Sunday, October 03, 2010

My ten least favorite and ten all-time favorite Pokemon

I'm not someone who dislikes things very easily. I've never hated a movie, a band or a tv show. The worst I can usually feel about anything is sheer indifference - some things just aren't for me, and I'm alright with that.

That said, I wanted to try and figure out my LEAST favorite pokemon monsters, having just gone over more than 50 that I love to pieces. You have no idea how difficult it was for me to come up with negative things to say about cartoon animals, but here goes...


DUSKNOIR - If you told me that Dusclops evolved into a fat, one-eyed ghost with a mouth in its belly, I'd have been disappointed to finally see the design. It sounds cool on paper, but I just can't wrap my head around Dusknoir's eclectic, awkward details and equally awkward name; Duskull and Dusclops roll nicely off the tongue, but "dusk-nwarr" is relatively difficult to say. What was wrong with, say, Duscreep, Duscrypt, Duscloak, Duscream, Duscadaver, Duskill, Duscorpse, Duscarcass or Duscasket?


LANTURN - There is nothing bad about Lanturn itself. In fact, it's adorable. I like Lanturn. Unfortunately, the animal it's based on - a deep-sea anglerfish - is forty kinds of cooler and clearly not meant to be represented with a cute little beluga-looking critter. Until we get another anglerfish 'poke, Lanturn will be nothing but an adorable disappointment.


HARIYAMA - A fighting-type sumo wrestler is obligatory, but it's another one made up of awkward bits and pieces. It took me forever to even figure out how its parts fit together, and it still looks all wrong. I do like the face, though, and round hole ears are always neat.


THE KNIGHT THING - A bug/steel beetle that steals a snail's shell to become a "knight" is another one that just could have looked a whole lot better. This guy is kind of confusing - the frill on top and the lance arms are frankly a bit much.


CRESSELIA - The big, flat crescents just sort of stuck onto Cresselia always looked funny to me, and two of them even seem to be arms with little hands impossibly tacked onto their tips. It's otherwise an alright design if you like this frilly pink stuff.


LUCARIO - Not much really "bothers" me about Lucario, it just personally appeals to me the least out of almost any other pocket monster. I just couldn't possibly have less interest in this anthropomorphic fox-looking thing. Black & White have introduced another anthropomorphic fox-looking thing, but it's a somewhat cooler dark-type.


LATIOS/LATIAS - again, there's just nothing here that interests me. I find most of the "legendary" pokemon forgettable, but probably forget these two the most.


LOPUNNY - a rabbit pokemon was an inevitability, but did it have to have shapely, ladylike legs? Really? From the waist up it's a pretty cute design; from the waist down, it's more like freaky furry fetish fuel and leaves a bad taste in my mouth. If they really had to have a rabbit monster with a nice ass, they could have actually made it less creepy with a MORE human face, instead of a totally innocent, natural-looking cuddly twitchy-nosed bunny head.


GALLADE - so Generation III introduced "Gardevoir," a psychic Pokemon with a slightly feminine appearance that legions of fans seem to find incredibly arousing for some reason (go ahead, search "Gardevoir" in google images with safesearch off.) That doesn't mean it was ever supposed to be an all-female species, and it wasn't. There's no reason for monsters to follow the human conventions of feminine and masculine, so it always felt like a pointless afterthought when they added this "male" counterpart to Gardevoir in generation IV.


BLACK & WHITE'S SNOWFLAKE THING - every generation, some fans complain that some of the designs "just don't look like pokemon." I've always found this a nonsense complaint, but in this one case alone, I'd have to agree, if only because the snowflake monster doesn't really look like anything, just a big snowflake. I can't fault it otherwise, though...it's kind of cool just how out-there and unexpected it is. It's also kind of cool that it looks like a child designed it.

Dammit, I failed...I actually kind of still like all of these to some extent.

For comparison, here's my long awaited TOP FAVORITE ten pokemon of all generations, in order beginning with my most beloved:












If you're just passing by and would like to hear my reasoning on these ten, I've written about each of these individually over the last six posts, and now, for the time being, I am completely finished talking about pokedymondoids.