Note that Pokemon is interesting in that they really like to add pre-evolutions and evolutions and mega-evolutions and alternate forms for existing creatures in subsequent installments... but I'll be following the 'national dex' numbering and I will review when we get there. For alternate forms that debuted in a different 'generation', I will be reviewing them alongside the rest of the generation it debuts in.
At the end of each generation I'll probably talk about the general feel and design philosophies of the generation as a whole. Also to note that... I'm not a very competitive player. It's extremely cool for all of the people who devote so much time to be competitive in Pokemon, and I respect all your dedication to breeding the perfect fighting monsters with perfect IV's and abilities and natures, but that's just not my thing. I dabbled in it when generation six made it very easy to EV-train Pokemon, but other than that my views on Pokemon is going to be almost entirely revolve around its visual and thematic design, its role as a creature in this fictional world, and how well it represents something from our real world.
I'm also someone who's been around since the early days of the Pokemania, so I do have an inordinate amount of love for the original 151... although I have a lot of favourites from the latter generations as well. A good chunk of my introduction to Pokemon stemmed not only from the games and the anime (of which I only watch regularly up until the first half of Johto, as well as the first season of Hoenn) but also from the Pokemon Adventures (or Pokemon Special, for Japanese-speakers) manga which I had a good chunk of copies of and read the fuck out of, which, of course, will influence how I view some species quite a bit.
My personal tastes will probably influence just how much I talk about a certain species. For one, I've always been in love with the strange, obscure and quirky bits of nature that Pokemon seem to really love adapting into creatures. I am a huge, huge fan of strange biological creatures like prehistoric creatures, the great world of arthropods and the denizens of the sea, so forgive me if I get a little bit... biological in some of my talks for these creatures. I also have the mentality of a five-year old, so my tastes go towards huge awesome dragons, giant sea serpents, cool wolves and quirky bug monsters more than I do... well, humanoid creatures, but that's the beauty of Pokemon. It's so varied that you have very differing characters from giant dragons to psychic knights to sludge monsters to little balloons with eyeballs to giant magnet UFOs, that somewhere, someone really love these guys. For every person that thinks Muk is a waste of space, there's a person who unironically likes them. (Me, that person is me.)
I will give rankings out of Pokeballs with a maximum of six (previously, between 2018 and 2022, the balls were out of five). Rankings will generally be given in regards to memorability, design concept, design execution, usage in the games, and... well, it's a subjective ranking but it's a ranking regardless. Here's a basic interpretation of my ratings:
: 6/6. One of my personal favourites, my babies, likely to have personal significance and most likely a party member at some point. Otherwise, it's generally just way too well-executed for me to say otherwise. 
: 5/6. I really like this thing. I really, really do find it aesthetically or thematically pleasing, just not as much as the 6/6 one. Perfectly awesome.- : 4/6. I like it, and it's usually a respectable attempt at a concept that perhaps just doesn't 'wow' me enough, but is still a very valid and neat looking creature.
- : 3/6. Your average joe Pokemon. Mind that 3 is still above-average. Usually competent designs fall into this category. I still like this thing on paper, it's important for game variety, but catch me on a bad day and it might drop points.
- : 2/6. I am not fond of this thing, but its existence does not bother me. The important, all-encompassing bridge between 'indifference' and 'hate' is wide.
- : 1/6. Me no like. The 'ugh' rating that makes me roll my eyes whenever I see one.
- : 0/6. The zero rating is very, very special and are reserved for certain creatures that I absolutely loathe and wouldn't be sad at all if they are removed from the franchise. We'll burn the bridge when we get there.
So... enough introduction, and let us begin with #001!
#001-003: Bulbasaur, Ivysaur & Venusaur
- Types: Grass/Poison [all three]
- Japanese names: Fushigidane, Fushigiso, Fushigibana
- Category: Seed Pokemon
Anyway, the very first evolutionary line is the Pokemon that, coincidentally, is the most near and dear to my heart -- Bulbasaur, Ivysaur and Venusaur. Alongside Charmander and Squirtle, Bulbasaur will form the original difficult choice for all trainers back in 1997. Which of these three will be your companion? It's an awesome bit that makes the journey personal for you. All three starters are more or less equal in strength, they just represent different 'elements', the three archetypal rock-paper-scissors of grass, fire and water. Because I was a dumb little kid, I wasn't really aware how to work with save files and played through the game multiple times with all three starters, but once I got the hang of it, Bulbasaur was my boy to go.
I'm not sure why I eventually decided on Bulbasaur. Maybe it's the one that Red has in Pokemon Adventures. Maybe it's that awesome episode in the cartoon with Bulbasaur and Solarbeam. Maybe young-me had a slight form of OCD and didn't want #001 in the Pokedex to be blank. Maybe because in Pokemon Blue, Bulbasaur is the only one whose sprite actually looks like the cartoon, with Charmander and Squirtle looking weirdly super-deformed. Maybe it's the simple naming suffix of -saur and before Pokemon, dinosaurs were the big thing in my childhood. Although note that none of the Bulbasaur family are named after dinosaurs in the original Japanese translations, and as we'll see later on, the first generation weren't particularly that keen on reflecting a lot of the original Japanese spirit.
Most of all, though, I've always thought that the evolutionary progression from Bulbasaur to Ivysaur to Venusaur felt the most organic and gradual. I'll talk about Charmander and Squirtle in their own sections, but the Bulbasaur line really made each form distinct while still making the change really feel gradual. You can easily tell that Bulbasaur, Ivysaur and Venusaur are all related to each other, but they are very different -- even if the flower is the thing that is the most attention grabbing, the main frog body is drawn differently too once you pay a bit more attention, which is very cool.
But Bulbasaur goes from the cutest cartoon toad with a little onion-like bulb on its head. He's a baby frog with big, cute eyes! And weird horn-ears! How can you not love him? And then he turns to Ivysaur, and he grows a pair of fangs. His eyes get a little meaner, his ears get a little more pronounced (which is completely against proper frog or dinosaurian anatomy, but hey), his legs look a little longer, but most starkingly, his bulb has opened to form four leaves and a flower bud sitting within. And then, he becomes the mighty Venusaur, and the flower blooms into this huge chunky tree-plant with a vague Rafflesia-esque look (we'll talk about the Rafflesia more when we reach Gloom and Vileplume) but I've always loved how Venusaur's body shape changed so much to look more toadlike, more... dinosaurian, so to speak. His face is a lot wider, and he certainly looks far more like a strange hybrid combination of a big fat warty toad, a dinosaur and some sources state that maybe Venusaur is based on the pre-dinosaurian creature the Dicynodont, but I personally don't see it. He's still pretty cool regardless, though, and the design just really screams that it's a true behemoth of the jungle, a slow-moving creature that knows that it is unchallenged in its territory.
