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______________________________________#063-065: Abra, Kadabra & Alakazam
- Types: Psychic [all three]
- Japanese names: Keshi, Yungera, Fudin
- Categories: Psi [all three]
Ah, the Psychic-types! Back in the first generation, Psychic was perhaps one of the rarest types, beaten only by Dragon and Ghost, each only having a single evolutionary line among the original 151 Pokemon. But Psychic was always something special in the original generation, by simply how weird it is. It's definitely the game's original 'unnatural' or 'magical' type, far more ambiguous than the likes of elemental types like rock, fire, water, grass or ice. It's also perhaps one of the biggest points that some over-excited fundamentalists use to point out that 'OH POKEMON IS THE CHILD OF THE DEVIL' just as they do for every fantasy franchise aimed at kids like D&D before Pokemon and Harry Potter after it. I think the shape of Kadabra and Alakazam being similar to an overturned star were even cited as one of the 'evidence' that these are low-key teaching kids to worship Satan?
I've always loved Abra, Kadabra and Alakazam. Everything from their hilarious names based on funny magical spell words (the rejected English names for Abra and Kadabra are 'Hocus' and 'Pocus'), and I've always thought that they are better names than the Japanese ones, who chose to name Abra, Kadabra and Alakazam after real-world mystics Edgar Cayce, Uri Geller and Harry Houdini. But most of all, how unnatural they look, while still also looking animalistic enough to really conceivably be some sort of highly-evolved mammal. They do embody some neat tropes for the concept of psychics far better than any other future psychic-types, in my opinion. They embody two of the most common tropes of supposed psychic powers in real life, telekinesis (the ability to move objects with the mind) and teleportation (the ability to move instantaneously to another location).
The anime has a huge three-part episode devoted to the main characters attempting to defeat the psychotic gym leader Sabrina and her insanely powerful Kadabra, and the anime really pulled all the stops to make Kadabra creepy, even moreso than the actual Pokemon based on ghosts. The manga doesn't make psychic-types as creepy as the anime did (surprisingly, because the early arcs of Adventures are pretty dark at times) but still, the sheer awesomeness of these unnatural-looking spindly humanoids are well-shown off. And really, I love just how nondescript the three of them looks. Some people try to compare the line to foxes or goats, but it's really a tenuous comparison in my opinion, especially since all three end up having these armour-like design on their lower legs and their weird Dragon-Ball-esque armour. The yellow-and-brown colour scheme really makes them look cool, too.
Abra is a hilariously and awesomely designed Pokemon. It's always asleep, it's always floating, and it only ever knows the move Teleport naturally, which makes catching it in-game hard because you have to throw the pokeball and capture it before it teleports away, something that made me go 'HOLY SHIT THAT IS SO COOL' when I first met an Abra in 1996. Abra and his evolutionary lines really make it clear that the evolutionary line has a heavily brains-over-brawn style going on for it, and Abra's sleep-18-hours-a-day deal is definitely well done. He reads minds, and then teleports away if it senses danger, and future dex entries will note that Abra's long hours of sleep is because using psychic powers taxes its brain.
I've always loved Abra, Kadabra and Alakazam. Everything from their hilarious names based on funny magical spell words (the rejected English names for Abra and Kadabra are 'Hocus' and 'Pocus'), and I've always thought that they are better names than the Japanese ones, who chose to name Abra, Kadabra and Alakazam after real-world mystics Edgar Cayce, Uri Geller and Harry Houdini. But most of all, how unnatural they look, while still also looking animalistic enough to really conceivably be some sort of highly-evolved mammal. They do embody some neat tropes for the concept of psychics far better than any other future psychic-types, in my opinion. They embody two of the most common tropes of supposed psychic powers in real life, telekinesis (the ability to move objects with the mind) and teleportation (the ability to move instantaneously to another location).
The anime has a huge three-part episode devoted to the main characters attempting to defeat the psychotic gym leader Sabrina and her insanely powerful Kadabra, and the anime really pulled all the stops to make Kadabra creepy, even moreso than the actual Pokemon based on ghosts. The manga doesn't make psychic-types as creepy as the anime did (surprisingly, because the early arcs of Adventures are pretty dark at times) but still, the sheer awesomeness of these unnatural-looking spindly humanoids are well-shown off. And really, I love just how nondescript the three of them looks. Some people try to compare the line to foxes or goats, but it's really a tenuous comparison in my opinion, especially since all three end up having these armour-like design on their lower legs and their weird Dragon-Ball-esque armour. The yellow-and-brown colour scheme really makes them look cool, too.
Abra is a hilariously and awesomely designed Pokemon. It's always asleep, it's always floating, and it only ever knows the move Teleport naturally, which makes catching it in-game hard because you have to throw the pokeball and capture it before it teleports away, something that made me go 'HOLY SHIT THAT IS SO COOL' when I first met an Abra in 1996. Abra and his evolutionary lines really make it clear that the evolutionary line has a heavily brains-over-brawn style going on for it, and Abra's sleep-18-hours-a-day deal is definitely well done. He reads minds, and then teleports away if it senses danger, and future dex entries will note that Abra's long hours of sleep is because using psychic powers taxes its brain.
Abra evolves into the mighty Kadabra, opening his eyes and planting is feet on the ground. Kadabra has far, far better control over his psychic powers than he was as Abra, and this is when he finally produces a spoon, referring to the common trope of bending spoons as a display of psychic powers. Also rather strangely is Kadabra's gigantic, bulbous tail that it sprouts as well as random markings on its crotch and head -- all design choices that disappear when Kadabra finally achieves his Alakazam form, and perhaps my one criticism against the line. Kadabra's star and wave pattern seem to be a reference to the Zener Cards, which are cards used to conduct experiments for ESP/Extrasensory Perception, which is neat, and I really kind of wish they just had been maintained when Kadabra evolves into Alakazam for consistency's sake.
And, boy, Kadabra just looks cool. He doesn't look like anything in the natural world, not really, adding to his 'monster' look. Between his claws, spindly limbs, the weird spoon, and the knowledge that he uses his psychic powers to throw people around and simply magic the fuck out of them is amazing. Pokedex entries have a field day at making Kadabra be creepy. He emits 'alpha waves' that causes headaches to all around him. He causes clocks to turn backwards by being nearby. He causes strange shadows to appear in TV screens. And apparently the spoon is a way to focus its powerful telekinetic abilities (how?), and the spoon has to be silver ('gold spoons are no good!' claims the Pokedex) and most creepily, apparently a human kid with actual extrasensory powers transformed into a Kadabra, as detailed in the now-infamous FireRed pokedex entry.
In addition to all the aforementioned occult controversies, Kadabra is also currently on kind of a ban that prevents it from appearing in any anime episodes or trading cards, because Game Freak was actually sued from Uri Geller, the dude that Kadabra draws his Japanese name from. Silly Geller, be flattered that half of the kids in my generation even know what spoon-bending parlour magic even is thanks to Pokemon!
Kadabra then finally evolves into the mighty Alakazam, which looks so much cooler than Kadabra. Alakazam loses the huge tail (which I thought was weird anyway), has bigger horns and mustache and gets another spoon! He's also a lot spindlier and lankier, which is a neat shout-out to the trope that mystics never actually train their body -- something that Mega Alakazam (which we'll get to eventually) takes up to eleven. And Alakazam is just super-smart, with an IQ of 5000 and apparently its brain is too heavy for its atrophied neck muscles to support -- which Alakazam uses psychic powers to do instead. That's such a cool little detail. And yeah, they're one of the strongest creatures in the game, and one of the few that you need to have a friend (or a second gameboy with a link cable) to ever achieve, because in order to highlight the trading gimmick of the games, to turn Kadabra into Alakazam you have to trade it to another game.
Overall, Abra, Kadabra and Alakazam are an amazingly designed series of weird and creepy Pokemon that simply embody the idea of espers and psychics, despite the multitude of controversies that they ended up causing.
5/6.
