Characters / Pokémon: Generation II - Qwilfish to Celebi

Main Character Index > Pokémon: Generation II Families > Chikorita to Granbull (152-210) | Qwilfish to Celebi (211-251)

The character sheet for the second generation's Pokémon got so big that it had to be split. For the rest, go here.

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Qwilfish and Overqwil (Harysen and Haryman)

0211: Qwilfish / Harysen (ハリーセン hariisen)
0904: Overqwil / Haryman (ハリーマン hariiman)

Qwilfish

Hisuian Qwilfish

Overqwil

Hisuian Qwilfish and Overqwil debuted in Legends: Arceus

What's there to say about this Water/Poison pufferfish Pokémon? It's not as prominent in the Pokémon seas as Tentacool and Tentacruel, but... it crops up a lot in discussions of forgettable Pokémon, which makes it unforgettable in the ironic sense. However, later generations have been kinder to it, giving it a few more toys to play with.

In the Hisui region that one day became Sinnoh, there were Qwilfish who had a darker coloration (and were part Dark-Types instead of Water) who were despised by fishermen because they tended to ruin catches by spraying poison everywhere. They evolve into Overqwil, a poison-eating Pokémon with an even more savage temperament known as the "sea fiend" for its aggression and lancelike spikes. Though absent in modern Sinnoh, this variety survives in the present in other unspecified cold seas of the world.

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• Action Bomb: Johtonian Qwilfish can learn Self-Destruct and Explosion via a couple of means, but the Hisuian form learns Self-Destruct naturally (making Overqwil's resemblance to a naval mine very appropriate).
• Action Initiative: Can be bred with Aqua Jet.
• Anti-Frustration Feature: In Legends: Arceus, you needed Hisuian Qwilfish to use Barb Barrage in strong style 20 times to evolve it into Overqwil. In Scarlet and Violet, since both agile style and strong style do not exist, you instead only need to level up Hisuian Qwilfish while it knows the move to evolve it instead.
• Balance Buff: Qwilfish got a small defense buff in Gen VII.
• Brought to You by the Letter "S": Hisuian Qwilfish and Overqwil have lowercase and uppercase "Q"s on their tail fins, respectively. The marks on Johtonian Qwilfish's tail also resemble the katakana "ha" for its Japanese name Harysen.
• Casting a Shadow: Hisuian Qwilfish and Overqwil are part Dark-type and could learn Dark Pulse.
• Dark Is Evil: Hisuian Qwilfish and Overqwil are explicitly unpleasant creatures to encounter due to their bad temperaments. While Qwilfish is mainly more spiteful if fished up but is otherwise not outwardly aggressive when left alone, Overqwil is expressly The Dreaded to mariners due to its tendency to seek out and attack ships and even potentially explode.
• Early-Bird Cameo: Overqwil is alluded to in a Canalave Library book added for Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, foreshadowing its Required Party Member role in Legends: Arceus.
• Glass Cannon: It doesn't take many hits, but it hits surprisingly hard and fast with Swift Swim in the rain.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: Overqwil is said to be a very aggressive "Sea Fiend" with a savage temperament.
• Hyperactive Metabolism: A specific aversion, in that it's the only Pokémon that learns Stockpile and Spit Up, but not Swallow.
• Jerkass: Hisuian Qwilfish is known for spitefully spraying poison everywhere in the event that it accidentally gets fished up. Overqwil is even more of a dick and is known for being a brutal threat to any mariners.
• Magically Inept Fighter: Overqwil has high Attack but absolutely pitiful Special Attack.
• Making a Splash: A Water-type based off of the puffer fish. Strangely enough, the Hisuian form is not a Water-type.
• Mighty Glacier: With Intimidate, as it patches up Qwilfish's average Defense while it still hits fairly hard. However, its speed is only average, and its Special Defense remains poor.
• Meaningful Name: Qwilfish is a, well, quilled fish, and Overqwil is a combination of "Overkill" and "Quill".
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Overqwil is a combination of quill and overkill, and is known as the "sea fiend" because of its brutality.
• Numerical Theme Naming: Qwilfish's Japanese name, Harysen, is derived from 針千本 harisenbon (Japanese for "porcupinefish"), with the 千 sen part of its name literally meaning "thousand". Overqwil's Japanese name, Haryman, continues the theme, replacing the sen with 万 man, meaning "ten thousand" or "myriad".
• Painful Pointy Pufferfish: Qwilfish is modeled after a globefish and learns many spike attacks like Toxic Spikes and Fell Stinger.
• Poisonous Person: A Poison-type due to being based off of a poisonous fish with venomous spines.
• Required Party Member: Overqwil is one of the Pokémon needed in your party for the Manaphy quest in Legends: Arceus.
• Secret Art: Qwifish and its Hisuian ancestors are the only Pokémon that learn Barb Barrage, a Poison-type move that not only poisons the target but also does double damage if they already have a status condition. Hisuian Qwilfish learns it naturally and needs to use it to evolve, while Johtonian Qwilfish can inherit it from breeding.
• Spikes of Doom: Gets the Poison Point Ability, giving it a chance to automatically poison opponents that physically strike them.
• Status Buff:
  • Has Swift Swim, which doubles its Speed during Rain.
  • They also can learn several stat increasing moves, such as Harden, Minimize, and Stockpile.
• Status-Buff Dispel: Qwilfish can be bred to learn Haze, which resets all Status Buffs and debuffs — even your own.
• Super Spit: Naturally learns Stockpile and Spit Up, and can be bred with Acid Spray.
• Taking You with Me: Naturally learns Destiny Bond and can be taught Explosion.
• Translation Nod: The "q" and "Q" on Hisuian Qwilfish and Overqwil's tails, respectively, may be a reference to the former's English name.
• Trap Master: Learns Spikes and Toxic Spikes naturally, which deal damage and badly poison any opponent Pokémon that switch out, respectively.
• Underground Monkey: Hisuian Qwilfish are dark in color and are Dark-type instead of Water-type.
• Unusual Eyebrows: Overqwil has four spikes between its eyes that resemble Angry Eyebrows.
• Useless Useful Spell: The Hisuian Qwilfish line gets Dark Pulse by level-up, but their poor Special Attack stat makes their (at their time of debut) only Dark-type STAB move useless to them. It eventually got a bone thrown to it in Scarlet and Violet by giving them Bite and Crunch as level-up moves instead (now only learning Dark Pulse by TM), which gel much better with the line's Physical Attack stat.
• Weak Against Magic: Overqwil has decent physical Defense but very poor Special Defense, meaning that Earth Power can really do a number on it.

Shuckle (Tsubotsubo)

0213: Shuckle / Tsubotsubo (ツボツボ tsubotsubo)

Shuckle

This Bug and Rock type lives a sedentary life underneath a rock where it stores berries in its shell and slowly ferments them into a juice. Its stats are a collection of extremes: boasting the highest base defenses of all Pokémon (230, each!), but having some of the lowest stats in everything else, including, sadly enough, its HP. While its defenses suggest support use by means of Toxic and Encore, the bug is insanely crippled by Taunt and Substitute, meaning that it can't do anything once it's distracted.

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• Achilles' Heel: Fixed damage attacks bypass defenses, and as such can wreck poor Shuckle by hitting its low health directly. Taunt will also prevent Shuckle from doing much other than feebly poking enemies until it wears off.
• Armored But Frail: Shuckle is the most extreme example of this trope among all Pokémon, with the highest Defense and Special Defense (230 for both) protecting a mere 20 base HP.
• The Artifact: Going by early betas, Shuckle seems to have been designed as a reference to the concept of snake wine, in which alcoholic beverages are steeped in a container with a pickled snake. Over the course of development, Shuckle became a Bug-type and went from living inside a clay jar to having an actual shell. However, the concept of Shuckle fermenting berries into juice has remained so core to its concept as to be mentioned in every single dex entry, even though the reason for that association is no longer apparent.
• Big Creepy-Crawlies: It's some sort of weird endolithic fungal scale insect... thing. Which is apparently close enough to an actual insect to land it a Bug typing. At 2 feet (60 cm), it's not the biggest Bug-type out there, but it's still much bigger than a real-life scale insect and most molds.
• Cartoon Creature: It was originally based on snake wine, but Shuckle's final design has elements of slime molds, turtles, and female scale insects.
• Crippling Overspecialization: It has the highest Defense and Special Defense in the game, but this comes at the cost of every one of its other stats, which rank among the lowest. The only Pokémon with lower HP are Diglett and Shedinja, only Happiny and Chansey sport weaker Attack stats, and Shuckle is the bottom of the barrel in terms of Special Attack and Speed, of which it is tied with Feebas, Bonsly, and Alolan Sandshrew for Special Attack, and Munchlax and Pyukumuku for Speed. Just check the other entries here to see how this has crippled it.
• Damage Over Time: Having base offense stats of 10 means that Shuckle will usually rely on damage over time like Toxic or Infestation to deal any damage. Both of these together with Protect and a Leftovers equip can be quite deadly though, but most of the time its not worth it to sacrifice so many move slots, as Shuckle also has access to powerful entry hazards.
• Dishing Out Dirt: A Rock-type creature that hides beneath rocks. It can learn the usual gamut of Ground and Rock-type moves like Mud Shot and Rock Slide.
• Item Caddy: If held long enough by Shuckle in Gen II, a held Berry can become a Berry Juice. Prior to Generation V, Shuckle were the only way to obtain the item (while Shuckle’s ability to make Berries into Berry Juice was oddly not retained, it can still be found holding the item in the wild).
• Last Chance Hit Point: Sturdy lets it take any hit and survive with 1 HP, if it was at full health beforehand, although only the most powerful of attacks have a chance of activating it.
• Min-Maxing: Shuckle's stat spread. Its defenses are the best of any Pokémon in the game, but its other stats are among the worst.
• Mix-and-Match Critters: Another one of its interesting facets besides its severe Crippling Overspecialization; it's one of the more extreme cases in the entire series. Fans for many years have tried to figure out what this thing is even supposed to be based on.
  • Firstly, it's referred to as the Mold Pokémon and can ferment berries into juices in a similar matter to yeast, all hinting that ultimately it's a fungus of some sort. Its physical appearance also strikingly resembles that of an apple undergoing◊ cedar-apple rust, which is caused by a plant pathogen. The shell, meanwhile, is likely based on earthenware containers and supplies Shuckle's Rock-type, as most other languages' names for Shuckle reference jars or pots of some kind, as are most of the more recent cards in the Trading Card Game. That said, "mold" is just the term that the English version used; はっこう, or "hakkou" can also mean "fermentation", which means it might not be associated with Shuckle's actual species at all.
  • It being primarily a Bug-type with its extremely sturdy shell, and how it makes and stores pleasant-tasting juices in their bodies, brings to mind (female) scale insects, with some species being able to secrete a sugar-rich substance known as honeydew.
  • It having a roughly similar body shape, living on or near beaches and other waterways, and again its durable shell used for protection bring to mind turtles and tortoises.
  • Lastly, early betas suggest that Shuckle's original design was intended to be a snake—the bug-typing seems to have been added on later in development, and it wasn't until all the way to Generation IV that Shuckle even learned any Bug moves. Notably, Frontier Brain Lucy, who uses exclusively snakelike or serpentine Pokémon, has a Shuckle on her team.
• Muscles Are Meaningless: Zig-Zagged. It can still learn moves that need super-strength (ex.: Rock Smash) despite being described as having weak and limp muscles. It still has the worst offensive stats in the game, though.
• Power Nullifier: Learns Gastro Acid, which can remove resistances/immunities and disrupt anything reliant on abilities to be effective.
• Shed Armor, Gain Speed: It is one of the few Pokémon that can learn Shell Smash, a move that sharply increases one's offenses and speed in exchange for lowering one's defenses. Unfortunately, Shuckle is so slow and weak that even with a Shell Smash boost it isn't likely to outspeed or damage anything. However, if Shuckle has the ability Contrary, Shell Smash would instead lower its already terrible offenses and speed in exchange for increasing its defenses, which is usually more useful.
• Status Buff:
  • Its Hidden Ability is Contrary, which causes it to reverse any stat boosts or drops applied to it.
  • Shuckle naturally learns Shell Smash and Withdraw, while it can be bred to learn Acupressure.
  • Notably, there was a Shuckle in the Battle Tree in Pokémon Sun and Moon that knew the move Stockpile. Shuckle can't learn this move normally, and the move was replaced with Double Team (which almost all Pokémon can learn from a TM) in the version 1.1 patch.
• Stone Wall: The definitive one in Pokémon. At 230/230 Defense and Special Defense, it has by far the highest defenses in the entire game; a small handful of Pokémon have comparable Defense, but pitiful Special Defense, and no obtainable Pokémon period surpasses it in either stat. However, it's in the bottom three for the lowest Attack and Special Attack in the game, so all it can do is use status moves like Toxic to wear down opponents while tanking hits to stall for time.
• Support Party Member:
  • With moves like Encore, Safeguard, Gastro Acid, Toxic, Sandstorm, and Sticky Web. Its lack of offensive prowess often tends to cement it into this role.
  • Double and Triple Battles give it the opportunity to use Guard Split on allies, almost always heavily boosting their Defenses by splitting them with Shuckle's own. It can be bred with Helping Hand as well, allowing it to be useful on the field even after doing this (though it'll be easy to knock out with its defenses crippled).
• Useless Useful Spell:
  • It can be bred to have Final Gambit. Yeah, a move that causes a Pokémon to knock itself out to deal damage equal to its HP is a great fit on a Pokémon with one of the lowest HP stats in the game.
  • Shuckle can learn Shell Smash, which is widely regarded as one of the best boosting moves of the game... except on Shuckle, as even Shell Smash can't turn it into a sweeper. However, it can be used to raise both of Shuckle's defenses if it has Contrary.

Heracross (Heracros)

0214: Heracross / Heracros (ヘラクロス herakurosu)

Heracross

^{Mega Heracross}

Mega Heracross debuts in X and Y

Heracross is based on a Kabutomushi, a species of rhinoceros beetle that is popular among the Japanese, who use them in beetle fighting competitions, so it's only natural that a Pokémon would be based on it. It also somehow manages to be obtainable in practically every handheld game since Gold and Silver. In X and Y, it gains a Mega Evolution. Mega Heracross gets the Skill Link ability, which effectively changes its whole playing style.

