Part 2 of Johto! I've said pretty much all that I want to say about the second generation in the first part. This one features a decent amount of new evolutions of Pokemon, I guess, and a whole lot of standalones that would be neat world-building monsters, but won't really be super-playable until the fourth generation gave them evolutions.
Click here for the index.
______________________________________________#186: Politoed
- Type: Water
- Japanese name: Nyotorono
- Category: Frog
Considering how much I've ranted about Pokemon evolutions that don't particularly make sense visually, as well as the low marks I gave Bellossom, you'd think that I hate Politoed, right? Not really. Yes, if I was given the opportunity to go back and redesign Politoed, I definitely would have -- at the very least, give him more blue instead of just the weird curled-up antennae, to make his evolution from Poliwag and Poliwhirl more prominent. But the evolution from Poliwhirl into Politoed at least makes a fair bit of sense. Sure, Politoed sticks out like a sore thumb when put next to the three original Poli's, but a tadpole evolving into a frog definitely makes more sense than a corpse flower evolving into a hula-dancing pixie. Plus, the fact that Politoed's English and Japanese names makes the connection clear with the Poli- prefix (Nyoro- in Japanese).
And Politoed's design is just pretty neat. It's a pure-Water type, just like its pre-evolutions, not gaining the Fighting type as the other final evolution, Poliwrath, does. It's a happy green frog with a neat swirl pattern on its belly that is a neat little homage to the iconic belly swirls of its Poliwhirl form. I've always loved Poliwrath far more, but I definitely also like the charm that Politoed has, with its happy, froggy expression. I've always found it funny (and other people do, too) that out of the many, many explicit frog/toad Pokemon throughout seven generations, Politoed is the only green one out of the bunch, with everyone else being shades of blue and purple.
Politoed is characterized as a king of sorts, with its cry summoning Poliwags and Poliwhirls from afar, with the curly bit on its head apparently showing its status as a king. This, of course, is a reference to how Politoed evolves, as it is one of the few to practice this method of evolution in the second generation -- being traded while equipping a specific held item, the King's Rock. Apparently the act of trading while holding the crown-like King's Rock transforms Politoed into a real royal, something that is sadly missing in translation. Politoed's Japanese name was Nyorotono, a combination of the 'Nyoro' sound that is the equivalent of 'Poli-' in English, and 'tono', a shortening of tonosama, a title roughly meaning 'lord' in English. All of this is, of course, a reference to the dark-spotted frog (Pelophylax nigromaculatus), popularly known as the Tonosama-Gaeru (Lord Frog) in Japan, and this pun has inspired many other 'frog-lord' monsters, like ShogunGekomon from Digimon, with the homage being super-blatant in its original Japanese name, TonosamaGekomon.
All this isn't necessary to appreciate Politoed, however, because it's status as a happy and constantly dancing and clapping frog is enough to like it. I don't like it as much as Poliwrath because Poliwrath's insanely weird and bizarre, but Politoed is neat.
4/6.
And Politoed's design is just pretty neat. It's a pure-Water type, just like its pre-evolutions, not gaining the Fighting type as the other final evolution, Poliwrath, does. It's a happy green frog with a neat swirl pattern on its belly that is a neat little homage to the iconic belly swirls of its Poliwhirl form. I've always loved Poliwrath far more, but I definitely also like the charm that Politoed has, with its happy, froggy expression. I've always found it funny (and other people do, too) that out of the many, many explicit frog/toad Pokemon throughout seven generations, Politoed is the only green one out of the bunch, with everyone else being shades of blue and purple.
Politoed is characterized as a king of sorts, with its cry summoning Poliwags and Poliwhirls from afar, with the curly bit on its head apparently showing its status as a king. This, of course, is a reference to how Politoed evolves, as it is one of the few to practice this method of evolution in the second generation -- being traded while equipping a specific held item, the King's Rock. Apparently the act of trading while holding the crown-like King's Rock transforms Politoed into a real royal, something that is sadly missing in translation. Politoed's Japanese name was Nyorotono, a combination of the 'Nyoro' sound that is the equivalent of 'Poli-' in English, and 'tono', a shortening of tonosama, a title roughly meaning 'lord' in English. All of this is, of course, a reference to the dark-spotted frog (Pelophylax nigromaculatus), popularly known as the Tonosama-Gaeru (Lord Frog) in Japan, and this pun has inspired many other 'frog-lord' monsters, like ShogunGekomon from Digimon, with the homage being super-blatant in its original Japanese name, TonosamaGekomon.
All this isn't necessary to appreciate Politoed, however, because it's status as a happy and constantly dancing and clapping frog is enough to like it. I don't like it as much as Poliwrath because Poliwrath's insanely weird and bizarre, but Politoed is neat.
4/6.#187-189: Hoppip, Skiploom & Jumpluff
- Types: Grass/Flying [all three]
- Japanese names: Hanekko, Popokko, Watakko
- Categories: Cottonweed [all three]
Hoppip, Skiploom and Jumpluff are all inspired by floating seeds, which I've always found neat. An evolutionary line with the Grass/Flying typing, and I've always found this to be one of the most adorable evolutionary lines ever. Hoppip is the first member of this line, a happy-looking little plant bulb with a chibi cat face and body, complete with four nub-feet and a tail, with a pair of 'wings' made out of leaves. It uses these to helicopter around, which I've always found adorable. As a bonus, keeping in theme with the dandelion theme of the line, Hoppip's leaf-helicopter blades resemble the jagged leaves of the actual dandelion weed.
I've always found Hoppip to be adorable ever since I first encountered it when I played through Pokemon Crystal, this adorable pink-and-green critter with the most adorable pinpoint eyes. Look at it! It's just this weird adorable plant monster. There's just a neatness to how simple the design communicates that it's a plant (it kinda looks like a beet root, right?) and a flying creature, while at the same time being pretty simple and relatively unique.