As a couple of side-notes, Bulbasaur is the only dual-typed starter Pokemon for like two decades until Rowlet showed up in 2016. I'm not quite sure just why Bulbasaur was given Poison-type, because if I take away my 20-year ingrained knowledge that the Bulbasaur line is Grass/Poison and be completely honest... none of the Bulbasaur family look particularly poisonous. The first generation have some rather suspect typing among them, though, and among them Poison is one of the most common type to be handed around. I suspect Venusaur being part-Poison is why I really loved this underdog of types, though. Another side-note is that in the very first Pokemon game I played, Pokemon Blue, Ivysaur had its sprite standing on two legs... despite the Pokedex entry in the very same game going, and I quote, 'when the bulb on its back grows large, it appears to lose the ability to stand on its hind legs'. It's one of those oddities from the early Generation I games that was thankfully smoothed out and hidden under the rug with subsequent generations, because it'd ruin the whole 'seamless progression' thing that I tout out so much for Bulbasaur. Oh, and Venusaur, alongside his other Kanto-starter brethren, will get mega evolutions in the sixth generation, but we'll cover that... eventually.
So, for our first ranking: And, well, is it a surprise? A bit of a spoiler for the next two entries is that, well, unlike most people who vehemently treat their beloved starter like it's some sort of sports team competition, I've spent so much time with the Kanto starters, have played through so many games with all of them, that all three Kanto starters can't help but get very high ranks out out of me. I'm sorry. This is my personal review, and this is how I personally feel about them.
5/5.#004-006: Charmander, Charmeleon & Charizard
- Types: Fire [Charmander & Charmeleon], Fire/Flying [Charizard]
- Japanese names: Hitokage, Lizardo, Lizardon
- Category: Lizard [Charmander], Flame [Charmeleon/Charizard]
Hoo boy, Charizard. Charmander was the one that all the cool kids picked. I mean, how can they not? A flower-dinosaur and a tank-tortoise were cool, sure, but what is this? A fire-breathing dragon? Holy shit! How can you just not love Charizard? Particularly because he's the only Kanto starter that Ash Ketchum evolves to fullness in the anime, and, well, Charizard in the anime was a gigantic dick, but he was a huge, fire-breathing dragon dick, which made him awesome.
And I'm not the sort of guy who feels some sort of moral superiority by being hipster and hating what everyone loves. And yeah, Charizard's became a mascot for Pokemon as much as Pikachu does, but that doesn't really mean it's a shitty design. No, Charizard is awesome too! I may prefer Venusaur because, y'know, personal starter love, but it's really hard not to love Charizard either. And while Bulbasaur may be the one named after dinosaurs in English, it's really the Charmander line that look more like cartoony theropods. You start off as Charmander, an orange little cartoon dinosaur with the most happy look on its face, and a tail on fire. Like Bulbasaur, both the colour scheme and a very visually attention-grabbing anatomy really communicates that Charmander is a fire-type without being insanely cluttered like some of the later-generation Pokemon will be. And, um... as established by the anime, if a Charmander's tail-fire is put out, it dies. No!! The precious! While the original Generation I Pokedex entry does not feature this at all, subsequent generations would canonize this anime-originated interpretation. I mean, I can't fault them -- the image of a Charmander waiting faithfully while literally dying as a rainstorm pours around him, faithfully waiting for his trainer, is one of the most powerful images in the first season of the Pokemon anime.
And then it turns into Charmeleon, which has nothing to do with chameleons at all (I think I spelled chameleon-the-real-animal as 'charmeleon' for way longer than I should) and hoo boy, just like Ivysaur, Charmeleon really looks cool. It's just a sleek design, with sharp eyes, a horn on its head, a less-cartoony theropodal head, and its arms have grown, prominently on its lower arms which look like they can really deliver a mean slash. The Pokedex entries highlight that it's a hot-headed, near-merciless fighter that goes around beating up everyone in front of it. And just look at its design! It's a smug, smarmy bastard. You can totally believe that Charmeleon would do just that.
Ultimately Charmeleon turns into everybody's favourite pot-bellied flying dinosaur, Charizard! And dang, Charizard just looks cool. I mean, he's a flying dinosaur that looks like a dragon, his head-spikes have increased, his mouth looks less beaky and more reptilian, he's got cool bat-wings and he still has that flaming tail, and he breathes fire! What's not to like about him? I mean, yeah, his proportions are a bit odd, with his sleek, dinosaurian/draconian neck and tail being offset by his pot-belly, but I've never been bothered by that.
What I am slightly bothered about is that... Charizard looks very much like a final evolution of Charmander. Charizard also looks very much as a grown-up Charmeleon. What I don't quite get is the progression from Charmander to Charmeleon to Charizard. So the first and final stages are orange, but the middle one is red for some reason? And Charmeleon's chunky lower arms just... shrink into the spindly fingered hands that Charizard has? Ultimately, though, these are asinine nitpicks and just things that I tell myself that it doesn't matter. Enjoy your fire-breathing dragon.
And, well, Charizard is just pretty fucking boss. Except, to the disappointment and shock of many, Charizard... isn't actually a Dragon-type. He's a pure Fire/Flying, with the exclusive wielder of the Dragon-type in the original 151 being the Dratini line. Still, I can respect Gamefreak's dedication to never retconning this, because, well, Charizard as this flying fire dinosaur has always been so classic and iconic (and just what defines a dragon type, anyway? Maybe I'll do an article about all the types in the future) that I don't care. Besides.... Charizard gets to be a dragon eventually. It just takes him around 20 years. Still, it's really difficult not to love Charizard, and really the only reason to maybe dislike him is the insanely rabid fanbase around him. But I've always found that ignoring rabid fanboys makes me happier to enjoy what I enjoy.
To add to Charizard's already awesome reputation, Shiny Charizard (for those uninitiated, 'shiny' is like albino, super-uber-rare versions of Pokemon that have like one in a couple million chances to appear, with the only real difference being the colour palette) is jet-black with blood-red wings. How metal is that?
So yeah. Charmander's really cute, Charmeleon's really cool, and Charizard is really boss. They're overrated, but their popularity isn't undeserved.
5/6.#007-009: Squirtle, Wartortle & Blastoise
- Types: Water [all three]
- Japanese names: Zenigame, Kameru, Kamekkusu
- Category: Tiny Turtle [Squirtle], Turtle [Wartortle], Shellfish [Blastoise]
So of course the anime characterizes the most prominent Squirtles as a motorbike gang with sunglasses. The anime takes a lot of liberties at times while still keeping these Pokemon true to their original concept, but dang if it didn't make Squirtle memorable.
