Here’s a fun fact. Wobbuffet’s Japanese name, Sonansu is a homophone for the Japanese phrase that’s the way it is.1そうなんす Coincidental? Not at all! You see, its pre-evolution, Wynaut, is called Sonano, which translates to “really?”.2そうなの You can tell where this is going, right? Yes… Perpetual conversation jokes! Of course the Pokémon anime wouldn’t be the anime if it let such potential comedy gold go unused. In the 2002 anime short Camp Pikachu, a Wobbuffet-Wynaut pair can be seen continually yelling their species name at one another in front of an increasingly exasperated Meowth. (Even if the English dub loses the joke, you can still watch the scenes here). The things you learn looking for a hook to start an article!
Now, if you were exposed to virtually any season of the Pokémon anime (or perhaps read about Nuketta Wobbuffet), you’ll know that the upright platypus has a long history as a comedic relief character. Be it as Team Rocket Jessie’s trusty sidekick or unlikely quizmaster in Pokémon Channel (here), Wobbuffet could always be called upon to play the boke as the situation demanded it. Synonymous with slapstick humour, Wobbuffet stole the heart of many a youthful Pokéfan.
Newsreader Wobbuffet (top); Sunday mural at PokePark 2005 (bottom). From: Pokémon Sunday #93 (2006-07-23) and #25 (2005-03-27). Via pocketmonsters.net
Japan, however, also got to see the quasi-serious side to Wobbuffet, and it was in the land of rising sun that the Pokémon achieved cult status. It owed this reputation to that weekly Pokémon variety show, Pokémon Sunday, broadcast every Sunday morning at 8AM from 2004 to 2010.3Or 7:30AM, from late 2006 onwards. Here a male Wobbuffet – no lipstick – appeared on the live stage with clockwork regularity in its capacity as “Assistant Chief” (副所長) of the show.4See: https://www.pocketmonsters.net/content/Pokemon_Sunday#Cast Part of Wobbo’s job description was to have its face plastered across title cards, go out on adventures with the cast of comedians Robert and Chief Golgo, and take up the mantle of newsreader alongside his buddy Treecko. One need only gaze upon the elaborate mural of the show’s cast in 2005’s edition of PokePark to understand that, without a doubt, Wobbuffet was a fully-fledged member of Sunday’s staff.
Assistant Chief Wobbuffet, then, was kind of a big deal. Which made it a prime target for — well, you’ll find out below.
Enter NTT
Enter NTT, or the Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation, a Fortune 500 telecommunications company that serves all of Japan. Formerly a state-owned giant, this behemoth was privatised and split into NTT East and NTT West and kept under close government supervision to ensure it could not, and cannot, abuse its oligopolistic position. You might think that such a bastion of corporatism cannot possibly have anything to do with Pokémon. But the opposite is true. Au contraire, the fact that NTT was, and is, the undisputed telecommunications market leader of the Japanese islands with millions of broadband subscribers across the country made it the ideal partner for one of The Pokémon Company (TPC) its more ambitious designs.
In the Summer of 2004, NTT and TPC in partnership launched an initiative aimed at expanding Pokémon into fast-digitising Japanese households. It was dubbed “Pokémon on FLET’S”5(ポケモンオンフレッツ) – FLET’S being the name of NTT’s ADSL and flagship broadband products, and Pokémon being, well, Pokémon. Its objective: To beam Pokémon media directly onto computer screens across the country and provide news, trailers, minigames, movies and anime reruns on-demand. Subscribers would be able to connect to so-called “FLET’S Square” via specific DNS settings to find a cornucopia of Pokécontent at their fingertips.6The connection procedure, typical of broadband technology of the era, was detailed here. Some of which exclusive to the service, such as special cuts of Pokémon films, footage of voice actor recording sessions,7Pokémon Satellite Mail News #160, via https://350ml.net/pokesate/mailnews/news200406.html and recordings of Pokémon Sunday theatre shows.8This one for example, as reported by DengekiOnline here. Clearly a boon to Pokémon outreach, NTT stood to benefit, too, with the strength of the Pocket Monsters brand expected to boost adoption of NTT’s FLET’S broadband product.9Slower NTT ADSL connections could access Pokémon on FLET’S, too, but might naturally encounter video playback buffering and/or stuttering. It was a partnership to rival Tim Goodman and Detective Pikachu.
