in pokeballs and using them in battle, but then that’s always been an issue with the entire concept of the Pokemon franchise. There’s only one way that they could’ve made this incident in the manga more interesting; if the Clefairy of that village had show Ash and the others an ancient stone tablet showing how their ancestors came form another world long ago. After all, there didn’t seem to be anything from that manga that said the Clefairy weren’t from space.
Clefairy Spacecraft Incidents: We now turn to the most colorful incidents from the Pokemon anime, the ones that seem to confirm that the Clefairy family is from another world. Both these incidents involve a spacecraft operated by the Clefairy, an image of which, drawn by yours truly, can be seen at the top of this post. I should probably mention that the background was made using a stock image I had on my computer. Anyway, the first incident with the Clefairy spacecraft took place in an episode from the Indigo League saga of the anime called, Clefairy Tales in the U.S. The incident began when the Jigglypuff that Ash and his friends sometimes encountered saw a UFO crash in the forest. When Jigglypuff went to investigate the crash, she saw a band of Clefairy disembarking a crashed spacecraft. I should mention that the leader of these Clefairy wore a flower in her (his?) hair to distinguish her from the rest of the pack.
Following this first sighting the next day, the Clefairy from the ship had started stealing items from the people of a small town that Ash and his companions were visiting at the time. During this mess, the super incompetent Team Rocket Trio that had been dogging Ash and his friends since the start of the series tried to steal Pikachu from Ash. After Team Rocket had been unmasked though, the Clefairy abducted the still captured Pikachu and took him into the sewers. Ash and his friends then followed the Clefairy underground and eventually found their spaceship with a rocket booster attached to the back. It’s soon revealed that the Clefairy had been stealing those items in order to repair their ship, and that they intended to use Pikachu’s electrical attacks to jumpstart their ship.
Just as the Clefairy are making the final preparations for launch, Jigglypuff comes aboard and does battle with the Clefairy captain. During the course of the battle, it’s revealed that the Clefairy had stolen Jigglypuff’s marker/microphone to use as a lever in the ship’s main control panel. Jigglypuff eventually took back her marker with the help unwitting of a so-called “alien investigator” helping Ash and his friends at the time and broke into song, causing everyone aboard the ship to fall asleep. As Clefairy angrily began to draw on everyone’s faces for falling asleep during her song, the ship began its automatic takeoff sequence. The ship was launched when a red mallet came down and bonked Pikachu on the head, causing him to fire an electrical attack inside the tank he was in that jumpstarted the engines. After that, the ship took off through a secret hatch that the Clefairy had somehow put into the street, and as it flew through the air the items that the Clefairy had stolen to make their repairs began to fall from the craft and its booster. Ash and his companions managed to escape from the craft, and later the ship crashed in a nearby field, forcing the Clefairy to make repairs to it all over again.
The second incident involving a Clefairy spacecraft occurred in an episode of the anime’s Johto saga called Wish Upon a Star Shape in the U.S. The incident began on a moonlit night when a UFO passed over the campsite of Ash and his companions; and the ship passed over, an object fell from it and landed on Ash’s Phanphy. The object in question was soon revealed to be a Cleffa, Clefairy’s pre-evolved form. Meanwhile the ship it had fallen from had crashed on the opposite side of the mountain where the campsite was located. Ash and his friends learn that the Cleffa came from the object that just crashed, and as they try to take it back, the Team Rocket Trio shows up to steal the little Pokemon. Also getting in the way of Ash and his friends is a duo of costumed twits known as the Pokemon Mystery Club, or the PMC for short. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think that a group needs to be more than two people in order to be called a club.
Anyway, the PMC wishes to study Cleffa in order to prove its alien origins. A struggle ensues and Phamphy and Cleffa get separated from the rest of the group. The rest of the episode mostly consists of Team Rocket and the PMC clashing with one another as Phanphy tries to return Cleffa to its ship. Ash and his companions eventually reunite with Phanpy and Cleffa at the crash site, where the Clefairy have already begun making repairs to their damaged craft. Team Rocket showed up again in one of the ridiculous giant robots to steal Cleffa, and the PMC retaliates with a truck-like vehicle with robotic arms. Before the battle could get out of hand though, the Clefairy had dismantled both robots with incredible speed and used the components to complete the repairs. With the repairs completed, the ship began its takeoff.
After the ship had gotten airborne though, parts of it had begun to fall away. It took a Thunderbolt attack from Ash’s Pikachu combined with Phanphy’s Rollout attack to give the ship the needed thrust to fully lift off. The attack combination had also gotten rid of Team Rocket and the PMC as well. With the ship leaving, Cleffa evolved into a Clefairy and gained the ability to fly up to the ship’s open hatch while it was still a short distance away. As the newly evolved Clefairy left, it gave Ash’s Phanphy a tearful farewell.
Whether or not both of these incidents from the anime involved the same spacecraft is impossible to say. One thing that the incidents do make clear though is that the Clefairy family is indeed from space. They also illustrate that the Clefairy and their evolved and pre-evolved forms are not only intelligent but also technologically sophisticated. One question this does raise though is that if the Clefairy are so sophisticated, how come there are no technologically advanced Clefairy colonies on the Pokemon universe’s version of Earth? At this point I’d like to circle back and talk about a theory I stated in my original Interesting Specimen post on Clefable.
Assuming that the Clefairy family is indeed from space, it could be that several of them came to Earth thousands of years ago to colonize it. But as more time went by and more generations of colonists came and went, their technological skill needed to travel into space faded. It’s basically what happened to the race of aliens talked about in H.P. Lovecraft’s novella, At the Mountains of Madness. In that story, the race of aliens in question colonized Earth’s Antarctic region long before humans walked on the planet, literally flying to the planet on membranous wings. And as more time went by in that colony, there was a sort of cultural decay where the knowledge needed to fly back into space had been lost. The same thing could’ve happened to the Clefairy that first came to Earth, reducing them to shy but friendly Pokemon that live in mountainous areas. As for how the Clefairy in those episodes of the anime had been able to operate a sophisticated spacecraft, it could be that those were Clefairy that were visiting from their original home world.
That pretty much wraps it up for this post. I’m sorry it was super-long. I’d also like to apologize to SmallxLady for talking about the spacecraft incidents more than I talked about the evolution ceremony. There was just more material on those incidents to draw from. Anyway, I hope everyone enjoyed reading this special feature post of mine. Until next time, keep watching the skies.