And then Squirtle evolves into Wartortle, where it gains a fluffy pair of bunny ears, wicked-looking fangs, and a huge, huge bushy tail. Its skin gains a more purple tint, and it looks just ready to go to war. Which is probably why he's called Wartortle in English. It just has this neat balance of grace and power, and while a furry turtle is a bit of a 'wait, what?' moment for me as a kid, Wartortle is actually based on a mythological Japanese turtle called the minogame, an ancient, long-living turtle that is so old that it has a hairy tail of seaweed growing out of its back. A minogame is famously featured in the Japanese folk tale Urashima Taro, which, for length's sake, I won't be getting into, but if you've watched a fair bit of anime you know that story. So yeah, there's a reason that nine out of ten of Wartortle's pokedex entries all talk about how this dude's a symbol of longevity, while also trying to justify his long bushy tail biologically by noting that they help Wartortle balance in water, or to collect air bubbles before diving.
And then Wartortle evolves into Blastoise, and loses not only all its distinctive fur, but also his fangs. Blastoise is also a completely different, more navy shade of blue, and while still obvious as the big daddy of Squirtles and Wartortles, I've always thought that the evolution from Squirtle to Wartortle to Blastoise as the least thematically fitting. Bulbasaur's line grows from a small frog with a small plant to a huge toad monster with a huge plant. Charmander grows from a tiny fire lizard baby into a big fire winged lizard-dragon, and there is a progression between the three stages of the Bulbasaur and Charmander line. Wartortle's cool, and Blastoise's really cool for the simple reason that he has motherfucking TANK CANNONS WHAT THE HELL... but I really wished that they had either dropped the bushiness from Wartortle entirely (which would have the unfortunate effect of turning Wartortle super-plain) or incorporate some aspects of either the tank cannons in Wartortle, or the furry stuff in Blastoise. Like, the only reason I'm not any more prissy about this is simply because, y'know, my slight unabashed Kanto bias. Because, well, Blastoise is still awesome and I just don't have the heart to complain that much.
Blastoise being a turtle equipped with cannons that shoot pressurized water on his back is cool enough, but both anime and manga have depicted Blastoise as still being able to retract into his shell, but this time the cannons are used as mid-air rocket-blaster things to launch Blastoise's really hard turtle shell to whack fools in the face. Which is pretty cool and something that more modern depictions of Blastoise never show. Blastoise is also the very first outlet to a young me that shows just how powerful water, when shot out with enough force, can be. Also, apparently Blatoise's cannons are based on the siphons of shellfishes, which is why Wartortle is known as the 'turtle Pokemon' and Blastoise the 'shellfish Pokemon'? Okay, then.
Out of the original three starters, Blastoise is the only one that remains a pure Water-type throughout its entire evolutionary line. I've always thought that Blastoise an ideal recipient to get the Steel-type because it has steel cannons, but that never happened. So... eh. Blastoise's awesome. I've always had special love for his insanely awkward Red/Blue sprite that had him look wackily obese and had such a bad, cluttered silhouette that you don't know he has shell-cannons unless you're looking for them.
So yeah, overall... I still really like the entire Blastoise line. I kinda think that I like it slightly less than Charizard, who I like slightly less than Venusaur, but that's like rating three different types of ice cream you really like, because eventually, all three are still pretty cool and iconic. The original post of this article had Squirtle as 5/5... but after deliberating about it, I think I don't like him as much as the other two Kanto starters. That's not to say I don't like Squirtle at all, because I still do! But when you rate these things, some are definitely going to end up being ranked less than others.
5/6.#010-012: Caterpie, Metapod & Butterfree
- Types: Bug [Caterpie/Metapod], Bug/Flying [Butterfree]
- Japanese names: Kyatapi, Toranseru, Batafuri
- Category: Worm [Caterpie], Cocoon [Metapod], Butterfly [Butterfree]
But you know what? I've always loved Butterfree. Partly it's because of the anime, where Caterpie's evolution into Metapod and later Butterfree was among the very first episodes aired in the anime, but simply partly because I just want to be defiant of all the kids back in the playground who tell me that only the Pokemon with huge stats near the end of the Pokedex matter, and you're an idiot for liking and keeping the early bug beyond the first gym.
Well, screw that, because I like Butterfree, and I'm going to keep using Butterfree. I've brought Butterfrees to defeat the Elite Four and Champion multiple times in different Kanto and Johto games. And yes, it's never going to be the best Pokemon competitively, but I really end up liking Butterfree a lot through my playthroughs in the games. While there's an undeniably awesome feeling of having powerhouses like Garchomps and Hydreigons tear through enemies, there's also an equally satisfying feeling when it's a little bug that you trained to such a degree that they can fight on relatively equal footing.
Let's talk about design, shall we? Caterpie, Metapod and Butterfree are meant to be a simple version of evolution that mimics the real-life metamorphosis of butterflies, and design-wise they don't deviate too much from their inspirations. Caterpie is, well, a generic-looking caterpillar that is cute enough to not be gross, with huge bug eyes that still remain cute. Instead of mandibles he's got this huge tofu-like thing, and he's got a cute red horn that releases a stink if disturbed. The thing that really makes me amazed at Caterpie is that he's nearly unchanged from his real-life counterpart, the larval stage of the Papilio xuthus, the Asian swallowtail butterfly. I'm not going to put pictures of all real-life inspirations in the future and will more likely just link to pictures of them, but just look at it! Sure, Caterpie takes the fake eye-spot mimicry on the swallowtail caterpillar and turns them into real eyes, but the replication of the real-life caterpillar's osmeterium, the fork-like organ that unleashes a stink and is thought to make the caterpillar mimic the forked tongue of a snake, is very cool.
Caterpie then evolves at a low level into a Metapod, who's, well, essentially a pupa with eyes. And shape-wise, it's really easy to tell that Metapod is still based on the Papilio xuthus' pupal stage, just with a simpler colour scheme and googly eyes stapled on. Metapod is our first 'pupal' Pokemon and certainly won't be the last. There's a very cool gimmick to Metapod (and Kakuna) that they can't actually attack and can only harden, being a truly helpless creature in the wild. This, of course, led to the infamous Harden-vs-Harden Metapod battle in the anime, which is remembered for something naughtier. In practice, Metapods in the game can have moves carry over from Caterpie, but wild Metapods do have no other moves other than Harden. It's a neat showcase of the real-life pupal stage that still looks pretty decent.
Of course, Metapod quickly cracks open and unveils its final form, Butterfree, which, if you're paying attention, is also obviously based upon the adult stage of the Asian swallowtail butterfly, although Butterfree is a lot more stylized and can really pass off as any sort of butterfly. Bulbapedia identifies the Aporia crataegi, the black-veined white butterfly, as being Butterfree's inspiration due to its wing markings, but it's honestly a crap-shoot.