And, boy, Kadabra just looks cool. He doesn't look like anything in the natural world, not really, adding to his 'monster' look. Between his claws, spindly limbs, the weird spoon, and the knowledge that he uses his psychic powers to throw people around and simply magic the fuck out of them is amazing. Pokedex entries have a field day at making Kadabra be creepy. He emits 'alpha waves' that causes headaches to all around him. He causes clocks to turn backwards by being nearby. He causes strange shadows to appear in TV screens. And apparently the spoon is a way to focus its powerful telekinetic abilities (how?), and the spoon has to be silver ('gold spoons are no good!' claims the Pokedex) and most creepily, apparently a human kid with actual extrasensory powers transformed into a Kadabra, as detailed in the now-infamous FireRed pokedex entry.
In addition to all the aforementioned occult controversies, Kadabra is also currently on kind of a ban that prevents it from appearing in any anime episodes or trading cards, because Game Freak was actually sued from Uri Geller, the dude that Kadabra draws his Japanese name from. Silly Geller, be flattered that half of the kids in my generation even know what spoon-bending parlour magic even is thanks to Pokemon!
Kadabra then finally evolves into the mighty Alakazam, which looks so much cooler than Kadabra. Alakazam loses the huge tail (which I thought was weird anyway), has bigger horns and mustache and gets another spoon! He's also a lot spindlier and lankier, which is a neat shout-out to the trope that mystics never actually train their body -- something that Mega Alakazam (which we'll get to eventually) takes up to eleven. And Alakazam is just super-smart, with an IQ of 5000 and apparently its brain is too heavy for its atrophied neck muscles to support -- which Alakazam uses psychic powers to do instead. That's such a cool little detail. And yeah, they're one of the strongest creatures in the game, and one of the few that you need to have a friend (or a second gameboy with a link cable) to ever achieve, because in order to highlight the trading gimmick of the games, to turn Kadabra into Alakazam you have to trade it to another game.
Overall, Abra, Kadabra and Alakazam are an amazingly designed series of weird and creepy Pokemon that simply embody the idea of espers and psychics, despite the multitude of controversies that they ended up causing.
5/6.#066-068: Machop, Machoke & Machamp
- Types: Fighting[all three]
- Japanese names: Wanriki, Goriki, Kairiki
- Categories: Superpower [all three]
Machop, Machoke and Machamp were Pokemon that, if you asked a five-year-old me about, would probably rank very low, if not the absolute lowest, among my list of favourite Pokemon. Like most kids, I've never had the time for any sort of humanoid Pokemon, and preferred them to be modeled after animals, plants and objects. Yes, as a child, I never had a problem with object Pokemon and neither do I now, really. But humanoid Pokemon? Abra's line and Mewtwo are the only ones that get a pass from me because they're clearly got some animalistic designs in mind (even if Abra's is pretty unclear). Add that to the brain-versus-brawn rivalry between Psychic and Fighting types, and the very un-athletic child-me would definitely put even more love into Alakazam as opposed to silly old punchy-punch Machamp.
But I've grown to love this line so much more over the years. Perhaps moreso than Mankey, which we reviewed in the previous part, the Machop line embodies the Fighting type so much better, being actually based on a style of sports and physical activity, in this case body-building and eventually wrestling. I'm not sure when I started to like Machop and his evolutions. I definitely fell in love with Machamp hard when I played through Pokken for the sheer hamminess that Machamp has in his flexing and his ORA ORA ORA-ing, and the sheer over-the-top, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure style rapid-fire punching that Machamp delivers. Machamp and Alakazam are also two of the rare trading cards I have back when I was collecting the card game from booster packs back when I was a kid.
They also have the same weird inconsistency that the Charmander and Squirtle lines have, where the middle form has a weirdly different shade of gray compared to the weakest and most powerful forms, and I've never quite understood just what animal they're based on. Machop has a tail, which he loses upon evolution, and I've always thought Machoke was somewhat crocodilian (blame me watching Batman: The Animated Series as a kid and seeing Killer Croc) with his teeth, but Machamp has big, big sexy lips. I guess they're just generic humanoids?
And Machoke's pretty cool. I really don't like putting down fifth-generation designs, but comparing Machoke to Gurdurr, Machoke is a way to portray muscles or veins ripping out of muscles while still looking aesthetically pleasing as opposed to Gurdurr's weird gross bulges. Machoke has gained some spandex underwear and a champion belt that manifests out of the ether when Machoke evolves, making it clear that this evolutionary line is at least partially based on professional wrestlers, which is pretty... weird? I've never liked random clothing and accessories in Pokemon, although Machoke and Machamp's belts do look at least somewhat unobstrusive and doesn't take up their entire design. The pokedex tells us that Machoke needs the 'power belt' to regulate its motions, otherwise it can't properly control its power. It's a cool bit of lore that the Adventures manga interpreted as being somewhat similar to those huge weights that Dragon Ball Z and other shonen manga love so much, and one particularly memorable scene was Bruno's Machamp taking off his belt to show its true power when fighting as a way of a power-up before we even had mega evolutions.
Like Kadabra, Machoke only achieves his final form by evolving into Machamp, who reverts back to Machop's gray coloration, gains an extra pair of arms which makes him simply in excess of muscles, and gains... some weird yellow lips? It's a pretty hilarious face to slap on such a well-muscled character, and Machamp's excessive hamminess and flexing in the 3D games has always endeared him to me. Some of the pokedex entries note that apparently Machamp's muscles allow it to punch so fast that it can deliver '1000 punches in two seconds', one of the pokedex's hilariously exaggerated amounts of numbers. Far more awesome is his brand-new Ultra Sun dex entry, who tells us of the existence of a wrestling finisher move called the "MACHAMP SPECIAL!" And while the older dex entries all focus on his strength, the Ruby dex gives this hilarious gem: "trying to do any work requiring care and dexterity causes its arms to get tangled".
Also note that all of Machamp's original official artwork never featured the belt, seemingly a nod to how Machoke has finally taken off the belt and unleashed the amount of energy that it had previously been storing. The manga's first ten or so volumes also didn't give Machamp a belt, making it an actual plot point when Bruno's Machamp has a Machoke belt that he takes off to unleash its full power... but the original Generation I and II sprites actually feature the belt. The third generation went belt-less (and also bizarrely miscoloured Machamp in a gray-green shade) even though Machamp received new official art that finally gave him the belt. So it's not until the fourth generation that Machamp finally had the belt permanently.
So yeah, I've grown to appreciate Machamp and his pre-evolutions a fair bit more over the years. This was one I thought I was going to give 1/5, but hey, turns out I like it more than I thought I would.
3/6.#069-071: Bellsprout, Weepinbell & Victreebel
- Types: Grass/Poison [all three]
- Japanese names: Madatsubomi, Utsudon, Utsubotto
- Categories: Flower [Bellsprout], Flycatcher [Weepinbell/Victreebel]
Oh boy, oh boy, I really love this evolutionary line. Bellsprout, Weepinbell and Victreebel has that absolutely neat combination between 'wacky' and 'cool' that very few others manage to do, and I really love that they went with the more passive pitcher plant as opposed to the venus flytrap for the obligatory carnivorous plant monster. The venus flytrap is really cool, and we'll have a flytrap Pokemon in the fourth generation, but after so many games like Mario, The Legend of Zelda and Final Fantasy use the flytrap as an angry plant enemy, I really loved that Bellsprout and her evolutions were based on the slightly more obscure pitcher plant. And I absolutely loved them. The idea of plants that eat animals was so hilariously out-of-the-blue that I was immediately fascinated to discover that these creatures from Venus flytraps to Sundews to pitcher plants to bladderworts all exist in real life.
Bellsprout is just so hilarious. From its dopey, beady eyes and its huge lips, Bellsprout is just an ambulatory flower with adorable little root-legs, a swaying body and a huge blank-eyed head that was just instantly adorable. And it has little leaf-hands! Bellsprout is just a little darling that's based on a walking flower, but to tie it to its eventual form, Bellsprout is like an upside-down pitcher plant (or just a weirdly-shaped one like the cobra lily, or its wonderful scientific name, Darlingtonia californica). Pokedex entries make sure that you know that it's blindingly fast despite its wobbly spindly body, and apparently like its cross-game counterpart Oddish, it's often mistaken for the legendary mandrake plant. In Johto, one area you meet early on is a huge pagoda called the Sprout Tower, a tower filled with monks that base their entire training upon learning from Bellsprout's movements. And apparently the huge swaying tower in the middle of it is supposed to contain a legendary, gigantic Bellsprout -- which we sadly never see in-game, but the existence of an entire tower that essentially worships Bellsprout is just so awesome.
