That…that picture of
Shuppet, Sugimori me ol’ son, that…well… well done on making Shuppet’s head
look like morning wood mate.
Away from that: Shuppet is
such a great way to do the typical sheet ghost, instead going down this somehow
completely logical path of throwing in hand puppets, teru teru bozu and the
concept of Tsukumogami which of course completely allows the first two to
become Ghosts as it’s (at it’s very basic) an intimate object with a spirit in
it. Shuppet being so damn adorable doesn’t hurt either, is it the cutest Ghost
Type? It’s certainly the cutest Ghost Type so far and it’s had Misdreavus to
content with.
Then there’s Banette, who goes
far more in the Tsukumogami direction on the surprisingly logical path and
becomes a haunted doll that just so happens to look like someone that may or
may not have once been found chained up in the basement of a pawn store where
Bruce Willis and Ving Rhames may have been held captive once. Yes it does look
a bit like a gimp, in fact I think it looks like a gimp version oooof…
It’s Gimp Zippy. That alone
is scary, which is fine of course because this is a Ghost Type. Actually,
looking at it all of Shuppet’s cuteness has been lost in the evolution process hasn’t
it? All that’s left is creepy, creepy gimpiness, I think it’s those eyes, never
seen eyes that shape on any cartoon critter of any kind before, and the big,
gold smile.
Mega Banette is epic, but I
don’t really know how to expand on that, I think just going ‘LOOK AT IT’ isn’t
really acceptable but LOOK AT IT! it’s Banette turned up to 12, it has huge hot
pink claws being released form mouth-like zippers for hands, it has a gorgeous
colour scheme, it has the same upsetting face, it’s gloriously nightmarish in
all the best Tim Burton-esque ways. And THAT is how you go LOOK AT IT in more
words and trick people into thining you’re remotely articulate
I was initially in
agreement with my ‘inspiration’ for all this, Mr Bogleech, about how littles
sense this line makes in terms of a progression for an evolution, but having
thought about it and done a little Googling during an illness I think these
three only made little sense because we’re not Japanese.
What I think we have here
is a line of Hitotsume-kozō – a cyclops yokoi that is even usually drawn with
the same style of eye as Dusclops - that each take in aspects of at least one
other yokoi, with Dusclops being the most obvious, drawing inspiration from Chōchin-obake,
the paper lantern yokoi. Looked at like this the line is a pretty sensible
progression, well except that it grows legs and then looses them again, that’s
kind of weird. What doesn’t help, I
think, is that the three look like – and more than likely take visual cues from
intentionally – things we easily recognise in the west: cartoon ghosts, the
grim reaper, mummies, a Scoleri brother, whatever, that it becomes very
confusing because we’re looking at it from our perspective and then seeing
things we think we recognise.
Individually? All is good.
Duskull is an adorable little ghost with and adorable stance, it floats along
with its arms behind it’s back like a thoughtful little boy, here’s that it’s
little handy-pandies actually look like:
And it only has one eye,
that’s just one red light in there, not two pupils, I like designs that have
that ‘ooooh yeah’ element to them, and I like ghosts. I actually find Dusknoir
to be very unsettling, it has a dead visage with a staring pupil a zombie-like
plot to it and zombies are just close enough to the chewy centre of my
automatonophobia to unsettle me, I appreciate the intentional or unintentional
mummy aspects of it’s design and it’s cute little whippy ice-cream hair but
WHATA THE FUCK ARE THOSE SIDEBURN THINGS? Seriously? What are those? The light
grey streamer things that start roughly parallel to its teeth, what are they?
Why do we just accept those? Why isn’t there a meme about the weird sideburn
streamer things on Dusclops? Dusknoir exchanges unsettling for imposing, not a
bad trade-up but it does make it less scary to me personally, and as a design
it must be doing something right because it can look super badass while having
Mickey Mosue cloves and a face in it’s rolly polly belly that looks like
Pac-man, no, you know what it looks like? It looks like those Blobba things
from Bubble Bobble, you remember those? These:
They’re called ‘Monsta’ now
apparently, they have a wiki entry on the Bubble Bobble wiki, which of course
is a thing and let’s be honest with each other – you’re glad it does. ‘Noir is
probably my least favourite of the three, but only by a fraction of an amount.
It’s a dinosaur. It’s a
dinosaur that’s also a banana tree. It’s a dinosaur that’s also a banana tree
that can also fly.
It’s magnificent
5 balls
Seriously? What more do you
want from me?
Hmm…you know, given that
this is so clearly a dinosaur and not in the least bit ‘kaiju-like’ I think I
would have preferred this to have been the ‘third fossil’ like Areodactyl, hell
amber even comes from trees, it would have been perfect.
Just to recap my feelings
on Baby Pokémon: in Generation 2 they served a purpose (getting people to use
the new breeding mechanic) and thus were fine, in later generations they are
pointless because with nothing to advertise and no use elsewhere they exist just
to exist, the only real argument I’ll stand for for these post-Gen 2 baby
Pokémon is to fill in a gap in logic, things like Snorlax, Sudowoodo and even
Mantine having younger forms can be seen as ‘making sense’ because of the size
or maturity of them, it’s not enough for me but I can see why people think this. This doesn’t mean that I think all Baby Pokemon suck, Chingling here is a
lovely little design, a lovely way to give us a living bell, yeah it’s a bell,
hopefully you’ve noticed but if you haven’t don’t worry because they did a
great job of making it look like a living creature and not just a bell with a
face on it, which makes it doubly a good fit as a prevo for Chimecho: not only
does it make sense that a wind chime would evolve from a bell (a little ringing
thing becomes a big ringing thing, see?) but Chimecho also has the same design
and same quality to it’s design – it’s a windchime yes but it also looks
exceptionally like an organic thing, more so than it does a wind chime.