Instead of six jointed legs and a coiled proboscis (the latter will be featured in future butterfly Pokemon Beautifly), Butterfree instead has a mouth with fangs, two tiny claw-like arms and two huge clown feet. It's a pretty cute cartoon butterfly, though, with huge pretty-yet-simple wings, while retaining a very inhuman compound eyes that highlight that even though it's a cute creature, it's still a bug. Butterfree is also very noted in Pokedex entries and anime/manga adaptations for being able to unleash toxic dust into the air by flapping its wings, which... isn't a thing that actual butterflies can do, but Butterfree kind of sets a precedent that all future butterfly and moth Pokemon will be able to do so... which is fair, I guess, since they need to do something to fight in deathmatches, and butterflies and moths aren't creatures with a lot of combative abilities in real life. Presumably Butterfree's ability to unleash Sleep Powder, Poison Powder and Stun Spore is based on the real-life dust-like scales that butterflies and moths sometimes leave behind? The whole lepidoptera order that butterflies and moths belong to do literally mean 'scale wings'.
It's very simple, don't get me wrong, but I've always thought that Butterfree's simplicity adds to its appeal as the first introduction a player gets to the Bug type. Butterfree also gains the Flying type upon evolving, making Butterfree our first introduction to the very, very common Bug/Flying type. Back in the first generation, Poison was billed as the 'evil' type of sorts, and Team Rocket uses a lot of Poison types, and Butterfree's counterpart Beedrill gets slapped with the Bug/Poison type because it's more antagonistic-looking, I guess? It's a bit weird, since both Butterfree and Beedrill (and Venomoth, too) gains wings and are able to fly, but only Butterfree gets the Flying type. I'm a huge fan of Butterfree, and a huge fan of the 'metamorphosing bug' concept as a staple in this franchise.
6/6. Very subjective, probably should've been 5, but I like Butterfree a lot.#013-015: Weedle, Kakuna & Beedrill
- Types: Bug/Poison [all three]
- Japanese names: Bidoru, Kokun, Supia
- Category: Hairy Bug [Weedle], Cocoon [Kakuna], Poison Bee [Beedrill]
Also, throughout its entire evolutionary line, Weedle stays Bug/Poison. Well, okay then? I really kinda wished that Beedrill gained the flying type as it's one of the few creatures with wings and are often shown almost exclusively flying but never gains the flying type. It's kinda odd, really.
And then Weedle evolves into Kakuna, which is a cool-looking stylized version of a bee's pupal stage. It's also given a pair of meaner-looking eyes that simply adds character, communicating that Kakuna isn't quite as nice as Metapod is. And Pokedex entries emphasize that Kakuna can, in desperation, stick out its poison stinger when threatened. It's a bit of a hold-over from Kakuna's original sprites and concept artwork that show that Kakuna actually has arms folded to form the markings that resemble a business tie on Kakuna's form. It's since been abandoned and never really mentioned again, and Kakuna's more modern dex entries emphasize its whole motionless-pupa thing. Still, regardless on whether it has spike-arms or not, Kakuna still looks pretty damn cool, looking just so unnaturally alien yet organic at the same time in a way that only insects and bugs can manage to do. The fact that real-life bee pupas actually do resemble Kakuna only makes me appreciate his weirdness so much, and makes Kakuna leagues cooler than Metapod.
Kakuna evolves into Beedrill, who is single-handedly (single-stingerly?) responsible for my melissophobia. That's fear of bees, wasps and hornets, folks! It's not enough that Beedrill is a one-meter-sized bee that travel in swarms, it also has a bee stinger on the tip of its abdomen, and its two arms end in gigantic lance-drill things. Oh, and as evidenced by its still Bug/Poison typing, all three spikes are likely to inject some sort of debilitating poison into you.
Beedrill's design actually borrows a lot more from meaner-looking bugs of the Hymenopteran order like wasps and hornets, and those are the ones that are liable to aggressively sting you anyway (bees only sting when they're threatened, and avoid stinging whenever possible because worker bees die if they sting a human since the stinger gets hooked into our flesh and will rip out its organs when it detaches). The early seasons of the anime really has a kick out of using swarms of Beedrill as a running gag, unleashing them among both our cast and Team Rocket whenever we need some slapstick comedy. And Beedrill's design is just so awesome! Four-legs-instead-of-six nitpicking aside, Beedrill just takes what is so iconic about bees, hornets and wasps (especially in Japanese culture, where the massively aggressive Japanese giant hornet, a likely basis for Beedrill's behaviour, resides) and exaggerates it in Beedrill by giving it extra stingers. And boy, those drill-like arms really give Beedrill an air of menace, while its design still communicates that it's a hornet monster pretty clearly.
If Beedrill's arms don't actually look like drills, it's because they're not meant to be drills. Beedrill's Japanese name is actually "Supia", the Japanese pronunciation of the English word spear. So yeah, there's your useless Pokemon trivia for the day. Beedrill's a very cool design, and all his dex entries very much emphasizes on its aggression, its territorial menace, its speed and its ability to jab enemies with poisonous stingers. All of which are very much true to anyone living in areas where aggressive hornets live, too. So yeah -- I like Beedrill a fair ton. I realize that it's partly because of my own love and fascination for insects, which in turn was built by Pokemon itself. So yeah.
5/6.#016-018: Pidgey, Pidgeotto & Pidgeot
- Types: Normal/Flying [all three]
- Japanese names: Poppo, Pijon, Pijotto
- Category: Tiny Bird [Pidgey], Bird [Pidgeotto/Pidgeot]
Mind you, despite their names, none of the Pidgey lines are based on pigeons -- that honour would go to Pidove, released in Generation IV. Pidgey always feels more like a sparrow to me, especially due to its role as a bit of an ever-present bird, while Pidgeotto and Pidgeot might be somewhat more based upon ospreys, due to the black band around their eyes... but it's honestly reaching.
Anyway, Pidgey is a fat little brown bird with a scrappy quantity to it. It's got the black mask-like band around its eyes that Pidgeotto and Pidgeot will share, but there's really not much to talk about Pidgey. And Pidgey really just fills the niche of a mundane animal early on in your adventure, just a bird Pokemon, and it's... okay? I've never been that impressed with Pidgey even back when I was a kid, but it was a neat little creature before we go to the more exotic realms of Kanto with gigantic rock snakes and lightning magnet monsters. The entire Pidgey line also serves as our first Normal/Flying Pokemon. Flying is a rather odd type, in that it's one of the most common types out there, but it never stands alone with all (but one) Pokemon with the Flying type having it paired with others. And since the Pidgey line is just normal birds, they're normal-types that fly.
