Pokémon Legends: Z-A’s Lumiose City-centric story gestures at the darker sides of living in a metropolis, but it usually does so in an all-ages-appropriate way that might not register for the kids playing the RPG. The supposedly harmonious city’s urban redevelopment plan includes anti-homeless benches? If we’re supposed to be living alongside Pokémon in the Paris-inspired city, why do they live in walled-off Wild Zones? Yeah, they thankfully have free healthcare, but why is Nurse Joy having to take on two jobs as both healer and shopkeeper in this city? Those are questions that hang over a game that is very much trying to figure its world out, but one of the moments of clarity it does have captures how, in the Pokémon universe, cops would absolutely try to enlist these monsters in state-sanctioned violence. No moment captures that better than the “Investigating with Shuppet” quest.
Rancun, a Lumiose City cop, asks if you can bring him a Shuppet to help with his investigations. In his mind, the ghost-type Pokémon’s ability to sense negative emotions such as jealousy and vindictiveness is something that could help him identify criminals before they have a chance to commit a crime. If you’ve never encountered stories like the cyberpunk anime Psycho-Pass, there are entire subgenres of dystopian fiction about how police over-surveilling citizens based almost entirely on vibes can lead to an oppressive police state. And this officer is imagining a world in which he can co-opt an innocent Pokémon into his surveillance scheme and doesn’t see anything wrong with that. But the quest is in our log, so what happens when you bring a Shuppet to Rancun? The funniest outcome, actually.
After you catch a Shuppet and bring the living puppet to Rancun, he tells the ghost that the peace of the city “depends on” it, and asks it to home in on some of these negative emotions it can sense. Funnily enough, Shuppet doesn’t go looking for someone stealing food to help feed their family, but instead takes the cop right back to his own front door. His wife greets us there and asks her husband if he’s still working. When Rancun says that yes, he’s still on a case, she says, seeming slightly annoyed, “Well, I guess you’re still busy with work…Good luck with the investigation.” Before she can head back inside, Shuppet cries out at her, insisting it’s found some negative emotions here. That’s when the truth comes out: It turns out his wife has been feeling neglected by Rancun’s workaholic nature, and has grown resentful. The grudge had grown so strong, in fact, that Shuppet felt it across the city. Rancun decides he should probably devote more energy to his marriage, hopefully indicating that he’s no longer invested in trying to create a Pokémon-powered police state.
Pokémon has a surprising track record when it comes to cop commentary, including the time Detective Pikachu got arrested on false charges and did a jail break. It ruled.