Bellsprout evolves into Weepinbell, who is one of those rare cases where the middle-stage evolution has a very, very distinct design that isn't just "un-developed final stage", but doesn't look too similar to either its pre-evolved or evolved form while still looking like it belongs in the life cycle as Bellsprout grows more powerful.
And Weepinbell is also just gorgeously goofy. It's often portrayed in anime and manga as just hanging from branches with that little ponytail branch, then presumably chomping down on enemies with its huge, huge mouth. It's just a huge little weird fruit thing that just also happens to be a pitcher plant, working beautifully with Bellsprout's flower-based design. Oh, and the entire line is Grass/Poison, and while most Grass/Poison types tend to be more associated with poisonous powders and spores (not that the Bellsprout line can't use them), these go for the more traditional route of just shooting motherfucking digestive acid at their enemies, something that the pokedex entries go to hilariously vivid detail. Which just works so well in making the pitcher plant theme work, with actual pitcher plants dissolving their insectoid prey within their pitcher-shaped flowers with digestive enzymes. Oh, and if the prey is too big, Weepinbell will just use those goofy leaf-arms to slice them up.
And then Weepinbell finally evolves when exposed to a Leaf Stone into the majestic monster that is Victreebel (one L, because the Game Boy Color's alphabet limitations -- Feraligatr is another less-elegant victim of this). Victreebel finally embraces how the Nepenthes actually look, a gigantic pitcher-shaped flower connected to the plant's main body with a stalk, which is re-interpreted here as a gigantic mean-looking whip ending in a barb. Victreebel shares so many design elements with Bellsprout and Weepinbell -- a prominent yellow 'pitcher' bulb, two prominent leaf-arms, pink lips, a brown stalk -- while possessing a completely different body. Victreebel also looks particularly mean, with that upside-down-looking face looking deliciously alien, and possessing two cute fangs that are neat interpretations of the downward-facing spikes actual pitcher plants have. Hell, Victreebel's lips are even found in real-life pitcher plants! And the leaf on Victreebel's head is also found in real-life Nepenthes, acting as the 'lid' of the pitcher!
There was a whole chapter in early Adventures manga where the protagonist Red gets captured by a huge colony of Victreebels in the Safari Zone, which is chillingly amazing and easily one that quickly rocketed Victreebel up to one of my all-time favourites. Hell, if that meant that I have two Grass/Poison types in my party with Venusaur, so be it. Victreebel is also portrayed in a hilariously comedic form in the anime, being one of the Pokemon used by James of Team Rocket. Popping out of her Pokeball with a hilariously loud EEEEEEEEEEEEEEE (as opposed to normal repeat-my-name speech), Victreebel's first thing to do is to chomp down on her own trainer, ostensibly as a 'sign of affection. Victreebel's hilarious, and I love her.
Victreebel's just got a simply amazing design that I just really love, and subsequent generations would build up on just how awesome it is. The third geneation pokedex mentions that the vine on Victreebel's head isn't a whip, but an actual lure to get little bug-type Pokemon to attract prey, making Victreebel even cooler -- he's an anglerfish pitcher plant! Victreebel has a special place in my heart, and remains one of my personal favourites to this day.
6/6.
Bellsprout is just so hilarious. From its dopey, beady eyes and its huge lips, Bellsprout is just an ambulatory flower with adorable little root-legs, a swaying body and a huge blank-eyed head that was just instantly adorable. And it has little leaf-hands! Bellsprout is just a little darling that's based on a walking flower, but to tie it to its eventual form, Bellsprout is like an upside-down pitcher plant (or just a weirdly-shaped one like the cobra lily, or its wonderful scientific name, Darlingtonia californica). Pokedex entries make sure that you know that it's blindingly fast despite its wobbly spindly body, and apparently like its cross-game counterpart Oddish, it's often mistaken for the legendary mandrake plant. In Johto, one area you meet early on is a huge pagoda called the Sprout Tower, a tower filled with monks that base their entire training upon learning from Bellsprout's movements. And apparently the huge swaying tower in the middle of it is supposed to contain a legendary, gigantic Bellsprout -- which we sadly never see in-game, but the existence of an entire tower that essentially worships Bellsprout is just so awesome.
Bellsprout evolves into Weepinbell, who is one of those rare cases where the middle-stage evolution has a very, very distinct design that isn't just "un-developed final stage", but doesn't look too similar to either its pre-evolved or evolved form while still looking like it belongs in the life cycle as Bellsprout grows more powerful.
And Weepinbell is also just gorgeously goofy. It's often portrayed in anime and manga as just hanging from branches with that little ponytail branch, then presumably chomping down on enemies with its huge, huge mouth. It's just a huge little weird fruit thing that just also happens to be a pitcher plant, working beautifully with Bellsprout's flower-based design. Oh, and the entire line is Grass/Poison, and while most Grass/Poison types tend to be more associated with poisonous powders and spores (not that the Bellsprout line can't use them), these go for the more traditional route of just shooting motherfucking digestive acid at their enemies, something that the pokedex entries go to hilariously vivid detail. Which just works so well in making the pitcher plant theme work, with actual pitcher plants dissolving their insectoid prey within their pitcher-shaped flowers with digestive enzymes. Oh, and if the prey is too big, Weepinbell will just use those goofy leaf-arms to slice them up.
And then Weepinbell finally evolves when exposed to a Leaf Stone into the majestic monster that is Victreebel (one L, because the Game Boy Color's alphabet limitations -- Feraligatr is another less-elegant victim of this). Victreebel finally embraces how the Nepenthes actually look, a gigantic pitcher-shaped flower connected to the plant's main body with a stalk, which is re-interpreted here as a gigantic mean-looking whip ending in a barb. Victreebel shares so many design elements with Bellsprout and Weepinbell -- a prominent yellow 'pitcher' bulb, two prominent leaf-arms, pink lips, a brown stalk -- while possessing a completely different body. Victreebel also looks particularly mean, with that upside-down-looking face looking deliciously alien, and possessing two cute fangs that are neat interpretations of the downward-facing spikes actual pitcher plants have. Hell, Victreebel's lips are even found in real-life pitcher plants! And the leaf on Victreebel's head is also found in real-life Nepenthes, acting as the 'lid' of the pitcher!
There was a whole chapter in early Adventures manga where the protagonist Red gets captured by a huge colony of Victreebels in the Safari Zone, which is chillingly amazing and easily one that quickly rocketed Victreebel up to one of my all-time favourites. Hell, if that meant that I have two Grass/Poison types in my party with Venusaur, so be it. Victreebel is also portrayed in a hilariously comedic form in the anime, being one of the Pokemon used by James of Team Rocket. Popping out of her Pokeball with a hilariously loud EEEEEEEEEEEEEEE (as opposed to normal repeat-my-name speech), Victreebel's first thing to do is to chomp down on her own trainer, ostensibly as a 'sign of affection. Victreebel's hilarious, and I love her.
Victreebel's just got a simply amazing design that I just really love, and subsequent generations would build up on just how awesome it is. The third geneation pokedex mentions that the vine on Victreebel's head isn't a whip, but an actual lure to get little bug-type Pokemon to attract prey, making Victreebel even cooler -- he's an anglerfish pitcher plant! Victreebel has a special place in my heart, and remains one of my personal favourites to this day.
6/6.#072-073: Tentacool & Tentacruel
- Types: Water/Poison [both]
- Japanese names: Menokurage, Dokukurage
- Categories: Jellyfish [both]
I guess I just have a soft spot for the annoying swarming beasties in the game, between Zubat and Tentacool being two Pokemon I really like. But Tentacool and especially Tentacruel are very awesome-looking designs, aren't they? They're the annoying common enemy in nearly all sea areas, with the only sea they don't infest being the Unovan seas in the fifth generation. They're based on jellyfish, specifically the Cubozoa class of box jellyfish. Tentacool in particular seems to take a lot of inspiration from the classic box jellyfish, between its penchant to sting people (box jellyfishes are the ones that often sting humans with their insanely potent venom for such an otherwise simple organism) and its shape, and the way that Tentacool's two tentacles resemble how some box jellyfishes, particularly the venomous Carukia barnesi, have a small amount of thick tentacles on either side of their body. Of course, Tentacool's more fleshy body and its bulbous head resembles a cephalopod more, but its jellyfish inspirations are clear as day, between the descriptions of its floating in the ocean, stinging people by accident and sometimes washing up on shore and drying up. Water/Poison is definitely a very appropriate type for this, because box jellyfishes are one of the most venomous and dangerous animals in the sea.
