Perhaps the biggest sociopathic-slasher move pulled off that actually saw humans killed in the Pokemon franchise.
Hello everyone! Today, there's another Pokémon candidate that we are going to discuss. Now, this proposal mainly came from a collab with a good friend of mine, specifically JakeflixHD with me doing a few parts on my own. However, he has graciously decided to allow me to propose him here. With that being said, I will post our EP at Tropers' Hub here since that's where it came from:
https://tropershub.forumotion.com/t48p180-cm-proposal-thread#5831
What’s the Work?[]
Pokémon: Secrets of the Jungle is the 2020 Japanese anime film and the twenty-third film of the Pokémon anime series, though technically being part of the I Choose You reboot continuity outside the mainstream films.
Focusing on the mythical Dark/Grass Pokémon, Zarude, also dubbed as “Dada”. The story tells the heartwarming journey of an adoptive found family between a Pokemon parent and its human child. Dada spent years raising an abandoned child wandering all alone in the jungle, but as the child grew - named “Koko” - started to slowly adapt to the civilization he was lost to when he met Ash Ketchum and his pal, Pikachu. As the truth of Koko’s past comes to light, there also comes the vicious aspect of real-life ethnic science corruption itself…
Who is Dr. Zed? What has he Done?[]
Dr. Zed is the leading scientist of the Biotope Company, originally led by the late Chrom and Phossa Molybdenum, and is ultimately revealed to be their murderer. Zed desires to seek out the mystical waters that carry a pitch of healing energy from the Forest of Okoya, home to the mythical Zarude tribe.
Originally working for the Molybdenum family, Zed used to be part of the Healing Spring Research Team, investigating the secrets of the river’s origins. Chrom and Phossa both managed to retrieve a sample that made a nigh-breakthrough, discovering the tree was the source - dubbed the “Heart Tree”, though Zed had other plans in mind. Wishing to get hold of the Heart Tree for its healing energy, the Molybdenums realized that there were no feasible options available that didn’t require destroying the tree at the cost of the Zarude. Chrom and Phossa seized all operations in a nick of time in favor of resorting to much more peaceful means with the Zarude.
Furious at the research wasted for the "worthless" Zarude, Zed hatched a deadly attempt to chase after the Molybdenums and their then-infant son, Al (before he was named “Koko”), for the data until he resorts to hit-and-run their vehicle when Chrom and Phossa said they deleted it, causing their jeep to explode. Before they succumbed to their wounds, Chrom and Phossa placed the latter’s necklace to Koko - withholding the real data - and drifted him into the river for his safety, dying as a result when the explosion increased while Koko is taken into the Forest of Okoya by a Zarude who he named “Dada”.
Zed meanwhile heartlessly discards their deaths and retrieves the container holding the healing energy’s water, determined to resume the investigating research in “his path”. Since then, Zed encouraged all staff and mech pilots to devastate parts of the jungle in search of the Heart Tree (while claiming that it is to find a healing spring to improve the balance between humanity and Pokémon), extracting water samples, and withering scores of plant-life. At the same time, Zed feigned and dismissed his murder of the Molybdenums to the research team as a mere “car accident”.
Zed in the present day, ten years later to be exact, is first seen admonishing a few newly hired scientists (actually Team Rocket aka Jessie, James, Meowth and Wobbuffet) while another scientist mentions that his room is off-limits and that he gets heavily angry with those who enter. Team Rocket decides to try snooping around his room anyways under suspicions that he is hiding a secret but they get into hijinks. Zed acts as a reasonable and friendly man all the while… up until Ash brought in Koko for answers regarding the latter’s parents. Shocked that his victims’ son survived all those years, Zed secretly implants a tracking badge on Koko to locate the Heart Tree when the latter refuses to say anything else.
Tracking Koko within the jungle, Zed has his research team’s giant mech bulldoze throughout the jungle, smashing trees down which endangered nearby Pokemon, while keeping Koko restrained. Ash, Pikachu, and Koko’s companion, Skwovet, would end up being webbed by the team’s Ariados to prevent further intervention, locking them up alongside Koko inside the truck with Zed instructing Team Rocket to watch over them.
| “ | Sharon: Doctor, aren’t we here for the spring? Keep this up, and those Pokémon- Zed: (casually laughs) Wrong again. My objective isn’t the spring. Healing power is nothing more than bits of energy carried by water rushing through the tree. My objective is the tree itself. Sharon: And to that end… Zed: Right, I couldn’t care less what is sacrificed. |
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| ~ Zed to Sharon about the Heart Tree and the Zarude. |
Getting into conflict with the Zarude tribe once Ash and Koko were freed, Zed goes into securing the location of the healing energy’s core inside the Heart Tree, prepping the piloted mech to aim fire at the anchor. Zed threatens the lives of the Zarude present with Sharon calling him out that doing so would have killed them. Zed? Nonchalantly makes it clear he doesn’t give two sh-ts what is “sacrificed”.