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• Arm Cannon: Mega Heracross has these◊, which it uses for attacks such as Pin Missile.
• Badass Pacifist: Though normally peaceful, it can put up quite a fight when in danger.
• Bare-Fisted Monk: As expected of a Fighting-type.
• Barely-Changed Dub Name: Its English name is just one extra 'S' off from it's original Japanese name.
• Big Creepy-Crawlies: Heracross is a very big rhinoceros beetle and it is part Bug-type.
• Cast from Hit Points: Giving it a Flame or Toxic Orb to activate Guts, which results in sacrificing some health each turn to boost the power of its Facade and Heracross's Attack in general, as well as rendering it immune to more troublesome status effects like Sleep and Paralysis.
• Determinator: Heracross' Guts ability boosts its Attack by 50% when it has a status condition. This ability also allows it to avoid receiving the Attack debuff it normally would if it gets burned.
• Disability Superpower: Its Guts Ability gives it a boost to its Attack if it's affected by Status Effects.
• Discard and Draw: Mega Heracross loses some speed and 2 great abilities in exchange for better defenses, an enormous Attack boost, and a more specialized ability that forces Heracross to play differently.
• Divergent Character Evolution: To Pinsir in their Mega Evolutions. While Mega Pinsir becomes a Lightning Bruiser, Mega Heracross is an even bigger Mighty Glacier.
• Enemy Mine: In most regions, Heracross and Pinsir see themselves as rivals to one other. In Alola, both of them are more friendly with one another due to having a shared rivalry with Vikavolt.
• Heroic RRoD: Mega Heracross's Ultra Moon dex entry states its muscles get sore after reverting to Heracross.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Thought you could cripple Heracross by burning it? If it has Guts, then all you're doing is letting it hit you harder.
• Horn Attack: Gets a few, notably the Trope Namer and its Secret Art Megahorn.
• Japanese Beetle Brothers:
  • A Kabutomushi, with Pinsir being the Kuwagatamushi. Interestingly, Heracross changes species of Rhinoceros beetle upon Mega Evolving, going from the more traditional Japanese kind to a Hercules beetle.
  • Defied in Pokémon GO, where Heracross can only be found in the Southern Americas region instead of Japan. However, this makes a lot more sense considering that its Mega form is based on the Hercules beetle, which is native to South America.
• Kill Streak: Its Hidden Ability is Moxie, which boosts its Attack for every opponent it knocks out.
• Mage Killer: Zig-zagged. They're weak to the Psychic type and don't have very good Speed or Special Defense, but — thanks to great Attack, STAB, Swarm, its Mega Evolution, and the low power of Ghost- and Dark-type moves — their Megahorn is the strongest ordinary move you can hit a Psychic-type with in every game except Generation V^note Escavalier also has access to Megahorn and better base Attack than Heracross, but the Mega Evolution Heracross gained in Generation VI has even higher Attack.
• Magically Inept Fighter: Heracross' high physical Attack is contrasted by its poor Special Attack, and its few special-based moves are only learned via TM or tutoring.
• Metal Slime: A rare encounter from Headbutting trees in Gold, Silver, and Crystal and HeartGold and SoulSilver and even rarer in Diamond, Pearl, and Platinum thanks to the Headbutt mechanic being replaced by Honey Trees. Averted in the other games it appears in, where it's a normal encounter.
• Mighty Glacier: Heracross boasts massive Attack with an arsenal of offensive Abilities, with its other stats (aside from Special Attack, which is poor and not really called upon anyway) being at least decent. It's not particularly fast, though, and had no way of boosting its Speed on its own until Gen IX gave it Trailblaze^note which still only raises its Speed by one stage, meaning it won't be outrunning Fragile Speedsters anytime soon. Its Mega Evolution takes this even further, slightly lowering its speed while improving its defenses and giving it a massive boost to Attack — making it second only to Mega Mewtwo X.
• Pint-Sized Powerhouse:
  • While Heracross's height is listed as 1.5m in the Pokédex, around half of that height is only encompassed by its horn, making it smaller than Pokémon of the same height. On the other hand, Heracross packs a high Attack stat, powerful physical moves, and three abilities that allow it to deal even more damage with those moves.
  • Mega Heracross is not as small as its base form, being 20cm taller, but it packs an exceptionally high Attack stat, the highest of any non-legendary Pokémon, and the second highest overall. Thanks to Skill Link, it also has access to stronger and more reliable moves than its base form.
• Recurring Element: Of Pinsir. Interestingly, Scyther's Johto equivalent was an evolution, Scizor, while Pinsir and Heracross aren't related.
• Retcon: The Bulk Up TM can be used on it in Pokémon Black 2 and White 2, but not the original Black and White games; a bit odd, considering it was compatible with Bulk Up back in Gen IV.
• The Rival: Alolan Heracross are constantly fighting with Vikavolt. In most other regions, they're rivals with Pinsir.
• Secondary Sexual Characteristics: When not Mega-Evolved, male Heracross have a Y-shaped tip on their horns while females have a heart-shaped tip. Real life female rhinoceros beetles don't have horns at all, but this wouldn't work for Heracross as their horns are their signature trait.
• Secret Art: Megahorn, although no longer exclusive as of Gen III. However, prior to Gen V, Heracross was still the only Bug-type that could learn it and thus the only Pokémon that could get STAB with it. Even in Gen V, it's the only Bug-type that learns the move naturally while leveling up, as the other Bug-types need to have it bred onto them as an egg move or require a visit to the Move Relearner.
• Spam Attack: Mega Heracross has the ability Skill Link, which can be used in conjunction with Bullet Seed, Pin Missile, Rock Blast, and Arm Thrust. Considering Mega Heracross' outrageously high Attack stat, these are going to do a lot of damage.
• Super Mode: Gained a Mega Evolution in X and Y, coming with insane Attack, improved defenses, and the Skill Link ability, which causes the aforementioned Spam Attacks to always hit five times.
• Super-Strength: These things are described as able to lift and throw 100 times their own weight, meaning on average they could lift 5400 kg of weight. Even if that's a stretch as the Pokédex entries are known to make, they are still seen in the Anime as capable of throwing a Donphan, which is 120 kg. Still impressive. This strength is a reference to the rhinoceros beetle, which is able to lift 850 times its own weight.
• Sweet Tooth: It has a fondness for tree sap.
• Technicolor Eyes: Yellow-black.
• Tough Beetles: Heracross is based on a Japanese rhinoceros beetle and boasts one of the highest Attacks of any Bug-type Pokémon, as well as solid defense stats. It's also a Fighting-type, and its sprite in Pokémon Diamond and Pearl shows it flexing its muscles. According to the Pokédex, Heracross can effortlessly lift things 100 times heavier than itself (500, if it is subjected to Mega Evolution).
• Turns Red: Its Swarm Ability boosts its Bug attacks when its health is low.
• Wrestler in All of Us: A Fighting-type based on a rhinoceros beetle.

Sneasel, Weavile, and Sneasler (Nyula, Manyula, and Ohnyula)

0215: Sneasel / Nyula (ニューラ nyuura)
0461: Weavile / Manyula (マニューラ manyuura)
0903: Sneasler / Ohnyula (オオニューラ oonyuura)

Sneasel

Weavile

Hisuian Sneasel

Sneasler

Weavile debuts in Diamond and Pearl, Hisuian Sneasel and Sneasler debut in Legends: Arceus

Another Pokémon based on a youkai, Sneasel and Weavile are kamaitachi, weasels that move like the wind and slice unsuspecting victims (explaining their Dark/Ice-typing), mixed with cat-like characteristics. They happen to be one of the fastest Pokémon around here, with Weavile being the fastest Ice-type Pokémon. In order for Sneasel to evolve into a Weavile, it must level up while holding a Razor Claw at night.

Sneasel in the Hisui region were Poison- and Fighting-types, with claws that dripped a very dangerous poison that they used to scale the cliffs. They also use the Razor Claw to evolve, but they do it during the day and become the more humanoid Sneasler.

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• Action Initiative: They can learn Ice Shard and Fake Out via breeding and Quick Attack by level-up.
• Adaptational Badass: With a subpar physical moveset, a Special Attack too low to make use of its special moveset, and overall not being very good, Sneasel was not a very impressive Pokémon in its debut generation. However, in the TCG, it was a wrecking machine. Sneasel's original card has Beat Up, which flips a coin for each of your Pokémon in play, including Sneasel itself, and does 20x damage for each heads, +20 damage for the two Darkness energy needed to pay to use it. With a full bench (which is very easy to get), Sneasel can deal up to 140 damage a turn, averaging 80 when allowing for the 50% chance of each coin flip. In tandem with Sneasel having no weaknesses, no retreat cost, and nothing resisted Dark-types yet, it ran amok for months. When Modified Format (which states which sets are legal for official play) was introduced, Sneasel was specifically singled out for banning because it was too strong.
• An Ice Person: The Johtonian line is part Ice-type and they naturally learn a variety of Ice-type moves such as Ice Shard.
• Badass Armfold: Since Gen VI, Sneasel's default pose has their arms folded in a devious fashion.
• Balance Buff: In its debut generation, Sneasel isn't an impressive Pokémon, as Ice-type and Dark-type attacks are all classified as Special moves and its Special Attack is abysmal (and it learns no Ice-type attacks naturally until Gen III anyway). Generation IV is where it truly starts to shine, as it not only introduces its evolution, Weavile, but they can now take advantage of its STAB thanks to the physical/special split.
• Bare-Fisted Monk: The line can learn several Fighting-type moves like Brick Break and Low Kick. The Hisuian line takes it further by being part-Fighting-type.
• Boss Battle: The line is Cyrus' strongest Mon in Platinum. Doubles as Recurring Boss and Climax Boss. The Recurring Boss part overlaps with Zinzolin from Black and White 2, who is fought a total of four times and has a Weavile as his strongest Mon.
• Cartoon Creature: As their English name emphasizes, they are based on kamaitachi, a weasel youkai, though they also resemble cats, with their Japanese names even being puns on cat sounds similar to Meowth/Nyarth.
• Cats Are Mean: They're also based on cats and are Dark-types and they’re repeatedly stated by their Pokédex entries to be quite vicious. And while their Hisuian counterparts are stated to be less spiteful, they're still aggressive in the wild and will always attack the player on sight.
• Combat Pragmatist: Dark-types known for playing really dirty; their signature move Beat Up calls upon their trainer's whole party to gang up on their opponent, and Weavile are known to hunt in packs.
• Cute Little Fangs: Both Sneasel, Weavile, and Sneasler all have short little fangs, though Johtonian Sneasel's are less prominent and aren't visible in the games.
• Cute Monster Girl: While their gender ratio is equal, Sneasler looks much more humanoid and feminine than Weavile. Additionally the Noble Sneasler in Legends: Arceus is explictly referred to as female.
• Dark Is Not Evil: As per usual, their Dark-typing is centered around their pragmatism and stealthiness, and they're not actually bad Pokémon at heart. The Hisui dex notes that Johtonian Sneasel have more spiteful personalities than their Hisuian counterparts, however.
• Dreamworks Face: Just look at Weavile's smug expression in its official art.
• Evil Egg Eater: Sneasel is stated to feed on the eggs of bird Pokémon such as Pidgey. It is also a Dark-type, which is associated with cruelty and underhandedness.
• Fragile Speedster: Both are very fast (Sneasler being only slightly slower than Weavile) and can outpace most weakened foes to take them out before they can be taken out themselves, but can't take many hits.
• Glass Cannon: Sneasel, Weavile, and Sneasler are all extremely agile and can dish out heavy damage, that are additionally helped by their great offensive typings, but they are awful at taking hits.
• Good Counterpart: Hisuian Sneasel lack the spitefulness of their Johtonian counterparts, reflected in-game by it having a more cheerful disposition.
• Good Eyes, Evil Eyes: To reflect its spiteful nature and Dark typing, Johtonian Sneasel have sharp, angular eyes, while the part Fighting-type Hisuian Sneasel in contrast have wider and rounder eyes.
• Impromptu Tracheotomy: In Gens 7 and 8, Johtonian Sneasel can learn Throat Chop as an Egg Move, a powerful Dark-type attack that prevents the opponent from using sound-based attacks, while it and Weavile can learn it in Gen 8 by a TR. Gen 9, however, removed it from Sneasel's list of Egg Moves and removed the TR for it, making them no longer able to learn it.
• Irony: The Hisuian line is doubly-weak against Psychic-type moves, to which the (chronologically) original Johtonian line is immune. On the other hand, the Hisuian line resists the Fighting-type moves that are the bane of the Johtonian line.
• Kamaitachi: Based on the kamaitachi, weasel youkai that personified the bitterness of cold wind (hence the Ice-typing) by slashing people with their claws and healing the wounds so that no trace but pain was left, all in the blink of an eye (hence the high Speed and Dark-typing, as attacking someone stealthily is not fair fighting).
• Kryptonite Is Everywhere: The Johtonian line has 6 weaknesses, including a double weakness to Fighting.
• Late Character Syndrome: Poor Sneasel often finds itself confined to late or even post-game areas, such as Mt. Silver, the Giant Chasm, Mount Lanakila, etc. A player who wants to use Sneasel or Weavile in the main story, without just simply trading one from another game, often faces an uphill battle in getting them to catch up to the rest of their party. Was finally averted in Sword and Shield, where Sneasel can be obtained early on via the wild areas and Johtonian Sneasel can also be obtained fairly early in Legends: Arceus via space-time distortions, though Hisuian Sneasel are obtainable quite a bit later.
• Lost in Translation:
  • Their Japanese names, Nyula, Manyula, and Ohnyula, makes it more clear that they're meant to be cat Pokémon, as nya/nyu is often used in Japan to denote the sound cats make. However as Gen 2's localization was finished early and Sneasel was one of the last finalized Pokémon, with its design having gone through several revisions in the many betas, its localized name likely came from one of its beta designs where it more clearly resembled a weasel instead of the cat-like appearance it would take with its final design. This has left some of western audiences, who took their localized name at face value, to be confused when they saw Sneasel/Weavile/Sneasler being grouped with cat Pokémon in official merchandise such as this and when they behaved like cats in the games and other media. Given its kamaitachi inspiration however, the weasel attributes are not entirely English-exclusive.
  • This gets further confusing for French speakers, as Sneasel's name was localized as "Farfuret" in French, even though it's quite clearly not a ferret and the name doesn't reflect its cat-like design nor kamaitachi origin.
• Magically Inept Fighter: Sneasel, Weavile, and Sneasler all boast impressive physical attack power, but their Special Attack is just downright awful. Sneasler is the most extreme of the lot, boasting the highest base Attack stat of the three with 130, but having an even lower base Special Attack stat than Weavile with 40.
• Meaningful Name: Their names contain syllables for the words "sneaky" and "evil/vile", respectively.
• Noblewoman's Laugh: The Noble Sneasler does one when you first play the Celestica Flute for her, or at least, she does the limp-wrist to the chin pose while laughing. It additionally serves as Sneasler's happy animation.
• Nocturnal Mooks: Johtonian Sneasel often only appear at night in addition to them only being able to evolve at night. Averted with Hisuian Sneasel, who appear at all times and additionally can only be evolved during the day.
• Pint-Sized Powerhouse: Sneasel and Weavile are small but pack quite the wallop regardless and Weavile's Sword Dex entry mentions that while working together, they can bring down prey as large as Mamoswine.
• Poisonous Person: They can learn Poison Jab through TMs, which is handy for dealing with Fairy-types. Additionally, Hisuian Sneasel and Sneasler are part Poison-Type and the latter gets Poison Touch as its Hidden Ability, which lets them have a 30% chance to poison their opponents with any contact move.
• Poor, Predictable Rock: Hisuian Sneasel and Sneasler played with this trope. Aside from certain Dark and Ice-type moves, they share the same varied moveset as their Johtonian cousins. The problem is thanks to Legends: Arceus greatly thinning out the movepool in general, they only get four STAB moves (and this counts both level up and move tutors). However, they are still powerful despite that and upon being introduced to a standard Pokémon game in Scarlet and Violet, they get access to plenty of other Fighting and Poison moves.
• Power of the Sun: Hisuian Sneasel evolve to Sneasler by using a Razor Claw during the day.
• Power-Up Letdown: Both Johtonian and Hisuian Sneasel as well as Weavile's Hidden Ability, Pickpocket, lets them steal their enemy's held items if the enemy makes contact; too bad this forces them to go into battle with no item of their own and nearly any contact move will just KO it (which also stops Pickpocket from working) thanks to how frail they are. Sneasler averts this by getting Poison Touch as its Hidden Ability instead, which lets it have a 30% chance to poison opponents when it makes contact, which synchronizes much better for their Glass Cannon design.
• Power Up Mount: In Pokémon Legends: Arceus, Sneasler is used to scale mountain walls and cliffs that can't be climbed otherwise.
• Psycho Pink: Shiny Johtonian Sneasel and Weavile are a fabulous pink color, but they're still just as vicious as their standard variations.
• Scissors Cuts Rock: Sneasel and Weavile in Alola hunt the Ice/Steel Alolan Sandshrew, who have a typing they're weak to. Sneasel often break their claws trying to get past their icy hides, but Weavile are smart enough to flip them over instead. Meta-wise, they can also be taught Psycho Cut, a physical Psychic-type move that can allow them to beat Fighting types that normally crush them.
• Secondary Sexual Characteristics:
  • Both Johtonian and Hisuian female Sneasel have a smaller ear feather than the males, and female Weavile also have smaller ear feathers.
  • Averted with Sneasler however, where the ear feather is the same length for both males and females, with no other differences.
• Secret Art: Sneasler is the only Pokémon that can learn Dire Claw, a physical Poison-type move with a drastic 50% chance to inflict Poison, Paralysis, or Drowsy (or Sleep in standard Pokémon games) to their target, all of them split to ~16.66% chance each.
• Signature Move: The line is unusually associated with Beat Up, a move in which Sneasel calls upon its teammates to beat the crap out of an opponent at once. Up until Gen 4, Sneasel was the only Pokémon who could learn the move by level up.
• Sugar-and-Ice Personality: Pokémon-Amie/Refresh already inflicts this onto a lot of supposedly menacing Pokémon. Sneasel, however, just comes off as downright adorable in its failure to stay mean.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Sneasel's Pokédex entries will often remark on how it loves to eat Pokémon eggs, particularly Pidgey eggs. Weavile in Alola are stated to mainly eat Vulpix and Sandshrew.
• Useless Useful Spell:
  • In earlier generations, Sneasel's Inner Focus isn't very useful on a Pokémon that's extremely fast and thus more likely to avoid flinching by just going first most of the time (though it at least prevents usually unavoidable headstarts caused by Fake Out). Gen 8, however, makes the ability now block the ever-common Intimidate, which turned it into a pretty decent ability to have for a pure physical attacking Glass Cannon.
  • Weavile is much too frail to make the best use of its standard ability Pressure, which doubles its enemies' usage of PP. It and Sneasel's Hidden Ability, Pickpocket, is even worse, as it's an ability that only works if they take a hit and thus is almost completely unviable for such a frail Pokémon^note "almost" because it is possible to take advantage of it with a Focus Sash, which gets used up before Pickpocket activates and allows them to steal the opponent's item guaranteed.
  • Sneasler also unfortunately gets Pressure as its standard ability, despite being as frail as Weavile. However unlike Weavile, it does get a second ability in the very useful Unburden (which makes it even faster after using up an item) and also gets a much more useful Hidden Ability in Poison Touch, which allows it to have a 30% chance to poison opponents with any move that it makes contact with.
  • Before Generation IV introduced the physical-special split, Sneasel couldn't make any decent use of its STAB moves, since they were all special and Sneasel's Special Attack stat is very poor.
• Underground Monkey: Hisuian Sneasel are Poison/Fighting-type and resemble a Palette Swap of Johtonian Sneasel with shades of purple instead.
• Universal Poison: Averted with Sneasler's Dire Claw, which uses a venom that can inflict Drowsy (or Sleep in standard Pokémon games) or Paralysis in addition to Poison.
• Video Game Stealing: Can have the Pickpocket ability, which allows them to steal an item when the opponent makes contact with them.
• When All You Have Is a Hammer…: Played With. While this applies to a lot of Pokémon in Legends: Arceus, it's very noticeable with these guys. The Hisuian line only gets four STAB moves in total while the Johtonian line have twice that. However, they make up for it by having a lot of coverage moves.
• When She Smiles: Johtonian Sneasel and Weavile usually produce a devious smirk at best. Treating them right in Pokémon-Amie, however, can produce some endearing smiles. Sneasel even makes a sheepish giggle.
• Wicked Weasel: The dex entries list them as exceptionally devious and vicious Pokémon. Naturally, the anime regularly depicts them as antagonist Pokémon (though not consistently).
• Wolverine Claws: They use these for moves like Slash. Sneasler's are even longer, closely resembling the claw wielded by Vega.
• Youkai: The whole line are based on kamaitachi, but Sneasler also draws inspiration from the Ōnyūdō, which often took the form of a monk and caused anyone who saw it to grow ill, explaining its humanoid shape and typing.