Oh, and that's not just all that Tentacool is. It's perhaps cool-but-not-exciting if Tentacool and Tentacruel are just inspired by the venomous jellyfishes that live in real-world seas, but it has these weird crystal-esque red bulbs on the sides of its head and the center of its bulb. It just screams 'alien', and it's perhaps no coincidence that one of the classic fantasy alien in Japanese pop culture is a tentacled octopus man. But Tentacool and Tentacruel's jewel-things really bring to mind Frieza and other Dragon Ball Z aliens, don't they? Even if they're not meant to be a direct homage the way Mewtwo was, it's still a very cool design choice that serves to make Tentacool and Tentacruel really alien-looking. It also perhaps serves as some sort of mimicry to make Tentacool and Tentacruel appear already bigger than they already are, like eye-spots on butterflies? Tentacruel's dex entries note that these red orbs are used by communication, flashing to inform other Tentacruel of danger or prey, which is pretty neat. Again, communication is another cephalopod thing to do, where squids and cuttlefish will use their colour-changing abilities to communicate, whereas jellyfish are far more rudimentary animals... but it all does blend to a pretty cool whole in the design of these Pokemon.
And while Tentacool is relatively weak-looking, it evolves into the mighty Tentacruel, which I've always found impressive looking despite being relatively lackluster in games. Its giant, black, fleshy tentacles (the pokedex note that Tentacruel has 80, but official sprites and artwork obviously only show around like 14-20), and the two bright-blue blade-like 'beak' (even though, y'know, jellyfishes don't have beaks, and that's a bit of a biological feature reserved for octopi and squids) just reeks of menace, and just how they are clustered in a black fleshy pod where Tentacruel's eyes are nestled in, with the jellyfish body form in some sort of a dome really make Tentacruel look insanely cool in an alien-walker design aesthetic thing. Many people note that Tentacruel's head bears more than a passing similarity to the Portuguese Man O' War, one of the most popular venomous jellyfish (or, well, hydrozoan, technically -- Man O' Wars are far simpler than jellyfishes and are actually a colonial organism), which I totally see. The floatation part of the Man O'War corresponds to Tentacruel's blue parts, and the web of smaller tentacles might be represented by the black mass underneath Tenacruel's dome. Tentacruel is also a lot bigger than you think, being a massive 1.6 meter tall jellyfish-octopus monster. . Its canon size isn't quite as big as the kaiju-sized mutant Tentacruel seen early in the anime that goes around crushing buildings (as seen in the anime's first opening sequence), but it's still pretty damn cool. It's a pity that Tentacruel was never really elevated beyond 'water pest', despite his pretty cool design.
6/6.#074-076: Geodude, Graveler & Golem
- Types: Rock/Ground [all three]
- Japanese names: Ishitsubute, Goron, Goronya
- Categories: Rock [Geodude/Graveler], Megaton [Golem]
The rock boyos! Like most pokemon fans, I first saw Geodude when I fought Brock, the very first gym leader in Pokemon Blue, where I was treated to this wacky floating head monster with the strangest expression on his face, two arms that gave me a thumbs-up and weird growths on its head. It's not until I got a little poster with all 150 Pokemon on it that I realized that Geodude was supposed to be a floating rock monster and it's just Pokemon Red/Blue's spriting system that's dumb. And, well, I saw Geodude in the anime and he's pretty cool too. He's our first Rock-type in the pokedex... although the entire Geodude line is Rock/Ground. I'm pretty sure that we don't actually get any pure Rock-types in the first generation, where all Rock-types are paired with Ground or another typing as far as the fossil Pokemon go. And, well, what better to represent our first Rock-type with an actual, living rock dude?
Geodude is, well, a rock with a cool face and arms, sleeping and being often mistaken as boulders, and in the pokedex apparently it was originally conceived as hauling itself around with his arms or to roll around. The manga and anime made Geodude float above the ground, and subsequent games immediately latched on to that... which is cooler but a lot less hilarious.
Graveler, like Machoke and Kadabra, can only achieve its final form if you trade it, and it will thus evolve into the mighty Golem, who... is a pretty drastic transformation from Graveler. It ends up being a rock monster that somewhat evokes lizards or turtles in a way, with a main body made up of darker chunks of boulders, and two tiny claws and stumpy legs and a head popping out of it. The human face from Geodude and Graveler have disappeared, as has Graveler's extra arms. It definitely looks somewhat turtle-monster-esque and Golem can indeed retract its head and limbs inside the darker rock 'shell' as it spins around and smacks onto its enemies. The pokedex even notes how it 'sheds its skin' to grow larger. Golem is a very cool design, although it goes from a literal rock monster into a... rock-beast, I guess? I really wished that the evolution from Graveler to Golem has been more gradual, and that the evolutionary line between the three has felt more organic.
Overall, all three rock monsters look pretty cool and definitely fill in a pretty neat niche in the Pokemon ecology, although they've never been my 'thing' (as you can probably figure out, I like the obviously-cool-dragons and the wacky plant/bug/jellyfish monsters), I do like them. Even if Golem's name is honestly just kind of an English word with no real puns.
4/6.#077-078: Ponyta & Rapidash
- Types: Fire [both]
- Japanese names: Ponita, Gyaroppu
- Categories: Fire Horse [both]
Ponyta and Rapidash are the franchise's only horses for... for a long time, honestly. If we're strictly just talking about horses, I don't think we even got any real specimens until generation seven's Mudsdale, and if we're being generous it's not even until generation five that we get any sort of deer in the form of Sawsbuck and Virizion. They're sorely under-represented in the original games, though, and honestly I think it was the fourth generation that had Ponytas in multiple areas compared to the first two. And I just... am not that fascinated by Ponyta that much? The simple basic idea is inherently cool, for sure -- these are horses whose manes are made entirely out of fire! But comparing Ponyta to the far more visually fascinating-looking two-stage-mammal fire-type evolutions like Arcanine and Ninetales there's just something that I feel is lacking about the line. There's nothing particularly unique about these fire horses that other fire-types don't already do other than the fact that, y'know, these are horses. And if you're a huge horse fan then these are your Pokemon, for the simple fact that there's no other real options out there.
Rapidash is a bigger, more graceful Ponyta with a more anime-esque set of eyes and a unicorn horn. And that unicorn horn does make it a lot more majestic looking, and I do really appreciate just how much a change in eye design really ends up making Rapidash end up looking so much more of an adult compared to baby Ponyta. I think most of Ponyta's dex entries just focus on how high it can jump, whereas Rapidash's focuses on how fast it is (when in-game her speed is just kinda... average). I really don't have much to say about Ponyta and Rapidash other than its under-representation even within the games and its tie-in material. Rapidash has a particularly amazing Shiny palette, though, because silver-coloured flames are really cool! It is cool enough for me not to hate it, I suppose, which is the true definition of a 3 ranking.
3/6.#079-080: Slowpoke & Slowbro
- Types: Water/Psychic [both]
- Japanese names: Yadon, Yadoran
- Categories: Dopey [Slowpoke], Hermit Crab [Slowbro]
Ah, Slowpoke! I've liked Slowpoke and its 'derp' face (never have I felt that a word symbolizes someone's face better than Slowpoke and derp). And it's a... creature! Slowpoke's obviously some sort of a mammal, which you can wave away as some sort of hippopotamus or fat newt if you're trying to try and force animals onto every single Pokemon the way that some people say that Alakazam is a fox-man. Slowpoke is delightfully ambiguous, though, and it's just... y'know, a Slowpoke. It's just a creature, one of the few Pokemon from the first generation that's just some sort of ambiguous monster animal. The Pokedex identifies it as the 'dopey Pokemon' and that's another perfect word to describe good ol' Slowpoke. He's just a hilariously funny-looking fat animal with a lovably vacant expression that hangs out near riverbanks and uses its tail to 'fish' for water. It's pretty cute! And apparently it's so dumb and slow that it takes a full 5 seconds for Slowpoke to even feel the pain when he's attacked. It's just a slow, bumbling dude that's also Water/Psychic. Water makes sense since it lives near riverbanks and lakes, or within a well if Johto's Slowpoke Well area is any indication, but it's also part-Psychic, which in generation one is almost exclusively given to humanoid Pokemon based on mystical occupations like actual psychics, hypnotists, mutant genetic experiments and a mime for some reason. And Slowpoke just keeps that vacant look throughout his evolution into Slowbro, which we'll talk about in a bit. It's a neat variation on how the Psychic type tends to be represented as super-smart magicians and wizards -- Slowpoke and Slowbro (and Psyduck) represent the psychics with the innate mystical ability to unleash telekinesis, but at the same time it negatively impairs their actual thought.
