One Piece 919 Review: Lost

One Piece, Chapter 919: The Ruins of Castle Oden

Time travel stories are very, very tricky to write. Be it Dragon Ball, or The Flash, or Legends of Tomorrow, or Terminator, or Back to the Future, or Lost, a vast majority of time travel stories tend to kind of fall into different sorts of problems. Are the characters that travel into the past going to cause a stable time loop, a la Lost or the first Terminator movie? It's going to rob tension of what our characters do in the past, since the preservation of the timeline is sort of assured. Are we just going to have branching timelines caused by the time-travel causing an aspect of the past to change, creating alternate timelines a la Dragon Ball? Or is time super-fluid, and any slightest change (except those the plot determines is important enough) is going to cause a multitude of changes? Less well-written sci-fi stories, or ones with a clearly more light-hearted tone (if we're feeling charitable) tend to go for that, treating time travel as more of travelling to another location at best, or just an utter lack of understanding of the meaning of time travel in the first place.  Or handwave any inconsistencies with "magic", in some cases.

And, of course, the reason why I just went into a brief rant about time travel is how apparently Momonosuke, Kin'emon and the rest of the retainers are apparently time travelers of some sort, coming into the future from the past. There have been hints about this, of course, like the discrepancy of how Momonosuke was somehow able to remember Gol D. Roger when the timeline doesn't sync up with his age, and the usage of Wano's secularism as an excuse for the author to sort of handwave their ignorance is also kind of neat. So this plot twist certainly didn't come out of nowhere. 

What worries and excites me, though, is how this is going to be. Is the time-travel just one thing, and just part of Momonosuke et al's backstory? That's definitely the ideal one, and maybe the time travel plot device is going to be involved in some way with the void century or the stakes of the Wano storyline. We'll see. For now, though, that is one hell of a huge bombshell that was built up amazingly well ever since... shit, the Punk Hazard arc? Honestly, while the earliest foreshadowing to Momonosuke's gang being more than just "Wano people" came a bit later, around the Zou storyline, it's honestly pretty damn impressive of a long-running buildup. I don't think I've really ever gotten as excited for the Wano storyline until now -- all of the previous chapters honestly felt neat, but not much more neat than your average well-written anime filler. This is the first real development that promises some sort of bigger story down the line, which I like. 

Also I do love how the buildup to the revelation ended up having Luffy go "what, are they ghosts?" and that bit of trolling actually is pretty well-done. 

The rest of the chapter is pretty low-key, and apparently poor Speed has sort of been brainwashed, Zeus-style, to be an ally of O-Tama. We get a brief glimpse of O-Kiku hiding stuff (we later get the revelation that she's part of Momonosuke's group) and a couple of fun bits of Trafalgar Law sulking over them being good people -- as well as hints that apparently Law is this mysterious "Shutenmaru" thief dude? We all know Law's a big softie, despite his grumblings about how "despicable" pirates that help people are. I like Law. 

We also get to see the very isolationist mentality of Wano, even the children, who are taught to shun outsiders, being taught by a Rokurokubi teacher. And as a storyline based on feudal Japan, it's actually very interesting for One Piece to deconstruct the mentality of an isolationist country. We also get a brief little hint that Shogun Orochi is a swordsman in his own right, and a usage of the two-sword style. We also get introduced to a punk with a pompadour, one Inemuri Kyoshiro (who's being observed by geisha!Robin, I think?) who notes how as Oden died, he proclaimed a curse about how 20 years later, a bunch of samurai will come to avenge him and save Wano. 

Overall, easily the most interesting chapter of Wano so far. It did spend a wee bit too much time on trolling. We'll see if the expected revelation next week is going to be as interesting or not, though.

My Hero Academia 200 Review: Mushroom Power and ゴゴゴゴ

Boku no Hero Academia, Chapter 200: Resourceful General

A bit of a simpler, shorter action chapter. Not really all that much to say here -- first up, the Class 1A team ends up getting pretty disturbed by Kinoko's ability to spawn mushrooms with a funny little spray gun, allowing the Class 1B characters to sort of escape and regroup. And it's... it's a bit disappointing that all that her powers involve is making mushrooms grow and not actually do anything cool associated to mushrooms. 

Good job for the writer to actually have her refer to the mushrooms by their latin names, by the way. Ionomidotis frondosa (a variant of Grifola frondosa, known as the Ram's Head or Maitake in Japan), Tricholoma equestre (a poisonous flat-capped mushroom also known as the Yellow Knight), Flammulina velutipes (Enoki mushroom, popularly used in Japanese cuisine) and Coprinopsis atramentaria (the common Ink Cap Mushroom, also known as 'tippler's bane' due to it being poisonous when consumed with alcohol.)

I am kind of a biology geek, sorry.

Anyway, the battle continues as Momo and the others are assaulted by Manga Fukikdashi, whose ability is... basically summoning gigantic brick versions of giant letters of Japanese onomatopoeias that have the properties of its sound, which is honestly somewhat disappointing, although that might be because I was expecting more, and this variant of JJBA's Echoes isn't just that spectacular. The whole idea of a dude with a manga page for a face is still hilarious, though, and I am such a huge, huge fan of the spectators lampshading "how is that going to work in foreign countries?" Oh man, as someone who've seen so many different attempts at 'localizing' these sort of Japanese-language-specific onomatopoeias, I can totally get this joke. 

Other than the brief showing off of new powers, the rest of the chapter is just a short sequence of Kendo attacking Momo, with the peanuts gallery noting how Momo's at the backfoot and cornered, while Todoroki just notes how one of Momo's most powerful ability is that she's the strongest and cornered, and apparently they need "four on one" to even think of taking down Momo. It's neat, I guess, and we haven't seen Momo get the spotlight for quite a while. Not a bad chapter at all. 

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure S02E27 Review: The Comedy Duo

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Stardust Crusaders, Episode 27: Oingo's Divine Khnum and Boingo's Divine Tohth

Unlike some people, I actually don't mind the Oingo Boingo brothers. Sure, they kind of overstay their welcome and Boingo has one hell of an annoying laugh, but I've always found them more charmingly pathetic than actually annoying. It also allows the anime to animate the bizarre artistic style used by Boingo's comic-book stand, Tohth, which I thought was a neat treat.

The actual episode ends up following Oingo and Boingo more than our protagonists, who are tied up with the group stuck in this city while Avdol and Kakyoin recuperate from their injuries in the hospital. In fact, the next couple of arcs are going to take place at around the same time while waiting for Kakyoin's eyes in particular to recover. In this particular case, mind you, Oingo and Boingo end up wanting to do some assassination and kill the Stardust Crusaders, with the aid of Bongo's Stand Tohth, a manga that will predict with full accuracy the future, as we see in the final scene of  the previous episode and various parts of this one. The problem is, while Tohth is never wrong, it also tends to not show the entire picture, leading to a bit of a dark comedy as Oingo (who has the ability to change his appearance with his stand, Khnum) gets trapped in all sorts of wacky hijinks. 

First up, their attempt to serve poisoned tea to the Crusaders, despite fate eerily moving in the way that Tohth predicted (the cigarette dropping to point at the cafe they infiltrated, the next-door cafe catching fire, and the refrigerator being broken causing them to not order colas) all the Crusaders did was to drink the tea... and then spit-take it out when Iggy shows up to disturb some patrons. 

Also love the hilarious "ehh? What a moron!" reaction Polnareff has when the cafe next door catches on fire due to someone's cigarette butt, obliviously unaware that it's his cigarette butt that did that.

The next plan is for them to sneak a bomb hidden as an orange into the Crusaders's car, with the prediction that "Jotaro blows up!" It's an unambiguous death, but when Oingo is forced to disguise himself as Jotaro and shoved into the buggy, and ends up being forced to keep up the charade... poor Oingo ends up realizing that the fact that he has Jotaro's appearance means that the prediction by Tohth might be about him, disguised as Jotaro. The actual scenes of Polnareff trolling Jotaro!Oingo, especially when it's revealed that he and Joseph actually were completely in the dark, ran on for waaaaay too long, though I do appreciate Oingo's bizarre lines coming out of Jotaro's normally stern voice actor. 

Anyway, the two end up getting a karmic fate as the escaped Oingo ends up getting blown up when Polnareff tosses the 'bad' orange out of the car, and then the dude that Oingo punched randomly earlier in the episode comes in with a band of thugs to beat them up. Overall, the episode actually felt like it worked better in animation than in the original manga, due to the sheer hilarity of the voice actors that carried this episode and the not-insubstantional contribution of the animation and background music. It's undoubtedly a filler episode, but at least we knock out two of the mini-bosses before we get to Dio. 

The JoJo Playlist:

• The Oingo Boingo brothers are named after the Oingo Boingo new wave band, which features a mixture of rock, pop and world music, with one of the Oingo Boingo's band being the insanely iconic songwriter Danny Elfman, responsible for, among others, the original Batman theme, music for the Spider-Man trilogy, multiple Disney pictures, and multiple collaborations with Tim Burton. 
• In a neat little oddity, this episode features a unique ending theme sung and animated in the style of Boingo's comic. 
• Not an actual song, but Oingo's fall is the first use of the [RETIRED] cutaway in the anime, as far as I can tell. 

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure S02E25-26 Review: Water Daredevil vs Dog Sandman

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders, Episodes 25-26: Iggy's The Fool & N'doul's Divine Geb 

Ah, we're back with some JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, and this time around it's the second half of the Stardust Crusaders part, specifically the "Battle in Egypt" arc. During the broadcast, the anime took around a five-month break between the first half of Stardust Crusaders and the Egypt episodes. And it's a hell of a two-parter to start us off!

We quickly set this up by introducing the final new member of the Stardust Crusaders part, Iggy! And a good chunk of the first episode ends up just being sort of fluff as we introduce this irate, extremely temperamental dog that noms on Polnareff's hair, bites everyone and refuses to move for anything other than "coffee-flavoured gum", which I'm pretty sure isn't something you should feed to a dog. Well, at least for the second leg of Stardust Crusaders we're going to have a little puppy buddy hanging around, which kinda-sorta makes up for all the dogs graphically killed, eviscerated and chopped up before this. Iggy is quickly shown to control the stand called "The Fool", which he uses in a little scuffle against Polnareff. And the Fool is kinda... bizarre, isn't it? A golden robot with feathers, a toothy beak, weird knobbly arms and two wheels for legs. Oh, and its power is controlling sand, and transforming into sand. Because... why not?