Pokémon on FLET’S user interface. Via Broadband Watch.
And a revolutionary one at that. You’ll gather that Pokémon on FLET’S (PoF) was a pioneering effort, a bold stride forward at a relatively early juncture in the WWW’s development. By providing Pokéfans with access to on-demand multimedia, it pre-dated YouTube (2005), NikoNiko (2006), and online streaming services like Netflix (2007). Naturally, then, the imminent arrival of PoF turned a few heads. DengekiOnline, RBBToday (here) and BBWatch all penned articles. In a piece dated June 28, 2004, the latter media outlet explained the intricacies of Pokémon on FLET’S better than I could possibly hope to summarise, so in translated form, we’ll let them do the talking:
“NTT East and NTT West will launch ‘Pokémon on FLET’S for FLET’S users on 1 July [2004]. In addition to the latest information on Pocket Monsters and on-demand distribution services for movie titles, users can also watch a ‘FLET’S special 30-minute version’ of the new film that will be released on 17 July [2004].
Pokémon on FLET’S is a service that offers free Pokémon film trailers and minigames where users can obtain original wallpapers, as well as broadband distribution of past film titles for a fee. In addition, there is a collection of the latest Pokémon information: ‘Let’s! Pokémon on FLET’S”, where you can watch Pokémon video news, the making of the film Destiny Deoxys, which was released on 17 July, and special limited versions of the film.
Paid distribution of film titles will be available from 1 July for Mewtwo Strikes Back and Pikachu’s Summer Vacation, and from 1 September for Phantom Pokémon Lugia and Pikachu’s Rescue Adventure, Emperor of the Crystal Tower and Pichu and Pikachu. The fee is ¥315 per film for a set of short and feature films.
The “FLET’S Special 30-minute Version” of Destiny Deoxys is a special 30-minute version of the full-length film to be released on 17 July. It can be viewed by a total of 500 people, 250 of whom will be selected by lottery from each of NTT East and West. The ending of the film is not revealed in this special version. Entries will be accepted on the Pokémon on FLET’S introduction website until midnight on 4 July.”
CoroCoro, September 2004
Oh wow, a sneak preview of Destiny Deoxys. NTT and TPC truly threw their full weight behind the prestigious project, hmm? We only need to look at PoF promotional materials to corroborate that this was so. Take CoroCoro, for instance, a magazine with close ties to the Pokémon franchise since the latter’s inception. The CoroCoro September 2004 issue dedicated a full magazine page to the then two-months old fledgling PoF service. Supported by a colourful, creature-packed visual that pointed readers to the Deoxys film and Lugia and Entei movie content imminently coming to the platform, a bold-faced header invited readers to step into PoF’s ever-expanding world of Pokémon.10ますます広がったポケモンの世界
Pokémon Scoop, that no-cost periodical published by the Daisuki Club, similarly went all out, opting for a two-page spread in its Summer 2004 Festa edition. Published on June 19, 2004 – less than two weeks before the Pokémon on FLET’S service became operational – it displayed the same logos, slogans, and movie promotions as the CoroCoro advert while also printing a basic Q&A to educate the audience about NTT broadband.
Pokemon Scoop, Summer 2004 Festa issue. ICanSnake’s collection.
Pokémon on FLET’S branded card featuring Wobbuffet and Treecko.