Anyway, nothing much to really talk about Pidgey. It's well-known with the ability to create Gusts and Whirlwinds thanks to its Pokedex description, but that doesn't really made it super-special since all other bird Pokemon are able to do it too. It evolves into Pidgeotto, who gets slightly more interesting with a less-ugly paint scheme, by which he has an interesting set of red-and-yellow tails and a short red plume on its head. Pidgeotto was pretty cool in the anime, I suppose, but he's also the most criminally underused of the Pokemon on Ash's party.
The final form of this line (at least for now) is Pidgeot, which switches Pidgeotto's things around. Instead of having a majestic multi-coloured tail and a shorter red head-hair, Pidgeot moves the multi-colour to a long, sweeping hair and the tail apparently... degenerates into just a short bunch of red, neatly-filed feathers? Yeah, it's weird. I've always liked Pidgeot, but never really loved it. Birds simply never caught my interest in the way that bugs or marine creatures do, I suppose, but even then I've always thought Pidgeotto and Pidgeot felt boring. And I suppose that was the whole point of them, but they've always felt rather lacking even as generic birds, especially for the fact that Pidgeotto and Pidgeot really looked way too similar. My opinion on them have gone from 'but Pidgeot's cool!' to slightly more neutral as we get more and more variants on the 'three-stage-bird-evolution' that manage to do cooler things than them. I like them for what they are, and they're a classic staple, but I've never fallen in love with the line as many people did.
3/6.#019-020: Rattata & Raticate
- Types: Normal [both]
- Japanese names: Koratta, Ratta
- Category: Mouse [both; Rat before Generation III]
Then Rattata evolves into Raticate, which is this appropriately hideous fluffball that stands on its hind-legs, have a pair of pronounced teeth on both the upper and lower halves of its jaw, has a far scragglier fur and whiskers and just looks so much meaner. More modern 3D models don't quite do it as much justice as the more rabid sprites that the original games gave him. Raticate also has the distinctive worm-like tail that real-life rats have. I've never liked rats in real life, but Raticate truly embodies a big angry rat monster, and in that aspect the designers certainly did their job well. Raticate is also apparently based partly on the coypu, a large amphibious rat with webbed hind feet (prominently noted in the Pokedex entries despite none of Raticate's artwork featuring any webbed feet).
During the first generation, Raticate and Rattata are the only Pokemon that have two exclusive moves in Super Fang and Hyper Fang. Which is really cool. They are apparently called "Fang of Hatred" and "Certain-Death Fang" in Japanese which is insanely cool-sounding, and matches all the fantastical descriptions of just how much Raticate can fuck things up with its powerful fangs. Raticate is also a Pokemon that can learn an insanely large amount of moves -- Thunderbolt! Shadow Ball! Flamethrower! Ice Beam! Bubblebeam! -- which isn't something I expected from a big fat brown rat, and that simple fact made me really like Raticate more than I probably should. Also the fact that Raticate's entire name is a pun off 'eradicate', which just makes him sound so much more threatening. (In contrast, Raticate's original Japanese name is... Rat).
Rattata and Raticate aren't anything particularly special, since they're just, y'know, rats. Like all those giant rats you kill in the beginning of your D&D campaign. They portray the 'swarming vermin' quality of rats pretty well, and have a lot of personality in their artwork and dex entries as being mean dudes. They fill a niche in the Pokedex by being nowhere as notable as most of the other Pokemon, and that's an important thing they do for Pokemon that, I feel, keeps each region with a unique feel. If every single new Pokemon in the region was a three-stage dragon or dinosaur evolutionary line with no rats or squirrels to compare to, the Garchomps, Tyranitars and Mewtwos of the world have nothing to be compared to. Rattata and Raticate aren't the best looking rats. They're extremely necessary to set the bar of what a more 'mundane' Pokemon looks like, and I've known the rats for so long, but I don't really like them all that much personally. Sorry, Raticate.
3/6.#021-022: Spearow & Fearow
- Types: Normal/Flying
- Japanese names: Onisuzume, Onidoriru
- Category: Tiny Bird [Spearow], Beak [Fearow]
Spearow is also a bit more territorial and meaner, and several dex entries and the Adventures manga originally associate Spearow with Mirror Move. They are perhaps most iconically known as the huge swarm of angry, pissed-off birds that try to murder Ash and Pikachu in the first episode of the anime. Spearow in the games tend to be a bit rarer than Pidgey, although it evolves into Fearow slightly earlier. It's cool, a neat way to show the diversity in the Pokemon ecology that the two newer generations never quite manage to do with their more limited pools of Pokemon.
Spearow evolves into Fearow, which is totally not a sparrow, but resembles some kind of hybrid between a long-necked, long-beaked stork, but evolved to behave and hunt like a big bird of prey... but a lot of the earlier Pokemon are just amalgamations of a certain type of animal, and you'll be hard-pressed to really find any kind of bird that resembles Fearow (Bulbapedia lists like 7 different birds as 'possible inspirations', but I looked them all up and none really look like a direct inspiration). I've always really appreciated Fearow for simply how mean it looked. It has angry eyes, a huge mean drill, and a raggedy feel to its fathers and its angled neck that communicates its ferocity well. It doesn't really have much else to it beyond being that, but I've always thought that Fearow had more personality than Pidgeot. Fearow's name is even cooler, especially in Japanese -- Onidrill.
Like Butterfree and Beedrill, Pidgeot and Fearow are like counterparts, with one looking more heroic and the other looking more... scrappy and mean if not outright villainous. Still, despite its personality there's really only so much going on with Fearow and even its Pokedex entries only really talk about it being a badass bird and nothing much beyond that. Again, like Pidgeot, there's nothing completely wrong about Fearow, but there's not that much to like either after you get past the whole 'mean bird' deal. For what it's worth, I think I do like it better than Pidgeot.
4/6.#023-024: Ekans & Arbok
- Types: Poison [both]
- Japanese names: Abo, Abokku
- Category: Snake [Ekans], Cobra [Arbok]
And then Ekans evolves into Arbok (I'm mildly surprised that the 'Arbok-is-Cobra-backwards' actually originates from his Japanese name), based on one of the most iconic snakes, the King Cobra. I've talked about Arbok in more detail in a past article. And I've always liked Arbok a lot! Part of it is because he's a big mean snake, and snakes are cool -- although I'm kind of sad that Arbok doesn't keep Ekans' slit-like snake eyes -- and part of it is because, well, Arbok is one of the most prominent faces in the original anime for quite some time. It's just so expressive in the anime with its loud cries of CHAAAAAH-BAHK and looks pretty cool. Arbok also has a lot of great scenes in the Yellow arc of Pokemon Adventures, where Koga's Arbok and Agatha's Arbok are shown to have insane powers depending on the facial markings on their stomach. And while the Generation II and III games do feature differing hood patterns in their sprites, everything after that drops it and reverts Arbok back to his original Gen-I pattern. Which is a huge, huge shame in my book considering how much later-generation Pokemon really like their cosmetic form differences. We have Spindas and Vivillons and Sawsbucks who have multiple cosmetic form differences. Why not give Arbok, who has had multiple Pokedex entries reference their different-in-different-regions pattern, have different patterns as well?
