Pokemon of the Week #36: Mareanie & Toxapex [And a little announcement]

#747: Mareanie, the Brutal Star Pokemon & #745: Toxapex, the Brutal Star Pokemon

Let me be honest -- when I first  saw Mareanie and Toxapex in leaked images a couple of days before I got to play Sun/Moon, I thought they looked kinda silly. Partially because of the low-resolution images of the sprites, but because they just looked like... well, silly domes with a little fleshy parasite within. They were kinda like a Ferrothorn-esque design, but less interesting. 

And then I actually saw one in motion in the game, with how cool the tentacles are, and how cool the flaps open and close for Toxapex, and I realize it's meant to represent a crown-of-thorns starfish... and I fell in love with Mareanie and Toxapex. We also got some rather dark backstory behind them, too, with multiple dex entries highlighting how Mareanie and Toxapex prey on Corsola and eat them. Hell, it's even an extended unskippable line of dialogue during the main story of Pokemon Sun/Moon in the Aether Foundation, where Wicke and Hau have a conservation about the cruel side of nature.

And I just kinda love it a lot, yeah? It's a Water/Poison type, obviously, with certain sea urchin facets to Mareanie and Toxapex's design. But it's not just, well, a starfish and they don't do much with it (looking at you, Lumineon). Mareanie and Toxapex is like this cute little main stalk-like body and the 'starfish' ends up being like tentacle hair around it. As Mareanie exolves into Toxapex, the main body becomes tiny and hangs suspended, while the tentacles end up forming kind of like this bulwark and looks so insanely tough. The Ultra Moon dex entry notes that the dome-shaped tentacle allows it to not be disturbed by the ebb and flow of tides, which is a cool detail. It's just a cool-looking design, and one of the standout ones in the seventh generation, I think.

Oh, and James has one in the anime! I haven't watched the seventh generation anime, but any Pokemon that Team Rocket uses tends to be charismatic and lovable.

Dex entries really highlight just how brutal Mareanie and Toxapex are. Mareanie attacks its prey, especially Corsola (which is a 'star banquet' to it), by stabbing it with poison spikes and brutally beating it up with its ten tentacles. And like most starfishes, Mareanie and Toxapex can regenerate their tentacles. Toxapex's poison will leave a person in pain for three days and nights, and after-effects after that. Toxapex's Sun entry is particularly insanely dark. "Toxapex crawls along the ocean floor on its 12 legs. It leaves a trail of Corsola bits scattered in its wake."

And Mareanie is pretty hard to find, too. First, to get Mareanie, you need to fish for Corsola... which has a 1% or 5% chance of appearing, depending on the area. And then you must get the Corsola to not die and call for help... and pray that its call for help is answered by a Mareanie that shows up to chow down on it. I actually spent like a couple of hours when I first tried to catch a Mareanie for a first time, and, well, mostly just because it looks cool.

Mareanie itself doesn't have much in terms of being spectacular in combat. It has balanced stats, and one of its abilities is 'Merciless', that causes all its attacks to become critical if the enemy is poisoned. Water/Poison is a typing everyone is familiar with thanks to Tentacruel, and Toxapex's learnset is pretty generic. Lots of poison-type moves, it learns liquidation at a high level, and a bunch of defensive moves like Recover and Wide Guard. By TMs, it learns a lot more water and ice type moves. 

But man, as Toxapex, that statline is pretty insane. Toxapex is just a bulwark, with a base 152 defense and a base 142 special defense, and it's just a pretty cool defensive beast that manages to be effective in battle by capitalizing on 100% critical hits as long as it can poison the enemy. Toxapex perhaps isn't a meta pick on Pokemon competitive battles (though I know jack-all about Generation VII competitive battles) but I do like it a lot. 

Toxapex and Mareanie are both based on the real-life Crown-of-Thorns Starfish, or Acanthaster planci for all you scientific-minded people out there. Which is actually pretty similar to Toxapex, sans little bulb-head. It really is a weird dome-like creature with tentacles and lots of spikes, and the crown-of-thorns is easily one of the biggest cause of destruction of coral reefs worldwide. 

It's perhaps most common in Australia and currently is trying to consume the Great Barrier Reef, but it's not just localized there as many of them are found in the Indo-Pacific and Hawaiian waters as well. The Crown of Thorns feed on the hard coral and while the extent of the destruction they cause might be over-dramatized by some reports, they do, well, leave a trail of coral bits in their wake. (Remember that while starfish look weirdly static and plant-like, they're still animals that very much move around and eat) Which is, of course, reflected in Pokemon with Toxapex preying on the only coral Pokemon out there, Corsola. 

And, well, the Crown-of-Thorns are pretty poisonous. These starfishes have spines that contain poisons that, when some foolish predator (or unwary human) touches the starfish, the spines will stab into their body and unleash chemicals called saponins into the prey's body. In humans, this will cause pain, bleeding, nausea and tissue swelling that tends to last from hours to weeks. If the spines actually snap off and get embedded in human tissue, surgery will be required. 

So yeah, Toxapex and Mareanie are based on a pretty cool real-life starfish, and in a franchise that perhaps has an over-abundance of water-type creatures, Mareanie and Toxapex adapts a creature with a pretty important impact upon the balance of the sea's ecology... while delivering one of the more memorable and perhaps most cruel creatures in all of the Pokemon franchise.

Also a bit of an announcement... Mareanie and Toxapex will be the final entry of our brief return of Pokemon of the Week. And it's going to be a far more final nail in the coffin... because it's not just going to be a hiatus. While working on these, I realized just how much I've missed talking about Pokemon, and playing both Pokken Tournament and Pokemon Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon has galvanized just the desire to really talk a lot more about it. And if my 'Lore of Hearthstone' series is anything to go by, doing a larger project like that isn't only just feasible, it's probably far more popular than singleton things like this.

So expect 2018 to be the year where I do these... reviews? Commentaries? Whatever you call it on every single Pokemon. We'll probably do like half-generations at a time and talk about evolutionary families as a whole, but I'll go through every single Pokemon in all seven generations, all alternate forms, all mega evolutions and maybe even go to important trainers and the like. I'm definitely super-pumped about the prospect of talking about every Pokemon (although I'm sure the first 151 is going to be a bit of a doozy).

So yeah. Pokemon of the Week is closed with a ribbon, and we're going to head into 2018 with the anticipation of... I've no idea what to call this. "Reviewing Every Pokemon?" Yeah, we'll go with that. 

Pokemon of the Week #35: Crabrawler & Crabominable

#739: Crabrawler, the Boxing Pokemon & #740: Crabominable, the Woolly Crab Pokemon

So, to tie in with Christmas day, we'll try to be festive and talk about... well, an Ice-type! We're still in an Alolan/Hoenn deal going on at the moment, but I kinda wanna take a bit of a break and not do a Pokemon of the Week that had that much content. Originally I was planning to do the Snorunt evolutionary line, but that had like four members (Glalie, Mega Glalie, Froslass) and each is based on a different yokai from Japan which will take waaaaay too long. And I don't feel like talking about the Spheal line. So I went to Alola, looking for any ice-types... and there's a grand total of one in Generation VII, which is Crabominable -- my least favourite Alolan Pokemon. Or ranks up there, anyway. 

I mean, I suppose I could do a feature about Alolan Vulpix or Sandshrew, but eh. We'll do Crabominable and Crabrawler. 

So.... yeah. I'm not the biggest fan of these guys. Mostly Crabominable, really -- Crabrawler is just fine. Crabrawler's pretty cool, even! We'll talk about Crabrawler first, because I don't mind talking a lot about about it. While perhaps the combination of three bright neon colours -- purple, bright blue and yellow -- is a bit too much, and the oficial artwork adds a shade of blue onto one eye which is probably meant to be an eyelid, but the asymmetry adds into how mish-mash Crabrawler looks. And what's up with that weird yellow horn? 

But essentially, I did like Crawbrawler a lot more when I saw him in-game, and he's supposed to be a Pokemon that hides within the colourful berries that fall out of trees. (He also doesn't have a droopy eyelid in the game) And in that sense, Crabrawler's colour scheme, while not the most attractive thing, makes a fair bit of sense. Crabrawler isn't any more obnoxious than, say, Crawdaunt with his big-ass star on his head, and the fact that he seems to adapt three different species of crustaceans -- the coconut crab, the boxing crab and the mantis shrimp -- is pretty cool.