Teddiursa, Ursaring, and Ursaluna (Himeguma, Ringuma, and Gachiguma)

0216: Teddiursa / Himeguma (ヒメグマ himeguma)
0217: Ursaring / Ringuma (リングマ ringuma)
0902: Ursaluna / Gachiguma (ガチグマ gachiguma)

Teddiursa

Ursaring

Ursaluna

^{Bloodmoon Ursaluna}

Ursaluna debuted in Legends: Arceus

Bloodmoon Ursaluna debuted in Scarlet/Violet: The Teal Mask

Teddiursa is an adorable bear cub that's often depicted as sucking on one of its paws. Naturally, it evolves into a terrifying adult bear with the appropriate muscle and brute force. Both of its normal abilities are activated when it receives a status effect, either raising its attack with Guts or raising its speed with Quick Feet. Either way, you're in big trouble when that happens. Strangely enough, it is a version exclusive, but which version depended on the language. It's in the Silver version in the Japanese games, but Gold in the North American releases. In stays in SoulSilver for the remake.

If an Ursaring can find peat blocks, during the full moon they can evolve into Ursaluna, a fully quadrupedal Pokémon capable of deftly manipulating the peat around it. The first Scarlet and Violet DLC introduces Bloodmoon Ursaluna, a unique variant that transformed due to Kitakami's environment with a more special-based moveset and stats.

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• Astonishingly Appropriate Appearance: Ursaluna evolves from Ursaring when exposed to peat blocks during a full moon. Not only does it have a marking on its head resembling a full moon, but it has dirt on its head that makes it resemble a cloudy full moon.
• Bears Are Bad News: Ursaring is a big, fierce, scary, angry bear with an Attack stat of 130. Ursaluna, despite being based off of a hibernating bear, is even worse, as its defenses are bolstered greatly upon evolution, in addition to a slight boost to its Attack.
• Boss Battle: Teddiursa is the ace Pokémon of Katy, Paldea's Bug-type Gym Leader located in Cortondo; she uses Terastal to make it fit her type specialty. It evolves into Ursaring for rematches.
• Cub Cues Protective Parent: Most Pokémon media tends to paint Ursaring as violently protective of its cubs. In Legends: Arceus, getting spotted by a wild Teddiursa will make any nearby alpha Ursaring come over to protect it.
• Disability Superpower: Both its Guts and Quick Feet abilities work this way, boosting one stat if it's afflicted by Status Effects. What's more, this line has access to Facade, which doubles its power from 70 to 140 when it has a status ailment, not to mention they gain STAB from it.
• Dishing Out Dirt: Ursaluna becomes part Ground-type and can manipulate peat at will.
• Early Installment Character-Design Difference: The Generation 2 games (aside from Pokémon Stadium 2) depict Teddiursa having a much smaller head. Additionally, up until Pokémon Heart Gold and Soul Silver, the handheld games depict Teddiursa's fur color as being brown just like Ursaring rather than orange.
• Expy: Bloodmoon Ursaluna is a dead ringer for Akakabuto ("Red Helmet") from Ginga: Nagareboshi Gin, a giant man-eating bear with one eye and a vivid red mane.
• Fire, Ice, Lightning: The line can learn all 3 elemental punches through Move Tutors.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation: Despite its love of honey being such a defining part of Teddiursa, that it appears in almost every one of its Pokédex entries, it is not listed among its preferred foods in Legends: Arceus. Granted, this could because the honey made in-game is not the same honey that Teddiursa make by blending together pollen and fruits and then soaking its paws in it so that it can absorb the honey's flavor, hence why it's always licking its paws.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Attempting to weaken a Guts Ursaring by burning it is just gonna get you pummeled harder. Similarly, trying to slow down a Quick Feet Ursaring with paralysis just makes that sluggish bear not so sluggish anymore.
• Inconsistent Coloring: Teddiursa's fur is usually orange, but sometimes it's light brown.
• Item Caddy: Teddiursa, who can have the Pickup Ability that has them pick up random items and additionally gets Honey Gather as a Hidden Ability. Ursaluna serves this role in Legends: Arceus, serving as a rideable Item Finder much like Stoutland in Sun and Moon.
• Irony: Teddiursa's Pokédex entires go on and on about how much it loves honey but it's not listed as one of the Pokémon that is attracted by Sweet Honey and Honey Cakes in Pokémon Legends: Arceus.
• Living Relic: Bloodmoon Ursaluna is unique for being from a bygone age when Hisui was still called Hisui.
• Long-Lived: The Bloodmoon Ursaluna found in Kitakami has been alive since the days when Sinnoh was called Hisui, making him possibly centuries old.
• Loophole Abuse: Blood Moon cannot be selected twice in a row, but Instruct, Sleep Talk, and Encore (first turn only) allow Ursaluna to use Blood Moon twice as he technically never selects the move.
• Lunacy:
  • Ursaring evolves into Ursaluna by using Peat Blocks during a full moon in Legends: Arceus. Fittingly enough, its head has markings resembling that of a cloudy full moon.
  • Bloodmoon Ursaluna gets the moon-based attacks Moonlight and Moonblast and the Secret Art Blood Moon.
• Magically Inept Fighter:
  • Ursaluna has very high Attack but a poor base 45 Special Attack. Its pre-evolution Ursaring is a bit better with a base of 75, though it still very much leans toward attacking physically.
  • Inverted with Bloodmoon Ursaluna, who has very high Special Attack but below average Attack.
• Meaningful Name: Their names in both English and Japanese combine a word for bear (Latin ursa and kuma) with a descriptor, with Teddiursa/Himeguma being a teddie/small (hime) bear, Ursaring/Ringuma being a bear with a ring pattern on it, and Ursaluna/Gachiguma being a moon (luna)/round moon (gachirin) themed bear.
• Melancholy Moon: Ursaluna is heavily associated with the moon, between its evolution method and the marking on its head, and its default expression is a tired, melancholic one.
• Metal Slime: Teddiursa is this in the Generation II games, being one of the few Pokémon capable of fleeing. This is especially true in Crystal's Dark Cave where, in exchange for being available before the first gym, it has a low appearance rate and can only be caught in the morning. In Legends: Arceus, it tends to flee when Ursaring is not around.
• Mighty Glacier: Ursaring pretty much hits and moves like a bulldozer^note among Normal-types, its Attack is only beaten by Regigigas, Slaking, Mega Lopunny, and its own evolution Ursaluna. Guts takes this even further, allowing an even brawnier Ursaring to decimate just about anything with its combination of STAB Facade, Close Combat, and Crunch/Play Rough. Ursaluna takes it even further, losing a negligible amount of Speed to gain a small boost in power and a big boost in physical bulk. Bloodmoon Ursaluna has the opposite offensive bonuses to regular Ursaluna, being a special attacker with great physical bulk.
• Misplaced Wildlife:
  • Ursaring's Pokédex entries state it's found in forests, yet it wasn't until Diamond & Pearl that it could be found anywhere near some trees.
  • Exaggerated with Bloodmoon Ursaluna. He literally floated into Kitakami.
• Mutant: All but stated to be the case with Bloodmoon Ursaluna - there are no other specimens known to exist, and it is believed he developed his abilities as a result of his environment.
• Non-Elemental: They're Normal-types based on bears.
• Non-Malicious Monster: Despite Bloodmoon Ursaluna's terrifying appearance, he is non-hostile, only attacking when Perrin's camera flash startles him.
• No-Sell:
  • While Abilities are almost not a thing in Legends: Arceus^note Regigigas’s Slow Start (and arguably Arceus as well, if you consider Arceus changing its type using the various plates you have in your bag, to be equivalent to its Multitype ability from the standard games) being the sole exception, Ursaluna is programmed to get Bulletproof in place of Quick Feet upon transfer, which makes it immune to ball and bomb moves.
  • Defied with Bloodmoon Ursaluna's attacks, since he can hit ghost types just fine.
• One-Gender Race: Bloodmoon Ursaluna is always male as there is only meant to be a single individual.
• Optional Boss: Bloodmoon Ursaluna is fought as part of a sidequest after you catch 150 Pokémon in the Kitakami Pokédex and go to Perrin.
• Oral Fixation: Teddiursa concocts its very own honey by blending together pollen and fruits, which it then soaks its paws in. The paws absorb the flavor of this honey when doing so, which is why it's always licking its paws. Apparently, every set of Teddiursa paws tastes unique.
• Power-Up Letdown: After the two awesome abilities Ursaring gets normally, what kind of Hidden Ability could possibly top it? It's Unnerve... which just prevents the opponent from eating their own held berries. Similarly, Teddiursa gets Honey Gather, a significantly worse version of Pickup that can only find one item with shoddy utility: its only use is to initiate a wild battle, which Teddiursa can already do by knowing Sweet Scent (barring Generation VII where out of battle moves are disabled). It also misses out on Pickup's battle effect of retrieving held items used by opponents, having instead no in-battle effect.
• Power-Up Mount: The rideable Ursaluna in Legends: Arceus can be used to find hidden items.
• Recurring Element: Starts the trend of adorable bear cub Pokémon that evolves into a scary-looking adult bear Pokémon.
• Ridiculously Cute Critter: Teddiursa, as the mix of a bear cub and a teddy bear would be expected to be.
• Secret Art:
  • In Legends: Arceus Ursaluna is one of only two Pokémon (the other being Torterra) that learns Headlong Rush, a Ground-type move that rips up the earth to do damage but lowers both Defenses by one stage upon connecting. Generation IX reduces its uniqueness by giving it to Hariyama and Great Tusk as well.
  • Bloodmoon Ursaluna has the unique move Blood Moon, a special-based Normal-type attack that inflicts massive damage but cannot be selected twice in a row.
  • Bloodmoon Ursaluna has the unique ability Mind's Eye, which works as a combination of Keen Eye and Scrappy respectively by both preventing evasion debuffs and ignoring evasion changes in the opponent, and allowing Normal and Fighting-type moves to hit Ghost-type Pokémon.
• Shown Their Work:
  • Ursaluna seems to be based on the Ussuri brown bear, a subspecies of brown bear native to Hokkaido. Not only is the Ussuri brown bear revered by the native indigenous Ainu people, who relate it to Kim-un-kamuy (the god of bears and mountains), but the species lives inside burrows dug out from hillsides, explaining both Ursaluna's Ground type and its mountain-like body shape.
  • Bloodmoon Ursaluna's presence in Kitakami also references the rare instances of brown bears from Hokkaido swimming away to a different area.
• Single Specimen Species: Heavily implied to be the case with Bloodmoon Ursaluna. You can only catch one, and his pre-evolutions aren't even in Kitakami. The Bloodmoon form is treated as basically an odd mutation with only one known example.
• Status Effects: Ursaring's two non-Hidden abilities increase one of its stats if afflicted with one of these; Quick Feet increases Speed and Guts increases Attack.
• Stock Animal Diet: Honey is noted as Teddiursa and Ursaring's Trademark Favorite Food, to the point the former is noted to either make its own or steal it from hives. Ursaluna seems to lose this trait as it prefers to dig for food. Despite this, however, Teddiursa's not one of the Pokémon that is attracted by Sweet Honey or Honey Cakes in Pokémon Legends: Arceus.
• Stout Strength: Ursaring and Ursaluna, as one might expect of bears, are both fairly fat (with much of Ursaluna's body being a large, presumably fatty hump) and incredibly strong, with Attack as their best stat.
• Superboss: Bloodmoon Ursaluna is an optional boss in Scarlet/Violet: The Teal Mask, and so powerful it can give a team of level 100 Pokemon difficulty and can be encountered as early as level 20. It is a unique Pokemon, likely the only one of its kind, and Famed In-Story as 'the Bloodmoon Beast.'
• Weak Against Magic: Bloodmoon Ursaluna has high physical Defense but very poor Special Defense.