NTT and TPC clearly meant business and made business, for in the following years, the partnership would spawn an array of promotional merchandise including, but not limited to, NTT-marked Pokémon notepads, picnic sheets, CD-ROMS, clear files, badges, towels and an enviable lineup of movie-themed, fully-functional telephone cards that became a staple of the relationship. In 2007, TPC and NTT even dreamt up a surreal telegram-style message service, whereby fans could have their personal notes shipped across the country locked inside portable 25cm Pikachu & Pokeball trophies. It was apparently quite popular for birthdays and special occasions,11See also: https://pokevault.com/PikachuTelegram and to this day, trophy specimens occasionally pop up on online marketplaces like Mercari.
Of special interest to us: At some point in time, though I don’t know exactly when, NTT put out demo phone cards featuring Treecko and Wobbuffet, both of whom just happened to be on the Pokémon Sunday staff… Hmm.
Mystery Pick Wobbuffet
Ah, Pokémon Festa. That joyous celebration of all things Pokémon occupying a space somewhere between funfair, animanga convention, and E3. In 2005, Festa was held for the fourth year running. (We’ve talked at length about Festa 2007 PalCity in the context of its Mew, Lucario and distributions here.) Per usual, this travelling circus was to hit up nine venues across Japan at the peak of Summer, starting with exhibition centre Tokyo Big Sight the weekend of July 17-18, 2005, stopping at Saitama, Nagoya, Sapporo, Osaka and Chiba among others, and concluding August 20-21 at Pacifico Yokohama. It was promising to be an exciting edition for Pokéfans, with a playable floor demo of Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness – the first Pokémon home console game – and as many as four event distributions: Festa Metang handed out as a reward for exploring said demo, 2005’s Tanabata Jirachi given out by the Daisuki Club to 27,000 lucky applicants, an Old Sea Map downloadable via local WiFi that unlocked Mew in Emerald, and…
Sunday Wobbuffet. The arrival of Summer not only meant that Festa season was in full swing, the first anniversary of Pokémon on FLET’S, too, had come up. And while NTT and TPC could have marked this occasion of merriment in any manner, they – intriguingly – chose to do so through an event Pokémon available to FLET’S subscribers and 900 very lucky Daisuki Club applicants. After making his way from the television screen to FLET’S Square, Assistant Chief Wobbuffet was now to grace the handheld games.
You’ll understand that there’s quite a few why’s and how’s to unpack here, but the most pressing questions are, why Pokémon Sunday and, why Wobbuffet? It’s certainly intuitive that NTT would look favourably upon any scheme to harness the TV show’s popularity for promotion of Pokémon on FLET’S. But that in itself is no explanation – I, too, would like the Pokémon anime to promote PH.com during its ad breaks, but that’s not happening. Where, then, did the idea originate, and how did it come to be? It’s surprisingly difficult to get this explanation – or any explanation for the choice of Sunday or Wobbuffet – straight from the horse’s mouth.
It’s not that NTT failed to communicate the Wobbuffet initiative. Far from it, NTT put up not one, but two websites all about Wobbuffet – one nominally serving NTT East, the other NTT West (here and here). And although both are viewable in the Wayback Machine, the result is skeletal, with only headers and image alt texts preserved and not the infographics that once added both luster and the bulk of the information. Unfortunately we can’t glean much from these pages beyond what we already know, as neither site’s snapshot offers any clues as to how, and why, NTT appropriated Sunday’s mascot for this promotion. It’s quite possible that there was an NTT / TPC press release discussing the (we may expect) success of PoF at the one-year mark, but if it existed, I’ve not been able to locate it, and the assumption that it would have expounded upon the black box negotiations that produced Sunday Wobbuffet is tenuous at best. Rather than demand an improbable level of transparency from a corporate giant, let’s look towards Sunday instead.