Coconut crabs

I'll talk about the mantis shrimp more if we ever actually get to talk about Clawitzer (hint for a future entry), but it's one of the coolest creatures in the world where thanks to a club-like organ that can be launched towards a prey or a predator with such powerful speed that it heats up the water around them. And indeed, Crabrawler's fists do look like boxing gloves -- essentially romanticized versions of the mantis shrimp's club-claw things. But for the most part, Crabrawler is based on the coconut crab (Birgus latro), which is the largest land-living arthropod in the world... that's a far-too-large variation of hermit crabs. People were confused that Crabrawler isn't water-type, but coconut crabs are actually almost entirely land-dwelling, and while not specifically endemic to Hawaii, it is a very common sight in many other tropical countries. And while it's clearly not as attractive as Crabrawler's colourful purple paint scheme, the real-life coconut crabs do live in a far less colourful world than Alola. Some actually do have a bluish tinge to them, which I picture here, borrowed from Wikipedia. And while they're not exclusive coconut eaters, they can climb up trees to break into coconuts and consume the coconut flesh. Oh, and they're pretty damn big, too!

Boxer crab (yes, those white
things are boxing gloves)

Of course, this is reflected in Crabrawler's lore and behaviour in the game. Crabrawler is found everywhere in Alola -- but not in the grass. He's only found in piles of berries under trees, hiding and feasting on them, and those are the only places you can find Crawbrawlers in.

Obviously, the coconut crab aspect is a good chunk of Crabrawler's lore and background, but let's not forget that the whole concept behind Crabrawler is that he's a fighting-crab. And there is actually a genus of crabs, the Lybia genus, that are commonly known as 'Boxer Crabs' or 'Pom-Pom Crabs'. The little buggers are pretty small, but they pick up sea anemones -- you know, poisonous plant-like creatures? -- and attach them to their claws, and use them as literal boxing gloves. Not just boxing gloves, either, because anemones sting. That's the equivalent to humans taping a taser to a boxing glove, and then going around bopping people in the head. They're even endemic in Hawaii, and Wikipedia tells me that the boxer crab has the local name of 'kumimi pua', the inedible flower crab. Obviously Crabrawler's lore weave more around the more famous coconut crab, but I was definitely delighted by the existence of the boxer crabs that Crabrawler is apparently also based off on. 

Pokedex entries characterize Crabrawlers as a particularly competitive fighter, jabbing and fighting with his claws and, quoting the Sun entry, 'foams in the mouth and faints' when it loses. Also, apparently, when it punches too much, its pincers fall off from overuse, but they can grow back quickly. Crabs who lose their limbs can, after multiple molting, regrow their limbs, so this is an adaptation of a real-world ability but on crack. They also apparently climb coconut trees in Alola (coconuts apparently exist in the Pokemon world?) and sometimes mistakenly climb Exeggutors... which are dragon coconut trees.

Crabrawler is notably used by the first Kahuna you fight, Hala, and is his signature Pokemon. And, well, that's pretty neat, right? As you could probably imagine, Crabrawler's a physical attacker, and he's got pretty thematic abilities like Hyper Cutter and Iron Fist. He mostly has fighting-type moves in his learnset and a bunch of dark and water-types. Overall, he's... well, a pretty cool, if boring crab!

Enter Crabominable. Who's pretty visually ugly. And he's our ice type for this Christmas-themed entry. I mean, just look at the fucker! Look at it. Its design is just a massive mess. He's conceptually based on a yeti crab (more on it later), so they took the 'yeti' pun and make him an actual yeti (but also a crab), because you bring a Crabrawler to the icy Mt. Lanakila, where it will evolve into Crabominable. Location-based evolution has been one of the weirder concepts that I really wished was added more after Generation IV, and we've got Crabrawler to show for it...

But, shit, look at it! I get that it's a Crabrawler that's grown a coat of white yeti fur, but look! Instead of being a neon hodgepodge of yellow, purple and turquoise, it's got white as the main colour, and where Crabrawler is mainly purple with the turquoise and yellow accenting its paint scheme, it's mainly white with random splotches of purple and blue all around its body. And it's got... a purple... bra? And its pincers, instead of looking like pincers, have these weird dog paw-print things, and the lower bit opens and closes like a missile pod? And it still has this absolutely stupid-looking doofus blonde hair? And it's got those... weird chunks of teeth? And the section of his face with eyes looks like a sticker on his face? Wow, this thing just looks absolutely... abominable. 

With many other poorly designed Pokemon, I at least can see what they're going for. The combined Kyurem forms are a mishmash of two already-complex dragons. Garbodor is ugly, but it works as a walking landfill. The elemental monkeys are shit, but they at least work as, y'know, fire and water monkeys. Crabominable is just a horrifying concept that I can't believe made it beyond the doodle stage. It's like someone went "hey, artist guy, draw a yeti boxing crab!" and this is one of the first drafts with the doofiest face ever that was meant as a joke, but somehow got accepted among the new Pokemon, and they made a 3D render for it.

Yeah, I thought that making a Pokemon of the Week article would endear Crabominable to me, but the more I look at it, the more obnoxious the design looks.

Like, jeez. He at least gets a wholly unique Fighting/Ice type, which isn't shared by anyone. He's actually quite decent too once you get past his ugliness, with a base 478 stat total, and a base 132 physical attack. Add that to his attack-enhancing abilities, and his wide range of physical moves... in addition to Ice Punch, Avalanche, Close Combat and Dynamic Punch, he also gets the brand-new signature move of Ice Hammer. He gets a fucking Crabominable-exclusive version of Hammer Arm! How stupid is that?

Yeti crab

And, well, looking at Crabominable's dex entries, it's pretty fucking dumb, too. "It aimed for the top but got lost and ended up on a snowy mountain"? Most of the other dex entries are generic stuff about how awesome his punches are and ho the can destroy avalanches. His Moon entry gives him the only smidgen of interesting information, where apparently in times of desperation, "it can lop off its own pincers and fire them like rockets". 

But it's still pretty dang ugly, though, which kind of makes me stop there. So let me talk about the Kiwa hirsuta, otherwise known as the Yeti Crab, and the only reason this Pokemon exists is because someone thought up of a pun for this Pokemon. There's so many ways to make a Yeti-Crab hybrid cool, but nope. The Kiwa hirsuta is a recently-discovered (2005, according to Wikipedia) species of crab with a white shell and bristles throughout its body that resemble, you guessed it, hair. It's found near deep underwater hydrothermal vents in the Pacific-Antarctic ridge. None of which are actually reflected by Crabominable's design.

(And besides, Abomasnow's just a lot cooler as a yeti pokemon)

And... well, that's about it for Crabominable, really. I have to acknowledge that Hala and Hau both use one, and it looks stupid as all hell every time I go up to the Alolan Elite Four and challenge him and it's just a design that just kind of pisses me off any time I see him. Blah. Still, it's Christmas, and Crabominable does look pretty damn happy even though he looks like an accident, so yay for that. Merry Christmas, you all, and don't let my brief moment of humbuggery in regards to a Pokemon's design ruin any of it for you all. 

Pokemon of the Week #34: Xurkitree

#796: Xurkitree, the Glowing Pokemon

So let's talk about another Ultra Beast! And, well, this time around I wanna talk about Xurkitree. Whose name is perhaps the pinnacle of Pokemon punning. It's a pun of 'circuitry', but it's also like a twisted tree. And it's also weird, so let's have it start with 'X'!

So Xurkitree is one of the Ultra Beasts, a subset of legendary Pokemon that hail from the strange, strange alternate dimension that is Ultra Space. It's space, but also an alternate dimension, which accounts for the very, very bizarre appearances of these particular Pokemon. The Ultra Beasts is one of the biggest plot points of the Pokemon: Sun & Moon main story. Well, Nihilego does, anyway -- the other Ultra Beasts are glorified cameos until the post-game, where they keep invading our world and we got to take them out one by one.

And, well, the Ultra Beasts are meant to be completely bizarre looking. And Xurkitree honestly ranks up there. Like, I think Celesteela is the weirdest-looking motherfucker out of all these weird dudes, but Xurkitree? Jeez. 

Xurkitree's statline isn't particularly exciting, because, well, like most Ultra Beasts, he's a pretty one-trick pony. He's a huge, huge glass cannon, and emphasis on the 'cannon' part. He's got a monstrously high Special Attack stat, standing with a whoopingly massive base 173. To put that in perspective, Arceus (a.k.a. god) has a mere 120 and regular Mewtwo has 154. With all the legendaries and mega evolutions to compare with, Xurkitree sits at number six -- beaten only by Mega Mewtwo Y, attack-forme Deoxys, Primal Kyogre, Mega Rayquaza and Mega Alakazam. If you note, they're all alternate forms, so... yeah. Xurkitree's pretty damn insane.