Slowpoke's tail is also very delicious, secreting a sort of sap that it uses to attract fish (if it remembers why), and it's actually a huge plot point in the storyline for the second generation games. Apparently those bastards in Team Rocket, who's like this hybrid between animal poachers and the mafia, roughed up the Slowpokes in Azalea Town's Slowpoke well and started chopping off the tails of those Slowpokes and sell them for exorbitant prices illegally! The scumbags! Thankfully they grow back, but, y'know, tail-chopping!
Slowpoke then evolves into Slowbro, which is, basically just Slowpoke standing up! The legs of the Slowpoke have transformed to better fit their arm/leg role, and it's tail apparently fishes up a Shellder (scroll down if you're unfamiliar with what a Shellder is) which chomps down on Slowpoke's tail and triggers the evolution. Sadly this isn't actually reflected in any sort of game mechanic, and Slowpoke just evolves when he reaches a certain level threshold, which is a huge, huge shame. Neither does Slowbro have any way of returning into being a Slowpoke, despite several dex entries insisting that Slowbro 'devolves' back into Slowpoke if the Shellder is shaken off.
But most strikingly, Shellder's appearance is decidedly bivalve-esque, but upon clamping down to Slowpoke it transforms into a spiral-shaped spiked shell that doesn't resemble Shellder or even Shellder's own evolved form, Cloyster. It's as if the process of evolution transforms the Shellder more than it did the Slowpoke. And all material lets us know that the toxins that Shellder secretes into Slowbro keeps its brain firing and stimulates it, while the Shellder gets to feed on the sap from Slowbro's tail or the scraps left behind by its host. It's some sort of a symbiotic relationship between the two, which is pretty cool.
The pokedex identifies Slowbro as the 'hermit crab Pokemon', and while it does tell us, in a way, of what Slowbro's animal basis might be... does that fat happy pink blob look anything like a crab to you? So I've always just appreciated Slowpoke and Slowbro as being a design focused more on the symbiosis/parasitism theme more than it does trying to replicate a real-life animal, hermit crab or otherwise. But browsing around, I came across this great article on Bulbapedia that gives a particularly cool mythological inspiration for what Slowbro actually is. It appears that Slowbro is partially also based upon the obake called sazae-oni, an obscure mythical being in Japanese culture based on a specific shellfish called the Turbo cornutus, the horned turban sea snail that looks near-identical to the shape of Slowbro's Shellder-tail-parasite. The sazae-oni is a gigantic turban snail that has a monstrous being living inside it, whose head is also a turban snail shell. The actual myths portray the sazae-oni as an evil, testicle-chopping being, but obviously Slowbro doesn't actually do that. The sazae-oni is also likely the basis of another monster based on a creature within the turban, Digimon's Shellmon (if I finish the original 800, maybe I'll do a Digimon feature?), although Shellmon definitely takes the hermit crab motif further, even if Shellmon's true body is a nondescript creature like Slowbro's. It's a delightful little myth that satisfies the curiousity I've always had for this pair (and further members of the family, Slowking and Mega-Slowbro). I've always liked those two and found them pretty cool additions to the original 150, with or without the backstory.
Slowpoke's tail is also very delicious, secreting a sort of sap that it uses to attract fish (if it remembers why), and it's actually a huge plot point in the storyline for the second generation games. Apparently those bastards in Team Rocket, who's like this hybrid between animal poachers and the mafia, roughed up the Slowpokes in Azalea Town's Slowpoke well and started chopping off the tails of those Slowpokes and sell them for exorbitant prices illegally! The scumbags! Thankfully they grow back, but, y'know, tail-chopping!
Slowpoke then evolves into Slowbro, which is, basically just Slowpoke standing up! The legs of the Slowpoke have transformed to better fit their arm/leg role, and it's tail apparently fishes up a Shellder (scroll down if you're unfamiliar with what a Shellder is) which chomps down on Slowpoke's tail and triggers the evolution. Sadly this isn't actually reflected in any sort of game mechanic, and Slowpoke just evolves when he reaches a certain level threshold, which is a huge, huge shame. Neither does Slowbro have any way of returning into being a Slowpoke, despite several dex entries insisting that Slowbro 'devolves' back into Slowpoke if the Shellder is shaken off.
But most strikingly, Shellder's appearance is decidedly bivalve-esque, but upon clamping down to Slowpoke it transforms into a spiral-shaped spiked shell that doesn't resemble Shellder or even Shellder's own evolved form, Cloyster. It's as if the process of evolution transforms the Shellder more than it did the Slowpoke. And all material lets us know that the toxins that Shellder secretes into Slowbro keeps its brain firing and stimulates it, while the Shellder gets to feed on the sap from Slowbro's tail or the scraps left behind by its host. It's some sort of a symbiotic relationship between the two, which is pretty cool.
The pokedex identifies Slowbro as the 'hermit crab Pokemon', and while it does tell us, in a way, of what Slowbro's animal basis might be... does that fat happy pink blob look anything like a crab to you? So I've always just appreciated Slowpoke and Slowbro as being a design focused more on the symbiosis/parasitism theme more than it does trying to replicate a real-life animal, hermit crab or otherwise. But browsing around, I came across this great article on Bulbapedia that gives a particularly cool mythological inspiration for what Slowbro actually is. It appears that Slowbro is partially also based upon the obake called sazae-oni, an obscure mythical being in Japanese culture based on a specific shellfish called the Turbo cornutus, the horned turban sea snail that looks near-identical to the shape of Slowbro's Shellder-tail-parasite. The sazae-oni is a gigantic turban snail that has a monstrous being living inside it, whose head is also a turban snail shell. The actual myths portray the sazae-oni as an evil, testicle-chopping being, but obviously Slowbro doesn't actually do that. The sazae-oni is also likely the basis of another monster based on a creature within the turban, Digimon's Shellmon (if I finish the original 800, maybe I'll do a Digimon feature?), although Shellmon definitely takes the hermit crab motif further, even if Shellmon's true body is a nondescript creature like Slowbro's. It's a delightful little myth that satisfies the curiousity I've always had for this pair (and further members of the family, Slowking and Mega-Slowbro). I've always liked those two and found them pretty cool additions to the original 150, with or without the backstory. 4/6.#081-082: Magnemite & Magneton
- Types: Electric/Steel [both, Electric before Generation II]
- Japanese names: Koiru, Reakoiru
- Categories: Magnet [all three]
I've always loved this pair of Electric/Steel types (they were pure-Electric in the first generation, and retroactively got the Steel type in the second generation) and I'm pretty sure the existence of the Magnemite line was one of the biggest reason why I was never actually bothered by "object" Pokemon -- maybe I'll do some article later on talking abotu the pros and cons of object Pokemon? You're free to dislike them if you want to, of course, but I'll cover each on a case-to-case basis. Creatures that are simply living objects have been a common trope in a lot of fiction, from things like Mimics in D&D to tsukumogami (literally just objects that achieved sentience after 100 years) in Japanese culture. Obviously Magnemite and Magneton take a far more sci-fi take on it, being giant steel eyeballs with screws and two magnets. They are something that I instantly loved as a kid, because they're like robots (robots are cool!) but at the same time they are so different from the more humanoid robots like C-3P0 or Gundams. Magnemite doesn't have a face, and he's just a happy floating eyeball that shoots electricity and made entirely out of magnets and little steel stuff, and I really like it.