Hoppip evolves into Skiploom, where it swaps all the three colours found in Hoppip. The eyes are the pink ones, the plant on its head is yellow and its main body is green. And unlike how I tend to go grr-grr over middle lines diverging in the main colour scheme, the entire Hoppip/Skiploom/Jumpluff line changes major colours, so. Skiploom is mainly green, with its ears going from cat-like to a larger drooping position, and its leaves are replaced with a yellow flower, sort of vaguely resembling the dandelion's flowers. Again, just like Hoppip, it just looks so gosh-darned happy and pleased to be jumping and floating around.
Apparently Skiploom's flower is used as a primitive thermometer, because it's very sensitive to the temperature around it. And true to this fact, Hoppips and Skiplooms tend to only show up in the day part of the day/night cycle. No real complaints about Skiploom, it's just as adorable as Hoppip is.
Hoppip's final stage is Jumpluff, which is one of the rare cases where the final evolution of a three-stage line is still just as adorable as its youngest counterpart. Jumpluff is a cute little blue orb with three puffballs representing dandelion seeds as arms and something jutting out of its head. Jumpluff is pretty adorable, and it's clear that the entire line is an adaptation of how dandelion seeds are dispersed by airborne seeds, with Jumpluff's puffy pom-pom-esque orbs being a simplified version of a 'ripe' flower head, except, of course, Jumpluff also pulls double duty at adapting the seed itself.
6/6.
All three are definitely very interesting pokemon, and one of the underrated highlights of the second generation for me. Adapting a cute plant creature by turning it into an orb with plant stuff attached to it isn't revolutionary (hell, Pokemon already did it with the Oddish line) but I've always thought that the Hoppip line was one that did it particularly well.
6/6.#190: Aipom
- Type: Normal
- Japanese names: Eipamu
- Category: Long Tail
Aipom is... well, it's there. Aipom's a cartoon monkey with a hilarious shit-eating grin that has a gigantic glove-esque hand at the tip of its tail. It's a Normal-type, it's a somewhat-rare encounter when you headbutt trees (a way to find more Pokemon that was only around in the second generation and its remakes). And Aipom was... well, he's just there. I'll make it clear that I'm not a big fan of monkeys, but Aipom is a reasonably cute one. It's purple, it's skinny and it's reasonably neatly drawn, filled with cheeky personality. Its tail-hand isn't the most creative thing out there, and its a bit of an exaggeration of how real life monkeys use their prehensile tails to help swing from branch to branch, and I do like the detail in the pokedex that Aipoms depend so much on their tail for manipulation that their actual hands have became clumsy or even degenerated.
Aipom would be completely forgettable to me if it wasn't such a major character in the Gold/Silver/Crystal era of the Adventures manga, being the starter pokemon for main character Gold. Though even then that role can only carry it so far. Aipom's a completely average design, not horrible enough for me to hate it (the manga does a lot to make me not give this thing a 1/5 or 2/5 rating, for sure) but it's definitely not neat enough for me to give it anything higher.
3/6.#191-192: Sunkern & Sunflora
- Types: Grass [both]
- Japanese names: Himanattsu, Kimawari
- Categories: Seed [Sunkern], Sun [Sunflora]
Sunkern is widely known ass the actual 'weakest' pokemon, with the least amount of stats and one of the shittiest movepools, and unlike the likes of, say, Weedle or Magikarp or Feebas, its evolved form isn't actually that powerful, and as far as I know it's not even meant to be a joke. Despite that, I... really like Sunkern's design. I'm not really even sure why. Perhaps it is Sunkern's prominent role in the earlier pages of the Gold/Silver section of the Adventures manga. But I just kind of like the design, from its cute zig-zag nyaaa grin to its huge happy beady eyes, to the black markings on its body and the cute little leaf poking out of its head.
There's a neat bit where apparently it is super emphasized that Sunkern "falls out of the sky in the morning", something that nearly all of its pokedex entries note. It also notes that it's useless, only eating and moving as little as it can until it evolves. The thing is, though... Sunkern evolves by using the Sun Stone, a new evolutionary item introduced in this generation, and it evolves into Sunflora.
4/6 for Sunkern. 
Which is... yeah, just a sunflower with a face on the flower, leaves for hands and two waddling feet. It's predictable that the sunflower seed evolves into a full sunflower plant, but there's honestly nothing super interesting about Sunflora. Whereas Sunkern was unique, Sunflora just looks like... it's just there. Its dex entries just note that it is highly influenced by the sun. It is a pure grass type, and its stats and movepool are as generic as they come. It's not a bad design, but definitely a pretty boring one. Perhaps it's just how bizarre the likes of Victreebel, Tangela and Vileplume are, which sets up a pretty high measuring stick, but Sunflora has always underwhelmed me... and comparing her to future Grass-types, poor Sunflora looks more and more boring. It's not bad by any means, but it does feel pretty boring, and part of me is just kinda sad because I really like Sunkern's design.
3/6 for Sunflora.#193: Yanma
- Types: Bug/Flying
- Japanese name: Yanyanma
- Category: Thin Wing
Okay, I'm a little biased to say this right after I bash Sunflora for being nothing but 'a sunflower with a face', since Yanma is essentially a cool-looking goggle-eyed dragonfly, because I really like bugs, but Yanma is a pretty cool-looking bugger, isn't he? Yanma is essentially a cartoon version of the red-veined darter, a common dragonfly in Asia. It's added a lot of neat little details, though, from the horns on its head to the orange markings on its clear wings to the cool tail-spikes... I also like that unlike Ledyba, Yanma actually keeps a semblance of the more elaborate bug mouth that dragonflies have. Perhaps my favourite part of yanma's design is how its little cartoon eyes are embedded in a huge green goggle-esque apparatus, a homage to Yanma's real-life counterpart's gigantic compound eyes. And like real-life dragonflies, Yanma's eyes allows it to see in 360 degrees, and apparently its wings beat so hard that if it increases the movement of its wings, it can unleash a window-shattering shockwave.