Sadly, like most Ultra Beasts, Xurkitree's stat total is 570... which is damn high for normal Pokemon, but not that high for legendaries. And being specialized in Special Attack means that Xurkitree sacrifices a lot of other stats -- and that is mostly Defense and Special Defense, both of which Xurkitree only has 71. And with a respectable-but-not-super-impressive 83 speed, it does mean that if faced against other legendary Pokemon, if Xurkitree can't knock the enemy out with that massive 173 Special Attack, he's probably going to get whacked. 

Xurkitree's movepool is also pretty limited, with it mostly learning electric-type moves, being mono-electric-typed... and I suppose as far as Special sweepers go, Electric-type is decent. Xurkitree also naturally learns the Bug-type Signal Beam and the Grass-type Grass Knot, but more times than not he's going to be a one-trick pony. 

But still, at least he's a really weird-looking motherfucker. Just look at him! His 'head', if you could call it that, is a huge spiked ball. And from there five tentacles extend out... each tentacle made up of a cluster of wires held together by...clips? Christmas light bulbs? The 'arms' end up in those copper wires inside the insulator of a wire, and the three legs that just splay out from the moment they leave the head end in like sparkplugs or some shit. It's just a weird, dancing vine creature made entirely out of cables.

And while the official artwork has two tentacles serve as arms and the others as legs, if you played around with Xurkitree in Pokemon Refresh, you know that he's more like an octopus and all five can act as legs if Xurkitree wants to. Most weird is in Pokemon Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon, where we actually get to see Xurkitree's home habitat, and it's called 'Ultra Plant'... where you walk around on what appears to be the tentacles of a giant Xurkitree, and everywhere around you dormant Xurkitrees just jut upwards like a Christmas tree, with the 'head' forming the star and all five limbs spread out like a cone. It's just bizarre, and it really adds to the otherworldly alien abomination feel of this thing. 

And, well, if you don't already know, the base stats and all the levels that Ultra Beasts learn moves are all prime numbers. Which is a really cool little detail that adds to their general weirdness. 

Xurkitree is apparently codenamed 'UB-03 Lighting' (not lightning, mind you) by the International Police and the Aether Foundation. Apparently unleashed upon Alola after Lusamine opened portals to Ultra Space (in US/UM, a Xurkitree fought Hapu), they identified Xurkitree as a creature that can generate power, looks like electrical wiring, can discharge a million volts and when it runs out of power, it can 'stab its legs into the soil to enter a tree-like state as it absorbs electricity from the ground'. In Sun/Moon, two Xurkitrees can be captured as part of the International Police post-game storyline in Lush Jungle or Memorial Hill, and in Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon, you can travel to their home dimension of Ultra Plant and capture a Xurkitree. 

So yeah. At this point in time, the only real source for Ultra Beast lore is the Generation VII games, with neither the manga nor the anime really touching on this yet in any meaningful quality. Still, I do like Xurkitree. Out of the original seven Ultra Beasts, Xurkitree and Celesteela looked the most wrong perhaps because they're patterned after inorganic things while behaving like organic ones, which just doesn't compute quite as well as 'space jellyfish'. I really do think that with Xurkitree, they tried to really make him as weird as possible (and if you have any doubt from static images, go check it out in its writhing, moving form in the game -- also check out its running animation) and while I was a bit iffy on the Ultra Beasts initially, and I'd argue that it's exactly the intent of the designs... I've perhaps warmed up to Xurkitree a fair bit since then.

Pokemon of the Week #33: Wimpod & Golisopod

#767: Wimpod, the Turn Tail Pokemon; #777: Golisopod, the Hard Scale Pokemon

Continuing our Alolan-themed Pokemon of the Week series, I decided on picking one of my favourite Generation VII Pokemon, Golisopod. In my old 'best and worst of Generation VII' article, I listed Golisopod as my all-time favourite Generation VII Pokemon... and honestly? That still doesn't change a lot. There are several strong contenders for that position, like Decidueye, Mimikyu and Ribombee, but shit, Golisopod has an iron-clad grip on my heart.

I've always loved Bug-types and insects in general as a kid, and I was always disappointed that most bug-types are pretty shit in-game. I mean, I did take a jacked-up Butterfree and sweep the Kantonian Elite Four all on her own, and there have been some pretty powerful Bug-types over the years like Scizor, Pinsir and Heracross... but no real powerful bug-types showed up until like Generation V's Volcarona and Genesect. No good bug-types showed up in Generation VI... and then Generation VII gave us so many cool Bug-types! We've got Vikavolt, who is a robot-jet stag beetle, we've got Buzzwole and Pheromosa, a pair of insane eldritch abominations that serve as legendary Pokemon, we've got the insanely cool-looking Araquanid... but one thing captured my eye more than any other, and it's Golisopod. 

A Pokemon that evolves from a weak-looking useless shit into a badass final form has been a recurring theme since Generation I. The original one was, of course, Magikarp -- who can't do anything but Splash, a move that does no damage, and Tackle, the most basic of attacks -- that is even a running joke throughout the game, but it evolves into a mighty psychotic dragon dragon-esque sea serpent, the mighty Gyarados. This trope would be reflected in future generations, with how a weak-looking larval stage that can't do much can evolve into a mighty monster, with Feebas/Milotic and Larvesta/Volcarona being notable ones. 

Generation VII revealed Wimpod as one of the very first Pokemon during the Pokemon reveals, and it's a pretty... weak-looking creature that obviously evolves. All his dex entries note how he's a coward, he dashes off from battle, and his ability is 'Wimp Out', which has it escape if its health decreases below half. He's Bug/Water, which, prior to Generation VII, was a type that only Surskit has (and it sheds that type once it evolves). So yeah, Wimpod is definitely a creature that evolves, and it has absolutely pitiful stats to boot. I mean, what do you expect from a Pokemon whose name is quite literally 'wimp'?

Silverfish

Other dex entries note how he's a scavenger that eats anything, even rotten food... which is pretty true for most real-life isopods. So Wimpod is pretty obviously based on the tiny little sea-borne bugs like Silverfish and Rock Lice, and since both Wimpod and Golisopod draw their name from 'isopod', it's more likely the latter than the former. To go into real-life biology, the insect known as a Silverfish (Lepisma saccharina) is an insect that lives near moist areas. While they don't always live near the water, they do live near moist areas, which earned their whole 'fish' name. And, well, as someone who lives reasonably close to a beach, I can confirm that, just like the Wimpods who scuttle the fuck away when approached, silverfish do the same thing.

"Rock Lice"  isopod

On the other hand, Isopods tend to live mostly in moist and humid areas, although there are several types (like woodlice) that live completely on land. Obviously, being a Bug/Water type found in beaches, Wimpod is based on the aquatic variant, who tend to be either parasites or bottom-feeders. A particularly nasty type of isopod will burrow into a fish's tongue, consume it and replace the fish's tongue. I'm not joking.

So yeah, while Wimpod's based on a real-life bug that might be perhaps a bit more obscure, being based on a cool insect isn't enough to really bother caring about, or more people would be more excited about Wormadam. Enter... Golisopod. I was super duper impressed by the design that went into Golisopod, especially when I evolved mine when he was level 30. And Golisopod is... a monstrous beast. Later on in my old Sun playthrough I discovered that one of the game's main antagonists, Guzma, used a Golisopod as his signature Pokemon, and that's awesome that one of the coolest design in the game is highlighted by one of the main villains.

In a series that has been often decried for 'oh, the newer generations just put eyes and mouths on ice creams and gears and call it a day', it's definitely cool to see a cool, organic monster that's not just a variation of an older design. And Golisopod's actually pretty fucking badass, too! Bug/Water is a very interesting type defensively, only being weak to Rock, Flying and Electric, and as someone who uses Golisopod a lot throughout Pokemon Sun, I can definitely confirm how awesome he is. Add that to the fact that Golisopod has an insanely high base 125 Attack and 140 Defense, and a total stat amount that is exactly the same with fully-evolved starters... he hits like a goddamn truck, and he's awesome. 