Ekans and Arbok are pretty cool Pokemon that I've grown to like a lot over the years. Partially because of the anime, but partially because snakes are just kinda cooler than rats and birds.
4/6.#025-026: Pikachu & Raichu
- Types: Electric [both]
- Japanese names: Pikachu, Raichu
- Category: Mouse [both]
Oh boy, here we go with mascot boy Pikachu. I'm not going to be a hipster and go 'duhhh Pikachu's so overrated', because, well, Pikachu is likable for a reason. It's very smart that they chose Pikachu over their original mascot, Clefairy, because, well, Pikachu just hits all the right buttons. Pikachu's cute enough to appeal to little girls, being this weird cartoon rabbit-rat without being too 'feminine' for boys, while the ability to summon thunderbolts feeding into the 'holy shit this is cool!' factor for boys. Pikachu enjoys a gigantic amount of popularity and it's not difficult to see why. Removed from that gigantic amount of popularity and his role as franchise mascot, though, Pikachu's a pretty cool design. He's a mainly yellow-and-brown rat, but attention is quickly called to his red cheeks which apparently is where all the electricity is stored. To further communicate the electric typing, Pikachu has a tail shaped like a thunderbolt.
I've always enjoyed Pikachu a lot, having used one in various occasions -- most recently in my Ultra Moon playthroughs, but I've also used Pikachu and Raichu in several runs through the Kanto games. My favourite Pikachu is probably the Pikachu in the first few episodes of the anime where he's just such a dick. The original few appearances of Pikachu in Adventures (which features a lot of Pikachu as well) also characterized him as a dick, which is just so much fun. Pikachu also used to be a lot pudgier and blob-ier (original Sugimori control art, TCG artwork and Pokemon Yellow artwork) but became leaner and less hamster-esque, which was a bit of a shame.
But I've always liked Pikachu, and perhaps a huge chunk of why Pokemon is easily so successful as a franchise is just how marketable Pikachu himself is. I'm not sure how popular Pokemon is if the original mascot in the anime and games ended up being Clefairy or Poliwhirl, and like it or not, Pikachu's became the face of the entire franchise and I think he embodies a lot of what the original Pokemon is -- cute animal-based monsters with elemental abilities. You can certainly do a lot worse for mascots than Pikachu, and I'm sure that if he wasn't so omni-present a lot of people won't go the edgy hipster route of 'uhh durr hurr I hate Pikachu because he's popular'.
I've always enjoyed Pikachu a lot, having used one in various occasions -- most recently in my Ultra Moon playthroughs, but I've also used Pikachu and Raichu in several runs through the Kanto games. My favourite Pikachu is probably the Pikachu in the first few episodes of the anime where he's just such a dick. The original few appearances of Pikachu in Adventures (which features a lot of Pikachu as well) also characterized him as a dick, which is just so much fun. Pikachu also used to be a lot pudgier and blob-ier (original Sugimori control art, TCG artwork and Pokemon Yellow artwork) but became leaner and less hamster-esque, which was a bit of a shame.
But I've always liked Pikachu, and perhaps a huge chunk of why Pokemon is easily so successful as a franchise is just how marketable Pikachu himself is. I'm not sure how popular Pokemon is if the original mascot in the anime and games ended up being Clefairy or Poliwhirl, and like it or not, Pikachu's became the face of the entire franchise and I think he embodies a lot of what the original Pokemon is -- cute animal-based monsters with elemental abilities. You can certainly do a lot worse for mascots than Pikachu, and I'm sure that if he wasn't so omni-present a lot of people won't go the edgy hipster route of 'uhh durr hurr I hate Pikachu because he's popular'.
Pikachu, of course, evolves into Raichu, which is infinitely better than Pikachu in all the ways that matter (despite the anime making Pikachu's evolution as an 'evil' thing to do) and Raichu's just so much cooler than Pikachu in appearance, too. From the neat colour swap from yellow-and-black into orange-and-brown, Raichu's got a very striking whip-tail that simply looks cool. Raichu's stub-arms is a bit weird, but I do like Raichu a fair bit. In a neat nod to how a Pokemon behaves in the wild, Raichu's tail is some sort of lightning rod to both gather electricity from the air in order to fuel its electric sacs, and also to discharge electricity to the ground if there's too much of it. It's an awesome bit of detail that makes Raichu feel so much more... life-like, so to speak. It's just such a shame that Raichu always gets overshadowed by his pre-evolution. Raichu's also lost a lot of weight from the original games -- he used to be even chubbier than Pikachu. Still, that whip-tail's really cool.
I've always liked Pikachu and Raichu. And yes, as much as Pikachu's over-exposure might hurt him in the eyes of a long-time fan... I don't mind the line, and I've used them enough to end up liking them a lot.
5/6.#027-028: Sandshrew & Sandslash
- Types: Ground [both]
- Japanese names: Sando, Sandopan
- Category: Mouse [both]
Sandshrew is also our very first Ground-type Pokemon, which in Pokemon terms -- especially for the first few Pokemon -- means more that the Pokemon lives in areas closely associated with the ground, often times underground or in sandstorm-laden deserts. There will be many other Ground-type Pokemon in the future that are just creatures with the elemental power to control the earth and create earthquakes and fissures, so the boundaries of the Ground-type is perhaps one of the more flexible ones in the Pokemon universe.
Sandshrew's evolved form is Sandslash, who is just plain awesome. And I've always loved how Sandslash essentially keeps Sandshrew's cute, adorable rat eyes as it evolves. But Sandslash has transformed into a creature that's this combination of pangolin and a porcupine, transforming the pangolin's segmented scales into prickly thorns that turns Sandshrew's armoured ball form into a spinning spiked ball. Add that to Sandslash's arms and legs to evolve to emphasize Sandslash's gigantic two-clawed hands which just look absolutely mean (there's a reason they changed Sandslash's English name into something that emphasized his claws from the more neutral 'Sandstorm'), and it just ends up as easily one of the coolest designs in Pokemon history that's both simply just cool... while still being adorable enough to snuggle.