This is going to be Iggy's biggest spotlight for a while, though, because outside of this pair of episodes, Iggy's not going to do much in terms of battle until like the last three or four arcs.

The introduction sadly does take its sweet time, though, which I think actually makes for the sudden and brutal introduction of N'Doul all the more surprising. After a rare bit where the Speedwagon Foundation goons that Joseph apparently has unquestioningly obeying his every command gets a fair bit of screentime... and, of course, we find them dead and brutally massacred when the Crusaders come across the downed helicopter.

N'Doul is a pretty interesting, if flat, villain, and ends up feeling like a neat break after the previous couple of villains have been jeering people who tend to mock our heroes at every possible opportunity. N'Doul is calm, collected, and attacks our heroes from a distance. He's blind, and makes use of his superhuman senses to sense vibrations in the sand to track our heroes' movement as he attacks them with the long-distance stand Geb, which manifests in a tentacle-like hand made out of water, creepily introduced by slithering out of the mouth of one of the dead Speedwagon dudes.

The increasing panic in our heroes as they try to realize the nature of the enemy Stand is also pretty well-played, and there's a definite sense that N'Doul is in a different class compared to the more bumbling enemies we've seen before this, by the simple fact that N'Doul quickly learns and adapts when our heroes try to trick them -- Avdol's attempt to throw his many, many rings to make it look like footsteps is pretty well done, and N'Doul manages to actually claw out Kakyoin's eyes, as well as doing some work to wound Avdol.

The actual fight is pretty neat, with an uncooperative Iggy only wanting to get the fuck away from these strange people, displaying the fact that the Fool can actually convert into a hang-glider, while Jotaro ends up realizing that Iggy can actually sense where N'Doul is coming from. There's a pretty neat bit of tension as Jotaro hoists himself on Iggy and it's a race in understanding as Jotaro tries to figure out where N'Doul is, while N'Doul tries to figure out why the hell Jotaro and Iggy disappeared from his radar.


It's a pretty fun, classy enemy with N'Doul just being cocky enough to not be bland, but serious and confident enough to feel different from the vast majority of Stardust Crusaders' enemies. Iggy ends up being the comic relief of this episode and... I dunno. I like him because he's an asshole, I think? I also like this more scrappy, ugly-dog like Iggy a lot more than the far more cute-ified version of him that he'll morph into in a couple of episodes, but maybe that's because I really just like dogs?

Anyway, N'Doul's neat, and sets up the game plan of this arc, that their enemy are nine totally-unknown-to-Avdol Stands based on the Egyptian Gods (although Geb is the god of the earth, meaning that the attribution is about as nonsensical as the Tarot cards). And it would've been a badass cliffhanger to end on... if only the post-credits sequence didn't immediately spoil us that we're going to have the goddamn Oingo Boingo brothers next, which are the exact opposite of "threatening".

(That bit where the dude that the brothers met gets stabbed and thrown into a metal pole is a pretty sinister and awesome scene, though, I have to admit).

Overall, a pretty neat episode for sure!

The JoJo Playlist:

• Iggy is a pup named after the "Godfather of Punk", Iggy Pop, lead singer of the band the Stooges. Selected discography include Lust for Life, Passenger, Candy and the appropriate one for this, I Wanna Be Your Dog. The album called "The Idiot" also counts as possibly another reason why Iggy's Stand is called the Fool. 
• N'Doul (parsed as N'Dour in some translations) is named after Senegalese musician Youssou N'Dour.
• The opening theme for the "Battle of Egypt" portion of Stardust Crusaders is "JoJo Sono Chi no Kioku, End of the World", which, while in my opinion not quite as energetic and catchy as Stand Proud, is still a fun piece. That "ORAORAORA" at the end isn't quite as hammy as it could've been, though, and End of the World is notable for one of the few times that "Star Platinum" is pronounced with Purachinamu instead of how the show pronounces it (Purachina)
• The ending song is another Western song, the pretty calming, wordless rhythmic 80's piece Last Train Home by the band Pat Metheny Group.

Overlord S01E13 Review: PvP

Overlord, Season 1, Episode 13: PVN

Definitely a fun bit as Ainz talks about just how Shalltear has never played PvP, and apparently PvP in Yggdrassil includes some really bizarre mind games. Among Ainz's false information from the previous episode includes Ainz pretending to take damage from fire while resisting holy damage; Ainz knowing all about Shalltear's skills; as well as apparently casting a skill called "False Data: Life" to fool with Shalltear's perceptions, and basically goad Shalltear into using all of her powerful skills in order to finish the battle quickly (and presumably use up all her spell slots, to borrow a D&D terminology). Oh, and if the world-tier mind control happens to be nullified when her first resurrection skill kicks in, so much the better.

And then suddenly Ainz is clad in full regal armour, which the peanuts gallery in Nazarick is amazed that not only is a sorcerer like Ainz able to wear armour... the armour is Lord Touch Me's personal armour, something that Ainz is able to wear with the class-changing skill Perfect Wariror, allowing him to fight without the mana points he's supposedly spent.

(Also, who names their video game character "Touch Me"? Jeez)

And then Ainz breaks one of those wooden sticks and instantly summons a powerful weapon belonging to another member of the Supreme Beings, and Ainz gives a pretty badass boast that he's representing all 41 Supreme Beings because he is the guild. "There is a reason they chose me as leader!" is a pretty damn badass line from Ainz, too, and he then quickly cycles through the different sticks, summoning a bunch of other weapons including a pair of daggers, a gigantic glove, and finally Peroroncino's own Houyi Bow, which pisses Shalltear off. Oh, an Ainz's little watch voices an alarm, which tells him that "time's up".

Apparently these weapon-changing sticks are "cash shop items", which... okay, apparently Yggdrasil was an instantly pay-to-win game. Also, did Ainz just have a lot of these lying around? That's the only real reason because how else would've he accessed the shop in this new world? The peanuts gallery declare that Ainz is a genius for using cash shop items... okay, no. But the subsequent observation that Ainz has the advantage by forcing Shalltear to charge in on all the offensive and get into the range of the powerful melee weapon is okay, I guess. Still, Ainz doesn't defeat Shalltear with the magic items, but instead notes that the timer was just counting his cooldown, and all he has been planning to do is to just chip away Shalltear's health that another super tier magic can take her out.

And as Ainz unleashes Fallen Down again, we briefly see a fleshy, creepy eye on Shalltear's shoulder, which... okay, so the world item mind-ccontrol is some sort of a parasite? Whatever the case, Shalltear is completely obliterated.

And then we cut back to the resurrection, because, well, whether it's a video game or a D&D campaign, all fantasy settings have resurrection mechanics. With everyone assembled, Ainz unleashes the spell that consumes some 500 million gold (well, it's not like the currency is worth anything in this New World), and Shalltear is back, naked and amnesiac. Of course she is. The mystery on just the true nature of whoever took control of her is still there, and as Shalltear tries to cover up her actual smaller breasts by going "oh no, my breasts are gone!" all the other Floor Guardians end up getting pretty angry at her for turning that dramatic moment into a joke. We get an actually neat bit as Ainz sits down on the stairs, and briefly sees his old guildmates within these NPC's (which he views as his 'children', apparently)... and in a pretty touching bit, Albedo offers her hand to Ainz. D'aww.

And then it's back to business, as we get a montage of scenes as Ainz resolves to stop dicking around since there is now proof that there are people in this New World that can threaten Nazarick. Albedo has discovered a lake with lizardmen with which Ainz plans to use to bolster his undead army, while Ainz makes up a bullshit story that Momon's magic-sealing crystal unleashes a large amount of magic that tore up the area while he was totally slaying the vampire, earning him the adamantine rank.

Sebas and Solution has apparently taken up residence in Re-Estize's capital as 'bait', while Nferia and his grandmother moves to an increasingly militant Carne village where they are greeted by one of the battle maids, Lupus Regina Beta. So Ainz is just moving his people to infiltrate all of these places, apparently? Ainz also orders the activation of "Gargantua" and "Victim", apparently two other Floor Guardians that we haven't seen.


And while the final shot of the season is appropriately Ainz walking towards the screen, we have a couple of other interesting teasers. The first is Gazef Stronoff, the knight, finding the broken Brain Unglauss in some random alley, which... okay, I certainly didn't expect Brain to be relevant. More interestingly is the Slane Theocracy, where the higher ups discuss that apparently a good chunk of their forces, including the Lady Kaire who wielded the world item that hypnotized Shalltear, were wiped out by the vampire. Oh, and Nigun is "missing in action", after his pitiful defeat at Ainz's hands in episode 4. Their recovery of the Crown of Wisdom has also failed, with the Slane Theocracy not realizing the item was destroyed. They're basically making it a point to be wary of not the vampire, but also the creature that defeated the vampire. So these are our Big Bads for the next season, then? Maybe? Slane definitely has a Yggdrasil player working for them, right?

Overall, it's definitely a bit of an interesting way to end the first season. And while the battle with Shalltear is pretty epic, a battle between two of the overpowered god-like beings from another world instead of the constant curb-stomps that Team Ainz has been delivering to everyone, basically all three main arcs in this season ended up just seemingly being distractions without dealing with the mystery of  other Yggdrasil players or Ainz himself revealing himself to the world proper, which I think is definitely the right move. Properly establishing the characters that we're supposed to be invested with (as well as the workings of the world) is definitely the right move before we go and go all in on the huge conspiracies and characters. I'm definitely hooked, and you can expect me to go through Overlord seasons 2 and 3 in quick succession. 