The way you meet Yanmas in the original generation 2 games is also very neat. You see, Yanma is one of those generation 2 Pokemon that doesn't evolve and is a pretty rare encounter in a route with many Pokemon, so unless you're specifically hunting for one, chances are you won't encounter it. But Yanmas are one of a handful of Pokemon that can show up in a swarm -- through a random event, if you've befriended a specific NPC, he might call you up to say, hey, a lot of Yanmas are swarming in that route... which is kind of like real-life dragonflies' breeding habits where they can sometimes have an explosive breeding season and swarm in the route. Neat! Bit of a shame that we never got a dragonfly nymph Pokemon, since a dragonfly's nymph is pretty awesome... but eh.
Also note that dragonflies the size of Yanma's 1.2 meter wingspan do exist in the past, during the Carboniferous era, as part of the genus Meganeura, a breed with a wingspan of 65-70 cm and one of the largest flying insects that we know of. At first this just seems to be a symptom of 'oh, Bug Pokemon are massive compared to real-life animals', but the nod to prehistoric giant dragonflies will be achieved in the fourth generation when Yanma gets a prehistoric-based evolution, Yanmega, but we'll talk about Yanmega later. Overall, a neat little bug with a colourful and neat design.
5/6.#194-195: Wooper & Quagsire
- Types: Water/Ground [both]
- Japanese names: Upa, Nuo
- Categories: Water Fish [both]
Oh man oh man oh man, I love Wooper. What's there not to love about this adorable little dude? It's a tiny little dude with a huge head, weird little fish-bone antennae to the side, a face that is constantly smiling (or :o, as its new official art shows), and a neat little bunch of dark blue lines that break up what would be a monotonous body. With its huge grin and its absolutely adorable waddling animation in the later games, Wooper has always been one of my favourites in terms of cuteness. I guess it speaks to how I played through the second generation when it's the early-route Pokemon like Hoppip, Mareep and Wooper that I really love and remember, huh? But Wooper's really cute, and he just looks like he just wants to waddle behind you and help out in spite of not having hands.
Wooper is also Water/Ground, meaning that it's completely immune to one of the Water-type's two weaknesses, Electric. It is a reference to how salamanders live in muddy places, and Woopers apparently behave the same.
6/6. WOOP DA WOOP
Wooper evolves into Quagsire (quagmire is one of the coolest words to describe a swamp, too), based on Japan's giant salamanders, and while it's not as cute as Wooper by being bigger and fatter it's still got a degree of adorableness thanks to those pinpoint eyes and its happy, vacant expression. I honestly would've preferred both to be their own thing, but eh. It is a very easy-going Pokemon that's happy to just spend its life floating along, and its method of hunting is just going bwaaaaa in water and waiting for prey to blunder into its mouth. I like the little ridge that goes down Quagsire's spine and tail, and the splotches of purple on its back. Quagsire is just a really derpy and happy-go-lucky design, and I'm definitely pleased when Wooper and Quagsire are actually one of the most common encounters in the fourth generation's swampy areas. While I don't like Quagsire as much as Wooper, it's still a very solid design.
4/6.#196-197: Espeon & Umbreon
- Types: Psychic [Espeon]; Dark [Umbreon]
- Japanese names: Efi, Burakki
- Categories: Sun [Espeon]; Moonlight [Umbreon]
The second generation introduces two Eeveelutions to us, and both of them are tied to the brand-new friendship and day/night mechanics. While as a kid I thought it would be far neater for them to evolve with the Sun and Moon Stones, Pokemon has always has this OCD when it comes to explaining why a certain evolution method or item doesn't work with a species. Of course, the friendship method and its tie-in into the day/night cycle is an amazing way to incorporate and highlight this mechanic with one of the most popular entries from the first generation. Plus, I've always been a fan of the Pokemon Adventures' interpretation that Espeon and Umbreon are the 'natural' evolutionary states of Eevee when it doesn't get exposed to evolutionary stones or any of these wacky radiations. I've used an Espeon as one of my main fighters in my playthrough of Pokemon Platinum alongside a Crobat, and while I've always thought that Espeon was a neat, cool design, I was absolutely enamoured with Espeon. And considering that I tend to hate cats... it's definitely a neat feat.
I've always liked the colour purple, as well as the Psychic type, so it probably explains why I love Espeon so much. Espeon is one of the Eeveelutions that blatantly resemble a specific real-world creature as opposed to the ambiguous fox-dog-cat of the original three. Espeon has a tail split into two, which is a reference to the yokai Nekomata, a malevolent cat monster with the ability of shapeshifting, teleportation and necromancy. There's also some people who note how it's got a lot of resemblance to Bastet, a cat goddess that is also a warrior-goddess of the sun, worshiped in Egyptian culture. Espeon captures all the grace and beauty that felines have, and does it in a pretty neat design. A simple forehead jewel, a graceful poise, that tuft of hair under his ears, and the split tail. I wished it continues the trend set by the original three Eeveelutions of having something around its neck, though.
Unlike the Nekomata, of course, Espeon is ostensibly the 'good' Pokemon, being more spooky than evil. It's said that the friendship bond with Eevee manifests in it developing psychic precognitive powers to protect its master from harm, and its fur is so sensitive that it can read the weather, its opponents' moves and sometimes even their thoughts, and it stores the power of the sun in the orb on its head. Espeon's pretty cool.