Of course, Golisopod has the weakness of having Emergency Exit as his ability, making him less-than-ideal for competitive battling due to the fact that any move that reduces him to less than half his health causes him to immediately swap out without attacking, but shit, he's still pretty cool. He has a lot of great moves, too -- he has the amazing STAB attack of First Impression, which is a base-90 Bug-type STAB version of Fake Out (minus flinch), only usable n the first turn that Golisopod is in the battle. He also has access to great physical attacks like the Bug-type STAB X-Scissor and Leech Life, and Water-type Liquidation, a brand-new physical water attack in this generation. In addition to those, he's got a fuckton of amazing moves in his arsenal. Sucker Punch! Brick Break! Aerial Ace! Shadow Claw! Rock Slide! Poison Jab! Swords Dance! He's just an amazingly versatile monster, and I'm a big fan of him.

B. giganteus

And his design? His design is just a hulking monstrosity that takes inspiration from both isopods and samurai armour. In addition to two gigantic armoured claws, he also has two pairs of smaller bug-legs under his neck, which, if you interact with him in Pokemon Refresh, apparently can retract when he's not fighting -- a cool bit of detail that I really love. Apparently his giant claws allows Golisopod to cleave seawater and air into two, and despite being a fierce fighter, he meditates in caves beneath the sea. 

And Golisopod himself is based on the real-life Giant Isopod. No, real-life giant isopods don't look like hulking samurai kaiju, and are just giant white woodlice that live in the icy depths of the ocean. See, typical isopods are in the size of centimeters, while Wikipedia tells me that the largest of the Bathynomus genus of giant isopods range up to 76 centimeters and weigh 1.7 kilograms... which is pretty damn fucking huge for what's essentially a woodlouse. While Golisopod is obviously far more romanticized, having a humanoid form and samurai-esque armour, it's clear where a good chunk of the design inspiration is from. Yes, it's similar to Kabutops and Armaldo, both of which copy undersea invertebrates (trilobites and Anomalocaris respectively), but Golisopod is the only one whose counterpart is still alive in the oceans right now. And, well, this is really what Pokemon should be -- based on a real-life strange creature, but with its own spin.

Golisopod and Wimpod are awesome, y'all. It's a reflection on one of the world's largest arthropods, and it's a cool design and a powerful fighter in its own right. Definitely a cool Pokemon and one of the best additions from Generation VII. 

Pokemon of the Week #32: Yungoos & Gumshoos

#734: Yungoos, the Loitering Pokemon & #735: Gumshoos, the Stakeout Pokemon

So welcome back, after a hiatus, to another episode of Pokemon of the Week. The whole 'countdown to Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon' with a Pokemon of each type ended up not panning out because I'm just kinda bored of putting restrictions on myself, so yeah. Here's going to be a slight retooling. Instead of just talking about a single Pokemon, I'll talk about an evolution line, because I inevitably end up discussing the whole line anyway and this'll actually give me two Pokemon to talk about for the price of one.

Perhaps it's a bit late for one of these to come out, but here's my little tie-in with Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon, and for the next couple of weeks expect exclusively Alolan Pokemon (although I may do a Hoenn one to tie in with Pokemon Go's Hoenn update) to be covered in my Pokemon of the Week segments. 

And today, we're going to be discussing Yungoos and Gumshoos, otherwise known as the 'Donald Trump hair Pokemon', which is a joke that was 'eh heh' funny the first time I saw it on the internet, but at this point the joke has absolutely burnt the fuck out and I'm just going to acknowledge it briefly here in this opening segment before moving on. Ha ha, the ferret rat creature has hair like the president of the USA. All the game designers noted that, no, development for Sun/Moon began long before Trump had even became a candidate for presidency, and in any case it's a Japanese game that really couldn't be bothered with American politics anyway. 

So anyway, Yungoos and Gumshoos are the 'early rodent' Pokemon in the vein of Rattata for Generation VII, sharing this title with that of, well, Rattata himself, who returns with a brand-new swanky mustachioed Alolan form in this generation. The two of them are definitely counterparts for each other, with Yungoos and Gumshoos only appearing in the day, and Rattatas and Raticates replacing them in the night in all the routes that they appear. Also, in Pokemon Moon/Ultra Moon, a Raticate serves as the first Totem Pokemon when it's a Gumshoos in Pokemon Sun/Ultra Sun. 

Small Asian mongoose

So Yungoos and Gumshoos, as you can probably tell by their name, is based on the real-life animal, the mongoose. We previously had a mongoose Pokemon all the way back in Generation III, Zangoose, although Zangoose's whole deal focused a lot more on the rivalries that mongoose and snakes have, especially in Asian cultures. Yungoos and Gumshoos, on the other hand, is based more on the story of how mongoose became endemic in Hawaii, something that is lampshaded in all of the Pokedex entries on Yungoos and Gumshoos. 

So in real-life Hawaii, mongoose were imported during the 1800's to the Hawaiian islands to counter rat infestation on sugar cane plantations. Sugar cane was a huge export back then, and rats are a huge problem for sugar canes there, with the small Asian mongoose (Herpestus javanicus) being introduced multiple times into Hawaii to deal with rats... and then became endemic to nearly all islands of Hawaii other than Lana'i and Kaua'i. 

Yungoos and Gumshoos' dex entries make note about how they were not native to Alola, but were imported from another region. During the leadup to Sun and Moon, the Pokemon website published a more intricate writeup on Yungoos and Gumshoos, noting that they were introduced to the Alola region to control the Rattata population, doubtless a reference to the mongoose infestation in Hawaii. 

Yungoos is described to be, well, a rodent. Pokedex entries note how it will bite anything with its sharp fangs, and how it will wander around in search for food until collapses from exhaustion, and feeding it is expensive. Gumshoos, on the other hand, is far more patient, staking out its prey when hunting them, and often attacks Rattatas and Raticates. This behaviour, of course, contrasts that of the Yungoos -- who are voracious searchers of food. Oh, and Gumshoos can stand upright.

Detective Pikachu

One last note is the origin of Gumshoos' Trump-esque toupee... and it's not even meant to be a toupee! Gumshoos draws its name from Gumshoe, an old-style way to call a detective. And his original Japanese name, Dekagusu, is a combination of 'Deka', which is a slang term for detective in Japan, and -gusu, the back half of the English word mongoose. Likewise, all other localized versions of Gumshoos' name all make puns on police officers or detectives.

So Gumshoos is meant to be a police officer or a detective, staking out locations to ambush them nasty Rattatas and Raticates. And considering that Alolan Rattatas and Raticates have a mob-style motif to them, Gumshoos is meant to have a motif of policemen -- specifically, old-style traditional detectives which are often portrayed with hats. Look at Detective Pikachu (which I include a picture of here) and that's the style of hat that Japanese detectives often wear, equivalent to Sherlock Holmes' deerstalker cap in Western culture. Add the ugly spikes on Gumshoos' chest that splay out, which, once you realize that the bugger is based on a detective, now resembles an actual trenchcoat. 

Yes, perhaps the 'cop' part of Gumshoos and Yungoos isn't portrayed especially well, since they tend to just show up as vermin in the games and the actual policemen NPCs in Generation VII still use dog Pokemon like Granbull and Growlithe. And the whole deal about being stalkers and loiterers isn't exactly quite police-esque. But it's neat to see that Yungoos and Gumshoos have so much more in their design beyond just being a mongoose with a Donald Trump toupee stapled onto them.

Now design-wise... they're still pretty boring. And ugly. Gumshoos especially. They're also pretty underwhelming. Mind you, none of the early-game rodents are really any sort of good, other than Raticate (and even then it's because of a Generation I holdover where Raticates are able to learn almost every TM in existence) and Diggersby. Gumshoos has a respectable 110 physical attack, but crappy everything else. Its moveset is a generic pile of Normal and Dark moves, and it doesn't really get much via TMs, with only Earthquake and Rock Tomb really giving it any sort of coverage, although Ultra Sun/Moon does give it elemental fangs via move tutor. But early-game rats aren't really meant to be powerful creatures, so yeah. 

So yeah, I do end up liking Gumshoos and Yungoos a lot more now that I learn about their history. Gumshoos is still pretty obnoxiously ugly, but at least it's neat that the only thing that comes to mind when I see it isn't 'Trumprat'. 

Pokemon of the Week #31: Arbok

#24: Arbok, the Cobra Pokemon

We've done Normal, Fairy, Steel and Ground, so this time around, in honour of the newest released Pokemon, UB-Adhesive, we'll be randomizing her type. And that's Poison, which leads us to this week's choice, Arbok.