Avengers Earth's Mightiest Heroes S02E05 Review: Sadly, No Luis

Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, Season 2, Episode 5: To Steal an Ant-Man

Well that's certainly different. Season two of Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes was described to me as half of it very focused on the Kree/Skrull invasion plot, while the other half is very focused on having guest-star appearances by other non-Avengers superheroes. In this case, the bigger Avengers team takes a full break as we focus on a neglected member of season one's main cast -- Hank "Ant-Man" Pym. With Ms. Marvel seemingly joining the Avengers, I guess it's time to make Hank's departure from the main cast official with a spotlight episode detailing his last hurrah. Hank Pym is a surprisingly complex character -- I admit that I've not been paying much attention to his character development in the first season, but his constant pleas for pacifism and his obsession and willingness to throw himself wholeheartedly into his work are definitely features of his character that are emphasized by the first season. So was it any wonder that when the whole Ultron business absolutely broke poor Hank's mind?

After a brief cold open showing Ant-Man stealing money in a bank by shrinking them, we then cut away to Hank cleaning up his lab -- quite literally, as he shrinks down every part of his research -- and completely ignore Wasp as she pleads, begs and demands that Hank Pym try and stay. Even if not as an Avenger, then as someone who'll be there for Wasp. It's genuinely heartbreaking because Wasp is such a bubbly, happy personality most of the time and seeing her so desperate is definitely pretty heartrending. Which is why I honestly found it kind of hard to be even rooting for Hank Pym when he's running away from all his problems and also hurting poor Wasp. I can empathize with him. Doesn't mean that what he's doing is really right. 

Hank then discovers the fact that someone has stolen his Ant-Man suit and using it to rob banks. He decides not to involve the Avengers, and instead hires the Heroes for Hire -- Iron Fist and Luke Cage. And... and I won't lie, the two of them are pretty fun. From Luke Cage's gruff charm and his insistence on getting paid, to Iron Fist's silly zen koans... and add these two relatively straightforward punchy-punch heroes and put them in a situation where they have to apprehend the Ant-Man thief, who shrinks down into, well the size of an ant. 

The thief is, of course, not an actual criminal but rather Scott Lang, who MCU fans would definitely recognize as the second Ant-Man. This one isn't as charismatic as the one played by Paul Rudd, but the thief backstory IMO works a lot better here. Hank, Luke and Danny confront Scott Lang, and he gives up this backstory about how he was a disgraced engineer who owes a lot of people money, and the gangsters have kidnapped Scott's daughter and threatened him to pay back a bunch of money that Scott had previously spent on his daughter's health bills. 

It's a pretty neat and touching backstory, and while Scott initially refuses the heroes' help, when the villains, led by one Mr. Cross, ends up betraying Scott and wanting him to continue help them rob banks as Ant-Man, the three heroes burst in. And Cross's henchman are all super-powered characters that I bet are minor supervillains with actual names, and it's really fun to see Luke Cage and Iron Fist just tear through these fun-looking mooks. Hank ends up using his shrinking tools to rescue the little girl, allowing Scott to use the Ant-Man tech to beat up Cross. With all the villains beaten and all that's left is Luke Cage's bill, Scott is ready to turn himself in... but then Hank walks away, leaving the Ant-Man mantle to Scott.

It's just such a shame that this episode ends up being pretty standalone, as other than explaining Hank Pym's absence, Scott doesn't really factor into the rest of the season. Still, it's a fun standalone episode if nothing else, and all the Luke Cage/Iron Fist banter is pretty fun considering how the two of them don't exactly get a lot to do. 

Avengers Earth's Mightiest Heroes S02E04 Review: J'Accuse

Avengers, Earth's Mightiest Heroes, Season 2, Episode 4: Welcome to the Kree Empire

Well, after the previous couple of episodes being more of a tidy-up for season one, this one starts off finally delving into the Kree/Skrull alien war conflict. We've seen the Skrulls' insidious methods of having Captain America and Invisible Woman replaced with infiltrators. The Kree, on the other hand, are anything but subtle, as they announce their presence and their stakes in the conflict to gain control of Earth by showing up on Earth's orbit with a big honking spaceship.

But before that, we get the revelation that Kang's ship Damocles has been taken over as the space base for SHIELD's space division, SWORD, which includes, among others, Carol "Ms. Marvel" Danvers, who's definitely gotten superpowers since we last saw her in season one, as well as the sassy green-haired cool lady Abigail Brand. Who might be my favourite character in this show with her short few scenes of simply just being such a goddamn BOSS in this episode. Carol and Agent Brand have to deal with a threat of a different kind before the Kree arrrive, though, as they have to mollify resident snotty government agent Henry Gyrich (a name I am familiar with -- Gyrich is an X-Men antagonist!) who complains about the alien division not actually finding any aliens yet. Of course, the Kree warship shows up like a minute after that. 

Of course, the Kree basically pin down SWORD (who can't use Damocles base and their fancy 40th century tech properly anyway), beat up the SHIELD mooks on Earth waiting for the team... and the Kree officers finally land on Earth. We've got Captain Mar-Vell, our old buddy, as well as his superior officer Yon-Rogg. But perhaps the most imposing among them is the gigantic Ronan the Accuser, who I recognized as the rather blandly-written generic space overlord from the MCU Guardians of the Galaxy movie. Ronan here is, of course, pretty different! It's not quite as bad as the MCU's version of Malekith, but I've always found the MCU's Ronan to be pretty pathetic, being an uppity Thanos lieutenant who ends up drunk with power. Here, the title of "the Accuser" isn't just for show, as Ronan is treated as this judge who is sent to survey Earth and see if Earth is deemed worthy to become part of the huge Kree Empire. I'm not sure about his fashion choices, but he does exude authority and does feel pretty cool. 

Speaking of coolness, I just want to take this moment to appreciate just how fluid the animation of the Kree pistols bloorping into existence from their wrist-gauntlets are.

Anyway, Carol shows up in her brand-new Ms. Marvel costume, which looks pretty damn badass. Carol gets taken out by Ronan in her first battle, but she ends up summoning the rest of the Avengers, leading to a pretty badass moment where Iron Man announces the fight against Ronan on live television. However, while Mar-Vell tries to defuse the situation, Skrull!Cap announces the battle to be joined with a very, very angry "Avengers, ATTACK!" It's a slip of the tongue that I honestly missed before reviewing this episode, and I'm glad to have caught it. It's a neat little detail that seems as odd as Captain America interrupting a negotiation moment, but no one really questions it because, hey, it's Captain America and the Skrull impostor does a pretty good job at sounding and looking charismatic otherwise. 

The battle between the Kree and the Avengers on Earth is pretty dang cool, although it's obvious at times that they're just trying to show off the newest addition to the Avengers -- Ms. Marvel. A dang good character show off in any case, with Ms. Marvel unleashing a pretty sweet beatdown on Ronan. But I am just as impressed with the fight going on on Damocles, where Brand shows off the fact that she apparently has fire-based superpowers, beats up the Kree goons taking over the Damocles, and manages to gain the help of the Kree's slave, the pink-skinned dog alien Sydren. Sydren is able to interface with the Damocles AI, and this allows Brand and her forces to not only retake Damocles from the Kree, but also take over the Kree ship. 

It's victory for the good guys, but the threat continues to loom as Earth basically declared war against the Kree by defeating and imprisoning a good chunk of their forces... including poor, misunderstood Mar-Vell, who had been planning to convince the Kree overlords and Ronan that Earth's nothing but an insignificant planet, but now they've just caused Earth to be target number one for invasion. Meanwhile, we get the ever-ominous shots of Skrull-Cap telling his aliens to move up their own invasion time table. Overall, a pretty fun episode even if it's one that's a bit expository -- we don't get any really memorable character moments, just the introduction of Ms. Marvel's new superhero costume, the introduction of Abigail Brand, and the whole Kree conflict being thrown into the mix. It's a fun episode to watch, but definitely feels like it lacks something. 

Gotta Review 'Em All, Part #34: Tapu Koko to Melmetal

The final part of the seventh generation, and, at the time of writing, the final part of the "Gotta Review 'Em All" series until the eventual eighth generation. I thought about dividing up this article to 'normal legendaries' and 'Ultra Beasts', but decided against it. I mean, Ultra Beasts are just weird-ass legendaries anyway, they just actually have a fancy backstory to justify why there's a lot of them.

See, if you've been reading my reviews, you'll see my disdain about the huge blobs of legendaries on the third through fifth generations, and I really do feel that it cheapens the whole 'Legendary' moniker, something that shouldn't really feel cheapened. And the fact that so many of them are so... samey.

So in the seventh generation, the seemingly fun-and-happy tropical paradise of Alola turns out to be besieged by a particularly powerful force, an otherworldly group of beings that defies common logic and comprehension from another dimension... the Ultra Beasts. These Ultra Beasts quite literally come from rifts in space-time, and end up being one of the final villains in both Sun/Moon and Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon. And while it ends up being glorified "aliens, but from another universe", the concept is really sound and makes these uber-powerful, strange creatures pretty special. I really ended up liking the fact that after all the happy animals and some wacky concepts in this generation we end with a series of some of Pokemon's most insane-looking monsters.

Best of all? These Ultra Beasts are fucking weird. Not all of them are to my liking, but the sheer effort in trying to make these Ultra Beasts look wrong and otherworldly, yet still retaining that Pokemon charm, is a neat little balancing act.

And, and, AND! We've got Pokemon #808 released less 24 hours before this article was supposed to go out, causing me to take it back down and put in a bunch of new stuff for the newest member of the Pokemon family. I think it's a genuinely awesome coincidence that they released a brand-new Pokemon just as I was about to wrap up my own Pokemon coverage. I'm not 100% sure if this is supposed to be a preview for Generation VIII, or if this is just one final lengendary and one final hurrah for Generation VII... but man, I'll talk about him when we get to him.

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#785-788: Tapu Koko, Tapu Lele, Tapu Bulu & Tapu Fini

• Types: Electric/Fairy [Tapu Koko], Psychic/Fairy [Tapu Lele], Grass/Fairy [Tapu Bulu], Water/Fairy [Tapu Fini]
• Japanese names: Kapu Kokeko, Kapu Tetefu, Kapu Bururu, Kapu Rehire
• Categories: Land Spirit [all four] 

I tend to group legendary trios together, but in Alola, we don't have legendary trios. We have, instead, a quartet -- one for each island in Alola. Each of these Tapus can transform into the top part of a totem pole, resembling a certain real-life animal, but are actually capricious guardian fairies who coexist with humanity. And they way they're quite literally treated as primal deities by the characters in-game, with characters noting about fighting festivals designed to please Tapu Koko, or the fact that Tapu Bulu laid waste to an entire village for building a mart on hallowed ground, really makes these Tapus feel more like actual legendary protectors instead of "just a bunch of strong dudes" the way that the musketeers were. Yet, at the same time, the Tapus do live in relative peace with mankind, even protecting them from the Ultra Beasts generations ago. I think this Pokedex entry for Tapu Koko from Ultra Sun sums their characterization the best: "Although it's called a guardian deity, if a person puts it in a bad mood, it will become a malevolent deity and attack."