Also cool is Espeon's Dark-type counterpart. Friendship-evolve your Eevee at night, and it becomes Umbreon, a pretty cool Dark-type Pokemon. Umbreon's our first Dark-type, huh? So back in the second generation, two new types were introduced to the game to counterbalance the uber-powerful Psychic type. The highly defensive Steel type (Magnemite was retconned into Electric/Steel) and Dark-type, which hits Psychic for super-effective damage and is completely immune to Psychic. Dark-types don't actually represent the elemental force of shadows and darkness (that's more Ghost), however, since it's actually the aku-type in Japanese, more accurately translated as the 'evil' type. Which is why many dark-type attacks are actually sucker punches, feint attacks, astonishes and all that. I'll talk a bit more about the Dark-type if I ever do a piece for all the Pokemon types, because here we're talking about Umbreon.
Like Espeon, Umbreon's design is far simpler than the original three Eeveelutions, and Umbreon also resembles a particular animal -- the rabbit. Of course, it's a rabbit with far longer and powerful looking legs, but it's a neat reference to the rabbit-of-the-moon legend in Asian cultures, considering Umbreon evolves at night. It's got some really neat, striking yellow bands around its ears, tail and legs, which I always thought was cool. Umbreon also has some really cool details in the pokedex, like sweating poisonous sweat (!) when agitated, and it uses the glowing rings to unnerve its prey, and like Espeon, its rings are powered by the light of the moon as it runs around doing sinister things in the night, sneaking up on its prey, blinding its enemy with the aforementioned poison sweat, or as the Moon pokedex entry notes, "going for the throat". Pretty cool!
Special mention goes to Umbreon's shiny form, and Umbreon is the sort of Shiny Pokemon that I wish more Pokemon did. Instead of changing the main colours, Umbreon just changes a certain detail -- changing the golden rings into neon-blue rings... and it makes Umbreon pretty damn cool. In contrast, Espeon's shiny form just dumps green highlighter on him. Overall, two pretty neat Eeveelutions, and easily rank high up among my favourite Eeveelutions.
6/6.#198: Murkrow
- Types: Dark/Flying
- Japanese name: Yamikarasu
- Category: Darkness
Murkrow is a Dark/Flying type, based on, y'know, a crow. It formed a pair with Misdreavus as a rare, non-evolving spooky Pokemon found only at night, that obtained evolutions in the fourth generation. While this connection wasn't done in the second generation games (Murkrow and Misdreavus were available in both Gold and Silver), the third, fourth and fifth generations would make the two into version counterparts. I like Murkrow. It's a neat little crow, but it has so much character. From its crooked beak to its skinny neck and base of its tail, Murkrow just looks so scrappy and definitely looks a lot more shifty and shady compared to the likes of Pidgey or Hoothoot.
Murkrow also has a subtle witch deal going on, with its head feathers shaped like a witch's hat and the way its tail is shaped resembling a witch's broomstick. Later games would take a more 'mafia' theme with Murkrow's hat, especially with its evolution Honchkrow. Murkrows fit with the general reputation of crows as being unsavoury birds that bring bad luck, and Murkrows are noted to steal shiny objects for their own lairs, lead people astray in jungles and mountains, and generally compete with the likes of Meowth and Gabite over shinies. Murkrow is neatly portrayed as a cheeky, mischievous jackass in both anime, manga and even the games, with the seventh generation having Murkrows menace poor Lillie and the Johto games having a cheeky Murkrow betray Team Rocket and help us out during our assault on the Rocket base. I've always enjoyed Murkrow for being so different compared to most other bird Pokemon, especially when it doesn't really do that much to change Murkrow up. It would have been doomed as a non-evolving one-off the way that Aipom and Yanma were, but thankfully, fourth generation came to its rescue... and with the knowledge that these guys can actually make an impact in your team as opposed to be crap makes me look back with a lot of these far more fondly.
4/6.#199: Slowking
- Types: Water/Psychic
- Japanese name: Yadokingu
- Category: Royal
Let's be honest, here -- how many of you thought Slowking was the final evolution of Slowbro as opposed to being an alternate evolution? I certainly thought so up until I bought a guidebook back in the second generation and was boggled that Slowking is an alternate evolution for Slowpoke, as opposed to being the final form of the evolutionary line. (The biggest surprise include being informed that Bellossom was an alternate evolution from Gloom, and Tyrogue) Slowking's a pretty cool design -- it's a Slowbro that's not dumb anymore, because the Shellder this time around clamps down on its head, transforming into a 'crown' of sorts, complete with a magic Psychic gem on its forehead. I'm not sure if we really needed the clown neck-brace thing. Considering that the shape of the shell is based on the 'turban shellfish', it's a neat little stealth pun that Slowking now wears it as a turban.
Evolving Slowpoke into Slowking is the same as evolving Poliwhirl into Poliwrath -- trade the Pokemon while it's holding a King's Rock, making Slowking another 'royalty'. Slowking's noted to be super-smart because all that poison is injected straight to the brain, unlocking all the latent intelligence that they apparently have, and apparently it "undertakes research every day in an effort to solve the mysteries of the world", and forgets everything it has ever learned if the Shellder ever comes off. Such a de-volution is impossible in the games, and it's a shame... but eh. Slowking's never my favourite Pokemon (I think it's the weird clown bib that kills it for me), but I do appreciate its addition into the Slowpoke family and it's a neat little design that builds upon older lore. I also loved how Slowking's back sprites will always show the angry eyes of the Shellder at the back of Slowking's crown.
3/6.#200: Misdreavus
- Type: Ghost
- Japanese nams: Muma
- Category: Screech [Night Cry in Japanese]
The Ghost-type was limited to just the Gastly line in the original 151, and the second generation added our very first pure Ghost-type in Misdreavus... and she's actually a bit of a disappointment. (I say she, but Misdreavus can be male as well as female) She's not particularly powerful, and anything she can do, Gengar does better. Still, Misdreavus is a very cool design in her own right, a floating head with that neat necklace made up of glowing red orbs, a subdued expression on her face and flowing hair, with her 'body' comprising only of her neck...