Arbok is one of those Pokemon from the original 151 that's just iconic thanks to the Anime. Arbok (after spending her first 10 or so episodes as an Ekans) was the Pokemon of choice of Jessie from Team Rocket, and as such had the honour of appearing in almost every episode with a mighty CHAAAAAAAAAA-BAHK and spitting out a couple of poison stings before being thunderbolted, flamethrowered, hydro pumped, solarbeamed and whatnot into oblivion alongside her buddy, James' Weezing. Yet perhaps it is simple familiarity of seeing Arbok over and over again, maybe it's Arbok's simple design and her colour scheme, and maybe simply because as an evil snake she just looks so damn happy, Arbok's always been a bit of a favourite to me.

Ekans and Arbok debuted in the very first games of the franchise, Red & Blue, and are based on a rattlesnake and an indian cobra respectively. And I think a generation 1 Pokemon is actually very appropriate in representing the Poison type in general. Because in the first generation, Poison is actually the go-to type for the Pokemon of most bad guys. In addition to half of the Grass-types and all the Ghost-types in the game having a Poison sub-type, there is a lot of Poison-types in Generation 1. Muk, Arbok, Weezing and Golbat are mainstays of Team Rocket's forces, mostly because, well, Normal-types are just kind of boring, I guess? Also the Poison status effect, dealing damage to your Pokemon with every step you take (they removed that in later games, but back in my day...) was particularly punishing.

Of course, the Poison type itself was... honsetly quite shit. They had very little attacks that actually deal STAB damage in the first generation, and relied only on their status effects to wear down the enemy. It's not until Generation II that they even had an attack with higher than base 50 damage in Sludge Bomb. Generation III would add some token attacks with Poison Fang and Poison Tail, but it's not until Generation IV that more poison type moves that are actually useful would be given to us.

Poison also has the distinction of being the very last type (even including Fairy, which came six generations late to the party!) to be represented in a non-Arceus Legendary, with Nihilego and the upcoming UB-Adhesive in Generation VII. Man, Poison, life's been rough on you.

Poison's honestly one of the crappier types in the game up until very recently, with its main benefits simply to allow other types to offset some of their weaknesses because it resists Fighting, Bug and Grass, but offensively it's only super-effective against Grass, and add their weakness to the very commong Ground and Psychic... and that's not worth running a Poison type for its poison typing, no matter how awesome that Nidoking might look. And Nidoking at least has a huge amount of moves to pick. Come Generation VI and the Fairy types, apparently these awesome dragon-slaying fairies have a crucial weakness... the long-forgotten Poison type. Which is honestly a godsend for the type, because now you'll see poison moves, if not poison types, being run here and there.

That's the Poison type. What about Arbok? Arbok's honestly a simple soul. She's not meant to be a high-tier Pokemon and doesn't quite have the stats that other poison-types like Nidoking or Nidoqueen boasts, neither does she have the bulk that makes Weezing or Muk useful, or the speed that makes Crobat awesome. She has a grand total of 448 base stats, and she's pretty balanced, geared somewhat towards the physically-offensive side. And until reccent generations gave Arbok the elemental fangs and Mud Bomb, her movepool consists almost exclusively of Normal, Poison and Dark moves.

So yeah, Arbok isn't a particularly weak Pokemon, but she's definitely far from being the best Poison type out there. She still has a special place in my heart, though. One of my first TCGs I remembered opening as a kid was a Dark Arbok from one of the Team Rocket expansions. And then there's Jessie's screechy Arbok in the anime, and I've always had a fondness for butt monkeys in cartoons. But most of all, it's the portrayal of Agatha and Koga's Arboks in Pokemon Adventures, where apparently their Arboks have been trained so that they can have special skills. Koga's Arbok can regenerate his entire body from being sliced up (early Pokemon Adventures was pretty brutal, with Koga's Arbok having to survive having its head literally sliced off, by a protagonist no less) while Agatha's Arbok has one of the coolest powers, able to change the face pattern on her Arbok, which allows her to basically assume what Deoxys would two generations later -- one pattern makes her Arbok faster, one pattern makes her immune to special effects, and so on.

Arbok (FRLG)

Arbok (RSE)

This particular bit is extrapolated from the original Pokedex entries in Red, Blue & Yellow, where they note that the 'ferocious warning markings on its belly differ from area to area', and 'six variations have been confirmed'. That is so fucking cool! And, looking at my Dark Arbok TCG card and comparing it to the Arbok from my Pokemon Blue game and the anime, indeed, the Arboks do have a different belly marking. Come Generation II, the Arbok sprite does have a different belly marking, which was repeated for Generation III with Ruby & Sapphire, and some of the older TCG sets also had fun with reinventing Arbok faces while still keeping true to the original, classic look. The FireRed/LeafGreen remake has the original Arbok, but of course. It's set in Kanto. And then come all further generations... and Arbok only gets the original belly marking with the all-black mouth, even in games that remake Generation II and III. It's a particularly frustrating point for me, because this would be something actually cool considering the literal dozens of patterns they gave Vivillon.

Oh well. Ekans and Arbok were, in the original Generation I games, found relatively early on, but exclusively to Pokemon Red. Blue got Sandshrew instead, while Yellow made it that all the evolutionary lines that the anime's Team Rocket uesd are unavailable. In Generation II, Ekans and Arbok were counterparts to Sandshrew once more, this time being exclusive to Silver. Arbok sat out most of the further Generations other than the Kanto/Johto remakes and being special post-game Pokemon, up until XY. But everyone shows up in XY anyway, so.

I suppose we have to talk a little about Arbok's basis, which, obviously is based on the cobra (Arbok, if you haven't caught it already, is kobra backwards), snakes of the Elapidae family with a special hood that it can extend outwards as a threatening gesture. And indeed, cobras do have eye-spots to make itself look like a larger, more threatening creature, to fool lesser beings. Most famous among the cobra family would be the Indian cobra (Naja naja), one of the Big Four snake species that is the most frequent cause of snake bites in Asia. Cobras are nonetheless venerated throughout various Asian countries, like India. And, just like Arbok used to, different species of cobra do have different-but-similar markings.

Pokedex entries note how Arbok uses her hood markings to confuse prey, and then crush it, which would be more appropriate for a constrictor-type snake... although Arbok is obviously several degrees larger than a real-life cobra. What Arbok and cobras have in common are their ability to secrete venom, with real-life cobra venom being a neurotoxin that causes respiratory failure and cardiac arrest. Arbok's venom causes your Pokemon to lose 1/8th of its health until it faints, but then doesn't kill it. What a nice snake, that Arbok.

Arbok, in Generation I, was the only Pokemon that is capable of learning Glare (Snake-glare in the original Japanese), which paralyzes the enemy. And in subsequent generations, the only Pokemon able of learning Glare are other Pokemon based on snakes (Seviper), or, well, snake-ish enough (Zygarde, Dunsparce and Drampa), which is a reflection of Arbok's pokedex entries as well. This might be based on the mythological Medusa or basilisk, craetures with elements of snakes that are able to turn those that they see into stone.

So, yeah. Arbok might not be the most exciting Pokemon out there, considering half the article ended up being me ranting about Arbok's neck pattern, but it's iconic and while never going to rank among my favourite Pokemon, I do have a soft spot for Arbok (and Weezing). She's a creature built more as an enemy mook more than someone you'd want in your team, but still. I also do like snakes and wait for the time when we get a couple more snakes in the future.

Pokemon of the Week #30: Lairon

#305: Lairon, the Iron Armor Pokemon

God damn, I really love the Aron-Lairon-Aggron evolution line. Generation III is when the Pokemon company starts to make everything a bit more complex thanks to the hardware update from the Game Boy Color to Game Boy Advance. The result is that the amount of detail generally reserved for legendary Pokemon ends up being showered on many non-legendaries, with more greebles and details all over the place and it led to some Pokemon that feels a bit too cluttered. While it's not quite as bad as some Generation V designs, I've always felt that the Aron line had the right amount of having lots of details that still worked with what the core of the design wanted to do.

With Aron, Lairon and Aggron? A group of armoured dinosaurs. We go from the tiny Aron to the large quadrupedal Lairon, to the T-rex-esque Aggron. Honestly, if you were to tell me that Aggron was the pseudo-legendary of Hoenn by simply showing me the design, I would've totally bought it. Aggron looks so badass! This armoured Godzilla creature with spikes and that cool jaw, and, come on. The line just looks badass.

Too bad it's actually not as powerful as I'd like in-game. Sure, a fully-evolved Aggron has a very respectable 530 stat total, with a mammoth 180 physical defense stat and a considerable base 110 physical attack stat, but a combination of its pretty slow speed and its somewhat unflattering 4x-weakness to two of the most common types in competitive -- Fighting and Ground -- meant that despite his tremendous defense, a simple Earthquake is enough to topple the mighty Aggron. 