And alongside Type: Null, the Tapus are the first to receive two-word names, with the first word, Tapu, being Hawaiian for holy, and the second word describing what they're based on. All the Tapus have a special Z-move where they transform into the totem head of a gigantic humanoid body of energy that will proceed to crush the enemy. Oh, and there being four of them sort of implies that the four Tapus are loosely based on the four Hawaiian Great Gods. I'm... I'm not sure how racist this is? I'm not overtly familiar with Hawaiian mythology beyond the brief read-up I did for these Pokemon.

The first guardian Tapu, Tapu Koko, is the guardian deity of Melemele Island, the island you step foot on, and the one that'll be the most relevant to you, being the typical great-being-who-sees-potential-in-you. Tapu Koko's totem head form is based on a rooster, and he's an Electric/Fairy Pokemon... which, well, I'll just shrug. While I didn't quite like Tapu Koko when it was first revealed, in motion it's really cool, with those weird stabbing arms, the gigantic mohawk and the generally humanoid-but-not-quite fairy body. I absolutely love the detail where Koko's pincers end up forming a beak when the mask halves close. While I'd normally harp on how over-detailed the design is, I feel that the nice blending of yellows, oranges and blacks really makes Tapu Koko's design look very cohesive and decorated as opposed to cluttered. In the games, anime and manga, Tapu Koko is a curious and wildly aggressive character, and well-known for its blinding speed and hair-trigger temper. So the Electric-type might be referring to its characterization and its temperament as opposed to it embodying electricity the way that the likes of Raikou or Thundurus do.

Considering its penchant and love for battle, as well as being based upon the Ruins of Conflict, Tapu Koko seems to be based loosely on the Hawaiian god Ku, or Kuka'ilimoku, a god of war who's often represented with red-feathered figures. Tapu Koko's neat, overall. It's stylish and really manages to make its wacky anatomy and relatively large amount of detail work really well into an organic, cohesive design... and comparing the design aesthetic of Tapu Koko with other wacky-anatomy Ultra Beasts below, it really is a credit to the designers how Tapu Koko still manages to evoke an organic living creature of sorts in stark contrast to the artificial/unnatural body shapes of most of the Ultra Beasts. 

 3/6 for Tapu Koko.

The second Tapu is the guardian of Akala Island, Tapu Lele, who's a typical little happy pink fairy girl with huge locks of hair and oh it just looks adorable and cute and innocent. It's not my favourite design of the Tapus, but this Psychic/Fairy does look pretty charming. Interestingly, when Tapu Lele retracts, it actually is supposed to resemble a butterfly head, with those two long hair ending up as antennae, and those markings on her lower body becoming the bug eyes, and the black piece on her bottom even ends up being a weird proboscis-esque extension. 

Tapu Lele, despite her adorable cute fairy girl appearance and her ability to restore good health to anyone who she spreads her glowing scales to, is "guilelessly cruel" and is "devoid of guilt about its cruel disposition". So yeah, it's definitely playing up the evil-fairy part of the lore. While the likes of Bulu and Koko might just love to fight, according to the official website, Tapu Lele's straight up happy to heal soldiers on both sides of a war, to have them "fight to their final breath" (the English version found this so disturbing that it was censored to a simple ending the war deal). Tapu Lele would honestly be a bit forgettable without this sinister detail, so good on them for doing that. Bulbapedia notes that Tapu Lele seems to be based on the god Kane, associated with creation, the sun and the sky, but that seems to honestly be tenuous and might just be due to process of elimination.

 4/6 for Tapu Lele. Was going to be 3, but her lore won me over.  


The third guardian Tapu, Tapu Bulu, guards Ula'ula Island, and is perhaps my least favourite of the four Tapus from a design standpoint. I'm not sure why I don't like him when I harped on and on about Tapu Koko, but I guess it's the weird shape of how the cow-head totem splits apart on his head, combined with the weird wasp-cow body? Tapu Bulu just looks really awkward. Being based on a bull, Tapu Bulu is Grass/Fairy, and it's noted as the laziest and easiest-going of the Tapus... until it gets mad, upon which it will unleash devastation by lifting up trees and using them as clubs, and causing vegetation to grow, and then absorbing energy from the growth. Notably, while Tapu Bulu's shrine is the only one you don't visit as part of the main story of all the seventh generation games, located deep within a mirage-filled desert (was the desert all that's left of a region whose energy Tapu Bulu absorbed?), Tapu Bulu's handiwork is clearly seen on the ruined Tapu Village and the ruins of the Abandoned Mart. While design-wise Tapu Bulu's pretty bleh, from a lore and story perspective I do like this dude.

Tapu Bulu's based on the Hawaiian god Lono, a god of fertility, abundance, music and peace. And, well, Tapu Bulu's based on the Ruins of Abundance. While the themes are there, there's nothing really tying Lono to bulls or going on a sudden rampage, so... yeah. I suppose it's less disrespectful for the Tapus to not be one-on-one counterparts of real gods?

 1/6 for the Bull. 

The final member is the guardian of Poni island, Tapu Fini, a Water/Fairy Pokemon that looks like a mermaid within the head of a swordfish or a narwhal that opens up like a bivalve. It's slightly more boring compared to Bulu and Koko, but the combination of purples, light blues and black really ends up resulting in a very pleasant colour scheme. Tapu Fini's distrustful of most humans, and uses a fog as defense and to 'test' humans asking for her favour. Oh, and there's the whole "purifying healing water" deal that so many Water-type legendaries are able to do. Tapu Fini, like Tapu Bulu, roughly corresponds to the god Kanaloa, the god of underworld and magic that's also associated with the ocean... although Kanaloa takes the form of an octopus or squid as opposed to the mermaid/swordfish deal Tapu Fini has. So yeah, ultimately, while it's neat that there are four Tapus and four Hawaiian gods, only Tapu Koko really seems directly based upon one of these gods, turning the rest into having a more... original totem-tiki guardian deal.

 3/6 for Tapu Fini.

Ultimately, as a set, the group ends up averaging at a decent 3/5, and a good part of it is thanks to how they function as a set and a backstory for the Alolan region. The designs themselves (other than Koko and Fini) aren't particularly impressive, but the backstory they help form and the way that they are presented in the games is really well-done, and I kind of want to give them an extra ball out of effort for that. 

#789-792: Cosmog, Cosmoem, Solgaleo & Lunala

• Types: Psychic [Cosmog/Cosmoem], Psychic/Steel [Solgaleo], Psychic/Ghost [Lunala] 
• Japanese names: Kosumoggu, Kosumoumu, Sorugareo, Runaara
• Categories: Nebula [Cosmog], Protostar [Cosmoem], Sunne [Solgaleo], Moone [Lunala]

This generation's two mascot legendaries feel... decent the first time they were shown. They didn't wow me as much as Xerneas and Yveltal did in the sixth generation, because Lunala looks a bit like a moon-themed bat version of Yveltal and Solgaleo looks like Ligerzero. And neither of those were meant as insults, because I do love both designs! They just weren't super-spectacular. How these legendaries were integrated into the story of Sun/Moon was pretty great, though! Whereas every single game that involved a legendary pokemon as its central plot device essentially reduce them into a powerful McGuffin to fight over, the seventh generation games put way, way more focus into characterization -- sometimes to the detriment of actual gameplay experience. But one of these things is the implementation of Cosmog, a Pokemon that one of the main characters of the Sun/Moon story, LiIllie, befriends. The enigmatic Cosmog (nicknamed Nebby) was the subject of desire of the evil organization, sure, but this time around he's his actual character of sorts, defined by his friendship with Lillie and his constant sneaking out of Lillie's bag to explore stuff. 

The pure psychic-type Cosmog is also the only legendary Pokemon that permanently evolves from one Pokemon to another, which is pretty huge -- one of the 'soft' rules about Legendaries was that they're always stuck in that form, that even things like Phione and Manaphy can't evolve to and from each other. Cosmog, the first stage of this evolutionary line and the one that we spend the most time with, is a blob of space nebula cloud thing with cute little bunny ears and a very pleasant expression on his face. Taken on its own, Cosmog isn't particularly special, but considering his relatively huge role in the games and his eventual evolutionary lines, it's a neat precursor to the game's two legendaries. See, while you aren't able to capture a Cosmog and see the dex entries until the post-game, Cosmog's dex entries note how it's mysterious and doesn't seem to be of this world. Cosmog's evolutionary line straddles the line of what counts as "Pokemon" and what counts as "Ultra Beast". None of Cosmog's evolutionary lines have the unique stat-raising Beast Boost ability, but at the same time, it's explicitly stated to come from the same dimension that the Ultra Beasts come from.


Cosmog (who can't learn any damaging moves) eventually evolves into Cosmoem, sort of an inactive 'pupal' stage. In-story, Cosmog ends up being transformed into Cosmoem after it has all its energy drained out of it in order to open a portal to the Ultra Beast dimension, and it's... it's okay. It's meant to be evocative of a cocoon (explicitly called "Cocoon of the Stars" by the ancient Alolan people), if galaxies and stars have a cocoon form, and I do like its sleepy face and whatnot, but I do really feel that Cosmoem is a bit redundant and could've been rolled together as an alternate form of Cosmog. 

 2/6 for Cosmog and Cosmoem. It's a decent gimmick and the portrayal of Nebby elevates the two above the forgettable territory, but I feel pretty m'eh about their designs. 