4/6.#029-034: Nidoran♀, Nidorina, Nidoqueen, Nidoran♂, Nidorino & Nidoking
- Types: Poison [both Nidorans, Nidorina and Nidorino], Poison/Ground [Nidoqueen/Nidoking]
- Japanese names: Nidoran Mesu, Nidorina, Nidokuin, Nidoran Osu, Nidorino, Nidokingu
- Category: Poison Pin [both Nidorans, Nidorina and Nidorino], Drill [Nidoqueen/Nidoking]
Welcome to the Nidorans, a group of Pokemon whose inspirations remain unclear... and I'm happy that they remain that way! While Nidoking and Nidoqueen, the patriarch and matriarch of the evolutionary line, are obviously kaiju-inspired (I don't know a lot about kaiju, but I've seen Baragon to be touted as a possible inspiration for Nidoking), but people range from rabbits to rhinoceroses to rats to porcupines for the younger members of the family. Personally, I think the Nidorans are an artifact from when Pokemon were still just trying to emphasize on the whole 'Pocket Monster' aspect, and while there are certain characters based on real animals and plants, there are also some that are just, well, monsters who happen to cohabitate the world with the almost-normal-looking birds, rats, butterflies and hornets. And I like the Nido family for that. And the Nido family is a very quirky set of monsters that's a symptom of the early days of Pokemon. The two Nidorans are called respectively Nidoran♀ and Nidoran♂, a full generation before genders were even introduced into the Pokemon world. They also occupy different slots in the Pokedex, when modern games would've just slotted them together as form differences without a second thought (see Unfezant and Meowstic). Both the Nidoran lines evolve independently of each other, and are treated as their own species... but when the second generation introduced breeding, the female Nidorans can produce eggs of either male or female Nidoran. It's a pretty unique set of beasts that exist to highlight sexual dimorphism, and, well, both the female and male evolutionary lines really do offer some neat designs.
(Also, thank you Pokemon for teaching young me what the male and female symbols are.)
All the Pokedex entries tend to just revolve around how the Nidorans are just a group of poisonous communal beasts, and they are all known for their barbed horns that secrete poisons, and even the younger Nidorans have potent poison. They also note that the females have smaller horns, but are no less deadly than the males.
So let's talk briefly about all the individual members of the Nidoran lines, starting with the ladies first. The first in the Pokedex entry is Nidoran♀, who is a pale-blue rat-like beast with a tiny horn (which are flat-out erroneously absent in the original Red/Blue sprite until Yellow fixed it) but seemingly are hairless. Do they just have fine hair, or are they actually more akin to reptiles? It's very interesting. Nidoran♀ then evolves into Nidorina, changing from a pale blue to a paler, slightly greenish hue. Her ears are more prominent, her forehead-spike is inexplicably gone, and she has developed an almost beaky mouth. Her rat-bucktooth is replaced with a pair of Ivysaur-esque fangs, and she is prominently displayed in all artwork as standing on two legs, while her front legs have transformed into arms, hinting at her final form being bipedal. The Pokedex handwave this as 'her horns grow more slowly' and I genuinely question if the female Nidoran was even supposed to have a horn at all.
Nidorina then evolves into Nidoqueen, and her blue goes straight up darker. Nidorqueen stands on two legs like a true theropod-based kaiju, and she definitely looks more feminine than her counterpart, with what appears to be mammalian breasts on an otherwise reptile-esque creature. The boobs kind of ruin Nidoqueen somewhat for me, and I really think her design really would've communicated that she's a female compared to Nidoking. She has less spikes, her mouth is toothless and she has a smaller horn (which returns!). Yet even if Nidoqueen isn't as scary as Nidoking, the size of her lower arms, her body and her huge thick tail communicate that Nidoqueen can throw down as well as her male counterpart. Also, Nidoqueen and Nidoking both gain the Ground typing when they evolve, becoming Poison/Ground dual-types. It's a bit odd why they chose to do this (other to give them to Giovanni, the final gym leader and a user of Ground-types) but I suppose it stems from their origins as Kaiju, and a common origin for those are ancient monsters living beneath the ground.
Nidoqueen is also odd because while both her pre-evolutions can breed, she cannot, despite being the matriarch of the evolutionary line. I'm not sure what to make of that. I guess as alpha female her role is more protection and combative than breeding?
All the Pokedex entries tend to just revolve around how the Nidorans are just a group of poisonous communal beasts, and they are all known for their barbed horns that secrete poisons, and even the younger Nidorans have potent poison. They also note that the females have smaller horns, but are no less deadly than the males.
So let's talk briefly about all the individual members of the Nidoran lines, starting with the ladies first. The first in the Pokedex entry is Nidoran♀, who is a pale-blue rat-like beast with a tiny horn (which are flat-out erroneously absent in the original Red/Blue sprite until Yellow fixed it) but seemingly are hairless. Do they just have fine hair, or are they actually more akin to reptiles? It's very interesting. Nidoran♀ then evolves into Nidorina, changing from a pale blue to a paler, slightly greenish hue. Her ears are more prominent, her forehead-spike is inexplicably gone, and she has developed an almost beaky mouth. Her rat-bucktooth is replaced with a pair of Ivysaur-esque fangs, and she is prominently displayed in all artwork as standing on two legs, while her front legs have transformed into arms, hinting at her final form being bipedal. The Pokedex handwave this as 'her horns grow more slowly' and I genuinely question if the female Nidoran was even supposed to have a horn at all.
Nidorina then evolves into Nidoqueen, and her blue goes straight up darker. Nidorqueen stands on two legs like a true theropod-based kaiju, and she definitely looks more feminine than her counterpart, with what appears to be mammalian breasts on an otherwise reptile-esque creature. The boobs kind of ruin Nidoqueen somewhat for me, and I really think her design really would've communicated that she's a female compared to Nidoking. She has less spikes, her mouth is toothless and she has a smaller horn (which returns!). Yet even if Nidoqueen isn't as scary as Nidoking, the size of her lower arms, her body and her huge thick tail communicate that Nidoqueen can throw down as well as her male counterpart. Also, Nidoqueen and Nidoking both gain the Ground typing when they evolve, becoming Poison/Ground dual-types. It's a bit odd why they chose to do this (other to give them to Giovanni, the final gym leader and a user of Ground-types) but I suppose it stems from their origins as Kaiju, and a common origin for those are ancient monsters living beneath the ground.
Nidoqueen is also odd because while both her pre-evolutions can breed, she cannot, despite being the matriarch of the evolutionary line. I'm not sure what to make of that. I guess as alpha female her role is more protection and combative than breeding?
Nidoran♂ and Nidorino are essentially the same creature, and unlike their female counterparts, they retain their purple coat as they evolve. Again, dex entries highlight their venomous spines, although this time around they also note how sensitive their huge, angular rabbit-esque ears are. There's definitely a design parallel between the females and males here, with both Nidorans having a single prominent buck-tooth, while both Nidorino and Nidorina have more pronounced fangs. Nidoran's evolution to Nidorino isn't followed with a similar gradual transformation into a more bipedal stance, however, with Nidorino simply going from the more rabbit-like posture that Nidoran♂ has to a sturdier, rhino-like gait.
