Pokemon of the Week #16: Pansear

#513: Pansear, the High Temp Pokemon

God damn it I guess it has to happen some day, huh?

I have to talk about this fucking thing.

I make no secret of my huge, huge loathing of the Elemental Monkeys. They rank #2 on my old Best & Worst of Generation V Pokemon list, and #3 on my Most Hated Pokemon list. I thought the Elemental Monkeys are absolutely fucking ugly, uncreative, adds nothing to the game, and are generally horrid things. 

Like, shit, I'm not alone, because out of all 720 Pokemon from Generations I to VI, Nintendo did a huge poll in Japan and Simisear ended dead last, making Simisear the absolutely and unambiguously most shit Pokemon ever. But honestly, the other Elemental Monkeys don't fall behind that much, because they're all equally shit.

Like, I personally have a couple more others I hate more than them, but that's the difference between disliking a punch to the face and a punch to the balls -- you don't want either of them. 

What makes the monkeys so obnoxious is how prevalent they were in the early parts of Generation V, a generation that's reviled, unfairly so, for weak designs. But when you have the Elemental Monkeys literally forced upon you, and the first gym leaders use the monkeys in the most hideously hand-holdy 'hey, this is how elemental resistances work!' tutorial ever, and it's just so silly.

And it's a stupid fire monkey too. Last week we talked about Torkoal and Turtonator, and how they're both two fire turtles but have different gimmicks and executions, making it justifiable for them to exist at the same time. How does Pansear end up changing the formula to the well-designed Chimchar, Monferno and Infernape from Generation IV, other than looking like a shittier version of them? Like, Pansear's whole gimmick is that he exists in a set of three sub-par losers to teach people about elemental typing. Because the whole existence of the starter trio wasn't enough.

It's just your generic fire type with balanced stats, which means it's even horrible in competitive even when pit against Pokemon with equal stat totals.

Like, I'm sorry, I legitimately cannot find anything appealing about all six Elemental monkeys, other than maybe like a couple of decent scenes for Pansage in the anime. But Pansear? No thanks. I'm looking at his bulbapedia article to find anything redeeming. Anything at all. Shiny sprite? Ugh, makes his Chimchar copy-cat-ness even worse. An attempt at using the see no evil hear no evil speak no evil motif? Not even executed well at all. Pokedex entries? Generic bullshit that insists that this thing is intelligent, but look at Pansear! Look at it! It's dumb.

Like, I'm sorry if you're a fan of the Elemental Monkeys, but I really got to question your taste in Pokemon if you do. Like, literally any other Fire-type, or any other monkey-based Pokemon are better than these uncreative set of morons.

Fuck off, Pansear.