| “ | Zed: We will not be leaving. I will show you the true path! I’m afraid your parents made the wrong decision, Al! And they paid the ultimate price in the end. (...) In this moment, my long-held dream has come true! Ash: How could he do that? Unnamed scientist: It’s so cruel. Sharon: I never knew any of this. Zed: Al, you were a fortunate miscalculation on my part. But if you insist on intruding, I will show no mercy to you or the Zarude! |
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| ~ Zed telling Koko the truth about what happened to Chrom and Phossa. |
Deciding to take matters into his own hands, Zed shoves the pilot to the ground and operates the mech himself; beginning to fight Ash, Koko, and the Zarude tribe, but not before sadistically revealing that he’s the one behind the deaths of Koko’s parents gleefully. Going on a trigger-happy rampage against them, the conflict escalated when Dada brought reinforcements in the form of the local jungle Pokemon, with Zed being more than happy to attempt and set them ablaze with his mech.
Aiming to hit Koko out of spite when Dada heavily damages his mech, Dada nearly sacrifices his life saving his adopted son at the critical moment to the point that not even the spring could barely recover his earlier wounds. It took Koko’s willpower to achieve using the signature move of the Zarude, Jungle Healing, to heal him.
On the verge of destroying Ash and the Pokémon before him, Zed’s research crew pinpoints the mech’s weakness behind and it took the combined forces of Pikachu and Zarude to destroy the backspot and powering off the mech for good. Zed however is not in there when Ash and Pikachu look inside, with him fleeing to try and restart elsewhere. Later cowering and cornered by an animalistically-furious Koko chasing him down a river stream, Zed tries jumping off the cliff before Koko ties him up with a vine, leaving him hanging for the meantime while he screams Koko’s name, but to no avail.
Zed’s crimes would be exposed by a disgusted Team Rocket upon sneaking into his room and getting the data chip to his secret folders, thus leading to his well-deserved arrest by Officer Jenny.
Heinous Standards?[]
Along with I Choose You and the Power of Us, all three films are separate from the mainstream anime and its films, thus being a continuity of its own. Said continuity so far lacks any nasty contenders or genuine villains up to this point, with Cross, the infamous Damien expy, being the closest to near villain levels but is merely a standard social darwinist with Pokémon abandonment.
Zed meanwhile easily clears both heinousness and portrayal. The absolute worst in this continuity, especially since him running Chrom and Phossa off the road and causing their deaths, with the blunt intention on getting their baby son Al/Koko killed as well because of inane pettiness makes him the first and (so far) only human-on-human killer in the entire franchise, with him outright gloating to Koko once he discovers the truth (and separating him from human civilization for a decade) while lying to the research team that they crashed their car accidentally.
Not only that, but Zed also attempts to commit genocide on the Zarude simply to get his hands on the Heart Tree and it’s healing properties, with him destroying the trees, plants and vegetation around the area and later gleefully trying to burn them and the rest of the Jungle Pokémon alive once they rebel while knowing that they are sapient, brushing them off as sacrifices and ‘worthless’. Zed also personally tries to target Koko simply to break Dada’s spirit and in an extra cowardly move, he actually tries to kill himself when he’s confronted by Koko near the ending rather than accept punishment for his crimes. Easy pass.
Mitigating Factors?[]
| “ | Operations are suspended on the Healing Spring Project, though we could save countless people with the power of that spring. And all for some worthless Pokémon. (angrily breaks down) The decision is wrong, I tell you! If I were in charge, I could lead this research down the path to truth. My way is correct! If only I had the power, I could prove to everyone that my way is the right way. Yes. Yes, I can! If the Molybdenums weren’t around… | „ |
| ~ Dr. Zed in a video blog. |
Big nada. Zed’s anything but big-talk about how the healing energy will save countless lives, but at the same time he continuously rants on and on how his “path” is the correct way in order to prolong the operations rather than simply following the Molybdenums’ much pacifist and peaceful resolves, to the point where he rationalizes on killing them, despite respecting them as coworkers beforehand and seizing control of the team would be the best option. Not once did he feel any guilt or regret about it even ten years afterwards; even having such a zealous hatred for the Pokémon in particular that he is willing to destroy any in his path by any means necessary.
Zed does pretend to be nice to not only the current research team but Ash and Koko as well when he encounters them at first glance, only to have no problem with trying to imprison and later murder them both while also abandoning the research team to continue his plan himself, declaring that they are just like Chrom and Phossa. All in all, he solely has love for his megalomania at the expense of everyone and everything else.
Full summarization; Zed is NSWIE-personified and a vicious narcissist who believed only he and he alone could accomplish completing the research operations even through unethical and violent means, at the same time, completely callous to both human and Pokemon life without any consideration. At the end of the day, Zed cared more about feeding his stale ego than actually having well-meant intentions to save lives in his search for the Heart Tree. Dude even tried taking the coward’s way out by jumping off a river stream, all while pathetically begging for mercy like the biddy-eyed betch he is.
Final Verdict?[]
Easy yes. And R.I.P. to the great Billy Kametz, we’ll miss you.