Surely the show itself had a thing or two to say about this newfound immortalisation of the show’s superstar, but here, too, we hit a roadblock. The first two seasons of Pokémon Sunday are poorly documented. There’s a few reasons for this. As we discussed, major video upload services were still a pipe dream per 2005, with social media limited largely to smalltime messageboards. In this environment it was difficult for fans to disseminate content, with little of the extensive memeing and scheming over fragments of multimedia content that we see today. Moreover, Pokémon as a franchise experienced a relative lull after Japan’s release of Emerald in September 2004, which had itself been a rehash of two-year old games Ruby & Sapphire. Finally, the format of the show itself experienced growing pains. Only half of Sunday’s episodes were true studio episodes, the rest consisting of anime reruns. This didn’t change until the latter half of 2006, when Sunday became hourly with fixed 30-minute anime and 30-minute studio segments. More content drew in more viewers, and aided by the fresh impulse of new host Shokotan and the considerable hype in the leadup to release of Diamond & Pearl, Sunday boomed. While YouTube and NikoNiko are awash with show highlights from this period, our best resource for “early” Sunday under host Becky, the fantastic pocketmonsters.net, can offer no more than screengrabs of Sunday’s anime episodes.
Sunday #41 title card. “Broadcast from Tokyo Big Sight”, it reads. Via pocketmonsters.net
What does this mean for Wobbuffet? Well, it is safe to say that Sunday dutifully communicated the Assistant Chief’s metamorphosis into an event Pokémon to viewers in the Spring or early Summer of 2005. We also know Sunday broadcast directly from Tokyo Big Sight on July 17, 2005 (ep. #41), sharing the hustle and bustle of Festa with its audience and maybe, just maybe, showing a glimpse of the FLET’S Sonans claim booth or at a minimum, interacting with the studio and Assistant Chief in some way to underline his importance. But until any footage or source material of relevant episodes is retrieved, exactly what was said remains a mystery. (If you have information that might help, please get in touch!)
These circumstances, then, make the question “why Wobbuffet?” difficult to answer. As you will have gathered from the intro to this article, the intuitive assumption is that Wobbuffet’s popularity made its selection a shoe-in, a 1+1=2. Yet it’s really not that simple. If a Sunday-themed event Pokémon had to be designed, it’s understandable that Wobbuffet would be selected over sidekick Treecko. (There never was to be a Sunday Treecko distribution.) But if NTT sought to capitalise on the popularity of the show, countless promotional possibilities were open to it. To rattle off a few ideas, they could have designed and given out “assistant chief” Wobbuffet plushies, offered an opportunity for a fan to appear on the liveshow, given away tickets to a photo-op with Sunday’s cast at Festa 2005 – anything! I can’t help but wonder if some form of Pokémon Sunday-themed event distribution had been considered for a time, and with the Daisuki Club (who usually handed in-life distributions) preoccupied with Tanabata Jirachi, NTT conveniently provided another avenue. But I digress.
Pokemon Scoop – Summer 2005 Extra. Author’s collection.
Fact of the matter is that the powers-that-be chose Wobbuffet, and with that decision, TPC’s promotional apparatus sprang into action. Pokémon Scoop produced another two-pager all about FLET’S, this time in its 2005 Summer Extra issue. It took care to highlight PoF’s rich offerings: its anime selection, movie library, English-learning minigames, even “FPN” or Flets Pokémon News – the platform’s (we think) in-house Poké-newsservice as brought to you by the pairing of Wobbuffet and Treecko so familiar from Pokémon Sunday.12 Presumably, these segments were airlifted from the Sunday TV-show and did not comprise original content, but I’m not quite sure. Perhaps to avoid Wobbuffet page overload, Scoop allocated little space to Sonans’ Festa distribution, opting for a large-font hyperlink calling upon readers to visit pokemon-on-flets.jp for information about a certain Wobbuffet gift. This was, in fact, the same hyperlink that we talked about earlier, with redirections to NTT East and West. So much, so unexciting.
The thrills instead come from pokemon.co.jp, which dangled the carrot much more effectively. Through a pair of hard-to-miss box insets, its Festa 2005 infopage signalled the availability of both the Old Sea Map and Sonans at the Summer’s festivities. Wobbuffet’s inset, in turn, redirected to a beautiful page all about the event Pokémon – one we’ll break down shortly, after we’ve examined the creature’s distribution particulars.