Now, depending on the game you play, Cosmoem will evolve into either Solgaleo (Sun) or Lunala (Moon) over the course of the story as you channel the power of the sun and/or moon to return Nebby into its true, original form of the Pokemon of the Sun/Moon. And it's pretty interesting how both Solgaleo and Lunala, despite being wildly different from each other, do have hints of their common ancestry. First is the nebula motif (that gets zoomed in whenever they do their signature moves) on Solgaleo and Lunala's respective heads, and then just how the golden 'frame' of Cosmoem ends up forming the frame of Solgaleo's sun-shaped mane and Lunala's bone-like outer wings. Also, interstingly, due to the fact that they're tying everything to the Cosmog/Cosmoem line, Solgaleo and Lunala are both Psychic-type, with Solgaleo being Psychic/Steel and Lunala being Psychic/Ghost, extremely atypical typings and not really what I'd expect from seeing the design, but considering the Cosmog/Cosmoem backstory, I guess it sort of makes sense? I do like the subversion of using neither Fire-type for the Sun Pokemon nor Fairy-type for the Moon Pokemon. Not sure if I'd prefer it another way, but eh. 

Both of them are really cool! Solgaleo's very well-designed and pleasant looking, being a far, far cooler lion than Pyroar. It could stand do look a bit more metallic, I suppose, and Solgaleo's Steel-typing is apparently a reference to the alchemical lion, sort of a weird motif in alchemy where lions are described to "swallow the sun" (a description that Solgaleo himself is referred to by) and being connected to metals. And since the Sun is really just a hunk of super-heated super-dense metals... I guess it sort of makes sense, if it's not apparent? It's a cool design nonetheless, and I really love the fact that Solgaleo's claws are retracted in its 'base' form seen in this official art, but it's able to deploy those claws to slash and murder people. Solgaleo's signature move, Sunsteel Strike, has him transform temporarily into a "Radiant Sun Phase", which essentially means that it glows like the sun before surrounding itself in a flaming sun-like ball of flame and then striking the enemy.

 4/6.

Solgaleo is explicitly stated to be Cosmog's "male" evolution, whereas Lunala is stated to be the "female" form, so maybe the big difference in the Sun/Moon worlds is Nebby's gender? Lunala is a goregous ghost-bat, and while it still boggles my mind that Lunala isn't a Flying-type, she's a beautiful moon-bat. From the way that the crescents form her head, to the ghostly bones and the golden crescents, and to how the beautiful shades of purple ripple across her cloth-like form in the 3D models, Lunala just looks majestic, and I honestly feel that the animations for Lunala in the 3D games' cutscenes have always looked far more interesting than Solgaleo's. Like Solgaleo, Lunala's got her own signature move, Moongeist Beam, where she temporarily enters a "Full Moon Phase" where she glows like the moon. 

Lunala's a pretty awesome, graceful bat-ghost, and while not as downright cool as her twin, Lunala's just a pretty gorgeous design. There's a whole lot of debate as to what Lunala's based on. The endangered Australian Ghost Bat (Macroderma gigas); the mythological multi-eyed bat Pe'a-pe'a-makawalu from Hawaiian legend, a foe of the demigod Maui; Mayan god Camazotz who takes the form of a bat and is associated with the night... I don't think Lunala's meant to specifically reference any of these, but she's clearly a beautiful bat god in her own right.

 5/6.

Anyway, in the story of Sun/Moon, after Nebby achieves his/her final form as Solgaleo and Lunala, they end up being able to open portals into the Ultra Beasts's dimension and you can take the fight to the otherworldly beings. In the Ultra games, Nebby gets captured by fellow legendary pokemon Necrozma instead, who we'll cover later on. But in both games, Nebby eventually ends up joining you because it apparently has a desire to battle. Not the best sort of character development (although it's better in Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon) but you gotta have the legendary mascot Pokemon in some way or form, so... 

Overall, while these mascot legendaries aren't my favourite Pokemon from the seventh generation, Solgaleo and Lunala are amazingly and pleasantly designed to be memorable and pretty awesome (I prefer Lunala slightly over Solgaleo, but holy shit, that said, I do really like Solgaleo), whereas the story behind Nebby makes the otherwise cute-but-forgettable Cosmog and Cosmoem really memorable. 

#793: Nihilego (a.k.a. "UB-01 Symbiont")

• Types: Rock/Poison
• Japanese name: Utsuroido
• Category: Parasite

Oh yeah, here's the very first of these wacky Ultra Beasts, and... admittedly, taken out of the context of how she's presented to us in-game, Nihilego is a very underwhelming design. We haven't had a jellyfish Pokemon since Jellicent, so it's definitely welcome to have another one... but Nihilego isn't just a simple jellyfish. It's an otherworldly, eldritch being from another dimension. It's also the only jellyfish Pokemon that, unlike Tentacruel or Jellicent, to truly embody what's so hauntingly beautiful about the faceless jellyfishes. Oh, and since it's an incomprehensible being from another dimension, instead of being the expected Water-type, Nihilego is Rock/Poison (incidentally, this means that Cthulhuoid over here is our very first Poison-type legendary). Nihilego was so mysterious that it is continually referred to as simply "UB-01 Symbiont" all throughout the promotion leading up to the seventh generation, and in-game until you actually capture one. Nihilego looks insanely strange, being otherworldy and weird in a way that no Pokemon -- not even intentionally-villainous ones like Giratina, Darkrai or Kyreum -- ever looked. It looks less anime monster and more of some weird creature you'd see as an enemy from a sci-fi game.

And unsettlingly, Nihilego's often described as acting like "a young girl", leading many people to initially speculate that the character Lillie (the aforementioned girl that befriends Nebby the Cosmog and you, the player character) is meant to be the "human form" of Nihilego or some Digimon Frontier style of nonsense like that. But it turns out that Lillie's mother Lusamine, who, in addition to being an abusive control freak who forces Lillie to dress like Nihilego, is so obsessed with these otherworldly jellyfishes that she devotes her entire existence to try to commune with the Nihilego from Ultra Space. And it's this obsession that causes pretty much every single thing that happens throughout the events of Sun and Moon. Without recapping the plotline of the entire game, let's say that Lusamine does manage to make contact with the Nihilegos in their dimension of Ultra Space, some sort of eldritch location later given the designation 'ultra sea' by the sequel games. It all boils down to something pretty different, and honestly, other than the fact that Ultra Beasts have pretty high stats, they're clearly pretty different from normal legendaries. You can catch multiples of them, for one. They always have stats referring to prime numbers. They always have the ability Beast Boost. It's neat.


Lusamine, in her insane trance to be one with the beautiful Nihilego, even fuses with one and becomes that horrifying abomination you see there. (No you can't capture one in-game). Yes, it just leads to a glorified trainer battle, but the presentation is pretty damn awesome. But the thing is... as emotionless and as much as the Nihilego might appear to be just wacky space beasts, their dex entries and their Rock/Poison typing, as well as their designation as "Symbiont" (Parasite in the original Japanese) implies something far more interesting. See, a lot of Lusamine's actions? Those aren't because of her madness alone. Nihilego's toxins intensifies the negative emotions and violent tendencies that Lusamine has, and it's implied that it's these Nihilego's neurotoxins that ends up causing Lusamine to go off the deep end. It's sort of all the fancy shit that the Cthulhu mythos is so popular for -- otherworldly ancient beings, tentacles, madness, but done in Pokemon fashion. And the fact that they pick a jellyfish for this role? Jellyfishes are such weird fuckers that some of them do create weird-ass neurotoxins and some are even immortal, so yeah, why not?

And besides, while Nihilego's perhaps the most organic-looking and least exciting of the Ultra Beasts, she's still pretty neat looking. There's just something appealing about her weird human-like legs and the hat-like head, and I've always found Nihilego particularly charming in Pokemon Refresh. Its design is even pretty neat when you think about it, with Nihilego's weirdly positioned tentacles making so much more sense when you think of it as a parasite that latches on to a target's head, and its Rock/Poison typing hints at perhaps its composition being made out of crystal or some shit? Overall, while perhaps not the most interesting design out there, Nihilego's relatively simple for a space jellyfish monster, but there's an undeniable charm to it that I'd argue I don't find in many of the previous generations' legendaries. The fact that it kicks off perhaps the best story in the Pokemon games (now, the actual games themselves is... there's a lot I can write about them;, but the story is great) doesn't hurt either.

 5/6.

#794: Buzzwole (a.k.a. "UB-02 Absorption")

• Types: Bug/Fighting
• Japanese name: Masshibun
• Category: Swollen

If there was ever a Pokemon that makes me really glad for the Pokemon Amie/Pokemon Refresh feature of being able to pet your Pokemon and feed them beans and macarons, it is Buzzwole. You see, mosquitoes are one of the most quintessential insects in the world, and I'm genuinely baffled it took them so, so long for them to even consider putting in a mosquito Pokemon in any shape or form... but I am so, so glad that we're getting Buzzwole as our very first mosquito. You see, in addition to being an Ultra Beast, Buzzwole is a gigantic Bug/Fighting muscle-bound wrestler with pecs bigger than my head, four insectoid legs that spread out in a tripod, gigantic biceps, beady mosquito eyes, a huge drill-sucker and...  and, wow. I liked Buzzwole when I laid eyes on her, but I fell absolutely head-over-heels in love when I actually interacted with her in Pokemon Refresh. He flexes in response to... to everything. Feeding a bean? FLEX! Pat on the head? FLEX! You drop a bean? FLEX! haven't seen Buzzwole in a while? FLEX! Attacking? FLEX! Fainting? FLEX! If there was a Pokemon that epitomizes the Fighting type, it is Buzzwole.

Also, yes, her. Buzzwole may be genderless, but only female mosquitoes suck blood and that's the pronoun I'll use for this big bad bug monster.

And in one of the most horrifying scenes in Pokemon anime, Buzzwole's first appearance is heralded by her charging a Snorlax and quite literally sucking the poor, poor Snorlax dry. What the shit, man! It's not enough that her muscles are gigantic and she's a giant bug, all the vampiric tropes that apply to mosquitoes also apply here. Look at what the anime does with her and it's pretty amazing, too!