My actual love for Magnemite came from actually using one in my Pokemon: Moon playthrough where I ended up falling in love so hard for this plucky little robot eyeball, shooting adorable little Magnemite and his evolutions up as one of my favourites. Magnemite is, as the Pokedex notes, 'born' with the ability to defy gravity because it's got its own magnetic field, and naturally, as an Electric-type Pokemon, it's whole existence is a huge pun on electromagnetism. It inhabits an ecological niche in the Pokemon world where its natural biological habitat are locations that are simply rich in electricity, particularly abandoned man-made complexes.
Magneton, naturally, fucks up anything that uses radio waves to work, and I've always liked the added detail that they apparently appear when 'sunspots flare up'. Sunspots are a phenomenon that happens on the big ball of super-heated gas we call the Sun when its own personal magnetic field is thrown out of whack, so it's a very cool little reference there.
And while I've only really started to super-love Magneton thanks to the seventh generation, I've always liked how in the Adventures manga Lt. Surge has a quartet of Magneton that creates an electromagnetic pyramidal force field to help transport him around, which I thought as a kid was one of the coolest shit ever. Magnemite and Magneton are really just dang cool.
6/6.#083: Farfetch'd
- Types: Normal/Flying
- Japanese name: Kamonegi
- Category: Wild Duck
Hee hee, this dumb duck. Poor, poor Farfetch'd is probably one of the most under-appreciated Pokemon in the first generation. He's just a cartoon duck with thick eyebrows holding a leek and whacking people on the head with it! In a world with ghosts, dragons, tank turtles and eyeball magnet monsters, Farfetch'd seems to confuse people into thinking that it evolves into Doduo, forming a trio of one-headed bird evolving into two-headed bird into three-headed bird. It's not particularly strong, it doesn't evolve and it's sorely outclassed by Pidgeot, Fearow and Dodrio, the other three options for a Normal/Flying Pokemon. And that uselessness, it seems, is the whole point of Farfetch'd existence. Again from Bulbapedia is an article that informs me about Farfetch'd's origins, which comes from a Japanese saying: kamo ga negi wo shotte kuru, which literally means 'a duck comes bearing green onions', which is a saying that means 'something unexpected yet convenient' (or, y'know, something you may say is a far-fetched event). You basically get a duck in front of you, and it even carries an onion -- something ducks never do -- but it's very convenient since you get a duck and something to deliciously cook it with. (If it sounds nonsensical to an English-speaking person, take note of how moronic sayings like 'beat about the bush', 'bite the bullet' or 'raining cats and dogs' would if translated literally to another language)
And, well, apparently it is also used ironically, where particular suckers easily parted from their money are often referred to as a 'duck' in reference to this saying. And both meanings are somewhat true in Farfetch'd's case. It's a very, very rare Pokemon, ostensibly due to over-hunting since it's a delicacy, and in the original Red/Blue games the only way to get it is in a trade with a lady in Vermillion City. So it's definitely convenient that a Pokemon that apparently is all but extinct and turned into duck soup in the wild is just sitting there... but the joke is on you, because Farfetch'd is a pretty shit battler (even with a buff to Farfetch'd's attack stat in the seventh generation he's still objectively worse than most Normal/Flying Pokemon out there) and far weaker than the evolved form of the Pokemon you gave away, a Spearow.
Still, I do like Farfetch'd's somewhat simple design, where the shape of the feathers on his head somewhat resembles a samurai topknot, making him kind of a duck samurai holding a leek katana. Hell, in the first three generations, the game sprites often depict Farfetch'd as holding his leek in his mouth, Roronoa Zoro style! Farfetch'd is a wacky duck that is a bit of a celebration of losers, and it's a once-boring Pokemon that ended up tickling my fancy with the concept of just what he's based upon.
3/6.#084-085: Doduo & Dodrio
- Types: Normal/Flying [both]
- Japanese names: Dodo, Dodorio
- Categories: Twin Bird [Doduo], Triple Bird [Dodrio]
Doduo and Dodrio are a pair of Normal/Flying types that show up a bit later in the original games, and there's just something that I always found cute about them. They're just fuzzy flightless birds, visually based on the kiwi bird from the fuzziness and its long beak, but its size calls to mind larger flightless birds like the ostrich. It is explicitly stated to be flightless, and that its mighty legs have adapted to allow it to run a lot. (Dodrio can actually learn fly for some reason, so I assume this webcomic is just straight-up canon) And Doduo's just pretty cool! It has two heads because why not. Prior to the fourth generation, which pointlessly added some near-negligible gender differences between the Pokemon of the first three generations, all male Doduos and Dodrios have black necks, while all female ones have brown ones, which makes me feel just kinda weirded out since it used to be that all Doduo have black necks and all Dodrio have brown necks.
Doduo's evolution into Dodrio adds a third head, prominent tail and extra head-feathers. Oh, and Dodrio's heads seem far, far more rabid than Doduo's two happy heads, being portrayed almost exclusively with angry anime eyes. The three heads allow two to go to sleep while the third stays awake too watch, and apparently their three heads allows them to look in separate directions. FireRed tells us that the three heads 'represent joy, sadness and anger'... and Dodrio is often depicted with a sadder or m'eh-looking head, so I assume that bird joy is just screeching angrily. The Doduo line, like the Ponyta line, was one that I wasn't particularly aware of back when playing through Blue and Yellow, and was far more memorable in my head for being one of the more common finds in Hoenn's Safari Zone in the third generation... although Dodrio was one of the main characters' Pokemon in the Adventures manga, so even if they're barely around in the games, fictional adaptations help it out.
I like Dodrio and Doduo. They're nothing particularly special in the Pokemon world, but I don't mind some extra biodiversity. Let me just close it off by quoting Dodrio's Sapphire dex entry: "Apparently the heads aren't the only parts of the body that Dodrio has three of." You know just what it's referencing to.
3/6.#086-087: Seel & Dewgong
- Types: Water [Seel], Water/Ice [Dewgong]
- Japanese names: Pauwau, Jugon
- Categories: Sea Lion [both]
Seel and Dewgong are the exact opposite of Doduo and Dodrio, though. Seel and Dewgong are just... cartoon seals. Seel's a Water-type, and Dewgong is our first Ice-type, or rather Water/Ice dual-typed... and they're just... cartoon seals with horns. Seel's more pudgy, and Dewgong's more graceful, but where Ponyta's cool in being a horse on fire and Doduo's cool for being a two-headed kiwi-ostrich, Seel and Dewgong are just real-life animals and it's just... decent. I don't hate its design, but most of the time I genuinely forget that Seel and Dewgong exist, something that I don't think I would ever do for the first 151. They're supposedly inhabitants of the colder parts of the world, a reference to how seals and their ilk do mostly live in colder climates.
But there's so little to talk about Seel and Dewgong, to be honest, other than the fact that actual real-life dugongs are not remotely closely related to seals at all, and that we need a proper dugong Pokemon. Seel and Dewgong are also a pair of pretty bland evolutions (check out the Popplio or Spheal lines for a more distinct-looking seal-based evolutionary line). And, hell, I suppose it could kind of be associated with the whole 'mermaid' myth, but Vaporeon works as a mermaid (or mer-fox-creature) far better than Dewgong ever could.
And while there are Pokemon that are just funnily-drawn pokemon like Pidgeot or Rattata or Kingler, I've always thought that not that much effort was put into these two to make them visually appealing or distinct. You can make a cool-looking seal without resorting to putting a clown nose or a dress on it, but I dunno. Dewgong is our first Ice-type, which originally tended to be limited to Pokemon based on polar creatures or deep-sea creatures, able to unleash ice (both ice-types and water-types tend to be able to use moves of the other type). It's pretty neat that ice is its own element in Pokemon, as much as it's bizarre... but ice has been so distinct in so many fantasy tropes that making it separate from water (which tends to refer more to habitat in Pokemon, really) makes sense. I don't abhor them, but they're just so forgettable.