Pokemon.co.jp Festa 2005 webpage
A Very Special Email
We’ve already hinted at the two-pronged nature of Wobbo’s distribution, with a paid arm and a free-of-charge, almost token chance to participate. Sunday Sonans first and foremost catered to NTT FLET’S users, who could apply to receive an exchange coupon to be presented to the FLETS booth at Pokemon Festa 2005. And FLET’S subscribers were… Many. In the opening paragraphs to this article, we read how NTT occupied an oligopolistic position in the Japanese communications market. Wobbuffet, then, was (generously) made available to subscribers of both the trusty NTT ADSL package as well as NTT flagship FLET’S B product. To give you a sense of scale: By June 2005, the number of NTT East FLET’S B broadband subscribers had surpassed 1 million. If we extrapolate another million NTT West connections, that makes for two million FLET’S B households eligible to collect Wobbuffet. Which alone is an astronomical number, yet it is exclusive of ADSL connections, which we may assume still outnumbered broadband connections in this period of transition. Fair to say, then, that the theoretical maximum to the number of Sonans distributed is not defined by NTT, but by the capacity of Festa (which still ran in the hundreds of thousands).
Worry not – Pokéfans that escaped the clutches of NTT still had an alternate route at their disposal. Perhaps to ensure that nobody felt (entirely) sidelined, youngsters who could not persuade their parents to sign up for Pokémon on FLET’S had a shot at one of 900 total Wobbuffet given out to lucky Daisuki Club applicants, or 100 at each of the nine Festa venues. Talk about a drop in the bucket! This application path to Sonans was far more uncertain, for it involved a zero-sum luck of the draw contra – potentially – hundreds of thousands of Youngster Joey’s and Lass Dana’s who regularly tuned into Sunday. The details of this path are frankly borderline unknowable to us. Not only was registration for Wobbuffet locked behind the (unarchivable) gates of the Daisuki Club, it’s simply terribly unlikely that we might identify a winner of this route to Wobbuffet who can provide us with the necessary primary materials.
And it is therefore downright astonishing that not one, but two such people are known to the event collector community. Ahiru (of Ahiru’s Wonderland) and longtime Pokémaniac Rabby250 both emerged victoriously from the Daisuki Club lottery, and acquired Sunday Sonans in person at Festa Saitama (and Chiba), and Festa Nagoya respectively. But it gets better: Miraculously, Rabby also had the foresight to preserve the Daisuki Club lucky-winner digital communications sent to him by the aptly named “NTT West Wobbuffet Present Office”. We shall unwrap this archival gift carefully, starting with the Club’s confirmation-of-victory email. The full Japanese message is attached separately to this article below; here, let’s study the pertinent portions in translated form:
Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2005 […]
From: “NTT West Wobbuffet Present Office” <festa2005@pkof.jp>
CC: festa2005@pkof.jp
Subject: “Pokémon Sunday’s Familiar Wobbuffet” Present at Pokémon Festa 2005! Notification of Winners.[…]
[1] Lottery results
Thank you very much for your application for the “Pokémon Sunday Wobbuffet” present at the Pokémon Festa 2005 Pokémon on FLET’S booth. As a result of a strict lottery, you have won! Congratulations! Please bring a printout of this email to the Pokémon on FLET’S booth at the event.
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[2] What to bring to the venue
– Any cartridge from the Pokémon series (Ruby, Sapphire, Fire Red, Leaf Green, Emerald) for the GBA.
– A Game Boy Advance or Game Boy Advance SP (cannot be received with Nintendo DS). If you only have a Nintendo DS, please consult the staff on the day. A Game Boy Advance is available for loan).
– The winning email for the ‘Pokémon Sunday’s Familiar Wobbuffet present. […]
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[3] What you need to prepare
In order to receive the “Pokémon Sunday Wobbuffet”, the following preparations are required for any of the cartridges in the Pokémon series for the GBA (Ruby, Sapphire, Fire Red, Leaf Green and Emerald).
