Judge a Pokémon: The Smog's 6th Art Panel

Graveler was a mon I insisted we look at. I have to apologise to the denizens of #pokemon; I spend a great deal of my time in that channel polling them for their opinions on cute, cool, and underrated mons, and imo Graveler is all three, especially the last. The big gravely mass for a body is a huge step up, I think, from the more popular Geodude, and I've always been really disappointed with Golem. I also love how he has four arms—you can just envision him bounding gorilla-style up, down, across mountains like he just dgaf. His shiny looks great too (I bet you have to look it up!), and he even has an awesome alternate name thanks to the French version, Gravalanch. Also, he is a middle stage evolution, which makes him really indie and cool!! x) Man, I love this mon.

Haha, so after getting my own fill I had to represent; I knew nj would be joining us this issue, and if you know nj (or follow her amazing nuzlocke) you'll know that she absolutely loves Clefable. As a kid I think I completely overlooked Clefable. First of all it is pink, which didn't help, and to own a Clefable you needed to have Clefairy, which is arguably one of the most girly mons out there. That said, looking back Clefable has a lot of charm. I love its fat spiral tail and the stylised wings on its back that really give you the impression that it has come a long way from its days as a Clefairy. I think nj has really taught me to love this mon! I certainly cannot envision it without thinking of her more badass, smarmy depictions of it.

Why on earth was this guy not a bigger deal to me back in Red and Blue? I think the answer is actually a testament to its design, not a detraction. Looking up its Red and Blue sprite, it looks positively intimidating. The face looms ominously beneath its shell (which is at least twice as big as in the Sugimori art, which helps) and its spikes jut out dangerously at wild angles. Cloyster was probably a Pokémon I just learned to think of as an enemy; I dreaded to face it so much that possessing one was out of the question. This is a testament to its menacing design, and a real turnaround from the much more whimsical Shellder that it evolves from. As an aside, I love that mon too!

I think it's a shame it took until the fourth generation for Tangela to get an evolution. Actually, maybe the shame is that it got an evolution; I'm not a fan of Tangrowth at all, and leaving it as a single stage mon allows it to remain in the tier of elite single stage mons like Farfetch'd and Tropius (although actually the thought of a babby Tropius pre-evo with little fruits on its head is too much to resist). Tangela itself is a breed of weird and cutesy that I think got hammered out of Pokémon's style as the games progressed. Take, for instance, Tangela's little red boots for feet. Its design is brilliantly simple—two eyes, a ton of vines and two cartoon feet, coloured to stand out from the main body. It is crazy to think that the inspiration for Tangela is Medusa, a monster so foul to behold that all who did so instantly turned to stone. I mean, just look at his cute little face!

Staryu and Starmie both are great designs. They are simple—just stars with gems, in the middle, really!—but the colour palettes are just right for starfish, and I love the weird extra-terrestrial lore that is added to them both game by game through Pokédex entries. If you haven't already, run through them all from Red and Blue all the way up to Black and White. Eerie stuff! Back to Starmie's design, though, I'll admit there isn't much more to say, but again I don't think this is a problem. It's a starfish, or seastar. As a result, it's shaped like a star. How much more simple can it get? Now if only Starmie could get decent shiny colours, I think we'd be alright.

Gyarados was all the rage at school when I was a kid. Also, no one could pronounce its name. I think this is one of Chou's picks, but I'm glad we're covering it. Looking at its Red and Blue sprites is a great nostalgia kick. Without fail, Gyarados manages to look intimidating. Even in his worst sprites, the ugly Ruby and Sapphire ones, I don't think I'd chance it. The various frills, fins, crests, and barbel (check out my fish terminology) all dress it up nicely as a sea serpent, and look great flowing backwards as it winds toward its target, as it is depicted in most of its sprites. They also help us to identify Gyarados as a sea serpent and not just some dreadful mega snake from hell, which helps, because honestly you could be forgiven for the mistake. Carrying many of these features over from Magikarp is a nice touch, because I think Gyarados's identity as a badass that has evolved from something typically seen as useless is an important part of this mon. It's a huge transformation that players seeing it for the first time would have never expected, and served very well to establish some of the mythology and magic of the Pokémon evolution phenomenon. It still hasn't learned to keep its mouth shut, though.

Pidgeotto is another mon I largely overlooked when I was younger; once you'd played through a few times, you knew Rattata and Pidgey were just there to keep you going in the beginning. That said, Pidgeot became a staple in lots of people's teams. Frankly I think that is a real shame; it took Game Freak three games to get Pidgeot to look majestic and intimidating as opposed to just overweight. Until that game, I think players would have been much better off sticking with Pidgeotto. The autumnal colours are pleasing, and the red head crest especially goes a long way to make Pidgeotto a lot more impressive than a mere Pidgey. It also hasn't quite hit the mid-life crisis that results in Pidgeot's weight problem, which is a plus. The downside is that it misses out on Pidgeot's sexy yellow plumage on its head, although it is present in the tail feathers. This is a great design, really, and one I hadn't noticed so much before. The colour scheme is muted but pleasing, and the design is simple enough to suit the typical "first Flying-type," but impressive enough to make you feel like Pidgey was worth picking up. Also, its name is inexplicably excellent!

Honestly, if it weren't for the first or second Pokémon movies I would probably still think of Mewtwo as a hideously deformed alien; its sprites in Red and Blue were that traumatizing. Now, however, I think Mewtwo is universally known amongst Pokémon fans as the original badass. Mew is cutesey, but Mewtwo is that design taken to the park, forced to fight every dog in the neighborhood and then locked in the basement and beaten instead of fed meals. No wonder it looked so deranged all those years ago. On specifics, there are a few things I really like. The tube from Mewtwo's back to the back of its head is a great science fiction touch, and I like its bulbous digits on the hands. I'm also a fan of how bottom heavy the design is—when I think of Mewtwo I think of its large thighs and the over-sized tail. I think so many iterations of Mewtwo as the human-like Pokémon in bad anime scenes has turned me off the design a little—I get a little sick of his feline eyes that may as well belong to any other human in the series and his endless angst. That said, his origin story is really powerful, and I still get chills exploring Cinnabar Mansion. Also, I mean, it's Mewtwo, the original badass. How can you not like the original badass?