Then Nidorino evolves into Nidoking, still keeping his purple coat, and boy, Nidoking looks immensely powerful, isn't he? He's honestly essentially the same design as Nidoqueen, but the lack of boobs and adding that awesome set of fangs on his lower jaws and making the horns more prominent make Nidoking easily one of the coolest-looking Pokemon from the first generation. I'm also not quite sure just why they have actually shortened Nidoking's dorsal spikes between the first and second generation (check out Nidoking's original official artwork). Nidoking's still badass, but he could be more badass. Like Nidoqueen, Nidoking is Poison/Ground in typing, but both final Nidos are able to learn a fuck-ton of TMs which made Nidoking a particularly valuable member of my party in a couple of FireRed playthroughs.
I've always thought that it was particularly odd that Nidorino and Nidorina can only achieve their final forms with exposure to the Moon Stone. Is the energy required to transform into Nido-royalty somehow tied to the moon? It's pretty kaiju-esque, if nothing else.
I've always loved Nidoking and Nidoqueen. As you can surmise, though, I'm more than a little annoyed at the female line's very inconsistent transformation in both colour and head-horn, whereas the male one felt like a more consistent evolution from young to adult. Still, they're easily one of the more memorable designs from the first generation, and their role as Giovanni's two strongest Pokemon has always been very much appreciated.
5/6 as a set. #035-036: Clefairy & Clefable
- Types: Fairy [both; Normal before Generation VI]
- Japanese names: Pippi, Pikushi
- Category: Fairy [both]
Clefairy is... well, the first 'pinkblob' we'll meet. Clefairy was originally a Normal-type Pokemon until the Fairy-types were introduced in the sixth generation, and many pink-blob Pokemon and Pokemon based on the fair folk ended up being retconned into Fairy types. I've never actually liked Clefairy at all, though. Clefairy's whole deal is that she's very rare and hard to find, and in the original Red/Blue/Yellow games, Clefairy is a rare encounter on Mount Moon, and the Pokemon that the whole area is based on. Their rarity and mysterious association with the moon caused various people to speculate that they actually came from the moon, something that the anime's first season took and ran with -- even having a gaggle of Clefairy build a goddamn spaceship to attempt to return to space. Clefairy was then the source of one of the most common theories back in the day -- that Pokemon came from space.
And this cute little backstory, of course, seems to be at least partially based upon the legend of the Moon Rabbit, a popular piece of Japanese folklore that gets a lot of representation in anime and manga (Sailor Moon being the most prominent one), where the shape of the craters on the Moon resembles that of a rabbit pounding a mortar, leading to various oriental-Asian and Aztec cultures to develop myths about rabbits that live on the moon. I won't go into too much detail about it other than Clefable being somewhat based on a rabbit and they both come from the moon, and I felt it's kinda neat to mix fantasy and sci-fi by making them potentially be space travelers.
But I've always found Clefairy's blob-ness and her weird cephalothorax body to be rather bland, and the only time I've ever enjoyed Clefairy was his role as the jackass protagonist of Pokemon: Pocket Monsters manga, a Gintama-esque comedy as opposed to the more straight-up action adventure epic that Pokemon Adventures is.
Clefairy then evolves into Clefable, turning her pink from a saccharine shade to a paler one, and her teeny-tiny wings extend into purple spikes. She doesn't get the Flying type, though. Her ears grow longer and she can now apparently hear a 'pin drop from 1000 yards away', but her expression just... isn't cute. Clefairy and Clefable, back in the first generation, are the only Pokemon (other than Mew) who can legitimately learn Metronome, where they wag a finger and they unleash any random attack... but, again, a combination of Clefairy and Clefable's unineteresting design that's neither cute nor cool make me really never care all that much for these two, and that's saying something considering they're part of the original 151. I don't think that I actually hate them, but I just never could bring myself to muster interest about them, especially since their other pink-blob buddy Jigglypuff is so much more cute and interesting and does more or less the same thing. Let me tell you this, though -- when they decided to turn Pikachu into mascot as opposed to Clefairy... they did the right thing.
2/6.
And this cute little backstory, of course, seems to be at least partially based upon the legend of the Moon Rabbit, a popular piece of Japanese folklore that gets a lot of representation in anime and manga (Sailor Moon being the most prominent one), where the shape of the craters on the Moon resembles that of a rabbit pounding a mortar, leading to various oriental-Asian and Aztec cultures to develop myths about rabbits that live on the moon. I won't go into too much detail about it other than Clefable being somewhat based on a rabbit and they both come from the moon, and I felt it's kinda neat to mix fantasy and sci-fi by making them potentially be space travelers.
But I've always found Clefairy's blob-ness and her weird cephalothorax body to be rather bland, and the only time I've ever enjoyed Clefairy was his role as the jackass protagonist of Pokemon: Pocket Monsters manga, a Gintama-esque comedy as opposed to the more straight-up action adventure epic that Pokemon Adventures is.
Clefairy then evolves into Clefable, turning her pink from a saccharine shade to a paler one, and her teeny-tiny wings extend into purple spikes. She doesn't get the Flying type, though. Her ears grow longer and she can now apparently hear a 'pin drop from 1000 yards away', but her expression just... isn't cute. Clefairy and Clefable, back in the first generation, are the only Pokemon (other than Mew) who can legitimately learn Metronome, where they wag a finger and they unleash any random attack... but, again, a combination of Clefairy and Clefable's unineteresting design that's neither cute nor cool make me really never care all that much for these two, and that's saying something considering they're part of the original 151. I don't think that I actually hate them, but I just never could bring myself to muster interest about them, especially since their other pink-blob buddy Jigglypuff is so much more cute and interesting and does more or less the same thing. Let me tell you this, though -- when they decided to turn Pikachu into mascot as opposed to Clefairy... they did the right thing.
2/6.
______________________________________________________________
So yeah, this is my first entry of the first 36 Pokemon in the Pokedex. It's very rambly because, well, I do have a fair bit to talk about, apparently. I sincerely hope you enjoyed this, and I also hope that you'll be back for more as we dissect the entire population of the Pokemon world throughout the year. Yes, there's a lot of high marks in this one, but as someone whose first generation was indeed the first one, at the height of the Pokemania, what can you expect?
Check out Part 2 of the series, covering Vulpix to Poliwrath!
So yeah, this is my first entry of the first 36 Pokemon in the Pokedex. It's very rambly because, well, I do have a fair bit to talk about, apparently. I sincerely hope you enjoyed this, and I also hope that you'll be back for more as we dissect the entire population of the Pokemon world throughout the year. Yes, there's a lot of high marks in this one, but as someone whose first generation was indeed the first one, at the height of the Pokemania, what can you expect?
Check out Part 2 of the series, covering Vulpix to Poliwrath!
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