That's not to say Aggron is crap, though, oh no. I've played through Generation III a fair amount of times and while he's not as frequent as some other Gen-III staples, I've once brought a mighty Aggron and swept the Elite Four almost single-handedly. Once you know how to get Aggron out of things he can't handle, the amount of TMs that Aggron can learn (his natural moveset only gives him Rock and Steel moves, with a smattering of weak Ground and Normal moves) makes him a tremendous powerhouse. He's one of those Pokemon that can unleash Ice Beams, summon Thunderbolts, shoot Solarbeams, unleash Earthquakes, breathe Flamethrowers, even do things like Surf and Aerial Ace! After Generation IV introduced the physical/special split, the whole TM thing might not be that viable, but still, the dude's pretty cool.

But we're not talking about Aggron here,  but the middle child of the family,  Lairon. While Aggron's like a mix of a theropod and Godzilla, Lairon's origin is a bit less clear. He looks like a stocky, armoured rhinoceros, with armour plates on his head and body and around his legs, as well as holes through it. He could also probably be based on a dinosaur from either the Ceraptosian or Ankylosaurian families. 

Lairon (well, its evolution Aggron, at least) is one of the Pokemon that the mainly Steel-type specialist and champion of Hoenn, Steven, uses, so there's that. Lairon is also pretty prominent as one of Sapphire's main fighters in the Pokemon Adventures manga, which was something I read the hell out of as a kid. 

Let's see. Pokedex entries wise, Lairon shares the whole family's lore of being a glutton that really, really likes to eat metal, which is why it makes its homes in caves where iron ore is plentiful -- and indeed, in Hoenn, the Aron family is found in caves, with Aron being plentiful in Dewford Cave while Lairon can be found in Victory Road. It's also one of those species that ram their heads onto each other to fight for territory, and apparently loves to drink fresh springwater. Honestly, not much more lore beyond that.

I really like the whole Aron line as a whole, though. There are a fair amount of evolutionary lines which I feel that the transformation felt abrupt or poorly conceived, but not so for Lairon's line. And as our representative of the Steel type in Pokemon, I really think Lairon's a pretty good example. High defense, tough-looking, armoured and wins by tanking a hit and dishing out something equally heavy.

Pokemon of the Week #29: Diglett

#50: Diglett, the Mole Pokemon

So for today's random Pokemon, I did something more unconventional. I went to my local game store, bought a booster pack of Pokemon TCGs, and decided to do whoever is on the first card I see. Lo and behold, it is... Diglett! Apparently the pack I bought is some kind of anniversary reprint of the very first set of Pokemon cards, because I totally remember having this Diglett card from the original base set 20+ years ago. (God I'm old)

Diglett (Evolutions, the card
I got for this article)

So Diglett is mostly otherwise known as the 'dick Pokemon'. Because, hey, it's shaped like, y'know, a dong. We'll get that out of the way, so I don't have to snicker about dick jokes the entire article. 

More properly, Diglett's based on a mole... a whack-a-mole. It's just a shame that his design is so, so unfortunate. Four generations later, we'd get a more proper Pokemon based on a real mole, Drillbur and Excavalier (the latter being a personal favourite of the much-maligned fifth generation) but Diglett and his evolution Dugtrio is here to stay.

Now design-wise Diglett isn't honestly very good. It's simple, yes -- a little whack-a-mole with a stupid nose and eyes, popping out of the ground. When he evolves, there are three of him and they get angry eyes. It's similar to other first-generation Pokemon... well, just Magnemite and Magneton, actually, but whereas Magneton has a more clever way of justifying "three of them count as a new stronger form!" bit by the whole magnetism thing, Diglett into Dugtrio... doesn't quite have that.

Also, speaking about design, Nintendo has been really, really coy about just what Diglett looks under the ground. Even with the advent of 3D models, whenever something that involves Diglett getting hit into the air or submerged underground or spun around, the chunk of ground that he's buried in gets thrown around with him. It's going to be an eternal mystery, and I'm fine with it. At this point, any kind of revelation would be disappointing. 

Diglett, despite his simple design, actually has quite a bit of a lore to him beyond being that 'weird mole Pokemon'. We'll talk about the newly-introduced Alolan variant later down the line, and go about the original Diglett first. Most Pokedex entries about Diglett talk about how it's exclusively underground, and how the true shape and size of the rest of his body is a mystery. It also makes the soil of the area that it lives in more fertile, because it basically tills the soil as it moves around it. It eats tree roots, and it's sensitive to the sun, because, as some Pokedex entries so graphically describe, 'its blood heats up'.

Diglett (base set)

In addition to that, Diglett is particularly important in the Kanto and Johto games, because it is one of the few Pokemon to have an entire area dedicated to him... the Diglett Cave. It's a cave that connects Pewter to Vermilion City (and it's a short little cave area with nothing but Digletts and the odd Dugtrio. For whatever reason, I really found Diglett's cave interesting as a kid because it's one of the first non-linear parts of the Kanto region when I was playing my copy of Pokemon Blue, even though there's honestly not much to it. It's so iconic, apparently, that Nintendo brought it back in the Alola region as 'Diglett's Tunnel', although the Digletts in Alola's Diglett Tunnel are considerably more fabulous. 

Oh, and the very first gym grunt in Brock's gym uses a Diglett. Can't forget about that.

Diglett's found in Diglett's Cave throughout the first three generations (no Digletts can be found in Hoenn), Diglett's Tunnel in the seventh and Digletts care rare encounters in Sinnoh -- for every other generation you have to do the fancy transfer stuff or weird hidden Pokemon stuff.

Battle-wise Diglett (both versions) actually have pretty crappy stats. Dugtrio's a little better, but the poor little dude's just so fragile, with so little health that a breeze can knock them over. They have an insane amount of speed for... some reason, though, which is the sole most awesome bit a Dugtrio can do. I used to have a Dugtrio in a FireRed playthrough that was just faster than anything and is the fastest Earthquake-dealing three-headed monstrosity in the world. Oh, and the G1 version of Diglett and Dugtrio had Fissure -- yes, the one-hit-KO move Fissure -- as their signature move. Of course, Diglett is a pure Ground-type, making him... honestly not that useful.

Oh, and I guess this makes Diglett our entry for the 'one Pokemon of all types' for Ground. Ground's a pretty cool type, especially offensively. Be it casual or competitive, Ground's absolutely hard-hitting Earthquake move, as well as its pretty powerful effectiveness towards multiple types, and straight-up immunity aganist Electric moves, makes it pretty awesome. It does tend to lose pretty badly to the common Grass and Water (especially since most Ground-types tend to be weak in special defense, something that is common among Grass and Water users), and Ground-type attacks can't hit Flying types. Back in the older generations I tend to have some trouble telling Rock and Ground type apart, and honestly still do now. It's definitely a pretty cool type, with two of my favourite starters -- Swampert and Torterra -- being partially Ground-types. 

Moveset wise Dugtrio and Diglett are pretty tame. Mostly Ground-type moves, with a couple of Normal-types and a bunch of others thrown in .

Then, seven generations down the line, in Pokemon Sun and Moon Diglett and Dugtrio are the part of the handful of Generation I Pokemon that have a different regional variant in Alola. Meet... Alolan Diglett! He's like Diglett, but with three strands of hair on his back! And a little more sunburned, and because he comes from the volcanic Alolan region, his dirt-piece is black instead of brownish-grey. 

Oh, and he's Ground/Steel. Because fabulous hair (Dugtrio looks fabulous, don't lie) apparently equates Steel-typing? I genuinely forget about this half the time when playing Sun, because being a genwunner I kind of am hardwired to launch Grass or Water attacks at a Diglett and Dugtrio and none of them are really good against Diglett's new Ground/Steel dual typing. Apparently Pokedex entries note that the hairs are like altered whiskers, made of metal, that allows communication, just like some moles have. Except, obviously, less fabulous. 

Oh, and Alolan Diglett, in addition to having the Steel typing and some Steel-type moves, also gets a new signature ability -- Tangling Hair, which decreases the speed of anyone who comes into contact with him. Okaaay? I dunno.

I dunno. Alolan Diglett is something I kinda find weird -- surely they could've done something more interesting than just that? Alolan Dugtrio's hilarious, but Alolan Diglett really makes me feel like they really kind of just shrugged and called it a day. Oh well. Overall, I like Diglett. It's not particularly clever, or super-interesting, but I like it nonetheless, enough to have a Dugtrio hang around in my many FireRed playthroughs.

