Pokemon of the Week #22: Togedemaru

#777: Togedemaru, the Roly-Poly Pokemon

Well, this week's Pokemon of the Week is an Alolan edition, because I feel like I really need to acclimatize myself to Alola's Pokemon a bit more. Take Togedemaru, for example. When he was first revealed, I brushed him off as 'shit Pikachu clone #7', and he isn't even cute! He's a ball with badly-proportioned limbs stuck onto it. The likes of Dedenne might not be overtly creative, but Dedenne was at least a cute little hamster thing. Togedemaru is... weird. Of course, that's partially because the official artwork doesn't do him justice, but even in the anime and games he looks less like a rodent and more like a super-deformed plushie. He's supposedly based on a hedgehog, with the triangles on his back able to flip out and become hedgehog spikes. It's... it's not very interesting, I'm afraid.

Filler Pokemon are great -- you do need your Mankeys and Masquerains and Stunfisks alongside your Mewtwos and Zekroms and Yveltals. They give the region of the generation a unique feel to themselves, without oversaturating the pool with over-powered uber-tier Pokemon all the time. And it's been a tradition that a Pikachu Clone is going to be in the game... but did they have to make one that looks as dumb as Togedemaru? I've always thought Pachirisu and Emolga were relatively smart designs, adapting different rodents while still keeping the electric cheek-pouch thing going on, but Togedemaru neither works well as a proper Pikachu clone, nor does he really work as a hedgehog Pokemon.

I suppose I should mention that he's Electric/Steel, a time that for nearly two decades have been exclusive to the Magnemite family -- you'd think they'd make more robot-themed Pokemon out of those, but eh. It's... okay, I guess, giving Togedemaru a secondary type to make him stand out amongst the Pika-clones. Doesn't make him any less underwhelming. I'm not 100% sure what part of him is steel, though, other than them slapping the gray colour as his main palette.

His statline is geared highly towards being a physical attacker, and apparently the game makers agree with me that Togedemaru doesn't really make a good Steel-type because his learnset is almost exclusively electric-type moves. You've got the expected physical Electric-type attacks like Spark and Wild Charge... but Togedemaru at least has a special move, Zing Zap, which is his special move. Zing Zap is basically a physical version of Discharge, and probably one of the stronger physical Electric-type moves that doesn't deal recoil damage or tied to a legendary Pokemon. Of course, it is tied to Togedemaru... which makes it kind of shit. Togedemaru's moveset, bizarrely enough, doesn't contain steel-type moves, but he has access to the Bug-type Pin Missile and Fellstinger. Oh, and Spiky Shield, previously a move exclusive to Chesnaught. They gave Spiky Shield to the cactus Pokemon (Cacturne and Maractus) in ORAS, and now... Togedemaru gets it... because... reasons? Meanwhile Ferrothorn is crying in a corner.

I was about to talk about how Togedemaru only learns Steel-type moves from TMs, but not even then. The only Steel-type move Togedemaru can learn is Gyro Ball, a move that is stronger the slower the user is. The problem? Togedemaru isn't like super-speedy or anything, but he's certainly not slow, meaning that there's no real way for Togedemaru to make offensive use of his steel-type typing.

I don't think I've caught a Togedemaru in my playthrough of Pokemon Sun, but I do know he's a rare encounter outside of Blush Mountain. Like, out of all the non-evolving filler Pokemon in Sun and Moon, Togedemaru is perhaps the most boring out of them. He's, like, Sophocles's signature Pokemon in the anime or something? Jeez, the game associates him with the far cooler Vikavolt.

I dunno. I just can't really bring myself to talk about Togedemaru. Be it about his design, the lore behind him, or usage in combat, or even role in the games, Togedemaru just doesn't have anything interesting about him, even compared to literally every single other Pikachu clone out there.