Misdreavus is based on the nukekubi, a yokai that takes the shape of a disembodied female head that flies around (an offshoot of the long-necked woman yokai, the rokurokubi), and apparently wails to increase its victim's fright. Essentially like banshees of Western culture. Misdreavus is even known as the 'Screech Pokemon' in the Pokedex, and it scares people by shouting, screeching or crying, and then apparently stores the fear in its red sphere necklaces, using them as nutrition. There's honestly not that much about Misdreavus, but she's a cute enough ghost-type with a neat concept and a neat execution. She's also victim to yet another "very hard to actually meet in the generation 2 games" syndrome, only found at a specific floor, in the absolute final dungeon, Mt. Silver, at night, with a 10% encounter rate. Misdreavus has got a pretty neat signature move in Pain Split, which takes both combatants' HP and splits them between the two of them. It's hard to really use effectively, but I've always found it an appropriately creepy move.
3/6.#201: Unown
- Type: Psychic
- Japanese names: Annon
- Category: Symbol
Ah, Unown. Prepare for a longer entry! Unown is based on runes, hieroglyphics and the alphabet, except these actually come to life as Psychic-type Pokemon that ostensibly carry a hidden power. There are 26 (later 28, with FireRed/LeafGreen adding question mark and exclamation mark Unowns) variations of Unown, the first time in Pokemon history where a single 'slot' in the Pokedex is occupied by multiple different designs. And the way they were introduced to us in both the games and the anime is just amazing, hyping them up as mysterious beings -- or a key to a mysterious thing. The way you unlock the Unowns in the original Gold/Silver games is by solving a mysterious puzzle in the Ruins of Alph, where all the other researchers are confused just what the function of the ruins are. You can wander around the Ruins of Alph and see the weird eyeball-symbols on the wall... until you complete the puzzle and the symbols come to life. You progressively unlock hidden chambers and unleash more Unown variations by following the clues that are told in the Unown's alphabet forms (activating an Escape Rope, etc). They're so weird! They can only learn the move Hidden Power, which has a different, hidden type assigned to each different Pokemon. And they're just little eyeballs shaped like alphabets, which is just pretty neat.
The third Pokemon movie, "Spell of the Unown", stars Unown and Entei, and by god, Unown in that movie is just amazingly portrayed as a gigantic hive-mind that a young girl accidentally activated, unleashing a swarm of the unearthly creatures into the mortal plane, where they leech onto the little girl's emotions and create a gigantic crystal castle and facsimiles of her missing father in the form of the Entei in that movie. They are just so alien, and there's definitely something vaguely lovecraftian about a hive-mind of living alphabets able to manifest anything into reality. I remembered my friends arguing that Unown should be classified as a legendary.
Sadly... in the actual games, Unown are straight-up shit. With sub-par stats, inability to evolve and only being able to learn Hidden Power (which any Pokemon can learn with a TM), Unown is just completely worthless in combat, and exists as, moreso than any other Pokemon, as a collecting gimmick, showing up in subsequent generations in dedicated areas (Tanoby Chambers, Solaceon Ruins and Mirage Cave) and doing nothing but, y'know, existing for you to catch. Add that to the huge, huge disappointment that catching every single Unown nets you... absolutely nothing.
Moreso than anything, Unown is a pokemon that's only around for a flavour standpoint. They show up inexplicably in Dialga's realm in the movies, appear both in the games and the Adventures manga when Arceus creates new versions of Dialga, Palkia and/or Giratina, and the pokedex insists that if two or more meet, 'an odd power emerges'. No such payoff has been made anywhere, be it games, anime, manga or otherwise. We could've had a cool Zygarde-esque being emerge, or some sort of gimmick, but Unown sadly remain a pretty irritating footnote amongst the "Pokemon that can't really do jack shit". They're very neat, conceptually, and until I write it out here I never actually thought about how cool their backstory are, but at the same time, it makes the disappointment all the more heavy when you realize that they don't ever do anything (beyond being used to spell out profanity) and most other Pokemon are just flat-out superior. Like, they spend so much time every generation making new sprites, and each Unown even has a unique animation in the 3D games... and very few people will ever see them. Why not give them something more? And I don't mean two random new forms in Generation III either.
I don't hate them -- I used to, a lot, but I've mellowed out on them -- and I do like some of the more creative Unowns (F and G has always been the coolest for me) but I've always felt like they're such a huge, huge missed opportunity.
3/6.#202: Wobbuffet
- Type: Psychic
- Japanese name: Sonansu
- Category: Patient [Endurance in Japanese
Wobbuffet (or SOOOO-NANSU in Japanese) is a Pokemon that the anime single-handedly turned into one of my favourite Pokemon. Its portrayal in the anime is just amazing as Wobbuffet entered into the ranks of Team Rocket during the Johto arc, and ends up becoming one of its mainstays, emerging randomly out of its Pokeball at the end of the Team Rocket motto, or at inopportune moments, shouting its name loudly and with gusto. There's a bit of lost context, since Wobbuffet's Japanese name means "that's the way it is", essentially being similar to Meowth's "dat's right!" catchphrase... and it's pretty sad that unlike its pre-evolution Wynaut they don't try to work in a pun into his English name. There's also the running joke that whenever Wobbuffet is actually used in battle, he's actually really fucking powerful, being able to block attacks from even literal gods like Giratina. Wobbuffet is just a delightful, happy, hammy presence in the anime that definitely improved the Johto season, and out of the more modern seasons the Unova one is easily the weakest for the simple reason that Team Rocket leaves Wobbuffet behind. Boo hiss. Just look at that > < eyes and that zig-zag mouth! It's adorably funny. This is definitely one Pokemon I wouldn't really give a shit about if not for the anime.