2/6.#088-089: Grimer & Muk
- Types: Poison [both]
- Japanese names: Betobeta, Betobeton
- Categories: Sludge [both]
It's Grimer and Muk, the sludge Pokemon! Or the 'goop' Pokemon, or a bunch of less flattering terms. Often singled out as the trash creatures from the original 151 and being the worst designs in the entire franchise. Which is something that perhaps speaks to my quirkier tastes that I like them, or to the Game Freak/Nintendo designers in creating creatures that will appeal to a different demographic. I like my dragons and fox-men as much as anyone out there, but there's just something that appeals to me about living slime. From slimes and oozes in D&D to slimes in Dragon Quest to any sort of goopy, living gloop monsters in every single RPG out there, Grimer and Muk occupy a very tried-and-true slot as the gross blob monster. Not all Pokemon need to be oh-so-cool with edgy spikes and dragon heads, and sometimes you just have to have one of these lovable goops! I've always loved Grimer and Muk, being true personification of 'poison' for me, being creatures formed out of toxic factory sludge. And I have unironically used Muk in some of my playthroughs, although none that I love more than the Alolan Muk I used in Ultra Moon -- which we'll talk about later.
And the Pokedex has so much time in describing how filthy Grimer and Muk are. Grimer is born out of "sludge exposed to Moon X-Rays", which is hilariously B-movie sci-fi bullshit. It loses bits that create new Grimers. It is germ-infeseted, it eats other toxic wastes and where it gloops around causes the soil to never be able to bear plants. Muk, meanwhile, being a bigger Grimer, is even worse than Grimer, unleashing disease-causing poisons from even its footprints. The Black 2/White 2 pokedex entry might perhaps have my favourite line: "it's so stinky!" with an exclamation mark. They're walking (or glooping) piles of pure, pure poisonous sludge, which embodies the Poison type so well.
The anime made a great use of Muk as a running joke, being one of Ash's pokemon left on Oak and glomping the poor professor every time Ash calls the professor, and I really like how it ends up being unexpectedly badass in the Indigo Plateau. Adventures' Koga also has a Muk that ends up being so, so cool, whirling around like the living slime that it is. And I really like that Grimer and Muk has these cool-looking rippling effect across their body, which is particularly cool-looking in the older GBC sprites.
Of course, as much as I love Grimer and Muk, I felt that the design progression is just so lazy. They just make Grimer bigger, swap out the adorable eyes with pinpoint pupils, give an extra dripping tendril in its mouth and voila. The original Sugimori artwork and the first two generations of sprites always display Muk with only one hand, and as a kid I thought that it represented Muk's form being so mutated by evolution that it only has one big arm left... but the anime and manga quickly quashes this by showing that, nope, Muk has two hands. And that made him a lot less cool since he's just not that different from Grimer, leading to the same Seel/Dewgong complaint that I have. So yeah, that's the source of the missing point on Muk and Grimer's ranking here. I personally like these two simple-yet-iconic goop monster a lot.
5/6.
And the Pokedex has so much time in describing how filthy Grimer and Muk are. Grimer is born out of "sludge exposed to Moon X-Rays", which is hilariously B-movie sci-fi bullshit. It loses bits that create new Grimers. It is germ-infeseted, it eats other toxic wastes and where it gloops around causes the soil to never be able to bear plants. Muk, meanwhile, being a bigger Grimer, is even worse than Grimer, unleashing disease-causing poisons from even its footprints. The Black 2/White 2 pokedex entry might perhaps have my favourite line: "it's so stinky!" with an exclamation mark. They're walking (or glooping) piles of pure, pure poisonous sludge, which embodies the Poison type so well.
The anime made a great use of Muk as a running joke, being one of Ash's pokemon left on Oak and glomping the poor professor every time Ash calls the professor, and I really like how it ends up being unexpectedly badass in the Indigo Plateau. Adventures' Koga also has a Muk that ends up being so, so cool, whirling around like the living slime that it is. And I really like that Grimer and Muk has these cool-looking rippling effect across their body, which is particularly cool-looking in the older GBC sprites.
Of course, as much as I love Grimer and Muk, I felt that the design progression is just so lazy. They just make Grimer bigger, swap out the adorable eyes with pinpoint pupils, give an extra dripping tendril in its mouth and voila. The original Sugimori artwork and the first two generations of sprites always display Muk with only one hand, and as a kid I thought that it represented Muk's form being so mutated by evolution that it only has one big arm left... but the anime and manga quickly quashes this by showing that, nope, Muk has two hands. And that made him a lot less cool since he's just not that different from Grimer, leading to the same Seel/Dewgong complaint that I have. So yeah, that's the source of the missing point on Muk and Grimer's ranking here. I personally like these two simple-yet-iconic goop monster a lot.
5/6.#090-091: Shellder & Cloyster
- Types: Water [Shellder], Water/Ice [Cloyster]
- Japanese names: Sheruda, Parushen
- Categories: Bivalve [both]
Shellder and Cloyster are two creatures I really love the design of. We talked about Shellder slightly when we talked about Slowbro up above, but now we see her in all of her glory. If my gender-assignment to Pokemon seem arbitrary, it kind of is -- a mixture of how the Pokemon looks and what gender of the Pokemon I owned in games, and a female Cloyster was one that I had owned. Trust me, it has nothing to do with Cloyster's resemblance to a certain part of human anatomy. And Cloyster's just pretty cool! But Shellder's pretty neat, too. I am not entirely sure what specific bivalve Shellder is based on, being pretty stylized, but eh. Shellder is a pure Water-type, and she's a little happy purple clam-mussel thing that has a face inside of her shell. In this case, a black blob with eyes and a tongue sticking out. That's right, Shellder is constantly giving you the raspberry, and I found her far more hilarious and cuter than the actual Pokemon based on a tongue we'll talk about in the near future. Shellder's tongue might be a representation of the single muscular 'foot' that bivalves have out, which can definitely resemble tongues. The dex entries note that Shellder essentially lives like most real-life aquatic shellfishes. Making pearls when sands get stuck inside, having a tough shell to protect its weak body, shooting water out of its front side and moving backward.
Shellder by itself isn't the most interesting thing, but its symbiotic relationship with Slowbro made it pretty exciting. When Shellder is exposed to a water stone, it evolves into the mighty Cloyster, a Water/Ice dual-typed Pokemon that gained notoriety for appearing to look like, y'know, a spiky vagina. She is still unmitsakably a clam monster, though, and I just love her design. Flipping the clam to stand on an edge, then putting a face on a pearl within, is a pretty cool concept even if it does end up leading to some unfortunate imagery. But I've known about Cloyster from a far more innocent age, and found her pretty cool. From the central head-spike to the two cool looking sidewards-jutting spikes, Cloyster just looks like a very, very dangerous creature to touch, and its shit-eating grin is telling you that she's going to shish-kebab you to death... and she'll laugh at you while doing it.
Cloyster's English name is even very cool, a combination of the word 'cloister' and 'oyster'. What did you say? You don't know what cloister means? Well clearly you haven't been paying attention to Pokemon as much as you should. Also worth noting that Cloyster's original Red/Blue sprite had it actually oriented lengthways like an actual clam, although all other early art depicts Cloyster identically to how she looks in the present day. Cloyster in the very first Red/Blue game artwork also has a spot on her forehead that seems to be a crystal, which led to the early Adventures manga drawing her with it... but all subsequent artwork pieces and sprites change it to just a gradient-shade of the black pearl head. Which is a shame -- that would be a cool design choice.
Bulbapedia identifies the Spondylus genus of mollusks as being Cloyster's inspiration. I guess it could be? I mean, putting spikes on ridged mollusks isn't exactly rocket science. Regardless, though, Cloyster's rugged, spiky shell lends to one of the more complex designs of the original 151 that doesn't involve a bipedal kaiju monster, and I really appreciate Cloyster a lot for that. Cloyster's just cool, and her appearances in the adventures manga make her far, far more badass, with both Big Bads Lolerei and Giovanni both using a Cloyster. Cloyster's just cool... and I remembered how, as a kid, so many of the playground stories involve people discussing about Cloyster's interaction with Gastly. Cloyster and Gastly have identical-looking black-orb faces, with the same eyes and mouth, and they're next to each other in the Pokedex. Are Gastly born out of Cloysters? Are Gastly the souls of dead Cloysters? But still, whatever the case, I still like Cloyster a whole lot.