Slugma and Magcargo (Magmag and Magcargot)

0218: Slugma / Magmag (マグマッグ magumaggu)
0219: Magcargo / Magcargot (マグカルゴ magukarugo)

Slugma

Magcargo

Slugma and Magcargo are gastropods that are found nowhere near any sources of water. This is due to them being made of boiling lava. Slugma must constantly be on the move because if it stops, then its body would cool down and harden. Magcargo gains a brittle shell of hardened lava that somehow grants it a high defense stat. Not that it makes too much of a difference, since it's exceedingly weak to Ground or Water attacks.

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• Armored But Frail: Magcargo has great 120 defense and decent 90 special defense, but its HP is only 60. To make matters worse, it's got a myriad of weaknesses, two of which being whopping x4 damage from the very common Water and Ground moves.
• Artistic License – Physics: Magcargo's Pokédex entry claims that its internal temperature can reach up to 18,000 degrees Fahrenheit. It's a good thing Pokémon is a fantasy game, because if a Magcargo were real and actually had such a temperature, it would quickly melt through the ground like a nuclear reactor in full meltdown all the way to the water table, where it would then explode. (Due to how convection works, however, you could stand as little as 100 feet away and still be fine.)
• Balance Buff: In Generation VII, Magcargo gained a small buff in its base HP and Special Attack stats.
• Convection, Schmonvection: Magcargo's Pokédex entry states its body temperature is 18,000°F^note For reference, the surface of the sun is only 9,980°F, which should cause everything in the vicinity to burn. Nothing does, though you can't pet its body in Pokémon-Amie/Refresh.
• Developer's Foresight: Did you really think you'd be able to pet a lava slug in Pokémon-Amie?
• Dishing Out Dirt: Upon evolution, Magcargo is part Rock-type due to forming a stony shell.
• Early Installment Character-Design Difference: In Slugma's Gen II sprites, its eyes were positioned on the flame-like extensions on its head, to resemble a slug's eye stalks. In following generations, the eyes were moved down to the head proper.
• Gameplay and Story Integration: Magcargo's shell is made from cooled lava and is very fragile, as a single tap can shatter it. Its Hidden Ability is Weak Armor, which lowers Defense but increases Speed upon receiving contact.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation: A very unfortunate case that makes you question whether or not the creators were having fun with it, but Magcargo's Pokédex entries say its body is so hot that water evaporates on contact. Not only is Magcargo is not immune to Water attacks in battle, it takes quadruple (4x) Damage from them.
• Glass Cannon: Upon using Shell Smash, its offensive stats and Speed rise twice while its defenses drop. Magcargo gained the ability Weak Armor in the same Generation, which facilitates this play style even further.^note When struck by a physical move, its physical Defense drops but it gets a Speed boost.
• Heal Thyself: Learns Recover naturally, which restores up to 50% of their maximum HP.
• Informed Attribute: According to the Pokédex, Magcargo is so hot that water is vaporized on contact with it. A double weakness to water attacks says otherwise.
• Kill It with Water: Magcargo has a double weakness to Water-type moves, due to its Fire/Rock typing.
• Kryptonite Is Everywhere: Unfortunately for them, its four weaknesses — Water, Fighting, Ground, and Rock — are among the most common attacking types in the franchise. The fact that it has double weaknesses to Water and Ground makes it an even more unattractive choice.
• Late Character Syndrome: One of the few new Fire types in Generation II, and it can't be found until the player has access to Kanto. Averted in the remakes, where Primo could give out a Slugma egg as early as Violet City. Though, getting the egg requires inputting a secret code that depends on your Trainer ID.
• Lava Magic Is Fire: Slugma, a Pokémon resembling a slug made entirely out of magma, is a pure Fire-type. Magcargo is Fire/Rock, but that's because it develops a shell of solidified stone.
• Living Lava: They are made of magma. This means they're very difficult to pet in Pokémon-Amie, and fittingly have the ability Magma Armor, which prevents them from getting frozen.
• Mighty Glacier: Very high physical Defense and fair special stats. Speed, not really.
• Misplaced Wildlife: More in terms of elemental placement. There's not a dedicated Fire area in Kanto where their placement could make sense in the Generation II games (the Pokémon Mansion was destroyed in the offscreen volcano eruption). So instead, they inhabit the routes that contain the Cycling Road. Averted in later games, where they live in volcanic areas like the Fiery Path or Stark Mountain.
• Mundane Utility:
  • Although it's fairly rare, it is one of the best ways to hatch eggs quickly, as both of the line's abilities, Flame Body and Magma Armor, have the added benefit of halving the steps needed to hatch eggs.
  • In some media, Slugma can be placed inside furnaces as a sort of living fire source to heat a house or provide power for vehicles.
• Playing with Fire: They're Fire-types made of lava. Slugma is a slug, while Magcargo is a snail.
• Retcon:
  • Magcargo has always been red in its official art, but was colored mauve similarly to their current-day shiny form in Gold and Silver. This was corrected in Crystal, along with a few errors in the design of their shell.
  • In Gold and Silver and Crystal, their bodies are blue when Shiny. From Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire onward, their Shiny coloration is mauve/purple.
• Similar Squad:
  • In Emerald, Omega Ruby, and Alpha Sapphire, this is The Rival's answer to the Torchic line if they don't have one. Interestingly, it is the only type-substitute from Emerald to replace its counterpart (Numel) from Ruby and Sapphire in their remakes.
  • For some reason, in Emerald, May^note if she is The Rival; this does NOT apply to Brendan if he is the rival in her 2nd battle starts off with a Torkoal if she did not choose the Torchic line. In every battle afterwards, she replaces it with Slugma instead.
• Status Effects: Can throw burns around thanks to Flame Body, Lava Plume, Will-O-Wisp, its decent defenses, access to Recover, and the fact that it can throw around Stealth Rocks if it gets an extra turn in which to do so.

Swinub, Piloswine, and Mamoswine (Urimoo, Inomoo, and Mammoo)

0220: Swinub / Urimoo (ウリムー urimuu)
0221: Piloswine / Inomoo (イノムー inomuu)
0473: Mamoswine / Mammoo (マンムー manmuu)

Swinub

Piloswine

Mamoswine

Mamoswine debuts in Diamond and Pearl

Swinub is an Ice/Ground type that's based on a boar piglet. As it matures, it loses the stripes but gains tusks that it uses to ram its opponents and gore them. It was fairly unremarkable in Gens II and III, but in Diamond and Pearl, it gained an evolution in the form of Mamoswine. Its typing is a bit of a double-edged sword, since it can hit a lot of Pokémon with super-effective attacks while being weak to a number of them as well. Mighty Glacier is an extremely appropriate trope for this Pokémon.

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• Action Initiative: Swinub, and only Swinub, naturally learns Ice Shard. Piloswine and Mamoswine got the ability to learn it starting in BDSP as well but the Move Reminder is needed for them to get it due to the fact that they're programmed to learn it at level 15 (6 in LA) but Swinub doesn't evolve into Piloswine until level 33.
• Armored But Frail: Inverted. Mamoswine's Defenses range from okay to terrible, so it mainly relies on the bulk afforded to it by its base 110 HP stat.
• Black Bead Eyes: On the rare occasion that you get to see past Piloswine's bangs, you might be able to catch its tiny eyes for a split second.
• Boss Battle: Piloswine is Pryce's strongest Mon during the Johto games, making it the climax of the seventh Gym battle. It evolves into Mamoswine for subsequent rematches, including the World Tournament in Black 2 and White 2.
• Dishing Out Dirt: They're Ground-types based on boars and mammoths. The line learns a variety of powerful Rock- and Ground-type moves, including Stone Edge and Earthquake.
• Eyes Always Shut: Swinub's eyes are always closed.
• Eyes Out of Sight: Piloswine's eyes are almost always covered by its fur. They can sometimes be seen in the 3D games.
• Full-Boar Action: Piloswine and Mamoswine are both tough boar-like Pokémon.
• Human Popsicle: Several of Mamoswine's Pokédex entries talk about a specimen that was trapped in ice (or soil) for 10,000 years, before being thawed out in the modern day.
• An Ice Person: They're ice-type porcine that resemble woolly mammoths the more they evolve.
• Kevlard: Its Hidden Ability is Thick Fat, which cuts its weakness to Fire and gives it an Ice resistance.
• Kryptonite Is Everywhere: Due to their typing, they have the dubious honor of being weak to all the starter types (Grass, Fire, and Water), though at least they have the potential to have Thick Fat, which alleviates that somewhat.
• Magically Inept Fighter: Mamoswine has a great base 130 Attack, but a poor base 70 Special Attack.
• Magikarp Power: Swinub is about as powerful as you'd expect a piglet to be (it's the weakest Ice-type, considering base stat total), and while Piloswine is definitely an improvement, it doesn't start to shine until it becomes Mamoswine.
• Mammoths Mean Ice Age: Mamoswine is partially based on a mammoth, is said to have become less common after the ice age, and naturally is an Ice-Type.
• Messy Pig: They dig up their food, occasionally finding hot springs in the process.
• Mighty Glacier: Mamoswine has average speed but is very strong, though it can use Ice Shard to get the jump on unsuspecting opponents. Ice-type and Ground-type attacks also happen to be a fantastic offensive combination; for reference, it is the dual STAB combination that hits the single highest amount of types (used and unused) super-effectively with only Bug/Water and Bug/Ice resisting both types (of which it can still easily deal with using Rock-type moves, and the only thing stopping it from bulldozing over even more Pokémon is the lack of a natural Fairy-type attack, which a Fairy-type Tera Blast can still easily fix).
• Mix-and-Match Critters: Piloswine is half boar, half yak. Mamoswine is half boar, half woolly mammoth.
• No-Sell: Their typing makes them immune to both Sandstorm and Hail, which made them the only Pokémon without Magic Guard to be unaffected by the Acid Rain glitch, as no other Pokémon had the necessary typing in Generation IV. ^note The Amaura and Alolan Sandshrew lines are also immune to both weather conditions.
• The Nose Knows: Swinub is noted to have an acute sense of smell that it uses to find mushrooms and occasionally hot springs.
• Pokémon Speak: Swinub's cry sounds very similar to its English name.
• Power Up Mount: In Pokémon X and Y, Mamoswine is one of the Pokémon that you can ride. It's used to get through the dense snow in Kalos Route 17.
• Retcon: Piloswine became able to evolve into Mamoswine by leveling up while knowing Ancient Power, a move it could already learn in earlier generations, if only by Breeding or Move Tutor.
• Scissors Cuts Rock: Through a long chain breeding process,^note Aurorus-Lapras-Delibird-Swinub it can learn Freeze-Dry.
• Simple, yet Awesome: Mamoswine subverts its Mighty Glacier status by being able to learn Ice Shard, a priority physical Ice attack that hits hard coming off of its high physical attack, making it a dangerous threat to any opposing team, and especially Dragon-Types.
• Weak Against Magic: Mamoswine has a notably poor Special Defense stat.