We get an extra dose of hilarious morbidity with the fact that Buzzwole's glowing muscles are actually filled with the blood it sucks from her victims, something that's made apparently clear in the 3D animation. How awesome is that? Honestly, the sheer existence of Buzzwole is just so hilarious and well-executed. It could've been pretty dumb, but no. The subversion of the common tropes of mosquitoes as either blood-suckers or pests and turning this dude into a flexing bug bodybuilder is just so well-done, and the descriptions noting that it's "unclear" if Buzzwole's flexing is a display or a threat is hilarious. What more can I say? She's a blood-sucking mosquito bodybuilder from space! Definitely a well-designed Pokemon that looks both cool and hilarious, and quite easily my favourite of all the Ultra Beasts.

 5/6.

#795: Pheromosa (a.k.a. "UB-02 Beauty")

• Types: Bug/Fighting
• Japanese name: Feroche
• Category: Lissome 

Buzzwole's an Ultra Beast exclusive to the Sun games, whereas Moon players get Pheromosa -- note that they're both considered UB-02, since the opposite-game version never show up in the storyline of the other game, so they're never given a designation there. Pheromosa, like Buzzwole, is a Bug/Fighting Pokemon, and like Buzzwole, she's based upon a commonplace insect that's really overdue to be turned into a Pokemon... the humble cockroach. And just like Buzzwole's subversion of tropes of what you'd think a roach pokemon would be like, Pheromosa is a graceful, ladylike figure instead of the disease-spreading, trash-eating pieces of shit that the commonly-found-in-human-homes members of the Blatella genus are. Pheromosa does have one thing in common with her cockroach inspiration -- she's blindingly fast, ranking very highly among the world's fastest Pokemon, in stark contrast to the bulky-but-slow Buzzwole.

Pheromosa's actually the inverse of the common stereotypes that the cockroach genus is associated with, because Pheromosa is actually a cleanliness freak! She straight-up refuses to touch anything, apparently because our dimension is "unclean". And it's not even subversion, either -- cockroaches are actually very particular about the substances on their body -- they just consider what's dirty to us humans as food, and vice versa. They'll actually spend a decent amount of time self-grooming.  And there are white-coloured cockroaches out there, like the awesomely-named Death's Head Cockroach. And honestly? While Pheromosa isn't my favourite design among the Ultra Beasts, I do like the effort they put into her design, incorporating the antennae and distinctive wings of a cockroach and adapting the cockroach's spindly body into a lithe, feminine dress. Cockroaches aren't an animal you'd associate with any of these things, but Pheromosa manages to make a cockroach look pretty damn badass. Pheromosa's design veers away from what I find pleasing in a monster, but overall I definitely do lean towards liking her. 

 4/6. I genuinely went back and forth many times between these.

#796: Xurkitree (a.k.a. "UB-03 Lighting")

• Type: Electric
• Japanese name: Denjumoku
• Category: Glowing

After Nihilego, Pheromosa and Buzzwole are all based on animals -- albeit weirdly-drawn animals -- we finally go into the realm of madness. See, the pure-Electric Xurkitree is a weird-ass bunch of wires held together by Christmas lights, with three legs that end in socket plugs, and fingers formed from those copper bits inside wires. And its body is so fucking weird, with a central 'head' made out of a spiky crystal, and its tentacles tapering down to form this utterly strange body. Oh, and it's also a tree, because at rest it embeds all five of its limbs into the ground like a Christmas tree. When we finally get the opportunity to go into Xurkitree's world in Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon, we get to see that the world of lightning actually has a fuck-ton of Xurkitree trees dotting the landscape, and apparently there are straight-up tower-sized Xurkitrees in the background that we sadly can't interact with. 

And Xurkitree learns a lot of Grass-type moves, but apparently the world where Xurkitree grows, what passes off as 'plant' to us is actually electricity, and that's pretty cool. Again, while the Ultra Beasts might be truly different from what we normally think as Pokemon, that is what their design aesthetic is meant to evoke -- the sense of wrongness yet still having the charm of wanting to catch one and pet it and generally just be nice buddies with it. Overall, Xurkitree's a pretty insane and weird design, being this huge mass of cables and wires that acts so much like a tree... yet it's an electric type. Definitely a fan of Xurkitree -- and honestly, so many of these Ultra Beasts just end up feeling so goddamn weird that I can't help but like them -- such a nice breath of air compared to retreaded tropes as far as legendary or unique pokemon go. Plus, his name is Xurkitree. How hilarious is that?  

 5/6.

#797: Celesteela (a.k.a. "UB-04 Blaster")

• Types: Steel/Flying
• Japanese name: Tekkaguya
• Category: Launch

The Steel/Flying Celesteela is definitely not my favourite Ultra Beast, but god damn does it win points for the most creative backstory. See, it's clearly based on a rocket. but also on bamboo. And a Japanese folk-tale. And in the Ultra games, it lives in this weird-ass realm of craters where the Celesteela are grown like plants and then blast off into space for some reason. Moreso than honestly everything else on this list, Celesteela gets my vote for the straight-up most bizarre and ephemeral design. Celesteela is a gigantic 9.2 meter tall monster whose main body is a weird rocket that vaguely resembles a humanoid in a kimono (and that white 'spine' running down its upper body is somewhat humanoid) while its two arms act as weird rocket blasters that also double as gigantic laser bazookas that can "burn down a forest by expelling gas". 

Let's break down this bizarre motherfucker's origins, shall we? Celesteela is partly based on the Japanese Tale of the Bamboo Cutter, in which an elderly bamboo cutter finds a mysterious little girl  while cutting bamboo shoots -- and the little girl ends up being actually the rightful princess of the moon (naturally, Celesteela is exclusive to Moon). That explains the bamboo and kimono stuff, but its also a reference to the SELENE, a Japanese-launched space probe meant to impact to the moon. It was fondly referred to as the Kaguya by the Japanese media in homage of the princess in the Tale of the Bamboo Cutter. So Celesteela is a combination of the bamboo, the princess and the spacecraft in an insane hodgepodge of references that somehow works together to create this insane design. 

And honestly? It's a shame that the dex entries for the Ultra Beasts feel so generic, with things like "they are common in the world they came from" repeated over several different Ultra Beasts. Really, now? Celesteela's head, not seen seen quite as clearly in the official art, actually does have a gloriously awesome look to it -- the combination of the weird "hair ornaments", the thin line of a mouth and the glowing maybe-eyes really give Celesteela such an otherworldly quality to it. Overall, Celesteela is a wee bit too cluttered for my liking, but this insane dude does end up getting my vote as the weirdest-of-the-weirdos among the Ultra Beasts.

 3/6. bordering on 2 or 4. So undecided! I really do like that these Ultra Beasts really make me think hard about just the grade I am giving them.

#798: Kartana (a.k.a. "UB-04 Blade")

• Types: Grass/Steel
• Japanese name: Kamitsurugi
• Category: Drawn Sword

Celesteela's opposite-version counterpart, Kartana, is another Japanese-inspired Ultra Beast, but it's just such an insanely different beast from Celesteela altogether. While Celesteela is a gigantic steel behemoth, Kartana is a teeny-tiny little living origami man with blades for arms.  And since it's made out of paper, it's Grass/Steel. Yeah! The tiny little Kartana is just such a cool design, with little blade-arms and such an adorable quality to it. From its folding-paper faceless face (which actually opens and closes as it emotes, and is based on those 'fortune teller' origami deals) and its two weird chopstick-like sword-horns on its back, Kartana's a pretty damn cool design. It's not quite as complex as Celesteela is, but I really do like Kartana a whole lot. It's so freaking cool! I think my favourite part of Kartana is the animations they gave him in Pokemon Refresh, where those antennae actually detach and form some sort of floating eyebrows as the face opens and closes. 

And while Kartana's pretty simple in both design elements and backstory (it's just a little paper doll samurai), Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon gives us an unexpected slew of backstory for Kartana. While with all the other Ultra Beasts we're just content to see the otherworldly realms they hail from, Kartana's giant oriental forest (with flowers suspiciously resembling Kartana) is one of the few places in Ultra Space to have humans in it -- the Ultra Forest Kartenvoys, who are these strange monks that worship Kartana, I think? Who are they? Are they from our world, since they actually have the skin tone of "our" humans? Do they just exist alongside Kartana, or are they the subjects of the Kartana? So many questions that will probably not be answered. Anyway, I do quite like Kartana a fair bit. It's perhaps my favourite outside of the non-Bug Ultra Beasts.

 4/6 thanks to personality.

#799: Guzzlord (a.k.a. "UB-05 Glutton")

• Types: Dark/Dragon
• Japanese name: Akujikingu
• Category: Junkivore [Allotriophage in Japanese]

Guzzlord is the final member of the original batch of Ultra Beasts introduced in Sun/Moon, being the final monster you fight alongside the International Police as part of the post-game, located in an underground cave suspiciously similar to the cave you find Zygarde in back in XY, and I've always thought that this implied that Guzzlord defeated the Zygarde protecting Alola, which is the reason that Zygarde is scattered into a hundred cells in that game. Anyway, Guzzlord over here is a weird looking design that, while perhaps not quite feel as creative as the other Ultra Beasts to come before him, does feel alien in its own way. It's this huge walking giant spherical maw with a smaller maw inside it, two serpentine tentacle-tongues that end in fangs, two tiny T-rex arms on its 'head', and another 'main head' above its huge Pac-Man head? It's also Dark/Dragon, because... yeah, why not? It's a pretty neat-looking design, I guess, with the black, yellows and blues working well together, but I feel that the combination of so many details like the spiky flail-tail, the teeny-tiny dragon wings, the stubby feet, the dragon tongue and the extra head all end up making the design feel way too cluttered and not cohesive the way that Celesteela, the Tapus or Necrozma are. And if I did this review before Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon, I probably would've shrugged Guzzlord off with a 1/5 or 2/5 rating of "nice concept, shit execution", and called it a day. 