Pokemon of the Week #28: Granbull

# 210: Granbull, the Fairy Pokemon

Obviously, if we're going to cover all the types before November we can't go with one Pokemon a week (plus I kinda need to make some extra articles for September anyway) so 'Pokemon of the Week' might be a misnomer since we'll be having multiple Pokemon of the Week articles in a single week. Just take it as me making up for the many weeks that I didn't actually do the article.

So we jump from one of the oldest types to the absolute newest -- Fairy. Fairy type was introduced a couple of years ago, in Generation VI, and obviously has the least members among the 800+ Pokemon currently in existence. Sure, Generation VI and VII introduced a fair bit of Fairy-types, and a couple of older Pokemon are retconned into Fairy-types (basically most of the pink cute ones) and it's one such retconned Pokemon we're going to talk about now.

And Granbull being the choice for my Fairy-type article is... interesting. I could go for the obvious 'aww adorable pink buds' like Jigglypuff, Clefairy or Sylveon, but I feel it's far more interesting to dicsuss Granbull. So when Granbull and his pre-evolution Snubbull were among the list of older Pokemon given the Fairy typing, And while there is exactly one other retconned Pokemon that's more questionable than Granbull (Mr. Mime, hello?), Granbull got some people scratching their heads.

For me, I know my Pokemon lore and ever since Generation II Snubbull and Granbull has always been called the 'Fairy Pokemon' in the Pokedex, so it's not as surprising as, y'know, the mime Pokemon given the Fairy typing. It is a bit odd, though, why a Pokemon that's just a big purple humanoid bulldog with gigantic fangs is given the Fairy typing, when, as I said before, Normal seemed to be the 'animal' type in Pokemon.

So I did a bit of research (yes, research!) into whether there is such a thing as a dog fairy... and lo and behold, the first thing on google is the Cu Sith, a mythological dog fairy in Scottish folklore, comparable to the similar Cu Sidhe in Irish folklore. The Cu Sith is a hound the size of a bull, with shaggy dark green fur with paws shaped like a man's hand, and is feared as the harbinger of death that sometimes lets out three -- specifically three -- bays that will cause anyone who hears all three to be terrified to death.

And, er... it's actually a very, very far stretch from the lore between Granbull and the Cu Sith beyond both of them being dogs, and both of them being fairies. Looking through its Pokedex entries and assorted lore, none of them mention anything similar to the terrifying stuff that the Cu Sith has. Granbull is actually timid and easily spooked, its fangs are sometimes too heavy for its head, it is the true epitome of 'bark is worse than its bite', scaring smaller Pokemon with how it looks. 

I tried looking for anything from Japanese culture, but can't really find any dog myths that would fit Granbull's inspiration. I mean, Snubbull at least has the weird clown dress thing that kinda might be a fairy if you really, really squint, but that's really forcing a reason onto something without one.

Even in design, Granbull is based on a humanoid bulldog with oversized fangs instead of a hound, as the description for Cu Sith states. So, um, why are Snubbull (clown bulldog) and Granbull (scary man bulldog) categorized as fairies again? Maybe it's the whole 'scary but actually nice' misunderstood fae trope? I dunno. Well, um... Okay, yeah, it's a tenuous connection and honestly it's hard to really say why whoever was writing the Generation II entries decided that the two of them are Fairy Pokemon seemingly arbitrarily. But there you go.

Snubbull is pretty dang prominent in the anime for generation II, being a recurring Pokemon that appeared every second episode to bite Meowth's tail. Because ha ha, dogs and cats, right? Snubbull isn't a very common encounter, but not vanishingly rare, and Snubbull evolves into Granbull by plain ol' level up. He's a very slow physical attacker, and while he's honestly a shit, boring Normal-type in generation II, Generation IV gave Granbull the elemental fangs, and a crapton more elemental TM moves. Someone at Nintendo must really like Granbull, because through V to VII, he just keeps getting Dark, Dragon and obviously Fairy moves added to his movepool. and, jeez, just look at his TM learn list! He's honestly still a bit crappy, but he's a physical Fairy-type attacker with a wide learnset, and that's pretty dang cool. He's no Azumarill, but still, at least not entirely crap.

He's... he's not really been super-relevant, erally. No gym leaders or prominent characters use Snubbull or Granbull, and like many Generation II Pokemon he's just kind of forgettable. Well, he was. He used to be 'that boring pink dog'. Now he's 'that boring pink dog that is a Fairy for some reason'. 

Granbull is honestly a pretty interesting Pokemon simply because of the retcon from pure Normal to pure Fairy, and out of all the other Pokemon that didn't actually gain the Fairy type (Audino! Chansey!) Granbull doesn't look any more fairy-er than any of them. He's an interesting discussion piece on just what constitutes a Fairy, and sadly we don't really come to any proper conclusions beyond a brief discussion about the myth of the Cu Sith. It does kind of show that sometimes, um, there really isn't a specific, smart reason behind things. I dunno. Maybe if I get the time I'll do another Fairy-type article with a pink fluffball. I just already realize the futility of trying to compare Granbull to the Cu Sith after I've finished working on this one. Oh well, live and learn.

Pokemon of the Week #27: Minccino

#572: Minccino, the Chinchilla Pokemon

Countdown to Ultra Sun & Ultra Moon? Sure, why not. From this point on, we're going to have a couple of special 'Pokemon of the Week' segments where each week we'll be highlighting a Pokemon taken not from a pool of generation or the huge pool of 'ALL OF THEM', but we'll instead be talking of a Pokemon taken from each type. 

This week, we'll start with the most simple, most mundane type of all: Normal.

The Normal type is Pokemon's shorthand for 'everything else'. It doesn't have any fire properties, isn't based on an aquatic creature or a plant, can't do wacky psychic powers or shoot electricity, isn't a dragon or an insect or a robot? It's a Normal type. Some people have even joked that Normal-types are basically the 'animal' type, and for the most part they're right. Rattata's just a funnily-coloured cartoon rat. Ursaring is just an angry cartoon bear. Stoutland is just a poofy cartoon dog. And honestly, such a huge chunk of the Normal-type population is just Normal/Flying Pokemon. I'm not sure who really decided that all Flying-types without an elemental type must be part-Normal, but it's just like them insisting that, no, Pidgeot and Fearow and Toucannon and Staraptor are just... birds. They're not cool phoenixes and thunderbirds like Ho-Oh and Zapdos. 

In an essence, from a gaming standpoint, the Normal-type is just a shorthand for 'you could probably do better than this'. It's your most basic set of attacks. Scratch, Tackle, Pound... you'll be waiting for the day your Cyndaquil or Mudkip outgrows those lame-ass Normal attacks and start breathing fire or machine-gunning people with mud shots. And as such, many of the earlier-route Pokemon are boring Normal-types. There must always be a simple Normal-type Pokemon, the Rattatas and Sentrets and Zigzagoons and Bidoofs and Patrats and Bunnelbys and Yungooses, which you'll ideally switch out for something stronger as you progress in your journey. I mean, if you really like Raticate or Gumshoos there's no problem -- you can take your favourites to the top, you just have to put in more effort in training them and level-grinding them. It's Pokemon, after all. 

Chinchilla

Of course, there are exceptions. Even from Generation I we had the stupendously powerful (and rare) Kangaskhan, Snorlax and Tauros as pure-Normal types that can kick as much ass as any other powerful Pokemon in the game. Over the years we've also had Normal-type legendaries like the mighty (if gimped) Regigigas and the god of Pokemon, Arceus. And immensely powerful (if impractical) attacks like Hyper Beam and Giga Impact are Normal-type attacks.

So in selecting the Pokemon for this week, I went to a website that generates random Pokemon from a certain type, and kept clicking until I found something that truly embodies the Normal-type (so my first few choices -- Drampa and a couple of Normal/Flying types are out of the question), and it settled on... Minccino!

Ah, we finally can talk about the actual Pokemon, and not the type. 

Minccino is the epitomization of your generic Normal-type Pokemon. Introduced in the fifth generation, Minccino is based on the chinchilla. Which, for those of you who are uninitiated (like me), is a species of squirrel-esque rodents from South America with a very dense fur that is often used in the fur industry to make clothing and scarves and stuff. 

