Pokemon of the Week #5: Chatot

Pokemon of the Week: Chatot, the Music Note Pokemon

"FUCK YU" - Chatot

Shit, this week's roll is a bit of a tough one. Chatot hails from Generation IV, and honestly is a Pokemon that I almost forgot existed. Chatot is the true definition of a filler or gimmick Pokemon. I'm not of the opinion that every Pokemon must be viable competitively -- it's cool to have our Girafarigs, Farfetch'ds, Furfrous and Cryogonals. It's cool for Pokemon not to evolve sometimes. It's cool to just have more things to fill out the Pokedex. In fact, I honestly wished that the two newest generations had like a couple extra filler evolutionary lines just to fill out the Kalos and Alolan Pokedex.

But Chatot? Well, he's just... boring. He's a Normal/Flying type, which is the most common dual-typing ever due to the fact that every single Flying-type that isn't paired with another type has that exact typing. He's introduced in Diamond and Pearl, and only found in Route 222 (and either 241 or 213 depending on the version) as a relatively low encounter. He's also available naturally in XY's Route 12 and Azure Bay, as well as several locations in HeartGold/SoulSilver and Black 2/White 2 with their respective hidden Pokemon gimmicks. It's a very unexciting Pokemon, though.

Chatot is modeled after a parrot, or a parakeet, with a colourful body and a head styled after a musical note, with a metronome tail. He's a musical parrot. Cool, what's his ability? It's... basically exactly the same as an actual real-life parrot. Which is to mimic human speech. Okay? Meowth did it in the anime in 1996 and he didn't make it his entire gimmick, there's still the whole gold coin thing and Pay Day thing. And honestly, when your gimmick is basically identical to your real-life inspiration you're kind of boring, Chatot.

Chatot is the sole learner of the move Chatter, which uses the Nintendo DS's recorder to record an audio clip, and whether the move confuses the opponent depends on the particular audio clip recorded by Chatot. Except, y'know, you allow someone to record actual voice, and you're basically going to have Chatot repeat profanities in-game. It is kind of hilarious to have an actual Pokemon repeat your voice shouting "FUCK YOU SON OF A BITCH" in-game for like once or twice, before you realize that Chatter is kind of useless beyond that. And from Generation VI onwards the whole 'recording sound' is disabled, which renders Chatot even more pointless.

He's got a... semi-decent speed and special attack statline at barely above 90, and he does get access to decent Special Normal-type moves like Echoed Voice, Uproar and Hyper Voice (though he doesn't get any of the cool Flying-type moves) but honestly if you want someone to deal STAB Hyper Voice, don't get a parrot to do it, bring along an Exploud, who's an organic speaker with a mouth larger than your torso. As far as statlines go, Chatot is relatively low, especially if you count Pokemon that are fully evolved. He's not at the bottom ten, but out of the other Normal/Flying types Chatot only outclasses Farfetch'd, which isn't that big of an accomplishment since Farfetch'd is also kind of shit... except Farfetch'd learns a decent amount of good Flying-type moves that Chatot can't learn. So, yeah. Chatot literally gets outclassed by every single other Normal/Flying type out there, and honestly there's no real incentive to use Chatot. 

It's not even like Farfetch'd where at least there's some weird Japanese proverb that makes his design not as lazy as it initially seems. Chatot is just that -- a parrot, whose one sole gimmick was taken away from him by Nintendo. He's a decent little thing to capture, I guess, because he's the only parrot Pokemon, and I don't hate him, but he's just so outclassed by everything else and he's just so... boring that I forget about him.