5/6.#092-094: Gastly, Haunter & Gengar
- Types: Ghost/Poison [all three]
- Japanese names: Gosu, Gosuto, Genga
- Categories: Gas [Gastly/Haunter], Shadow [Gengar]
One of the most iconic evolutionary lines in the original 151 is the first family of Ghost-types, and in a world where people can make a 'top 20 favourite Ghost-type Pokemon' the typing might not be special... but back in the day, there is only one representative of the elusive Ghost-type, and that's Gastly. (The presence of the mystical Ghost-type, incidentally, is another of the oft-cited evidence back in the day that Pokemon is totally the word of Satan and teaches children necromancy and communion with the dead).
And boy... do I have so, so many words to talk about this trio of Ghost-types. It's really interesting that for its very first ghost-types, Pokemon uses the far more unconventional looking Gastly, Haunter and Gengar instead of the more iconic 'sheet ghosts' like Mario's Boo Buddies or Zelda's Poes and Hyus. Also, all three are Ghost/Poison dual-types, which is pretty cool because Gastly is not just a floating head-ghost surrounded by ghostly flames, he's also a living smog cloud. While we have another Pokemon representing air pollution in Koffing and Weezing, Gastly is straight-up made up of gas, and the Adventures manga in particular has an insanely cool-looking chapter early on that is devoted to Gastly being a gigantic mist that is able to reanimate the corpses of dead Pokemon. The anime, while keeping Gastly closer to its more comical 'standardized' model, also has one of the most fuck-off scariest episode in the early season, masquerading as a real ghost and attempting to draw members of the main cast to jump off a cliff to their deaths.
Gastly is just a floating black orb with wild eyes and a fanged mouth, bringing to mind will-o-wisps, vampires and the Sougenbi, a specific yokai that's a flying head wreathed in ghostly fire. But it's also made out of poisonous gas, and I really loved the original Red/Blue sprites that show that Gastly isn't just an orb, and the orb-head seems to just be a central body when it draws itself to form a more corporeal form, of sorts. Just look at that sprite! Gastly's gaseousness also gives him a fun sci-fi reason of how it can do what ghosts do, which is pass through walls -- being gas, it can sneak anywhere it desires, and it really loves to "wrap its opponent with its gas-like body and cause suffocation". But apparently it is also susceptible of being blown away by wind, and the Generation III pokedex entries adorably tell us that Gastlies cluster under house eaves on windy days to not be blown away. I really like the Generation IV dex that tells us that Gastly is 95% poison gas... but the composition of the remaining 5% isn't made known until the Ultra games released last year. The remaining 5% is made up of the souls of people who get killed by the poisonous gas. Hardcore!
Gastly and Haunter are found roaming around the Pokemon Tower in the original game, being a huge, huge mausoleum of Pokemon... and the trainers in the Tower are called Channelers, and they scream like madwomen when you meet them. They just yell incomprehensible shit and always look around as if in a daze when you confront them, communicating well that the Gastlies and Haunters are possessing them. Also, throughout the Pokemon Tower, the Gastlies and Haunter appear as straight-up "Ghost" monsters that your Pokemon will straight-up refuse to battle, because they are so scared, and it's a horrifyingly creepy way to render you powerless until you get a sci-fi Ghostbuster tool, the Silph Scope, to identify that, nope, these ghosts are just gas Pokemon.
Gastly evolves into Haunter, which is straight-up one of the coolest design in the entire franchise. Gastly, Haunter and Gengar are an evolution line where all three stages look radically different, yet the evolution looks so well conceptually, with Gasly being a floating head with its body not properly coalescing around it, then it evolves into the more solid looking ghost Haunter, with two arms, and finally into Gengar, who is a far more solidly-defined body with legs and arms. It's a pretty neat concept.
Haunter (who's called 'Ghost' in Japan) is just such a cool looking creature with that kickass-looking triangle eyes, and a pair of clawed hands that float slightly off of its main body, a simple design choice that elevates Haunter beyond so, so many other ghost monsters out there. And, again, its original red/Blue sprite looks positively demotic with a large toothier maw and four fingers instead of three. Hell, the Haunter sprite looks even scarier than the Ghost sprite! Throughout the second through fifth generation, Haunter always has a weird red aura around its floating hands in the game sprites, which they eventually dropped in the transition to 3D. Always found that weird.
Haunter's just awesome looking, and while the anime depicts all three ghost Pokemon as misunderstood souls who just want to prank people by playing poltergeist, and giving Haunter a big, big tongue that it uses to lick people, the Pokedex are, as you imagine, far more disturbing. Its tongue, when it licks you, is stated multiple times to "sap the victim's life" and "causes shaking that won't stop until the victim's demise". Some people note that this seems to be inspired by the Dila, a ghost from Philippine mythology that licks their victims to death. And the pokedexes make note that Haunters straight-up try to hunt people and beckon saps in the night so it can lick their life away.
Plus, Haunter's name is just cool. It's a ghost that haunts places, so it is a haunt-er, but it's also a hunter.
And finally, if you have a buddy to trade with, you turn Haunter into Gengar... who sadly loses Haunter's cool-looking claw-hands, but have become fully corporeal, having a solid body that... isn't actually that solid. He's a fat happy bastard that's constantly grinning like the Cheshire Cat, but he's actually made up of shadow, and so many fictional depiction of Gengar, be it the Adventures manga (Agatha and Koga both use one), the awesome Generations depiction of Gengar sliding out of its pokeball, or the Pokken spinoff game's moveset, Gengar is just pretty damn cool. It draws its name from 'doppelganger', but instead of being another person that looks like you, Gengar combines it with the trope of living shadows, specifically your living shadow. Gengar's design calls to mind Clefable, and considering how underwhelming Clefable's design looks... it's really because of the face, isn't it? Cheshire cat smiles just work for spooky things.
But regardless if it was initially meant to be some sort of dark evolution to Clefable or if it's meant to show that Gengar has no 'real' form and takes on the form of the shadows it's inhabiting and Clefable's just a convenient design to use, Gengar is still a very awesome concept in and of its own, being a creature that wanders around at night, stealing the warmth and cursing hapless people who wander near him. It can slip into your shadow and animate it, waiting for the right moment to strike. "There is no escaping it. Give up." says the Sun Pokedex, and "Even your home isn't safe." says the Ultra Moon pokedex. The Moon pokedex gives a chilling origin that apparently Gengar was once human itself, and it desires traveling companions, trying to create one by taking other people's lives. What? It's a gloriously dark description of this fat, chubby happy ghost, and while I might objectively like Haunter over Gengar, the entire line as a whole is a very well-designed concept that's well executed.
6/6.#095: Onix
- Types: Rock/Ground
- Japanese name: Iwaku
- Category: Rock Snake
Oh dude, I love Onix. From its amazing appearance as Brock's final Pokemon, whether you first saw Onix towering over everyone else in the anime, or if you saw his big sprite show up and take up a huge chunk of the screen in the games, Onix is just such a great 'first boss' enemy. Its thick beak-like mouth, its aggressive eyes, its horn and its immense size just makes it so, so threatening-looking, and all its fictional appearances really love showing off just how big he is. Onix is stated to be 8.8 meters long in the pokedex, but no one is content in making Onix just that, portraying him far, far larger than a mere 8.8 meters. Onix is just a gigantic snake-worm monster made entirely of rocks, and it's an awesome twist on the classic giant subterranean worm monsters common in fantasy settings like Purple Worms in D&D or Moldorms in Zelda. Except, unlike those subterranean worms, Onix is made up of stones itself, being another Rock/Ground monster. Onix is just majestically gigantic, and he is just a huge contrast to the little frogs, lizards, rats and bugs you meet earlier in the game.
Onix is established to be particularly fast while burrowing through the ground, twisting and creating many, many underground caverns (populated by Diglett, apparently!) and it has magnets in its brain, which is cool! Its entire design and especially its face just exudes the fact that this is an ancient, long-living creature that is seldom seen by men. It's sad that in the games themselves Onix is actually pretty crap -- not just because of its 4x-weak Rock/Ground typing, but also because of its shallow movepool and its odd distribution of stats. Still, from a design concept and just by how iconic Brock's Onix is, I've always really unabashedly loved this giant roaring rock snake. Not so much its subsequent forms, though, which is a minor spoiler for when we get to Generation II.
5/6.
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Thank you for joining us for my long, long talk about this huge chunk of the first generation! Join us hopefully next week to talk about it more.
Thank you for joining us for my long, long talk about this huge chunk of the first generation! Join us hopefully next week to talk about it more.
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