1. Receive a Pokédex from the Professor.
2. Have no more than five Pokémon in your party.
3. Save your game at the in-game Pokémon Center. […]
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[4] Attention
– Each printout of this e-mail will receive one Wobbuffet in one of the cartridges listed above. Please note that only one Wobbuffet is allowed per cartridge.
– Please note that if you have modified the report (save data) of a cartridge using a modification code, or if you communicate with someone who has modified it, you may not be able to receive the Wobbuffet or continue the game normally. […]
Neat, huh? A few of the email’s bullet points are noteworthy. For instance, the option to borrow a Gameboy Advance (GBA) at the FLET’S booth to complete the acquisition of Wobbuffet’s tells us something about the event’s distribution method. We’ll look at this shortly. Equally interesting is the instruction to bring an email printout as proof to claim one’s Sonans – in this day and age, the message would unquestionably make its way onto social media and circulate widely, rendering such a method useless for identifying lottery winners. And lastly, the email sent date of July 21 is remarkable. Rabby was expected to collect Wobbuffet in Nagoya on July 23-24, which left him little time to make arrangements.
Less so, perhaps, for all FLET’S pathway winners. Festa 2005 was well-attended amongst the troupe of bloggers whom we reference regularly on this website, though not all had Sunday Wobbuffet on their radars. Torogamer for example visited Festa expressly to give the Pokémon XD demo a spin and enthusiastically collect the attached Festa Metang with its unique move Refresh, but was seemingly uninterested in Wobbuffet or even the Old Sea Map. Poketetsu, who at Pacifico Yokohama on August 21 collected both Tanabata Jirachi and the Old Sea Map paid Sunday Wobbuffet no mind. In fairness, between XD Demo Festa Metang, Tanabata Jirachi, Old Sea Map and Sunday Wobbuffet, attendees were truly spoilt for choice, and it’s not hard to imagine Sonans drowning out among these heavy hitters.
Still, others did have their eye on Wobbuffet. Blogger “sigenon” by their own admission had “two objectives” to their Festa visit at Saitama Super Arena: “Getting Wobbuffet and shaking hands with Lucario” (here). One “Coocan” specifically stated that their reason for going to Festa at Tokyo Big Site was “because of the FLET’S Wobbuffet pickup”. Murasaki-labs, too, homed in on Wobbuffet as their prize, noting how they “went to the Pokémon on FLET’S booth[,] showed my winning email and received a Wobbuffet”. Lastly superfan “jinbei”, present on opening day (July 17) at Tokyo Big Site and again both days of Festa’s closing weekend at Pacifico Yokohama, nearly missed out on Sonans despite an apparent pre-registration and intention to collect. Specifically, on Festa’s final afternoon they first collected a Tanabata Jirachi at the Daisuki Club booth and then remembered, in the nick of time, to swing by the FLET’S booth and collect a Sunday Wobbuffet:
“As I was heading for the exit to go home, I remembered Wobbuffet which had completely failed to cross my mind, and ran to the FLET’S corner as quickly as I could. Most of the corners were about to close, so I was in a bit of a bind, but I managed to get one. The lady at the [FLET’S] corner reception desk asked me: “Is it OK that the savefile might be lost if the connection [between GBAs] is interrupted?” (Please don’t say scary things like that.)”
Ah, connection interrupted. Any link cable trader’s nightmare error message. Fortunately for Jinbei, no such thing came to pass. That said, the booth attendant’s protocol-like warning of the hazards of link trading are quite illuminating to us. Paired with the wording in Rabby’s email, they tell us beyond reasonable doubt that Sonans was not given out via WiFi (like the Old Sea Map), but through a GBA functioning as an official distribution system. Essentially, the master GBA will have run a Sunday Wobbuffet distribution cartridge that could dispense Sonans to any slave GBA via cabled connection. Presumably, would-be recipients flashed their physical FLET’S voucher or Daisuki email, hooked up a link cable to their own or borrowed GBA, booted up the system and – presto, the software would place Wobbuffet in an empty party slot. I would show you pictures of the distribution process and setup, but so far these haven’t yet surfaced. Bloggers neither chronicled this process nor sought to document it photographically, from which we may infer that on the whole, it was quick and painless. And interestingly there’s zero mention of lengthy queues, either, which is somewhat surprising considering the crowds elsewhere (e.g. at the XD demo, as described by Jinbei) and the vast number of NTT subscribers eligible to collect Wobbuffet. (Compare Shokotan Tropius!)