Corsola and Cursola (Sunnygo and Sunigoon)

0222: Corsola / Sunnygo (サニーゴ saniigo)
0864: Cursola / Sunigoon (サニゴーン; sanigon)

Corsola

Galarian Corsola

Cursola

Cursola debuts in Sword and Shield, being exclusive to Shield.

A Pokémon based on stag coral. It's known to have great regenerative powers: unlike real coral, which takes decades to grow, Corsola's broken horns can regrow in a single night. However, they need clean water in order to do this; otherwise it gets sickly and dies. It appears to have a plucky nature (one of its abilities is Hustle), but it's mostly defensive according to its stats. Just beware of Grass attacks.

In the Galar region, a species of Corsola that lived around the region in ancient times were wiped out, either due to climate/environmental change caused by a meteorite. However the species still lived on by becoming a Ghost type, and the energy they gained from their new absorption powers enabled them to become capable of evolving into Cursola, a Pokémon capable of paralyzing anything that touches it.

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• Animal Jingoism: Corsola is the natural prey of the crown-of-thorns starfish Mareanie and Toxapex, whose real-life counterparts have a huge appetite for coral.
• Awesome, but Impractical: The best attack it has is a Hustle-boosted Head Smash. With a Choice Band held, Corsola can potentially OHKO Dragonite through Multiscale. Unfortunately, not only is Corsola not likely to survive long after taking the recoil from even one successful hit, the attack's accuracy is so terrible (even without taking Hustle into account), Corsola is most likely going to get knocked out while in the process of trying to get the attack to connect.
• Balance Buff: In Generation VII, Corsola's defenses and HP were buffed by ten points each, letting it fulfill its role as a Stone Wall better.
• Confusion Fu:
  • Corsola has a massive movepool. It has loads of good attacks (though it lacks the stats to make good use of them), it has lots of helpful Status Buffs, and it has several Healing Factor and Heal Thyself moves in Ingrain, Aqua Ring, Recover, Refresh, and its Regenerator and Natural Cure abilities.
  • Galarian Corsola and Cursola also apply, even keeping access to regular Corsola's Water and Rock-Type moves despite being Ghost type themselves. And thanks to Cursola's much improved offensive stats, it also gets to take advantage of its wide variety of attacks.
• Death-Activated Superpower: While Johtonian Corsola can't evolve, its Galarian form (which died out long ago and is now a Ghost-type) can, thanks to the energy absorption abilities it gained.
• Dishing Out Dirt: Johtonian Corsola are a Rock-type based off of coral.
• Ectoplasm: Cursola's body is stated to be made of ectoplasm. It formed from the spiritual energy it absorbed flowing out of its shell until its shell ended up floating in an ectoplasmic body.
• Foil: Sword and Shield sets it up as one to Farfetch'd. Both of them are very weak dual-typed Pokémon that gained a significantly stronger, single-typed Galarian form, with an evolution on top of that, and they're Version-Exclusive Content in different versions of the game. However, while Farfetch'd is a Glass Cannon that becomes a Mighty Glacier when it evolves, Corsola is a Stone Wall and evolves into the Squishy Wizard Cursola. Additionally, Farfetch'd's regional form turns it into a more burly Fighting-type, while Corsola's regional form has withered into a Ghost-type.
• Foreshadowing: The official website for Galarian Corsola mentions a meteor wiping out the original Corsola species in ancient times, heavily implying it's the same meteor that spawned Eternatus and The Darkest Day.
• From Bad to Worse: In Sun & Moon, wild Corsola try to get other Corsola to help. However, sometimes it accidentally gets the attention of a Mareanie, which eats Corsola. Mareanie's response is to attack its prey. Mitigated in that, at least usually, all that happens is the Corsola loses some of its horns (which grow back).
• Gemstone Assault: Corsola is notable in that it's one of the few Pokémon capable of learning Power Gem that lack any crystalline structure on their bodies. Coral itself is used in jewelry, so it there's some sense to Corsola learning the move.
• Green Thumb: Can learn Ingrain and Nature Power, moves that are normally exclusive to Grass-types. Considering its weakness, this is rather ironic. It does, however, make sense for a coral.
• Healing Factor:
  • Gained Regenerator as a Hidden Ability. It also had the Natural Cure ability before this.
  • It can use Ingrain and Aqua Ring to heal itself.
• Heal Thyself: Learns Recover and Refresh naturally, giving it the ability to heal without items.
• Impossibly Delicious Food: To its predators Mareanie and Toxapex.
  Mareanie's Moon Entry: The coral that grows on Corsola’s head is as good as a five-star banquet to this Pokémon.
• Life Drain: Galarian Corsola and Cursola can't learn Recover, but they do gain access to Strength Sap (previously unique to the Morelull line) to debuff enemies and heal themselves. In their lore, the energy Galarian Corsola absorbs is what enables it to evolve whereas normal Corsola can't.
• Magic Knight: In addition to its stellar Special Attack stat, Cursola also gets a surprisingly decent Attack stat, which can work well with its various physical moves.
• Making a Splash: Johtonian Corsola are part Water-type.
• Multiform Balance: Thanks to Eviolite and Corsola's Stone Wall stats, Galarian Corsola and Cursola are both useful team members in different roles. Cursola is a Mighty Glacier with a monstrous base 145 Special Attack, and a unique ability that punishes attackers with contact moves, but requires team support such as Trick Room to avoid having its lower physical defense exploited. Galarian Corsola, on the other hand, has base 100 stats in both defenses, which is boosted further by Eviolite, allowing it to function as an effective Stone Wall on all sorts of teams, though at the cost of dealing much less damage overall.
• Mundane Utility:
  • Corsola is valuable for breeding purposes, as it can learn many useful moves that can be passed down to other Pokémon of its Egg Groups, like Recover, Rock Blast, and Mirror Coat.
  • In-universe, there are some people who build their houses on top of Corsola colonies. How this is accomplished or how the Corsola feel about this isn't explained.
• Our Ghosts Are Different: Galarian Corsola is a pure Ghost-type that can curse anyone that touches it. Its Pokédex entry and the official website claim that they were once an ancient type of Corsola that died out, due to a meteor that changed the climate in ancient times. Becoming Ghost-type is treated as an adaptation they made so they could still live in their former habitat despite there no longer being a sea there. Further, this allowed them to evolve into Cursola, which is essentially a Corsola that burst out of its shell and is lifted by a strange spiritual energy created by it absorbing excessive life energy.
• Perpetual Frowner: Galarian Corsola and Cursola have a (usually) perpetually gloomy face, befitting their status as the ghosts of an earlier, now-extinct Galarian branch of Corsola.
• Perpetual Smiler: Johtonian Corsola is usually seen with an adorable smile on its face.
• Pink Means Feminine: Johtonian Corsola is decorated with pink branches, and three quarters of the time they'll be female.
• Ridiculously Cute Critter: Coral isn't considered cute (it's usually treated more as "scenery" than as an entity of sorts), but Corsola manages to be adorable due to being pink, having a cute face, and a really adorable cry.
• Secret Art: Cursola is the only Pokémon capable of getting the Perish Body Ability.
• Shown Their Work: Galarian Corsola's appearance references not just coral reefs dying out in real life, but a UK-grown genus of coral that is white even when healthy.
• Soul Power: Galarian Corsola and Cursola are pure Ghost-type, and happen to be the result of the local Corsola population getting decimated by climate change in ancient times. Becoming Ghost types enabled them to live on in places where the oceans had receded.
• Spam Attack: Can learn Rock Blast, Icicle Spear, and the very rare Spike Cannon.
• Squishy Wizard: Cursola has high Special Attack and Defense, but poor physical Defense.
• Status Buff: It can learn quite a few good ones. Amnesia, Barrier, Curse, Calm Mind, Iron Defense, and Rock Polish can easily be added to its moveset. Johtonian Corsola can also be bred to have Mist, which protects its stats from being lowered.
• Status Effects: Cursola's Perish Body ability gives a Doom status to both it and its attacker when the attacker makes contact with it.
• Stone Wall: Evidently, the intent behind Corsola. Unfortunately, even its Defense and Special Defense are slightly above average at best, and its other stats (including HP) are subpar. Its HP and both defenses were buffed in Gen VII, helping out in this regard. Galarian Corsola manages to be an even better stone wall thanks to trading its Water/Rock-typing for a more solid Ghost-typing and having slightly higher defensive stats. In contrast, its evolution, Cursola, while it does gain tremendous Special Defense bulk, its Defense becomes much lower than its base form's (as its ectoplasmic body has largely abandoned the shell it once had). The fact that Galarian Corsola can evolve means it can also make use of Eviolite, which can further increase its defenses..
• Taking You with Me:
  • Cursola's unique Ability, Perish Body, gives a Perish Song effect to any Pokémon that attacks it with a contact move, making both faint in three turns.
  • Both Johtonian and Galarian Corsola can get Destiny Bond as an Egg move, which faints both mons when either faints.
• Undeathly Pallor: Galarian Corsola and Cursola are pale white Ghost types, which is a reference to how coral reefs turn white from bleaching when they die, due to climate change or otherwise. In-game, Galarian Corsola is stated to be Ghost-type due to adaptations they made to survive their initial form's extinction.
• Underground Monkey: By sheer irony, the Corsola of the Galar region manage to persist in the region by going extinct and becoming Ghost-types. This change even allows these Corsola to evolve into a new Pokémon, Cursola.
• Version-Exclusive Content: In Generation VIII, Galarian Corsola and Cursola are exclusive to Pokémon Shield.
• Water Is Blue: Shiny regular Corsola have a bright blue coloration and happen to be partial Water-types.

Remoraid and Octillery (Teppouo and Okutank)

0223: Remoraid / Teppouo (テッポウオ teppouo)
0224: Octillery / Okutank (オクタン okutan)

Remoraid

Octillery

Remoraid and Octillery are Water-types that are well-known for being related by evolution despite being very dissimilar to one another. However, they're also well-known for shooting things. Remoraid is a remora that vaguely looks like a gun while Octillery is an octopus that vaguely looks like an artillery cannon. Remoraid is well-known for hanging around groups of Mantine, who allow them to stay by them and eat their scraps. It's more symbiotic than it sounds, because in return, Remoraid's presence allows the other's baby form, Mantyke, to evolve.

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• The Artifact: Octillery's Japanese name includes the word "tank", even though it resembles a cannon. The Spaceworld 1997 build of Pocket Monsters 2 shows that Octillery initially looked much more like a tank◊, with a hull and helmet-like armor protecting its turret.
• Beam Spam: Their key gimmick is that they focus on projectile and attacks with "beam" in them, and it learns all of the latter save for Solar Beam and signature moves. Take Octillery, for example — Gunk Shot, Bullet Seed, Rock Blast, Ice Beam, Signal Beam, Hydro Pump, Energy Ball...
• Bodyguarding a Badass: As a part of their symbiotic relationship, Remoraids will rush to the defense of their Mantine partner if it is ever attacked, even though Mantines are capable fighters on their own.
• Confusion Fu: Octillery has a surprisingly wide movepool. The only types it can't learn a damaging move for are Ghost, Dragon, Fighting, and Fairy as of Generation VI. Plus, it has the stats, physical and special, to leave a fair mark no matter what it's using against you.
• Critical Hit Class: Can use Focus Energy and wield a Scope Lens to ensure all of their attacks are critical hits, has the Sniper ability to boost the power of crits, and has Bullet Seed and Rock Blast to give you 2-5 chances to crit. If you just want to see "Critical hit!" on your screen as many times as possible, the Remoraid line has you covered.
• Funnel-Mouthed Cephalopod: Octillery is designed with a funnel-shaped mouth instead of a realistic octopus mouth, even with red coloring. Octillery also takes the shooting things out of its mouth part of this trope a step further by being designed after a tank, and as such it has a lot of shooting or beam-sort of moves in its movepool.
• Glass Cannon: Respectable Attack and Special Attack and a versatile moveset; pathetic Speed and below-average defenses.
• An Ice Person: While most Water-types get Ice-type attacks, Octillery and Remoraid are notable for learning Ice Beam and Aurora Beam naturally instead of just through TMs or Move Tutors.
• Luck-Based Mission: They get Moody as their hidden ability. If you're lucky, after a couple of turns, you'll get something that hits hard from either attack stat whilst either taking hits like a boss or just plain avoiding them.
• Magic Knight: Octillery's offensive stats are both equal and above-average.
• Making a Splash: Pure Water-types based on remora and octopi.
• Mythology Gag: Remoraid highly resembles the Gunfish enemy from Game Freak's earlier game Pulseman.
• Playing with Fire: One of the very few Water-type lines able to learn Flamethrower and Fire Blast.
• Psychic Powers: Both Remoraid and Octillery can learn Psybeam and Psychic.
• Red Baron: Remoraid are known as "the sniper of the seas".
• Required Party Member: For Mantyke to evolve, it needs to level up while a Remoraid is in the party.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: One unfortunate Octillery can find itself on the business end of a Discharge from a Stunfisk in New Pokémon Snap, in which case it responds by spraying its attacker with ink and fleeing as far as its tentacles can take it.
• Secret Art: Octazooka until Generation VIII, which was exclusive to Octillery via leveling up. It's worth noting that the Japanese name of the attack^note Okutank Cannon takes it a step further by actually being named after Octillery itself. The only Pokémon that share it are the Horsea line^note which has a similar mouth shape to Octillery by breeding and Grapploct^note a fellow octopus by Move Relearner.
• Viewers Are Geniuses: As opposed to the common "Pokémon evolves into bigger, adult version" style of evolution, Remoraid was based on a gun and Octillery on a cannon. Game Freak thought players would understand, but apparently this failed, because to this day there are message board posts asking why a fish evolves into an octopus. Their rarity in their debut generation (and unavailability in Crystal) does not help in the slightest. The connection becomes clearer when you realize that Remoraid is based on an Archerfish and that both Archerfish and Octopi use water jets. Additionally, both remoras and octopi are aquatic animals with suction pads.