So what is Wobbuffet? It's a Psychic-type blob that can only have four moves (with three additions if you grew it from its baby form, Wynaut in the third generation) which are as follows: Counter, Mirror Coat, Safeguard and Destiny Bond. Counter essentially hits back with double the damage dealt to Wobbuffet if the move that struck it is physical, while Mirror Coat is exactly the same if the move is special. Safeguard blocks Wobbuffet from being afflicted by status effect, and Destiny Bond will kill its opponent if they knock Wobbuffet out that turn. The third generation gave Wobbuffet the ability Shadow Tag, which makes it impossible for the opponent to switch out, meaning they have to deal with Wobbuffet's insane deflecting abilities. (Wobbuffet is also amazing to catch roaming Pokemon, too) So yeah, Wobbuffet is based on the whole concept of karma, and its design is now clear... it's a punching back that bounces back anything that hits it.
Wobbuffet is also based on Japanese comedian Sanpei Hayashiya, with the trademark catchphrase "sonansu, oku-san" (that's the way it is, ma'am) while touching his hand to his forehead... which, of course, inspires Wobbuffet's Japanese name and the pose it likes to assume in the anime and some of its sprites. Its Pokedex entries note that it desperately likes to keep its black tail (which has two eyes!) hidden, and that it only moves around at night, concealing itself in caves, and will endure any attack with its body, which makes it a very popular theory that the black tail is its main body (or where its vitals are at, more likely) and that the main blue body is just a huge chunk of flesh that's just expendable.
And we should really be thankful that Wobbuffet was so used and was such a hit in the anime, because in the actual generation 2 games Wobbuffet is a pretty rare encounter at a certain part of the Dark Cave, itself a very optional dungeon. Wobbuffet, to me, is actually associated far more with the third generation games, showing up more frequently in the Hoenn Safari Zone, you getting a Wynaut egg in an event and being used to hunt down roaming Pokemon. Wobbuffet's easily one of the most iconic faces in the Pokemon franchise not just out of the second generation, but as a whole... and I just love this constantly yelling little buddy.
5/6.#203: Girafarig
- Types: Normal/Psychic
- Japanese name: Kirinriki
- Category: Long Neck
I've always found Girafarig somewhat fascinating. The creature's based on a giraffe, yet it doesn't really emphasize on the giraffe's long neck. In fact, had it not been for both its English and Japanese names emphasizing the whole 'giraffe' deal, and if his species hasn't been 'Long Neck Pokemon' I probably would've brushed this off as a horse Pokemon. And from a design standpoint, Girafarig is one of those that I really appreciate for working in the whole concept of a palindrome by having the front half and back half be some sort of reflections of each other. Girafarig's name backwards and forwards reads the same, and halfway across Girafarig's body is a line where the yellow and the black colouration swaps. Girafarig's main head is certainly more equine, with a pair of weird white antennae that end in little ball-things topping it off, while Girafarig's tail is a little stump that ends in a Chain Chomp face from the Mario franchise.
And Pokedex entries emphasize on the sheer bizarreness of Girafarig's biology. It's not just a creature with multiple heads the way that Doduo or Magneton were. Girafarig's tail is just bizarre -- it has a 'small brain of its own' that automatically bites anything that it smells getting close. Its tail is also the source of Girafarig's 'mysterious powers' that it uses if it's in danger, and keeps watch while the main body is asleep.
Most interestingly is that this wackiness is reflected in Girafarig's typing as a part-Normal, part-Psychic monster. Girafarig is the very first instance that the Normal type is paired up with something other than Flying type. It's a very cool bit (until the sixth generation handed out the Normal-type wily-nily just to tick off the 'type combinations we haven't done yet' box) that really communicate that Girafarig is half normal animal (or whatever passes for a normal animal in the Pokemon world) and half a psychic creature. Girafarig isn't a particularly awesome Pokemon to use in combat, but conceptually this is the type of design that in my opinion we could've used a bit more of. Girafarig does ultimately prove to perhaps be slightly less memorable than it probably should have for a non-evolving Pokemon, which is really the fault of the second generation as a whole, but I do think that he's actually a pretty decent concept, and a neat fill-in to add another creature into the ecosystem. Of course, Girafarig only shows up, again, at exactly a single route in the Generation II games, and while not as absurdly rare as some of the others on this list, it's another non-evolving Pokemon that has poor representation in its home game.
2/6, barely teetering on 3.
And Pokedex entries emphasize on the sheer bizarreness of Girafarig's biology. It's not just a creature with multiple heads the way that Doduo or Magneton were. Girafarig's tail is just bizarre -- it has a 'small brain of its own' that automatically bites anything that it smells getting close. Its tail is also the source of Girafarig's 'mysterious powers' that it uses if it's in danger, and keeps watch while the main body is asleep.
Most interestingly is that this wackiness is reflected in Girafarig's typing as a part-Normal, part-Psychic monster. Girafarig is the very first instance that the Normal type is paired up with something other than Flying type. It's a very cool bit (until the sixth generation handed out the Normal-type wily-nily just to tick off the 'type combinations we haven't done yet' box) that really communicate that Girafarig is half normal animal (or whatever passes for a normal animal in the Pokemon world) and half a psychic creature. Girafarig isn't a particularly awesome Pokemon to use in combat, but conceptually this is the type of design that in my opinion we could've used a bit more of. Girafarig does ultimately prove to perhaps be slightly less memorable than it probably should have for a non-evolving Pokemon, which is really the fault of the second generation as a whole, but I do think that he's actually a pretty decent concept, and a neat fill-in to add another creature into the ecosystem. Of course, Girafarig only shows up, again, at exactly a single route in the Generation II games, and while not as absurdly rare as some of the others on this list, it's another non-evolving Pokemon that has poor representation in its home game.