Because, well, the concept's pretty neat. Guzzlord is constantly eating, and the dex notes that "for some reason, its droppings have never been found", meaning that Guzzlord essentially functions like a living black hole, able to devour mountains without a trace. And... that's about it. Sure, it's apparently responsible for the death of Looker's partner in the Sun/Moon backstory, but that's never particularly relevant. Guzzlord does have a charm to it thanks to being a huge waddling humanoid of sorts with a stomach that also happens to be a weird black-hole-dragon, but it's not really to my liking. What I really do like about this Pokemon is its dimension in the Ultra games, known as Ultra Ruin... and it's implied that this Ultra Ruin was what remains of an alternate-universe's version of Hau'oli City. It's not that noticeable, but we get to see remnants of some landmarks from Hau'oli City, including a rusted sign that corresponds to the City Hall. There's only one person left there, a dude in a hazmat suit left to check on Guzzlord, who tells us that humanity's gone and left to the stars after Guzzlord presumably destroyed everything in its path. Or maybe it's a nuclear explosion -- the game's vague about which one caused the destruction. Best of all, the overworld music for this area is a distorted and reversed version of Hau'oli City's cheerful music. And that encounter really increases my opinion of Guzzlord by a fair bit. Ultimately, Guzzlord is still my least favourite of the Ultra Beasts (and ironically easily the weakest one competitively considering its huge stat dump is in HP) but I do respect it a fair bit more than I did before. 

 2/6. Sorry, Guzzlord.

#800: Necrozma

• Types: Psychic [base Necrozma], Psychic/Steel [Dusk Mane], Psychic/Ghost [Dawn Wings], Psychic/Dragon [Ultra Necrozma]
• Japanese name: Nekurozuma
• Category: Prism

I initially thought that I was going to split this seventh-generation legendaries into two sections, because there's a fair bit to talk about Necrozma here. See, Necrozma is a weird fellow that's obviously the third member of the set with Solgaleo and Lunala, if previous generations are anything to go by. It's also Psychic-type, it's found post-game in Ten Karat Hill -- a weird off-the-books location, and it looks like the sort of weird-ass otherworldly creature like the Ultra Beasts. But it doesn't come out of the Ultra Wormhole, it shares the battle theme of Solgaleo and Lunala, and it doesn't have Beast Boost as an ability. So what gives? The pokedex even classifies it as a legendary Pokemon... but makes note that Necrozma is "reminiscent of the Ultra Beasts", and sort of gives the backstory that Necrozma was buried deep underground, and "thought to have come from another world in ancient times". It's definitely implied that the likes of Necrozma and the Cosmog line all hail from Ultra Space, but have somehow adapted to become relatively indistinguishable from normal Pokemon. Necrozma's a Pokemon who's based on light, and is noted to be particularly vicious and continuously shoots laser beams. Speculation about Necrozma's true nature ended up being the hot topic. Is it related to the Cosmog line, a different evolution perhaps? Is it an ancient version of Type: Null, a Pokemon designed to fight Ultra Beasts? Is it connected to the Tapus? 

Necrozma himself doesn't look super interesting at first glance, a mass of crystals forming a weird robot-like figure. It's cool, I guess, with a very weird-looking face and very imposing arms with those stylishly drawn crystals jutting out of the lower arms... but ultimately it's sort of boring until you realize that Necrozma's not just a humanoid. It's a bunch of parts that are plastered together, with its weirdly stunted torso actually being an upside-down dragon head... and the official character model actually identifies Necrozma's torso as a "head", its humanoid head as a "tail", and so on. Is it just strange anatomy at work, or is Necrozma so ill-tempered because it's not in the right configuration?

 4/6 for regular Necrozma. It's just so weird. 

Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon would arrive with the answer, showing us that, yes, the base-form Necrozma we're familiar is is actually the remnants of Necrozma's form after it was depowered. In anger, Necrozma then seeks to devour all light, eventually turning its direction towards out dimension... specifically to Solgaleo/Lunala. Taking over from Lusamine as the big bad of the games, Necrozma shows up when we, the player, returns Nebby into his/her true form of Solgaleo/Lunala, and Necrozma essentially pulls off a Nihilego, and hijacks Nebby parasitically. And it does this by ejecting its rainbow-coloured prism brain, while its black armour components splits apart as some sort of add-on armour to take over either Solgaleo or Lunala. With Solgaleo, Necrozma becomes the Psychic/Steel Dusk Mane Necrozma, and with Lunala, he becomes the Psychic/Ghost Dawn Wings Lunala. 

And... there's really not that much interest here. Necrozma's role as a parasite and a set of 'armour' that takes over the cover legendary isn't super-interesting in my books, although it does make for a neat little cutscene. Dusk Mane Solgaleo has some neat bits, like the weird beard it gets and the very cool configuration that it has on the claws... but the big Necrozma head-halves and arms hanging off its back just looks really dumb. Dawn Wings Necrozma looks even worse, and while the 3D model makes the design a little less silly by having Necrozma's arms trail below like bat legs, the end result really doesn't look appealing to me at all. It is sort of meant to be evocative of the sheer wrongness of the parasitism, I suppose, with Necrozma's takeover of either Solgaleo or Lunala being a mid-way phase to its true form...

 1/6 for the fusions. I don't like them, but they're meant to not actually fit together well, y'know? The forms are better put-together than Black and White Kyurem, which is why they avoided the 0/5 rating.

Its true form is Ultra Necrozma, a Psychic/Dragon creature and only achievable after Necrozma assimilates an adequate amount of light -- i.e. either Solgaleo or Lunala. And we get to see the true form of Necrozma, where the armour plates are just part of its anatomy, which is mostly comprised of light. What was once Necrozma's arms are actually the legs of Ultra Necrozma. What was the regular Necrozma's chest is Ultra Necrozma's head. Its spindly arms and legs turn out to be the 'skeleton' of its four wings, and its long, tapered crystal head is Ultra Necrozma's chest armour. It's actually a very pleasant surprise because I wasn't spoiled about Ultra Necrozma's existence, and while it's sort of forgettable to me, not being particularly impressive after so many other dragons we've seen before, it's still pretty damn cool. The lore behind Necrozma and the combination of so many aspects of past Pokemon gimmicks -- fusion from the fifth generation, mega evolution from the sixth generation and Ultra Beasts from the seventh generation -- does end up resulting in one of the coolest legendaries without being needlessly complex like Zygarde or Kyurem felt like. 

The whole "light" stuff is pretty decent, even if it does feel generically-anime in some way. Necrozma is this strange entity that feeds on light, stealing all the light from the Ultra Megalopolis dimension, and, after you defeat Necrozma, you actually get the chance to properly befriend it and allow it to fuse with Nebby consensually, turning the fusion and eventual Ultra Necrozma form into some sort of a three-way Mega Evolution style deal. Which... sounds a lot dirtier than I intended, but whatever. Necrozma's a pretty cool concept, and while aesthetically it's not quite there for me... from a conceptual and lore standpoint it definitely wins out.

 4/6, bordering on 3/6.

#801: Magearna

• Types: Steel/Fairy
• Japanese name: Magiana
• Category: Artificial

We have a couple of extra legendaries not connected to the Ultra Beasts, Cosmog line or Tapus, and... Magearna is the first of these, an event legendary. She's a Steel/Fairy Pokemon that's meant to be a clockwork doll that can collapse into a Pokeball-shaped figure. It's a Pokemon that feels a lot at home in the Kalos setting (and actually stars in a movie with Kalosian legendary pokemon Volcanion), being an ancient clockwork doll designed with an ancient Soul-Heart, and it attempts to synchronize its consciousness with others to understand their feelings. It originally was coloured like a Pokeball (called "Original Color Magearna"), before time wore away the reds and whites and turned it into this more drab design. Magearna's dex entries emphasize that this robot princess body isn't actually its real body, but merely a shell controlled by Magearna's true form, the artificial Soul-Heart, that, according to its backstory, was created by collecting souls life energy from other Pokemon... something that Magearna ends up using in the present day via her ability, Soul-Heart, which buffs her any time an ally pokemon faints. She has a signature move, the Fleur Cannon. 

She's cute enough, I suppose, with that clockwork face and the creepy backstory, but at the same time after the really wacky and unique designs that we've had this generation as far as legendaries go, Magearna seems to just be a rehash of Diancie and the Kalosian Ultimate Weapons mushed together. That's sort of kind of harsh. She's solid, but she really doesn't do a whole ton that's fresh, particularly compared to the rest of Generation VII's legendaries and quasi-legendaries. Honestly, I don't dislike its design at all, but one of the criteria for the 1-2 scores is 'forgettable' and I genuinely forgot Magearna exists most of the time. It's got a cool concept on paper, though. 

 2/6. 

#802: Marshadow

• Types: Fighting/Ghost
• Japanese name: Mashado
• Category: Gloomdweller

The final Pokemon on the Pokedex at the time of Sun and Moon, Marshadow was... another pixie-style event legendary Pokemon. He does have the unique typing of Fighting/Ghost, with its origin being tied to the Nightmarchers, warrior ghosts in Hawaiian culture, and also, y'know, a whole pun on shadowboxing. While normally just a completely-black shadowy pixie with glowing red eyes, Marshadow's hair, collar and arm-flames will glow green when it attacks, giving a somewhat more dynamic state to it that Nintendo has dubbed "Zenith Marshadow". Marshadow's whole deal is that it hides in shadows and likes to copy the movements and powers of others, eventually becoming stronger than the ones its imitating. It's a neat concept, being this Spirited Away-esque "shadow of your true self" creature, which is why it ends up being an antagonist in the I Choose You movie... but at the same time, there's really not much about Marshadow himself that appeals to me. Marshadow's at least unique, I guess, compared to previous legendaries? There's really not much for me to talk about here. It's... it's okay, but it does feel very redundant in the way that many other legendaries in previous generations did. We've seen pixies before, we've seen shadow monsters before... Marshadow just doesn't do anything really unique, honestly, and compared to either shadow Pokemon or other 'pixie' style Pokemon, Marshadow is genuinely forgettable. I debated putting him at 1/6 a lot, honestly.

 2/6. 

#803-804: Poipole & Naganadel (a.k.a. "UB-Adhesive" & "UB-Stinger")

• Types: Poison [Poipole], Poison/Dragon [Naganadel]
• Japanese name: Bebenomu, Agoyon
• Category: Poison Pin [both]

The Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon games brought with it a half-dozen brand-new Pokemon, which is unprecedented. Most generations do introduce brand-new forms with their entries, but US/UM are the first to introduce straight-up brand new Pokemon tacked onto the tail-end of the Pokedex. The first one is this cute little purple alien imp, Poipole, a pure-Poison Ultra Beast who's extremely weak compared to its compatriots...  but it's apparently given out as a starter Pokemon for the members of the Ultra Recon Squad, blue-skinned humans (humanoids?) who hail from Ultra Space. Poipole is adorable, this weird alien-like creature with needles on his head, and apparently it "cackles wildly" as it sprays sticky poison to murder people. It's a very pleasant feel  to it, looking alien and adorable at the same time. Definitely very pleasant looking, if nowhere as weird as the other Ultra Beasts to precede it.