And, well, Minccino's design is basically a cartoon version of that. It's the boring basic-stage that's just, well, a cartoon animal that evolves into Cinccino, which is... a chinchilla wearing scarves. Y'know, scarves that real-life chinchillas are harvested for? Yeah. Honestly, not a very exciting Pokemon. Truth be told, with all the super-awesome and super-horrid designs in Generation V, Minccino is very, very forgettable. Even among the Normal-types introduced in that generation, barely anyone in the games use a Minccino -- with the only real time I remember a Minccino showing up is because it's the Pokemon that Professor Juniper pops out of the Pokeball in the 'World of Pokemon' introduction for Black and White.

Minccino's lore is... very, very minimal. They're tidy. And they rub things with their tails to clean them. Theres truly not much else more than that. (Wow, no wonder I don't remember them at all.)

Hell, let's cover their evolution, Cinccino. Let's see what lore they have... their scarf-like fur has a special oil that deflects attacks and dust. Cool, but it doesn't actually appear in the games in any meaningful way -- Cinccino has a standard defense, doesn't have any Furfrou-style ability, or learns any particularly blocking move. Wow. Oh, they evolve with a Shiny Stone, one of the currently four Pokemon to do so.

Cinccino

Add that to the fact that neither Minccino nor Cinccino are especially useful in battle beyond  being someone you can abuse Skill Link with. Hell, even in their home games, they don't really show up that much, only showing as rare encounters in three routes. I think Black 2/White 2 had a Minccino or Cinccino (I can't be arsed to find out which) that shows up in the initial Hidden Grotto tutorial?

Like, that's not entirely fair. Cinccino at least has some use as a Skill Link spammer. It learns Bullet Seed and Rock Blast, and with Skill Link they'll spam those attacks to hell and back. Plus it has its own STAB Tail Slap, a multi-hit Normal-type move that only Minccino and Cinccio can learn normally. But honestly? Still very, very boring outside of that. It's kinda like the Meowth of its generation, only a lot less interesting visually (and, let's be honest, not pushed by the anime a ton). A lot of the Normal-types from earlier generations end up becoming more interesting after Generation VI retconned them into Fairy-types, but Minccino didn't quite make it. 

But yeah. Other than that, Minccino doesn't really have much to it. Hell, after writing this article, I'll probably forget Minccino exists until I see a list of all Generation V Pokemon, go 'oh yeah, these things!' before forgetting them again. And, after a quick search down an older article I wrote about the most forgettable Pokemon, Minccino is one of those... and I forgot that I had once forgotten about these dudes. 

So, yeah. On one spectrum of the Normal-type, you have badass walls like Blissey or monstrous titans like Kangaskhan. On the other, you have completely forgettable cartoon animals like Minccino and Cinccino... who simply can't hold a candle to the other cartoon animals, because other cartoon animals shoot fire and ice and stuff. 

Pokemon of the Week #26: Tsareena

#763: Tsareena, the Fruit Pokemon

Sometime this month there's going to be a Nintendo Direct thing, and I knew I wanted to do an Alola-region Pokemon of the Week. And, yeah, we had Arceus earlier this week, but I dunno. I just kinda wanted to write up more Pokemon of the Week articles in preparation for September where I won't be around much, so if there's a bit of a misnomer and we get multiple Pokemon of the Week articles in, um, a week, well, whoops.

Anyway, I rolled Tsareena for the planned 'Alola Week', and I'm... not the biggest fan of Tsareena. I've never been a big fan of Pokemon that are straight-up based on humans. Like, goths, wrestlers, mimes, construction workers, karate masters? While there are some that tread the line well (Alakazam), and some that don't (Jynx), anything that is based on a human profession tend to get an eye of sccrunity from me. Add that to the fact that Tsareena is yet another 'girly plant', following the heels of multiple examples from the past -- Bellossom, Liligant, Cherrim, Roserade, Maractus... I wasn't particularly impressed, especially since the latest among them, Liligant, was a particularly disappointing and wholly boring design.

At least Tsareena looks hella more interesting than Liligant, though -- one of the biggest weakness of Liligant as a design is that she just looks like a generic plant fairy thing, unlike the obviously cactus-inspired Maractus or the rose-inspired Roserade (who even gets a masquerade mask to look even cooler). Tsareena, while at first glance I dismissed as yet another plant girl, is clearly based on a mangosteen, a fruit known as the 'Queen of the Fruits', which explains Tsareena's regal look. There is also legend that Queen Victoria of England once offering a reward to anyone who could bring a fresh sample of mangosteen to her. 

Specifically, whereas her pre-evolutions Bounsweet and Steenee are based on the mangosteen's exterior, Tsareena's skirt and head is based on a mangosteen's interior, a cool little visual design that I missed the first time I dismissed Tsareena away. And, of course, the more humanoid aspects of Tsareena is based on a queen. Or, as her name implies, a tsarina, which is the name of a tsar's wife -- a tsar being the term for a ruler of Russia in the 1900's. The design kind of stops there, though, since Tsareena doesn't actually have much in common with actual tsarinas, beyond the generic 'lady-in-a-dress'.

Perhaps one of the biggest dislikes I have about Tsareena's design is how... weird she was proportioned. Not all humanoid Pokemon have to look 100% like how humans are proportioned, but Tsareena had a huge head, gigantic stabby legs, a gigantic poofy skirt... and then everything from the neck to the wait is tiny and looks like stubs. It's weird. And some people have even compared Tsareena to having dominatrix vibes due to how her 'stockings' look. I don't quite see it from a design standpoint, but her dex entries do tell about how she delights in defeating enemies and gets some sadistic glee from doing so, and evolving a Steenee to Tsareena requires that she know Stomp. We'll... not talk about that too much because I don't really personally see it.

I do think that the design of Tsareena, visuals aside, is actually pretty well-done. The evolution from the very adorable Bounsweet to Steenee to Tsareena is neat and gradual and makes sense. The line is all-female, to reflect the whole 'queen of the fruits' thing. She gets a cool little specific ability, Queenly Majesty, that disables all priority moves. And stats-wise, Tsareena is a mighty physical attacker that also has a high special defense, and the game gives her an exclusive move known as Trop Kick, which, in addition to being an unabashedly glorious pun, is a pretty powerful 70-attack STAB physical attack that debuffs the enemy's attack stat.

One thing that I really felt that Nintendo dropped the ball on was in her typing. A huge emphasis is put on Tsareena's kicking powers both in her design, her 3D model animations, her moveset and her pokedex entries. She gets, in addition to her exclusive move Trop Kick and her essential-to-evolve-move Stomp, the powerful Fighting move High Jump Kick. I honestly thought when seeing her description as a fighting queen that fights with kicks that she would be a Grass/Fighting type, or a Grass/Fairy. Hell, or at least have something similar to Hawlucha's Flying Press, a dual-type move if they didn't want to do Breloom redux. But no, Tsareena's a boring pure-Grass type. I dunno. It just seems boring considering the sheer amount of pure-Grass types we already have.

Oh well. While I truly didn't think much of Tsareena when she was first announced during the leadup to Generation VII, I did love Bounsweet when I first saw her in the game. Such an adorable little fruit baby! And Tsareena, truth be told, ended up being pretty okay. I never used her -- it's pretty easy to get Bounsweet considering one of the earliest in-game trades wants to trade a very common Lilipup for a Bounsweet, but I started off with a Rowlet so I didn't need a pure-Grass type.

I suppose I haven't really spoken about Tsareena's dex entries. The dex entries emphasizes the strength of her legs, and if she wins she'll kick the defeated and laugh at it. But the dex entries since the fourth generation have been truncated and bland, honestly, and the original release post in Pokemon.com delivers a longer entry on Tsareena. Tsareenas are all high-class Pokemon, and will punish anyone that's evil, even if that person is her trainer. She'll actually tell trainers that are incompetent to piss off -- or, well, so they say. She can't actually do that in-game, but that's a cool little character bit to this regal Pokemon. And apparently touching her 'crown' is her weakness? Huh. Oh, and also Tsareena is very protective of the little pre-evolutions. Wouldn't you? They're adorable. And Bounsweets looks so tasty, they need someone to protect them.

I don't think Tsareena's super-useful in the cmopetitive battlefield, though lord knows I've not touched that scene since the sixth generation. Smogon tells me that she's in the UU tier, which probably means she's not that good, which isn't a big surprise. She's definitely fine as a member of your in-game party, though honestly if we're picking a Grass-type from Alola I really would go with the far cooler-looking Lurantis. That's just me, though.

Overall, I'm not Tsareena's biggest fan, but writing this article has clearly made me appreciate this queen of the fruits a little more than I did before.