History YMMV / PokeMon

** You're wandering down a road miles away from home, your Pokémon are weak, possibly paralyzed or poisoned, several are knocked out, you're out of healing items and are desperately looking for a Pokémon center to heal your Pokémon but don't know your way around the area. As you struggle onward another trainer spots you and immediately challenges you to a battle, giving you no chance to back down and having no regard for the safety and wellbeing of your 'mons.
** But then, the reverse. You see a trainer looking down the road and talk to them to challenge them to a battle. They only have one or two Pokémon five levels lower than yours, and depending on their dialogue said Pokémon may be freshly caught, or the trainer is on a losing streak, or is just out for a stroll. You proceed to crush their 'mons, take their money as spoils of victory, and leave them alone in the middle of nowhere while you continue on to find another trainer to do the same to. You do this in pursuit of obtaining the Gym Badges and being a Pokémon Champion, something which in-universe, especially in Black and White, is seen as the hollow, pointless goal of pursuing power just for the sake of power. Congratulations, you're a HeroicSociopath VillainProtagonist!

** Doduo: They learn Fly. The dodo/ostrich cross can be taught how to FLY. [[hottip:*:It made sense since the Japanese can translate "fly" to mean "sky jump"; Bounce didn't exist until Generation III, and by then removing Fly may have just landed here as well.]]

** Both Gardevoir and Gothitelle wear "dresses."

* RuinedFOREVER: Oh yes. There's a new game or spin off coming out? Ruined forever. There's new details about that upcoming game? Ruined forever. New Pokémon? Ruined forever. ''Rumors'' about the new game? Ruined. ''FOREVER''. Yet despite being '''ruined FOREVER''' about a zillion times with each new installment, the series somehow manages to keep going strong. [[FanDumb Go]] [[HateDumb fig]].

* [[SugarWiki/{{Ptitleh7wzr92t4un4}} So Cool It's Awesome]]: Scyther. Person-sized ninja mantis-dinosaurs. And useful in battle to boot.

** Genosect is a bug with a laser cannon on its back. It can also apparently ''fly'' using its laser cannon as a jetpack of some sort. Also, it [[MemeticBadass killed Ghetsis for stealing its theme song]], looks like [[{{Transformers}} Shockwave]], and [[WildMassGuessing made the dinosaurs extinct.]]

** Jigglypuff was popular enough to get an appearance in the ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBros'' series, even returning when ''Mewtwo'' [[DemotedToExtra was left out]] and its anime counterpart went to join [[ChuckCunninghamSyndrome Chuck Cunningham.]] It's not so [[LethalJokeCharacter bad, either.]]

** Jigglypuff was popular enough to get an appearance in the ''VideoGame:SuperSmashBros'' series, even returning when ''Mewtwo'' [[DemotedToExtra was left out]] and its anime counterpart went to join [[ChuckCunninghamSyndrome Chuck Cunningham.]] It's not so [[LethalJokeCharacter bad, either.]]

** Meowth. Almost the same case as Pikachu, but toned down quite a bit.

** Yanmega's Japanese name, Megayanma, [[ScunthorpeProblem made plenty of censor filters jump]], along with Cofagrigus.

* FridgeBrilliance: Poison Sting seems out of place in Sandshrew's learnset, until you realize that shrews have venomous saliva to some degree.

* GannonBanned: Referring to Red from [[PokemonRedAndBlue the games]] and/or PokemonSpecial as "[[Anime/{{Pokemon}} Ash]]". Ash is the anime character based off of Red's character design. This isn't helped by the fact that the American release of the games was timed to make it appear that the games were based off of the anime. The release of Yellow Version, which adopts several characters from the anime, just made things worse.

** Meditite/Medicham: Their attack is doubled because they hit physically and mentally at the same time.

*** Scrafty is also a very well-liked Pokémon from Generation 5. It looks cool, has an interesting theme, and is uniquely useful in competitive play; it and Scraggy (its previous form) are the only dark/fighting types, which means they're the only fighting type Pokémon resistant to psychic attacks, and they get STAB on two very useful types. Scrafty also sometimes has the ability Moxie, which increases its attack every time it defeats an enemy, making it a good sweeper.

* FandomHeresy: Knowing the different continuities and the size of this fandom, this can be achieved in different ways. For example: Saying that any manga other then ''[[{{Ptitled53fvupl}} Pokémon Special]]'' is good, or even hinting that you dislike Special. Referring to Ash's Pikachu as a female. Mentioning that you think of Lyra as a redesign of the first female protagonist. Saying that Ethan had no official name until the remakes, calling your fourth gen rival "Pearl" or "Damion", or that Leaf's name isn't Leaf. Saying that you like Ash. Saying that the Hoenn games were your favorite.

** Eevee is often referred to as a girl, at least partially due to its name, as is anything it evolves into, despite seven-eighths of them being male. Glaceon is [[HimeCutparticularly feminine]] in appearance.

** Eevee is often referred to as a girl, at least partially due to its name, as is anything it evolves into, despite seven-eighths of them being male. Glaceon is particularly feminine in appearance.

*** They thankfully added Wi-Fi Events in Generation IV. Unfortunately, they didn't use it until Platinum, they never released the Arceus needed to activate events in BW and HGSS, and refuse to release Deoxys in any way, shape, or form. How could they miss out on such an obvious opportunity to take about 25% of the Scrappy out of this Mechanic?

** A sombrero-wearing, dancing pineapple-duck-kappa, that kicks ass. That's Ludicolo for you. It's very heavily related to dancing, even dancing in its ''sleep'' in Generation V and any 3D game it's in, [[MissedMomentOfAwesome but can't learn any dance-related moves]]. [[hottip:*:It can learn Rain Dance, but it isn't an actual dance - the Japanese name being Rain Prayer - and is learned by an obscene amount of other Pokémon as well.]]

* MissedMomentOfAwesome: Seriously, why does Magmortar keep the lame ability it had as a Magmar while Electivire gets an awesome one?
** Surskit has a unique type, but upon evolving it becomes a quite generic one.
** Alomomola/Mamanbou looks like an evolution to Luvdisc. Mamanbou is not the evolution of Luvdisc. Luvdisc remains a [[TheScrappy Scrappy]].

*** They thankfully added Wi-Fi Events in Generation IV. [[MissedMomentOfAwesome Unfortunately, they didn't use it until Platinum, they never released the Arceus needed to activate events in BW and HGSS]], and refuse to release Deoxys in any way, shape, or form. How could they miss out on such an obvious opportunity to take about 25% of the Scrappy out of this Mechanic?

* ''YMMV/TabletopGames/PokemonTradingCardGame''

** Even SeriesMascot Pikachu is not immune. Outside of its intended demographic of young children, it has a huge number of fans who love the thing to death, but also [[{{PeripheryHatedom}} has a legion of haters]] who criticize its [[{{SpotlightStealingSquad}} overexposure]] and [[{{TastesLikeDiabetes}} saccharine cuteness]]. A recent IGN Pokémon popularity poll placed Pikachu in a surprising ''48th place'' out of all creatures in the series (to be fair, IGN's demographic consists mostly of young adult male gamers).