But Chingling was the exact
opposite of what Chimecho needed. Oh Chimecho (initially a single stage
non-evolving ‘mon) needed another stage to its line but it didn’t need one that
was weaker! Chimecho is a pure assist character and has a move pool that should
make it a damn good one, but it’s stats are so weak that it’s really not worth
using it because 87% of the time it’ll be knocked unconscious before it can assist,
whereas as other ‘mons (like Chansey) can do its job for more than 20 seconds.
Chimecho needed an evolution in Generation 4, not prevolution.
Chimecho btw has since got
a little buff (in gen 7) to up some of its stats and make it slightly less
pathetic and it’s still an adorable and very nice way of making a wind chime
Pokémon with a very pleasant ‘dinner service’ colour scheme and again a very
organic, abstracted look that keeps it from looking like a real life thing with
some eyes slapped on it – y’know, what fans call every Pokémon based on an inanimate
object whether it’s true or not (and mostly it isn’t). All of that doesn’t make
Chingling any less pointless though.
And people complained about
Lucario being designed to be popular? Absol seems to have been the result of an
in-depth scientific process into making something appealing, form its anime
face to its tragic misunderstood lore to its fucking ying-yang symbol elements
if Absol wasn’t made specifically to make fangirls want it and fanboys want to
be it then it’s one of the happiest accidents in video game history.
And it works, I end just
like all the rest going ‘aww it isn’t bad really, it doesn’t really cause bad
things! it just can’t tell you about the disasters because it’s a Pokémon! it
knew and it wanted to tell you but it can only make a GBA-quality roaring
noise” and it’s also a pretty sweet design, it’s tail looks better in 3D models
by the way, Sugimori draws it really stuck on because….I dunno, he hates Absol
and wants to stab it in the butt?
Mega Absol might be a bit
much though, making it a fucking sexy angel with Jessica Rabbit hair? That’s a
bit…obvious? Do we not think? I mean it IS very pretty and it does have the
right presence but… I mean… it’s really… baiting, I’m not sure what it’s baiting,
but it’s baiting.
for 
So Absol really doesn’t
seem to be based on anything other than the need to dampen fangirls knickers,
I’ve heard a few suggestions but nothing really seems to fit right, it’s just a
made up animal with an in-universe legend attached to it that resembles several
real-world legends. I bring this up here because we got from that to three
Pokémon explicitly based on real-world things myths, and a hockey mask.
Snorunt is a weird little
thing until you know what it’s based on: it’s based on the Yuki warashi (or
Yukinko) a snow spirit that takes the form of a frozen child wearing a mino (or
yukimino) to lure the unweary, sometimes to its mother the Yuki-onna, which
Froslass is based on. But what this translated to when it becomes a Pokémon is
a shivering, snow eating little cutie who is said to brings prosperity and live
in little groups under large leaves. Somehow Game Freak – who love to make
everything dark and horrible – turned a human-eating snow spirit that takes the
form of a dead kid into a lucky, social, adorable ball of adorable that you
just want to cuddle.
Originally Snorunt just
evolved into Glalie, but Generation 4 gave it into a split evolution when –
presumably – someone realised the glaringly obvious missed opportunity in
having a Yuki warashi evolve into a Yuki-onna, it still evolves into Glalie
when levelled up but will become Froslass if it’s female and given a Dawn Stone
(which also evolves male Kirlia into Gallade, to prove the Dawn Stone ain’t
sexist).
I don’t much like Froslass,
in fact I’d say it was my least favourite Ghost Type (it’s Ice/Ghost) and we’ll
see if the scores back me up on that overall. It makes a great deal of sense in
terms of the evolutionary line, more so than Glalie where I think the theory
was ‘it’s an oni wearing a snow thing to let’s make its evolution another oni
wearing another snow thing’ but, I just don’t like it as a design, but
everything I don’t like about are things that make sense:
I don’t like its head
design, I don’t like the ice-horns or the random diamond cut-out but both evoke
Glalie and make sense as this is ‘girl Glalie
I don’t like how obvious it
is with its inspiration - it clearly a monster in a kimono – but that’s what Yuki-onna
ARE and it’s not like Charizard or Onyx’s obviousness is an issue.
I don’t like how they gave
it a sexy body ‘tail fin’ (that’s what it is right? it’s not actually a body is
it? the thing is still a head with arms on it and a long tail-like thing, have
I been reading Froslass design wrong all this time?) because it’s a girl but
that’s true to the Yuki-onna legend and the in-universe Froslass legend (about
it being the possible spirit of a dead woman)
As such I think the problem
is not with Froslass as a design but with Froslass as a design connected to
Snorunt to Glalie, which are more abstracted and not as busy or detailed and
thus I should get over it and not hold it against Froslass as a design by
itself.
Glalie I’ve always liked,
Game Freak combined Oni masks and hockey masks into the world’s most menacing
Madball while still making it look a good deal like it’s previous form, even
though it’s a floating devil head Glalie feels like it evolved from Snorunt,
it’s still a black creature with a shell and those teeth but now it comes for
you when you sleep and is apparently made from rock embedded with the distress and
regrets of a mountaineer who died (again, this is from the Pokédex, Muk size
piles of salt please) and will freeze it’s pray so it can ‘eat them at it’s
leisure’
Then for Generation 7
Glalie (but not Froslass) breaks its jaw, grows a unicorn horn and becomes Mega
Glalie, a huge gaping maw coming straight for you. It’s alright, it’s
intimidating but feels a bit generic (yes I did call the floating oni head with
a unicorn horn ‘generic’), like it could be a standard random encounter monster
in any old RPG.
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