2/6, barely teetering on 3.#204-205: Pineco & Forretress
- Types: Bug [Pineco], Bug/Steel [Forretress]
- Japanese names: Kunugidama, Foretosu
- Categories: Bagworm [both]
Pineco and Forretress are perhaps one of my faovurite evolutionary lines in the second generation, for the simple reason that they taught me about the existence of bagworms at all. Pineco's design is a glorious mixture of a pine cone and a hand grenate, and while it's an object with eyes on it, Pineco's little grooves and their position around his eyes kind of resemble a funny mustache and eyebrows, which gives this Bug-type some sort of a face without slapping a mouth and a nose on it. I think what made me really like Pineco is the anime, and Brock's Pineco, which admittedly tend to not to much, but the idea of it hopping around and sometimes exploding is really funny. It's a Bug-type Pokemon, and is helpfully identified by the pokedex as a bagworm.
And bagworms are insects, not plants, which explains the typing. As the dex notes, what we see of Pineco is just the outer layer, as it continues to make its shell thicker by adding tree bark, preferring to stay and wait for prey to come nearby (it preys on Cutieflies in Alola, apparently). And if someone shakes the tree it is latched onto, Pineco will drop and explode on that poor sucker's face. As befitting its pokedex entry, Pineco is one of those Pokemon that can drop out of trees if you headbutt them.
Bagworms themselves are the common name for the Psychidae family of moths, specifically their larvae, that actually make a sort of home comprised of leaves, twigs, tree bark, and in what is likely to be Pineco's inspiration, pine cones if they find themselves on a pine tree. They're pretty common in Japan, and are popular enough to actually end up inspiring another, more faithful Pokemon adaptation in the fourth generation's Burmy. And while Burmy adapts how bagworms adapt to the habitat they find themselves in, Pineco adds the bagworm inspiration with that of grenades.
Pineco evolves into Forretress and it's a Bug/Steel creature that no longer resembles a bagworm. And, hell, it honestly resembles a bivalve more with those tubes resembling the 'foot' of a bivalve. And as a Bug/Steel, it has apparently gained some steel elements in its shell, weaponizing chunks of its hard shell as ranged weapons (presumably in moves like Spikes). I guess it's supposed to look like a walnut, but I've always appreciated Forretress's strange ambiguity., neatly taking the part-plant, part-weapon aesthetic from Pineco and ramping it up to eleven. Its 'shell' only opens to feed, but no one is able to see one move because the process happens so quickly. I've always imagined those suckers to act like some sort of tank cannons, especially since later generations would allow Forretress to learn moves like Mirror Shot and Zap Cannon naturally. Up until Crystal, Forretress is also the only Pokemon to be able to learn Spikes, launching organic caltrops into the battlefield to damage anyone who enters it. It's just awesome. Hell, even its name is awesome.
Forretress is also still on the caterpillar stage, if we're comparing it to a real-life bagworm moth, but at the same time, apparently several species of bagworm moths the female remains larviform and never undergoes metamorphosis until they die (and it is these species that Burmy will adapt -- more on that in the fourth generation), but for Forretress it seems that all genders just remain as caterpillars. Or maybe they are actually armoured moths under that shell -- maybe that is the mystery. Forretress has always been one of the quirkier Pokemon, and has always been a personal favourite.
6/6.#206: Dunsparce
- Type: Normal
- Japanese name: Nokotchi
- Category: Land Snake
For the longest time, I thought Dunsparce was depicted laying down on its back, and that it's chin-horns are forehead horns, and its sorry excuse for 'wings' are in face arms. It's not until I saw one in the anime that I realized that it's supposed to be a weird worm with pudgy, non-flying wings, and that line between the yellow and blue parts of its head is supposed to be a mouth. I've the imagination of it floating with its striped back being its belly, its wings being its arms, and its horn pointing downwards Beedrill-style. And that misconception is the most fond memories of Dunsparce I have.
Dunsparce is a Normal-type, and true to its name, it's really sparse. It has a 1% encounter rate (although swarm events can occur) on a different floor of the Dark Cave, where you can find Wobbuffets, and I think no trainer in the Generation II games uses one. Later generations would make Dunsparce relatively easier to find. It's a pure normal type that... doesn't really bring much to the game, stat-wise. It's a cool little bugger, however, a strange bee-snake thing based on a Japanese cryptid, and I guess that's its whole joke. It's rare, but it's not particularly powerful, essentially the Farfetch'd of the generation. The dex entries note that it drills into the ground with its tail, living in tunnels, and can float 'slightly' with its wings, but it is neither Ground nor Flying type. It's just Normal.
Dunsparce is based, of course, on the very popular Tsuchinoko, a cryptid from Japan that I was aware of from a young age due to an episode of Doraemon. Much like Bigfoot or the Chupacabra, the tsuchinoko is often reported to be a fat snake with a fatter head and poisonous fangs (and Dunsparcce has 'fangs', sort of) and makes strange noises, as well as having the ability to curl its body to fly short distances. In North-Eastern Japan, it is also popularly known as the bachi-hebi, or the bee-snake, perhaps explaining Dunsparce colouration and its bee-esque stripes and stinger. I guess Dunsparce's lack of having anything special is a critique on how most cryptids and myths are caused by exaggeration of a perfectly ordinary animal... and Dunsparce is like a very boring Normal-type that can definitely be exaggerated as any sort of more powerful snake or dragon or fairy monster. Hell, I thought it was a bee, after all.
4/6.#207: Gligar
- Types: Ground/Flying
- Japanese name: Guraiga
- Category: Fly Scorpion
Gligar has a lot of fun personality, too, with its earliest dex entries emphasizing that it hunts by flying straight down from its cliffside habitats "straight at its target's face" before injecting poison. Sadly, Gligar is, once more, a non-evolving, single-stage Pokemon only found on a single route in the wide range of Johto. Gligar forms a sort of version exclusive pair with Delibird, being exclusive to Gold, while Delibird is exclusive to Silver. Thankfully, the two aren't particularly rare as far as spawning goes.