Delibird

0225: Delibird (デリバード deribaado)

Delibird

An Ice/Flying-type that's a cross between a penguin and the popular Western depiction of Santa Claus as a jolly old fat man in a red and white suit who delivers presents to good boys and girls and coal to bad boys and girls. It's talented at delivering presents in its tail, which looks like the jolly old elf's bag. What it isn't talented in is battling. The only attack that it learns by leveling is Present, a move exclusive to it that does random amounts of damage or even heals the target. The only redeeming quality it might have is that it can have Hustle (an ability that boosts damage but lowers accuracy) and can be taught Aerial Ace (a move that never misses and gets a same type attack bonus), but that's only one pro it has against many cons. It's only found in Silver and its remake (Gold players get Gligar instead).

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• Adaptational Badass: While the game version is a joke, the one in the anime, used by Team Rocket's debt collector/talent scout, is rather strong, acting as a reliable enforcer. Although, outfighting Jessie and James isn't that hard. In addition, the Masked Man's Delibird in Pokémon Adventures is also very powerful, enough to where he uses only Delibird to catch Ho-Oh and succeeds!
• Bad Santa: In the anime and in the Pokémon Adventures manga the Santa Claus-esque Delibird is used by villains like the Team Rocket debt collector/talent scout and the Masked Man respectively.
• Bag of Holding: Its tail is actually a bag, which it's shown to store items like letters and Presents in.
• Clothing Appendage: That "sack" that it seemingly carries on its hip is actually its tail.
• Confusion Fu: Despite only learning Present from leveling up, Delibird has a surprisingly diverse movepool from Move Tutors, TMs, and Breeding, with offensive options such as Brick Break, Gunk Shot, and Seed Bomb as well as support options such as Rapid Spin and Spikes, letting Delibird potentially play a variety of roles. Unfortunately, Delibird's base stats are too poor to let it perform any of these roles particularly well.
• Critical Failure: Its signature move, Present, has a small chance to heal the target.
• Department of Redundancy Department: It has access to two abilities which both prevent it from being put to sleep (regular ability Vital Spirit and hidden ability Insomnia).
• Flying Flightless Bird: Even though it is essentially a penguin (a bird that can't fly), Delibird is able to learn Fly. Its overworld movement animation in Sword and Shield shows it can fly.
• Flying Postman: True to its name, Delibird delivers gifts in its bag-like tail. Occasionally it is employed by people for this task.
• Good Samaritan: Some versions of the Pokédex say it shares its food with travelers lost in the wilderness.
• Healing Shiv: Its Signature Move, Present, has a 20% chance to heal the target for 25% of their total HP instead of dealing damage.
• An Ice Person: An Ice-type based on a penguin.
• Joke Character: Its stats are horrible, it only learns two attacks by level-up (before generation 8, it only learned Present, which could randomly heal its target), two of its abilities do the exact same thing, and it can be bred to know Splash, which does nothing.
• Making a Splash:
  • Despite not being Water-type, this Pokémon is in the Water 1 Egg Group. Justified, as it is based on a penguin.
  • It can learn Rain Dance via TM and Water Pulse via Move Tutors.
• Master of None: Its stats are all relatively close together... and they all suck. It's also this trope in terms of moves: it learns a decent variety of attacks and support moves, but nothing that another Pokémon couldn't do better.
• Polar Penguins: It's an Ice/Flying type that resembles a rockhopper penguin, and in most games, it can be encountered in icy caves or on snowy routes.
• Power-Up Letdown: Its Hidden Ability is Insomnia, which prevents Sleep. Delibird already had the Vital Spirit ability, which does the exact same thing. Then again, since Delibird can't sleep, how could it dream of something better?
• Pseudo-Santa: Delibird's design is based on Santa Claus. It shares the same colour scheme as the holly jolly man himself, has a beard, and carries a sack like he does.
• Punny Name: Combination of delivery and bird. Also sounds like "delivered".
• Randomized Damage Attack: Present randomly has a Power of 40, 80, or 120 when used.
• Rummage Fail: Implied to happen when its attempts to use Present heals the target instead of damaging them.
• Scissors Cuts Rock: Can learn the Ice-type move Freeze-Dry through breeding, which deals super-effective damage to Water-types.
• Secret Art: Delibird and its Paradox counterpart Iron Bundle are the only Pokémon that learns Present via level-up.
• Signature Move: Present was the only move it learned by level-up until Sun and Moon.
• Spin to Deflect Stuff: Can be bred to have the move Rapid Spin, which removes certain effects from the user's side of the field like entry hazards when used. While it's immune to 3 of the entry hazards, it loses half of its health to the last one (Stealth Rock) when it switches in, so watch out! (Or just use a Pokémon that isn't a complete waste of space.)
• Taking You with Me: One of its Egg Moves is Destiny Bond, which will cause the opponent to faint if they knock out the user before they move again.
• Throw Down the Bomblet: Present is technically this, as the move is always depicted a dealing damage by exploding on contact and it's pulled out of Delibird's tail. At least, when it doesn't turn out to heal the opponent.
• Trap Master: Can be bred to know Spikes, an entry hazard that deals a set amount of damage to Pokémon that switch in.
• Wind from Beneath My Wings: Flying-type based off a penguin. Unlike real penguins, it can fly.

Mantyke and Mantine (Tamanta and Mantain)

0458: Mantyke / Tamanta (タマンタ tamanta)
0226: Mantine / Mantain (マンタイン mantain)

Mantyke

Mantine

Mantyke debuts in Diamond and Pearl

Mantine is a Pokémon based on a manta ray that uses its wing-like fins to leap out of the ocean. Its Special Defense stat is quite high, but its typing leaves it open to Electric-type moves, which undermines its ability as a special wall. It's also the heaviest Johto Pokémon and received a baby in Mantyke. It has a pattern of a smiling face on its back. It's exclusive to the Gold and HeartGold versions. In Pokémon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, Mantine appears as a ride Pokémon that allows you to surf between the islands of Alola.

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• Armored But Frail: Mantine was this trope until the generation VII games, with its massive 140 Special Defense protecting a mere 65 base HP. Since then, it's been an aversion, having a decently-sized pool of health to go with its strong Special Defense. Mantyke still plays the trope straight, however.
• Balance Buff: In Generation VII, Mantine's base HP was boosted by 20 points, and it gained the move Roost. This drastically helped with its role as a Stone Wall.
• Confusion Fu: A light example, but it learns some rather odd moves, including knowing Bullet Seed and Signal Beam naturally (though only through the Move Relearner, likely because it's Remoraid rather than Mantyke that can learn them), and being able to learn Seed Bomb and Gunk Shot via Move Tutor (again, because Remoraid can learn them).
• Divergent Character Evolution: Mantine started out as a counterpart to Skarmory, but slowly gained unique attributes, like a pre-evolution and an increased HP stat.
• Foil: To Skarmory. Both are rather rare and difficult to capture Flying-types, are Stone Walls that focus on different defensive stats, were version exclusives in generation II, and one treads the sea while the other remains terrestrial or airborne. Even their stats are inverted aside from their HP and Speed stats, at least until Generation VII; Mantine was given a 20-point HP boost, but Skarmory wasn't.
• Flying Seafood Special: Flying manta rays.
• Gameplay and Story Integration:
  • Unlike Slowpoke, who doesn't actually need a Shellder to evolve, Mantyke needs a Remoraid in the party to evolve into Mantine.
  • A number of moves that are in Mantine's movepool but not Mantyke's (via move relearner or move tutor) are part of Remoraid's movepool.
  • On a purely visual side of things, in games where Mantyke can evolve into Mantine with help from a Remoraid (so, from Gen IV onward), Mantine's sprite (and later model) no longer features a Remoraid attached to its fin, so it doesn't look like evolving Mantyke cloned the Remoraid that helped it.
• Gentle Giant: Both Mantyke and Mantine are rather friendly, and the latter is completely fine with schools of Remoraid following it about and snacking on their leftover meals. Mantyke is also the largest baby Pokémon.
• Healing Factor: Naturally learns Aqua Ring, and Water Absorb can count as this.
• Heal Thyself: Can learn Roost as of Generation VII.
• Informed Attribute: Mantyke's back pattern is supposed to vary depending on region, but it doesn't.
• Making a Splash: Water-types based on manta rays.
• Mellow Mantas: Several of Mantyke's Pokédex entries say it's friendly, likes to approach people on boats, and tourists love watching them swim near the surface. Its evolution Mantine has a symbiotic relationship with Remoraid, is described as "majestic" or "graceful" in many Pokédex entries, and are tame enough for people in Alola ride them between islands as a sport.
• Power Up Mount: In Pokémon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, Mantine can be used to surf between the islands of Alola and can even be used to do all kinds of tricks in a surfing mini-game.
• Ridiculously Cute Critter: Mantyke. It's even got a smiley face pattern on its back.
• Stone Wall: Mantine has a ridiculously high Special Defense stat, at 140. But the rest of its stats are pretty average at best. Additionally, it has several nice Status moves to support it and its teammates.
• Those Two Guys: With Remoraid. They tend to cling to Mantine as they feed on their leftovers, and Mantyke needs to be with one if it wants to evolve.

Skarmory (Airmd)

0227: Skarmory / Airmd (エアームド eaamudo)

Skarmory

A steel crane (not the machine used in construction, but the bird). After nesting in briars, its skin gets scratched so much that it eventually hardens in metal armor that encases its body. The combination of its typing, Steel/Flying, which leaves it with only two special-based weaknesses, and its very high defense stat means that makes for an excellent wall that can shrug off most physical attacks like it was nothing. It's the version counterpart to Mantine, found in Silver and SoulSilver.

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• Absurdly Sharp Blade: Many of Skarmory's Dex entries mention that people used its shed wing feathers as swords and knives, with its Ultra Sun Dex entry stating that knives made from processed Skarmory wing feathers are recognized by the finest chefs for their sharpness, whereas in its Isle of Armor Sword Dex entry it's stated that its feathers are sharper than any sword.
• Armored But Frail: 140 base Defense, but only 65 base HP. Notably, unlike Mantine, its base HP was never buffed.
• Caltrops: Has access to Spikes, which deals damage to opposing Pokémon whenever they switch in.
• Crafted from Animals: Skarmory's Crystal and Sun Pokédex entries mention that, in the past, people used their feathers as swords. Its Ultra Sun entry mentions that they're also used to make high quality kitchen knives.
• Divergent Character Evolution: Originally a version exclusive with Mantine, but it reappeared in Hoenn and remained a one-stage line while Mantine gained a baby form in Generation IV.
• Extra-ore-dinary: A Steel-type bird covered in metal armor.
• Faster Than They Look: Despite being covered in iron-hard armor, they can fly at speeds approaching 190 mph.
• Foil: To the Mantine line. Both were rare and hard-to-catch version exclusives in their debut games, being Stone Wall Flying-types that resided in opposite parts of Johto and in contrasting environments.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation: Skarmory is said to move at speeds approaching 190 mph, but its base 70 Speed stat certainly doesn't reflect that.
• Giant Flyer: Skarmory is 5'7"/1.7 meters tall.
• Had to Be Sharp: Skarmory raise their chicks in thorny nests, and the continuous scratching makes their skin tough.
• Heal Thyself: Learns Roost.
• Informed Flaw: Its Sun & Moon Pokédex entries state it has a severe weakness to water, which makes it rust badly. This isn't a problem for Skarmory in gameplay, since neither of its types are vulnerable to Water-type attacks. That said, Water-types do resist Steel-type moves, and most commonly-used water-type moves are special, targetting Skarmory's noticably poor Special Defense.
• Kidnapping Bird of Prey: Skarmory has the distinct honor of kidnapping the most characters in the anime (apart from Team Rocket's Meowth).
• Last Chance Hit Point: Its Sturdy Ability allows it to survive any attack with 1 HP, provided it was at full health.
• Mighty Glacier: Can be bred to know Curse, which boosts its Attack and Defense, at the cost of making it even slower.
• Razor Wind: Naturally learns Air Cutter and Air Slash.
• Razor Wings: As such with Steel Wing. Its feathers are also sharp enough to be used as swords and knives.
• The Rival: Skarmory's Isle of Armor Sword Pokédex entry mentions that it and fellow Flying/Steel type Corviknight fight viciously over territory.
• Secret Art: Until Generation VI introduced the Fletchling line, Skarmory was the only Pokémon to learn Steel Wing naturally. When Steel Wing briefly lost its TM status in Generation V, Skarmory became the only Pokémon to learn it at all outside of breeding.
• Shed Armor, Gain Speed:
  • Its Hidden Ability is Weak Armor, which gives it a Speed boost with every contact strike it takes, at the cost of losing some Defense as well.
  • They learn Autotomize by level-up, a Steel-type move in which they shed part of their armor to gain more speed.
• Signature Move: Most commonly associated with, and also naturally learns, Steel Wing.
• Stone Wall: One of the premier examples. Its 140 Defense lets Skarmory easily take most physical attacks before healing them off with Roost, and it has all the right moves to make sure it can stay on the battlefield as long as possible while frustrating the enemy with indirect damage.
• Switch-Out Move: Can learn Roar and Whirlwind, which are especially useful considering it can also learn Spikes and Stealth Rock.
• Toothy Bird: Skarmory has sharp teeth on its lower jaw.
• Trap Master: Naturally learns Spikes, and can be bred to know Stealth Rock.
• Weak to Magic: Skarmory's poor base Special Defence means that even resisted special attacks will do a number on it.
• Wind from Beneath My Wings: It's part Flying-type and has access to aerial attacks.

Houndour and Houndoom (Delvil and Hellgar)

0228: Houndour / Delvil (デルビル derubiru)
0229: Houndoom / Hellgar (ヘルガー herugaa)

Houndour

Houndoom

^{Mega Houndoom}

Mega Houndoom debuts in X and Y

These devilish dog Pokémon are, appropriately enough, Dark/Fire types with great special attack and decent speed, attack, and special defense. However, by the time they're available to catch, you may have a number of useful Fire and Dark types at your disposal already. But don't let that stop you from using it. This Pokémon is partally based on the Doberman. In X and Y, it gained a Mega Evolution. Both of its defenses, special attack, and speed are increased with the Mega Evolution. Its nails also turn red from the increased firepower it carries.