Poipole evolves when leveled up while knowing the move Dragon Pulse, evolving into the Dragon/Poison Pokemon Naganadel, and I do really like the wackiness of it essentially flipping upside-down. Why didn't we get a repeat of the Inkay/Malamar gimmick? Regardless, Poipole's hypodermic needle head ends up becoming the abdomen of this wasp dragon, and Poipole's tail ends up being Naganadel's new serpentine neck. It's also sprouted a bunch of extra spikes and a pair of draconic wings, which looks pretty damn cool! An alien wasp-dragon might not be the most novel or weird of ideas, but at the same time Naganadel is pretty well-drawn. I'm not sure if it needed to be an Ultra Beast or not, but it's still a very neat design. I do really love the coolness of its head, and I do like the detail that Naganadel's abdomen still houses its brain, a neat little bit of alien biology there.

 4/6. 

#805: Stakataka (a.k.a. "UB-Assembly")

• Types: Rock/Steel
• Japanese name: Tsundetsunde
• Category: Rampart

Stakataka, like many other Ultra Beasts in this list, is a Pokemon I didn't really care about much until I actually captured it. See,  the idea of a walking wall Pokemon is... okay? But the fact that Stakataka is actually a hive-mind made out of bricks with eyeballs? And when it rests, those four legs actually retract up, turning Stakataka into nothing but a four-sided chimney? And the eyes just constantly rotate in and out? And they glow red while angry? Yeah. I do like this. Stakataka is definitely one of those designs that really really work better when animated (check this out for his Pokemon Refresh animations), and the idea of a hive-mind wall that's made out of individual bricks is pretty cool. Every single brick is apparently an individual entity, continuously blinking and rotating in and out, and I do find it a bit of a shame that Stakataka doesn't actually reconfigure to other forms beyond "inactive wall" and "wall monster".

Stakataka is Rock/Steel and highly defensive, which is neat. I don't think we ever had a legendary or quasi-legendary Pokemon that's straight-up defensive, did we? It's just a shame that its typing does lend to a fair amount of weaknesses, although I'm to gather that he's a horrific menace in the competitive scene? I'm pretty much blind about the competitive capabilities of these newer Pokemon, nor do I honestly find a reason to care. Stakataka is apparently inspired by the yokai Mokumokuren, creatures who live in walls and tatami mats, and manifests as multiple eyes on the walls. After writing Stakataka off as dumb the first time I saw it, I ended up actually not minding it after seeing it in-game. I like it a bit less than most of the other Ultra Beasts on this page other than maybe Guzzlord, but I definitely don't hate it. 

 2/6. Bordering on 3/6, I guess? It's a concept I've sort of joked about before, so it's surprising that they actually did make it, even if it's not what I would expect.

#806: Blancephalon (a.k.a. "UB-Burst")

• Types: Fire/Ghost
• Japanese name: Zugadoon
• Category: Fireworks

The Fire/Ghost Blancephalon is exclusive to Ultra Sun, and, where Stakataka is a literal defensive wall, Blancephalon is a very fragile glass cannon. But holy shit, look at this thing! It's a humanoid jester clown made out of party favours, and its head is a giant disco ball! It's so colourful and bizarre, and its special signature move, Mind Blown has it pick up its disco ball head (those stars are apparently its eyes) and lob it at the enemy, causing it to explode... and dealing damage to Blancephalon himself since, y'know, he just threw his head as a bomb. It's a very clever reference to legends of the Headless Horseman and his weaponized, detachable pumpkin head, working in with both the ghostly and the fireworks theme, and a pretty unexpected and creative way to do it, too.

I do really like the weird, colourful and psychedelic theme that Blancephalon has, and I definitely really, really like the fact that this weird clown thing is a fiery ghost. It's a pretty unconventional design, and it apparently moves around by "slithering" and robs people of their vitality. While there's not much to go on about Blancephalon, it's got enough charm and enough wackiness for it to easily be one of my favourites from the new batch of Pokemon we got in the Ultra games. 

 3/6. Very neutral about this.

#807: Zeraora

• Type: Electric
• Japanese name: Zeraora
• Category: Thunderbolt

The final Pokemon on the Pokedex at the time of writing is another one that's datamined and not technically available in the game yet at the time of writing, and he's going to be the star of the newest Pokemon movie that's to appear some time later this year. I guess it's okay and pretty inoffensive, but just not my thing The fandom quickly latches on to this dude, because, y'know, cat-man... but for the life of me I just see it as an Electric-themed attempt at creating a Lucario variant. Maybe it's just a knee-jerk reaction? It's all right. Not my thing, but it's there. 

Its dex entries are insanely vague, just talking about its electrical capabilities, and it's got an exclusive move, Plasma Fists. Its lore talks about how he's able to move through the air by creating magnetic fields, but apparently unlike all other electric-type Pokemon, Zeraora doesn't have any electric-generating organs... okay, so how is this thing counts as a legendary again? That feels like a very weird detail to put into Zeraora's description, making him feel less awesome than he should be. Between its weird glove-like and impractical-looking fingers, and its tail that comes out of its back, Zeraora's just a design that doesn't appeal to me. And I guess Electric-themed Lucario is enough for some people, and that's completely fine -- there's way, way enough weird, wacky and creepy Pokemon in the seventh generation to appeal to me that I can look past a couple of uninspired legendaries. I don't hate this one, but I certainly don't like it. 

 2/6 bordering on 1/6. 

#808-809: Meltan & Melmetal

• Type: Steel [both]
• Japanese name: Merutan, Merumetaru
• Category: Hex Nut [both]

And lo and behold, just as I was bitching about how there aren't much of a chance of a sudden surprise in the Pokemon world due to how soon things are datamined and examined by the community, Pokemon manages to actually pull a fast one on us and reveal a brand-new Pokemon! And they did it through inarguably one of the most popular side-games for Pokemon, the mobile game Pokemon Go (and it will tie in to the as-of-the-time-of-writing upcoming sorta-main series Pokemon: Let's Go).

So at the original time of publishing this page, it was about less than a week before Meltan's official debut, and the speculation had been going on in the background -- I just wasn't paying attention to Pokemon Go news, you know? And I quickly went in to add a write-up for Meltan, being all excited about the sneaky "oh no we totally had an accidental leak" revelation of the Meltan model in the wild, first by having it show up in the game and all pretend to be Ditto and all that jazz, before being revealed to be the collaboration special Pokemon for Pokemon Go and Pokemon Let's Go. Since then, enough time's passed that the tie-in games have shown up, and for these two to be fully considered Gen-VII Pokemon. 

And turns out that this little dude is apparently a legendary? A mythical one, even? I'm not sure how that works, since both in the anime and the games, swarms of Meltan will gather around together in a bit of a thematic tie-in to how the evolution mechanic happens in Pokemon Go. Meltan himself is... it's neat, honestly, and while a lot of people bash it for yet being another inorganic Pokemon, and I must admit to going "okay, that's weird" when I first saw it, the animations and the revelation that Meltan's huge hex nut with a sphere within it is essentially a huge, giant expressive eye... Look at what the anime managed to do with it! I honestly never minded inorganic Pokemon, but I vastly prefer those that can emote. 

Meltan could honestly stand to look a bit less like a metallic ditto with accessories plugged on, but I honestly do find him pertty charming. Apparently it uses its liquid arms to corrode metal off of other things and absorb it into body? Meltan himself is a cute but ultimately weak little buddy, with a vastly limited move pool. 


And, of course, bring together a huge bunch of these little dudes together (until Generation VIII shows up, it's only available in Go) and the Meltans fuse together into the mighty Melmetal, which is... well, it's essentially kind of a huge blob of liquid metal with a bunch of giant hex-nut rings, and it looks a bit like Regirock? It's pretty neat, and definitely looks like it could fuck you up! Again, the revelation that Meltan can evolve into Melmetal did come as a bit of a surprise to me, and apparently it was one of the most ancient Pokemon that has been excavated or some such. I do really like the fact that the Pokemon Go gimmick of using a large amount of candies to evolve Meltan into Melmetal is meant to be evocative of a massive amount of tiny Meltans combining to form a big, badass giant metal titan golem creature, and I do kind of like its massive chunky hex-nut knuckles and the fact that despite being a big bad badass, it still has the same exact head as Meltan, which is just a hex nut with a floating eyeball. 

It's basically a huge, lumbering Pokemon with legendary-level stats, and... I still stand in the "too many legendaries" camp, although Meltan and Melmetal's status is honestly kind of disputable considering how easily you can farm them. They're pretty neat, though, and even without the wacky meta-plot around their reveal via Go, they're still pretty fun.

 3/6.

_________________________________________________________

But GUYS. We did it. 802 807 808 809 Pokemon. We went through it all, talked about every single one, went through a significant portion of their origins... and, wow. It's pretty fun and one hell of a ride, huh? Definitely one of the biggest undertakings I've ever done on this site, and judging by page views, you lot really do love your Pokemans. I do plan to have a couple of extra features down the line -- I'll definitely talk about types, although I'm not quite certain I'll ever do a "review 'em all" section for humans or moves or whatever. 

And... and yeah, that's about it for the main series of Gotta Review 'Em All! We'll be taking a brief break (there will be some 'special edition' reviews for shinies, types and whatnot) but as Meltan's existence proves, when, and not if, Generation VIII happens, you can bet that I will be here to review every single dang one of the new batch of critters they'll introduce. Pokemon is such a huge, huge love of mine, and I am genuinely pleased that my Pokemon commentary has ended up easily being one of the most popular features on this blog by a huge, huge margin. 

While we wait for Generation VIII, click here and here for some more Pokemon-related articles where I talk about cool animals that could be great basis for Pokemon, as well as the Generation II Beta Pokemon from the Spaceworld demo!