And despite being based partially on a scorpion (or rather, a scorpion-fly), you'd think that Gligar would be part-Bug or part-Poison... but he is neither. Gligar is Ground/Flying. And while the Flying typing is understandable -- it is a flying creature, after all -- the Ground bit has always puzzled me. Why isn't Gligar Poison/Flying? What part of it is Ground-type? Gligar's name and general design implies that it's supposed to be a gargoyle, but that raises the question of... would he be part-Rock, then? It's always been one of my pet peeves. Sure, Ground/Flying is insanely unique, and Poison/Flying would just make Gligar be seen as a relatively inferior copy of Crobat... but still. Gligar's moveset is pretty bizarre, where he learns a grand total of one Flying-type move in Acrobatics, and the only Ground-type moves he learns is Sand Attack, a decidedly generic move that anyone can do. If anything, Gligar learns three Bug-type moves, all of them offensive. So... yeah. Still, despite the typing that doesn't really mesh, Gligar's one of those that really won me over with its design, so I honestly can't really dock that many points off it.
5/6.#208: Steelix
- Types: Steel/Ground
- Japanese name: Haganeru
- Category: Iron Snake
Steelix is Onix's evolution, achieved by trading an Onix holding a Metal Coat. Alongside Scizor, Steelix is one of the two evolutions that is part-Steel, having coated with metal in their evolution into a metallic monster. And Steelix has... always been somewhat underwhelming. It is definitely a very great evolution conceptually. The giant rock wyrm-snake gets harder and stronger, and becomes a giant metallic wyrm-snake, which makes sense, right? But I've always thought that Steelix's facial expression and general shape of his head is pretty weird, especially when compared to Onix, which just looks relatively natural-ish, just made out of a rock. Steelix has this wide shovel-like head, and I just think that there's a fair bit too much going on there. From the forehead things tapering backwards, to the horns jutting to the side, to the giant spikes pointing up at the tip of its mouth, and its weird grin with teeth... which, as the anime and later sprites can attest, apparently Steelix's jaws have alternating teeth which just weirds me the heck out. I've also never really understood what those spikes that just out of its rock segments are supposed to be. He's got a horn on its tail, which is somewhat decent.
I gave Onix a 5/5 for the sheer neatness of its design, and while Steelix is the natural way to go from a rock snake, I always feel that it loses a fair bit design-wise, when it evolves into Steelix. I do love how the pokedex insists that any Onix that lives to 100 years will all naturally evolve into Steelix, and that its steel hide is harder than diamond, due to iron accumulating internally after the century of soil-swallowing. It's pretty neat, but Steelix has never been my thing. Still, the concept of a giant metallic rock-snake is cool in and of itself, so props for that.
4/6.
I gave Onix a 5/5 for the sheer neatness of its design, and while Steelix is the natural way to go from a rock snake, I always feel that it loses a fair bit design-wise, when it evolves into Steelix. I do love how the pokedex insists that any Onix that lives to 100 years will all naturally evolve into Steelix, and that its steel hide is harder than diamond, due to iron accumulating internally after the century of soil-swallowing. It's pretty neat, but Steelix has never been my thing. Still, the concept of a giant metallic rock-snake is cool in and of itself, so props for that.
4/6.#209-210: Snubbull & Granbull
- Types: Fairy [both, Normal prior to Generation VI]
- Japanese names: Buru, Guranburu
- Categories: Fairy [both]
Snubbull is one of the earliest second generation Pokemon to be revealed, debuting alongside Marill on the short that came alongside the first movie. And if Growlithe isn't enough of a dog for you, the second generation shows up with not one, but two canine evolutionary lines. One of them is Snubbull, a pink bulldog that stands up on its legs... and has a weird little clown design or something going on? It's got a blue neck-bib thing, and blue spots all over its dress-like body. And for whatever reason, Snubbull's species was known as the 'Fairy Pokemon', something that no one ever batted an eye on until Snubbull and Granbull became retconned into pure-Fairy types in the sixth generation, and... okay, maybe they are a reference to Cu Sith, a faerie that takes the form of a dog... but it's a long, long shot, to be honest. If nothing else, from a design and lore standpoint, Snubbull seems to be based on a toy-breed dog, which often gets dolled up by owners. Snubbull's dex entries note that it's popular with women, despite its scary face, and while growling aggressively, it's actually scared and gets bullied by larger dogs. Definitely what a toy breed puppy does, for sure, having raised a couple myself.
Still doesn't explain why Snubbull is a fairy, though. I completely forgot that Snubbull was actually a recurring character in the Johto era of the anime, replacing Jigglypuff as the wild Pokemon that pops up every other episode for hijinks, to bite Meowth in a one-dimensional joke... but honestly it really speaks to how little Snubbull made an impact on me when I had to google its anime appearances and realize it appeared in whole seasons.
And Snubbull evolves into the far larger and meaner-looking Granbull, losing the weird pet-dress-clown deal going on and gaining black arm-bands and what looks like a neck collar. Its lower jaw has became massive, giving it gigantic fangs, so maybe Granbull is meant to represent like the orc (or moblin?) type of Fairy? It's a long shot, though. Granbull's dex entries note that it's actually timid, and that its fangs, while powerful, are unwieldy to bite people with. Snubbull and Granbull are definitely unique, but not the sort of dog Pokemon I particularly like, and in my opinion perhaps one of the less-memorable designs in the second generation.
2/6.#211 Qwilfish
- Types: Water/Poison
- Japanese names: Harisen
- Category: Balloon
2/6.
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