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• Animal Talk: Subverted. They communicate using barks that humans and even other Pokémon species can't understand.
• Achey Scars: The pain from the burns this Pokémon inflicts never goes away. Supposedly.
• Asskicking Leads to Leadership: They choose their leader by fighting among themselves.
• Body Horror: According to their Ultra Sun Pokédex entry, Mega Houndoom's claws and the tip of its tail are melting from the intense energy in it, causing Houndoom incredible pain.
• Boss Battle: Houndoom, being Karen's, the final Elite Four of Johto, strongest Mon.
• Canis Major: Mega Houndoom stands six feet three inches (1.9 meters) tall. That's as tall as Arcanine! ^note It's more likely that this measurement was taken from the feet to the head and not from the feet to the shoulders like dogs are actually measured, but it's still impressive.
• Cast from Hit Points: Its Mega Evolution has the Solar Power ability, boosting its Special Attack at the cost of damaging it each turn in intense sunlight.
• Casting a Shadow: Can learn Dark Pulse, which goes great with its special attack. Before Generation IV, it was one of the few Dark-types that could reliably use its specially-based STAB.
• Dark Is Not Evil: Like real wolves, they tend to get portrayed in a positive light, though a few villainous teams will give them to either their Mooks or higher-ranking members.
• Doomy Dooms of Doom: It's called Houndoom and it's a hell dog (its original Japanese name even says so outright).
• Evil Counterpart: To the Growlithe line. Both are Fire-type dogs who evolve once, have one ability that frightens their opponents in some manner (Intimidate for Growlithe, Unnerve for Houndour) and Flash Fire as another, with Houndoom also possessing the Dark-type to contrast Arcanine's heroic nature.
• Evil Smells Bad: Well, Dark-type in this case, as opposed to actually "evil" per say. The fire is caused by toxins burning in its body, making their flames smell terrible.
• Exactly What It Says on the Tin: Houndour is indeed a hound with a very "dour" expression.
• Foil:
  • Pokémon X and Y sets them up as foils to the Manectric line. Both of them are canine Glass Cannons/Fragile Speedsters who evolve once, are version exclusives (Houndour is exclusive to X and Ultra Sun while Electrike is exclusive to Y and Ultra Moon), and have Mega Evolutions that turn them into more powerful Glass Cannons/Fragile Speedsters.
  • And before that, in Pokémon Diamond and Pearl and Pokémon Black and White, they were foils for Poochyena and Mightyena, both being two-stage canine-like Dark Pokémon. In Diamond and Pearl, Mightyena and Houndoom can be found in Routes 214 and 215 by using a Poké Radar (Mightyena in Diamond, Houndoom in Pearl). In Black and White, Houndour and Poochyena can be found in Route 9 during its Pokémon outbreak (Houndour in Black, Poochyena in White). This foil isn't as prominent because the Poké Radar and Outbreaks are available after getting the National Pokédex.
• Glass Cannon: It has a hell of a high Special Attack and pretty good Speed and Attack, but its Defense is atrocious and its Special Defense isn't much better. Its Mega Evolution boosts its Defenses to 90/90, along with further boosts to Speed and Special Attack, making it more of a Lightning Bruiser.
• The Grim Reaper: Long ago, people imagined its eerie howls to be the call of the Grim Reaper.
• Hellfire:
  • "The pain from the flames it breathes is said to never quite go away." Though this doesn't stop you from healing any burns they might inflict to your team.
  • Naturally learns "Inferno", called "Purgatory" in the original language, which always leaves a burn.
• Hellhound: Possibly based on Cerberus, the three-headed hound of Hades mentioned in Greek mythology (even though Houndour and Houndoom have one head). Mega Houndoom takes it even further by actually looking like the type of canine creature that would be featured in artistic and pop culture depictions of Hell.
• Late Character Syndrome: In Pokémon Gold and Silver, the line is only found in Kanto, which can only be accessed by defeating the Elite Four. If one wants to use a Houndoom on their team, it'll have some serious catching up to do with how high-leveled the rest of the team is. In the remakes, it's possible to get Houndour earlier by visiting the Safari Zone in Cianwood City (provided that players know what to do).
• Magic Knight: While it mostly uses its 110 Special Attack, Houndoom has a respectable 90 Attack as well, allowing it to use moves like Sucker Punch effectively.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Houndoom (its Japanese names, Delvil and Hellgar, aren't exactly friendly names either).
• Nocturnal Mooks: Mostly appear at night.
• Non-Standard Character Design: The designs, especially Mega Houndoom, are noticeably more demonic-looking than most other Pokémon.
• Our Demons Are Different: These are fire dogs.
• Playing with Fire: Fire-types that might be based off of Hellhounds.
• Poor, Predictable Rock: Outside of their Fire/Dark STAB attacks, their offensive movepool is extremely limited.
• The Power of the Sun: Gets Solar Power, which gives it a 50% boost to Special Attack at the cost of 1/8 of its HP each turn. Houndoom is also one of the earliest Fire-type Pokémon to be able to learn Solar Beam, as early as its debut generation.
• Protection from the Elements: Inverted with Mega Houndoom's ability Solar Power, which decreases HP for every turn of harsh sunlight.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Rather fitting for a hellhound.
• Skeletons in the Coat Closet: Houndour and Houndoom have white protrusions(?) on their bodies that resemble bones, specifically ribs and skulls.
• Super Mode: Gained a Mega Evolution in X and Y.
• Undying Loyalty: A captured Houndour is utterly faithful to its trainer.
• The Unintelligible: To anyone but their own kind. Unlike most Pokémon, they speak a language only they can understand.

Phanpy and Donphan (Gomazou and Donfan)

0231: Phanpy / Gomazou (ゴマゾウ gomazou)
0232: Donphan / Donfan (ドンファン donfan)

Phanpy

Donphan

An adorable blue baby elephant that evolves into a not-so-adorable adult elephant mixed with a tire. Donphan's special talent is rolling around at high speeds, so it's not surprising that its trunk and back are covered with thick skin that resembles a car tire. Its attack and defense are very high, but its special stats are very bad. It's the version counterpart to Teddiursa and Ursaring (and switched games with them in certain international releases).

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• Action Initiative: Can be bred with Ice Shard, for some reason.
• Animals Not to Scale: Donphan is about the size of an extinct dwarf elephant. Notably, another elephant Pokémon, Cufant, is bigger than the fully evolved Donphan while Cufant is an unevolved Pokémon.
• Astonishingly Appropriate Appearance: Donphan's armor is basically a tire.
• Cast from Hit Points: Phanpy can learn Take Down and Double-Edge, and can also be bred to know Head Smash.
• Dishing Out Dirt: Ground-type.
• Does Not Know His Own Strength: Phanpy swings its trunk with a lot of force, so what it thinks might be a playful and loving nudge might mean a trip through the air and into the ER for its trainer. Its Violet Dex entry mentions that it can easily shatter a person's arm with a casual swing of its trunk.
• Early-Bird Cameo: In the opening credits of Pokémon: The First Movie, Ash battles a Trainer who uses a Donphan.
• Gameplay and Story Integration: Donphan's dex entries mention it has a severe dislike of rain, which it would be with its Ground typing making it weak to Water-type attacks.
• Honorable Elephant: Phanpy is affectionate and playful, while Donphan is a calm Pokémon and has been known to clear away rock and mud slides that block roads. Both are kind of on the small side for an elephant, though.
• Informed Attribute: Phanpy's dex entries likes to mention how it sticks by bodies of water. In none of the main games has a Phanpy been found anywhere near a river.
• Item Caddy: Phanpy, thanks to the Pickup ability. They're also known to carry Passho Berries in the wild to help protect them from Water-type attacks.
• Last Chance Hit Point: Has Sturdy as its ability, which lets it survive a lethal attack from full health with 1 HP remaining.
• Magically Inept Fighter: High HP, tanks Physical hits and dishes out Physical damage with the best Ground-types, but has very poor Special Attack.
• Metal Slime: Zig-Zagged in the Gen II games; Phanpy is a rare encounter outside Blackthorn City and has a tendency to flee, while Donphan is a slightly less rare one in the same location and much more common near Victory Road and Mt. Silver.
• Mighty Glacier: Donphan has high HP with high Defense and it can hit pretty hard. But it's pretty slow and its Special Defense is quite low, though its Sturdy ability helps offset this.
• One-Hit KO: Can be bred with Fissure.
• Pint-Sized Powerhouse: Phanpy is known to be quite strong despite its small size. It's capable of supporting an adult human on its back, can accidentally cause damage just by playfully swinging its snout, and even an affectionate snout-bump can send you flying. Appropriately enough, Phanpy can get Play Rough as an egg move.
• Ridiculously Cute Critter: Just look at Phanpy! It's a tiny blue baby elephant. It learns Charm at the same level that Donphan learns Scary Face.
• Signature Move: These Pokémon are the most well-known Rollout users. Due to Donphan's appearance in Pokémon: The First Movie, it's also the first Pokémon shown to have the move.
• Spectacular Spinning: They can learn Rapid Spin, and if anything, these guys are well known for their affinity with Rollout. Donphan tend to move around this way, hence the tire-like armor.
• Vocal Evolution: Donphan's updated Generation VI cry sounds like a real elephant.
• Weak Against Magic: Donphan has a great base 120 Defense stat, but a poor base 60 Special Defense, so special-based moves make short work of it.

Stantler and Wyrdeer (Odoshishi and Ayashishi)

0234: Stantler / Odoshishi (オドシシ odoshishi)
0899: Wyrdeer / Ayashishi (アヤシシ ayashishi)

Stantler

Wyrdeer

Wyrdeer debuted in Legends: Arceus

Stantler is a Pokémon based on a stag or reindeer. Its most famous features are its antlers that vaguely resemble eyes, said to each contain a miniature portal to another dimension. Many of the moves it can learn involve the antlers, ranging from threatening its opponents, confusing them, putting them to sleep, using Psychic attacks, to merely charging with them. Whether this makes it useful remains to be seen, though.
Long ago in the Hisui region, which would later be called the Sinnoh region, an evolution of Stantler known as Wyrdeer existed as the result of local Stantler honing their psychic abilities. Adapted for the harsh wilderness, these Pokémon grow magnificent beards and the fur shed from their beards, tail and legs are highly prized for protection against the cold.

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• Fragile Speedster: Stantler has a decently high Speed stat but poor defences.
• Glass Cannon: Its Attack and Special Attack are its two highest stats, and it has several attacks of various types across both the Physical and Special spectrums it can use with almost equal effectiveness. And that's not counting all the moves it can get from breeding! Wyrdeer has even better offensive stats than Stantler and somewhat offsets the glassiness with decently high HP, but its defenses are still mediocre and it's marginally slower.
• Hypnotic Eyes: It has hypnotic eye-like structures in its antlers. Their Crystal Pokédex entry states that these can be ground into soporific medicine.
• Item Caddy: In a roundabout way. It has the ability Frisk, which it can use to identify when an opposing Pokémon is holding an item, and can learn the move Thief to steal those items.
• The Marvelous Deer: One capable of creating illusions. Wyrdeer is a part Psychic-type deer Pokémon, and is cherished by the local people for its fur.
• Master of Illusion: Its antlers are said to create a strange space where reality is disturbed. In-game, it has access to several Psychic moves, such as Hypnosis. Oddly, it's not an actual Psychic-type unless it evolves.
• Nocturnal Mooks: Stantler can only be caught at night in Crystal.
• Non-Elemental: A Normal-type deer.
• Out of Focus: While transferable and useable in all the mainline games pre-Sword and Shield, Stantler took a very long time to be officially included in any regional Pokédex besides Johto’s. This finally changed in Pokémon Legends: Arceus, where it was part of the Hisui region's first Pokédex and also received an evolution. Stantler was then added to the Pokédex of Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, but Wyrdeer is absent. Stantler's dex entries for Scarlet and Violet makes a note of this.
• Power Up Mount: For Pokémon Legends: Arceus, Wyrdeer is one of the Pokémon that can help the player traverse the wilderness of the Hisui region.
• Psychic Powers: Stantler has several Psychic moves available to it, quite a few of them learned naturally. Its evolution, Wyrdeer, is part Psychic.
• Pun-Based Creature: Stantler's Japanese name is Odoshishi, from shishi odoshi (literally "deer scarer"), the term for a variety of contraptions that scare away animals such as deer and birds. Its antlers look like a pair of eyes and are said to be mesmerising, and one kind of shishi odoshi are eyeball-like balloons that birds find extremely unnerving.
• Screw This, I'm Out of Here!: In Legends: Arceus, Stantler is one of many Pokémon that will run away when it notices you instead of trying to battle. However, they will very occasionally charge you with a full-on attack... only to turn tail and run if they miss.
• Secret Art: Legends: Arceus gave them the exclusive move Psyshield Bash, which inflicts damage and can raise both defensive stats. Using the move in the Agile style enough times also lets Stantler evolve into Wyrdeer (not that the game tells you this aside from a hint in its research tasks).
• Wizard Beard: Wyrdeer sports a long white beard to coincide with it gaining the Psychic type, incidentally also making it look a bit like Santa Claus.

Smeargle (Doble)

0235: Smeargle / Doble (ドーブル dooburu)

Smeargle

Here is a strange dog Pokémon. It has a seemingly boring appearance and can only learn a single move naturally. That said, it uses that one move to learn almost every move in the game^note everything except Struggle and Chatter, and, while it can be taught Hoopa Unbound's Hyperspace Fury and Darkrai's Dark Void, it can't use them. The one thing holding Smeargle back is its very low stats, most likely to balance out its tremendous movepool.