Festa 2005 Wobbuffet infographic (source)
The Sonans that arrived looked like, well, the image above. It had a Trainer ID of 50701 (for July 1, 2005), a parent name of Sunday (サンデー), a random nature, and a moveset of Counter, Mirror Coat, Safeguard and Destiny Bond – a combination that blogger murasaki-labs thought “very ordinary and common”. Ahiru clearly disagreed, for he thought it worthwhile to collect six total Wobbuffet across two locations, Festa Saitama (July 23-24) and Festa Chiba at the Makuhari Messe (August 6-7). (See Ahiru’s Wonderland here). At the Saitama Super Arena, he approached the FLET’S booth as a Daisuki Club lottery winner (here) to claim three Wobbuffet on as many cartridges; in Chiba, the same, but most likely as a FLET’S subscriber instead.13It’s plausible that Ahiru was a FLET’S subscriber who had originally planned to only attend (nearby) Festa Chiba and claim Wobbuffet (as well as Jirachi, Metang, and Old Sea Map), until their surprise lottery win saw them insert a trip to Saitama in the itinerary. Importantly, it was at that stage still unknown whether lottery Wobbuffet would differ in any way, perhaps only minutely, from the FLET’S version – a possibility worth verifying. In spite of NTT’s stipulation that one email printout was to equate one Wobbuffet download, it’s apparent that Ahiru was at liberty to pull in multiple so long as he provided a fresh cartridge for each. At a minimum, this suggests that the FLET’S booth distribution infrastructure was more than adequate to serve all of Festa’s Wobbuffet claimants. In other words, Ahiru probably wasn’t holding anybody up by bending the rules a little. (Who is to say, perhaps he carried a stack of printouts to game them!) Regardless, it’s fabulous that he did, for his actions assured knowledge transfer of Wobbuffet’s ins-and-outs in the absence of a public distribution cartridge and the sample size of six is satisfactory to help ascertain the legitimacy of other specimens.14Not that Rabby’s pristine copy, moreover supported by primary evidence, required much in the way of verification. As a little treat to you, the reader, I’ve extracted and attached Ahiru’s half dozen Sonans at the foot of this article so that you may examine them for yourself.
Finally, perhaps the most unique element of Sunday Wobbuffet’s final design was the Fab Mail attached to every copy. Ahiru found himself enamoured with this choice of stationery, calling it a “gorgeous and handy pattern … hard to find in the game” that he appears to have stockpiled on his savefiles. As it was, each piece of Fab Mail contained a succinct overture to its future recipient, asking them to kindly continue their patronage of the Pokémon’s NTT news show. It read, translated:
Treecko and Wobbuffet’s
Fun Pokémon News
Tune in, everyone!
-Pokémon Sunday
And there you have it. We’ve come full circle, from Assistant Chief Wobbuffet’s role on the show to its miniature recreation in the handheld games. Retrospectively this would prove to be the pinnacle of Sunday Sonans’ glory, for came the late 2006 Sunday soft reboot under Shokotan, Wobbuffet would make way for Director (部長) Lucario assisted by a smattering of mischievous Sableye for occasional comedic relief (see also the Goruchans article here). Officially. Replaced. But, no matter. We’ll continue to remember the Assistant Chief fondly on this site, and perhaps more importantly, he shall live on in the hearts of millions of staunch Sunday fans in Japan and, indeed, the world.
—
Special thanks to ICanSnake for his indispensable research and assistance.
Attached: Sonans Email
Attached #2: 50701 Sunday Wobbuffet [Ahiru] x6
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