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• Art Initiates Life: Most likely how it uses all the moves it Sketches.
• The Artifact: Most Smeargle in the franchise have been depicted with green paint, due to the games depicting regular Smeargle as always having green paint and Shinies as having red. After its debut, however, there's been other Pokémon who have non-Shiny alternate colors that actually have this shown off in the games, such as Minior and Alcremie, and yet the only Smeargle whose paint isn't green are still Shinies.
• Awesomeness by Analysis: That bipedal beatnik-artist-beagle of a joke Pokémon is the same one that can learn every attack (save Struggle and Chatter, and while it can learn Hoopa Unbound's Hyperspace Fury and Darkrai's Dark Void, it can't use them) in the game. What does that mean to you? It means that it can copy and use the signature attacks of the Legendaries. It's like having Ditto, Mew (with Transform), or a Clefairy or Clefable with Metronome, all in one convenient package.
• Body Paint: When it comes of age, its friends plant a footprint on its back.
• Competitive Balance: Able to learn almost every move in the game, but shackled by an abysmal 250 Base Stat Total, so it's limited to being a Support Party Member.
• Confusion Fu: Since it can learn any move and has even stats, Smeargle can run just about anything. It also has access to the ability Moody, which randomly raises a stat by two stages and lowers another random stat by one; while even with maxed-out attack and defenses, Smeargle's not likely to be an offensive powerhouse, it can also get evasion boosts, which can make the chances of actually landing a hit on it vanishingly small.
• Depending on the Artist: When it was first introduced, it was implied that the paint that Smeargle's tail produces varies in color depending on the individual or even its current mood. Its Gen II sprite depicted brown as the regular form and green as the shiny form while its debut episode in the anime depicts red, blue, and yellow. Nowadays, Smeargle is depicted with green paint in its regular form and red in its shiny form.
• Jack of All Trades: In the technical sense, it outperforms Mew at this trope, since it can learn almost any move, not just those teachable. It's unable to use Hyperspace Fury and Dark Void starting in Generation 7, though.
• Lethal Joke Character:
  • Its stats might be terrible, but its ability to use almost any move makes it a usable support Pokémon.
  • It can dominate Contests in Ruby and Sapphire, Diamond and Pearl, and Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire thanks to its endless movepool and its horrible stats not mattering in the game mode.
• Master of None: Its stats are noticeably lackluster, even compared to unevolved Pokémon. The exception is its 75 Speed, which still isn't good enough to even put it in Fragile Speedster territory. To put this into perspective, Smeargle has the third lowest base stat total out of all fully-evolved Pokémon, behind Shedinja^note A One-Hit-Point Wonder, which skews its base stat total considerably and Solo form Wishiwashi^note Which is almost always in its School form anyways, which has much higher stats.
• Mundane Utility:
  • Being able to learn any move in the game makes Smeargle very useful for breeding (at least within the Field egg group, the one Smeargle belongs to). After all, why bother going through a long, convoluted breeding chain to get that egg move when you can just Sketch it onto Smeargle and breed once? As of Generation VII, this is now mandatory to give certain moves to certain Pokémon (like Psychic Fangs on Lillipup and, in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, Sacred Sword on Oshawott).
  • Its inclusion in Generation VII made it perfect for the new SOS encounter mechanic.^DetailsWant a Shiny or a Pokémon with at least 4 guaranteed perfect IVs? Catch a Smeargle, and you can teach it whatever move is strong against the target (the SOS mechanic makes this easier, too), as well as False Swipe to prepare an SOS caller, and Substitute to mitigate most status effects. And all its available Abilities give it SOS advantages: Own Tempo gives immunity from Confusion, Technician increases the power of weaker moves, and Moody mitigates stat-affecting moves by messing with the Smeargle's own stats, causing them to all cap off over the course of a long SOS hunt. Getting a Smeargle by SOS can get 4 perfect IVs fairly easily — a lot of hunters like to hold out for a Shiny Smeargle as well. If your Smeargle is Level 100, then poor stats usually don't matter in most SOS hunts. It can even learn Imprison to shut down problematic moves like Self-Destruct and Final Gambit. As such, it can be used for almost any SOS hunt.
• Non-Standard Skill Learning: Smeargle is the only Pokémon who can permanently learn attacks via Sketch. Everyone else has to level up to learn new moves or use a TM, HM, or move tutor. (Notably, Smeargle can't use these methods.)
• Obvious Rule Patch: Smeargle became so notorious for using the move Dark Void in official tournaments ^note Darkrai's Signature Move which originally had 80% accuracy and can inflict sleep on both opponents that Dark Void's mechanics were changed in Generation VII to automatically fail if used by any Pokémon other than Darkrai (along with an enormous accuracy nerf), as Dark Void was meant to be Purposefully Overpowered due to being a Mythical Pokémon not allowed in any official tournaments. Even before the nerf, Smeargle was banned from using Dark Void specifically, just because it was that overpowering.
• Power Copying: Sketch lets them permanently copy the last move the target used.
• Ridiculously Cute Critter: It doesn't seem like it at first, but Smeargle is used a bit in Pokémon products that is geared towards the youngest of Pokémon demographics, specifically Pokémon Playhouse and Monpoke.
• Secret Art: The only Pokémon that knows Sketch, which copies the last move used by the target. Due to this, most signature attacks of other Pokémon can be learned by Smeargle. There are only a handful that cannot be learned through this method.
• Support Party Member: Its downright low stats shoehorn it into a support role. At least you can pull off any move combination you want. One of its greatest strengths is being able to use the 100% accuracy sleep inducer Spore, otherwise restricted to only four evolution lines of Grass Pokémon. Typically, a Smeargle will be used to put an opponent to sleep, then either set up entry hazards or Baton Pass a powerful buff like Belly Drum or Tail Glow into a sweeper. In Double battles, it's also great at using any form of redirection move like Follow Me or protection moves like Wide Guard and Crafty Shield, frequently not even having a single attack.
• Useless Useful Spell:
  • Any damaging move it uses will barely tickle targets unless they're frail and have a double weakness being exploited. Foul Play is an aversion, which uses the target's Attack stat rather than Smeargle's own horrendously low Attack.
  • One of its abilities is Technician, which gives a 50% damage bonus to attacks with 60 Power or less. As previously stated, Smeargle is far too weak to take advantage of this, and Foul Play's power is 95, too high for Technician to take effect.
• Weak, but Skilled: Hilariously low stats that make some baby Pokémon look threatening in comparison, but can run literally any moveset you like.

Miltank

0241: Miltank (ミルタンク mirutanku)

Miltank

In Generation II, Tauros got an unofficial female counterpart in the shape of Miltank, a pink and inexplicably bipedal cow that's best known for producing much of the milk in the Pokémon world. As the name suggests, they're mostly defensive in nature, but they're also perfectly capable of dishing out heavy damage, especially on Ghost-types (if they have the Scrappy ability).

Due to Miltank being unable to produce Tauros eggs, unlike Nidoran or Volbeat and Illumise, they're mostly regarded as separate, yet related species. However, in Gen VII and the Isle of Armor, the Pokédex has both of them on the same page.

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• Acrofatic: Miltank's high HP and Defense may make it seem like a Stone Wall, and it may have Thick Fat, but Speed is their second-highest stat.
• The Artifact: Miltank is still not able to produce Tauros eggs despite Generation III introducing the Volbeat and Illumise duo, of which the latter can produce eggs of both "species".
• Badass Adorable: Miltank's a very sweet and motherly Pokémon, but in the hands of Normal-type Gym Leader Whitney, this Pokémon is a force to be reckoned with.
• Bizarre Sexual Dimorphism: Miltank and Tauros are apparently the male and female of the same species, yet their physical differences are striking.
• Boss Battle: Miltank in the third Johto Gym, and a very frustrating one.
• Cast from Hit Points: Prior to Gen VII, Miltank's Milk Drink as a field move took away some HP from the user to heal other Pokémon.
• Constantly Lactating Cow: Miltank's signature move is Milk Drink. It's also the source of the Moomoo Milk item. Miltank don't need to be pregnant (which only occurs while it's at a breeder as with all Pokémon). It doesn't even seem that any Pokémon are truly mammalian, as young Pokémon eat solids as soon as they're hatched. According to its Shield Pokédex entry, it will become ill if not milked every day.
• Distaff Counterpart: Miltank was introduced as Tauros's female counterpart, which wasn't made clear until Sun and Moon where they appear on the same Dex page.
• Elemental Punch: Miltank can learn Fire, Ice, and Thunder Punch by TM and Move Tutor.
• Fantastic Livestock: Pokémon Gold and Silver and Pokémon Sun and Moon feature ranches where Miltank are farmed for their milk.
• Fantastic Medicinal Bodily Product: Miltank produces and is farmed for its Moomoo Milk, which heals Pokémon by 100 HP. Its original signature move (which later was learnable by the Skiddo line) involves the Pokémon drinking its own milk to heal by half their maximum HP.
• Four Legs Good, Two Legs Better: For some reason, Miltank is bipedal while Tauros is a quadruped. In addition to being able to receive egg moves, Miltank is also able to learn moves that require arms, such as Hammer Arm and Wake-Up Slap. Thus, Miltank's movepool is much larger than Tauros's.
• Friend to All Children: In the presence of young kids, Miltank will begin producing milk with higher levels of nutrients, which is good considering that their sweet milk is popular amongst children and adults alike. In most of their appearances, they're shown to be strong, but rather friendly.
• Heal Thyself: Milk Drink heals up to 50% of Miltank's HP during a battle, and until Generation VI, it was a Secret Art.
• Jack of All Stats: Decent to good stats across the board except for its low Sp Atk.
• Jiggle Physics: In the 3D Pokémon games, such as Pokémon X/Y and Pokémon Colosseum, Miltank's teats jiggle during her animations.
• Kevlard: One of Miltank's abilities is Thick Fat, which halves damage from Fire and Ice type moves.
• The Medic: Prior to Gen VII, Miltank could use Milk Drink to heal other party members outside of battle. In Sun and Moon, the Miltank outside the Nursery in Paniola Ranch will heal the protagonist's Pokémon when interacted with.
• Non-Elemental: She is Normal-type.
• One-Gender Race: Miltank is always female.
• Pink Means Feminine: Half of Miltank's body is pink and she is always female.
• Scissors Cuts Rock: Miltank has access to the Scrappy ability, which allows her to bypass Ghost-types' immunity Fighting or Normal-type moves.
• Secret Art: Milk Drink was Miltank's until Generation VI. It allows herself and other Pokémon to recover health.
• Team Mom: Miltank functions as a good medic outside of battle due to Milk Drink and is known to produce higher-quality milk after giving birth or in the presence of young children. While field effect for moves is removed in Generation VII, most Miltank in the overworld heal the player's party.
• True Blue Femininity: Miltank's shiny form replaces its normal coloration with blue. Since it's an all-female species, the trope still applies.
• Useless Useful Spell: Miltank learns the physical Steel move Gyro Ball at higher levels, though as a move that works best when used by very slow Pokémon against very fast ones, it doesn't work very well with Miltank's great 100 base speed.
• Viewers Are Geniuses: Miltank's Silver and FireRed Pokédex entries say that her milk will be much more nutritious if she has recently had a baby. This is a reference to colostrum, the milk produced immediately after giving birth that has extra nutrients to boost a newborn baby's growth and immune system. The entries were brought back in SoulSilver and X but changed to Miltank being around babies, most likely because the Silver entry was introduced in the generation that establish all female Pokémon lay eggs and it implied Miltank gave live birth.

Legendary Beasts: Raikou, Entei, and Suicune

0243: Raikou (ライコウ raikou)
0244: Entei (エンテイ entei)
0245: Suicune (スイクン suikun)

Raikou

Entei

Suicune

A trio of Legendary Pokémon based on mythical beasts with characteristics of felines and canines. Once nameless Pokémon that lost their lives in the fire that destroyed the Brass Tower, they were resurrected into their current forms by Ho-Oh. Their elements correspond to the circumstances of the incident; Raikou is a saber-toothed cat bulldog Raijū, representing the lightning that struck the tower, Entei is a either a Chinese guardian lion or a chow, embodiment of the fire that brought the tower down, and Suicune is a cheetah- or wolf-like qilin which corresponds to the rain that quenched the fire. They are the first of many, many Pokémon that will flee on sight, which is really annoying. Special measures must be taken to ensure their capture. Suicune is the mascot of Pokémon Crystal.

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• Action Initiative: They all got the move Extreme Speed, a powerful attack that lets the user go before opponents, from a special distribution during Generation IV.
• The Artifact: Crystal Version made Suicune the mascot and a Boss Battle, so its moveset was changed to be a more dangerous enemy. These changes persisted into later generations, making Suicune the only member of the trio to not learn Roar naturally, and giving it BubbleBeam at lower levels while Raikou and Entei are stuck with the weaker ThunderShock and Ember. Gen VIII would belatedly restore Roar to Suicune's movelist.
• Ascended Extra: Unlike future generations that had a secret third version mascot Legendary built in (Rayquaza, Giratina, Kyurem, Zygarde, Necrozma), Ho-Oh and Lugia were truly a duo. As such, for the third version, the creators took Suicune and gave it more importance than its two counterparts. This extends to Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver (where it retains its subplot, though it isn't fought until Kanto) and Pokémon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon (where Raikou and Entei need to be with the player before it can be found).
• Back from the Dead: According to their backstory, they were revived by Ho-Oh long before the events of Gold and Silver.
• Blow You Away: Suicune is associated with wind as much as Water, although it learns very few Flying attacks.
• Breakout Character: Suicune is now one of the fan favorites of Generation II, and is most likely to be included in side games out of the three Legendary Beasts. Not to mention it's the mascot of Crystal.
• Came Back Strong: According to legend, they were once three ordinary Pokémon^note usually thought to be the original three Eeveelutions, though Pokémon Generations uses a more generic dog-like design for all three that died in the burning of the Brass Tower and were consequently revived as their current Legendary forms by Ho-Oh.
• Canis Major: They have traits of felines and canines (especially Raikou with its resemblance to a saber-tooth cat) and are large enough to be ridden.
• Cartoon Creature: They're based off of creatures of Japanese/Chinese folklore. Raikou is based on the Raiju, a thunder-beast that has been portrayed as several different animals, including a wolf, tiger, monkey, and even a weasel. Suicune is based on the Kirin, a chimera-like creature that was said to purify the land around it (though it looks nothing like said animal). Entei is based on the Shisa, a lion-dog hybrid creature of Okinawa folklore.
• Cats Are Mean: Raikou, the most cat-like of the trio, is described by its Crystal Pokédex entry as being "rough".
• The Corruption: All of them were Shadow Pokémon in Pokémon Colosseum.
• Dramatic Wind: Suicune always has wind circulating around it to make its mane and tail-ribbons billow. It never seems to stop blowing, and Suicune admittedly would not be as impressive if that mane just sagged down without any wind.
• Elemental Absorption: Prior to Gen VII, they had Water Absorb, Flash Fire, and Volt Absorb for their Hidden Abilities (not that they could be legitimately obtained) — now, they all share Inner Focus instead.
• Final Boss: Entei is the final fight in the first Pokémon Ranger.
• Fiery Lion: Entei, the Fire-type of the trio, is partly based off of a Chinese guardian lion.
• Fire, Ice, Lightning: Entei is the Fire, Suicune is the Water variant who also learns Ice-type moves, and Raikou is the Lighting.
• "Get Back Here!" Boss: When they appear in the overworld in Gold and Silver, FireRed and LeafGreen, and HeartGold and SoulSilver, they'll quickly jump from one random location in the wild to another every time you enter a new area. They can be drawn out by spamming Repels (which do not stave off extremely strong Pokémon) and repeatedly entering and exiting an area where wild Pokémon can appear. Once you encounter one, they will try to run from you at every opportunity, even if put to sleep (apparently masters of sleepwalking— er, sleeprunning), and even if you completely froze them in solid ice.
• Kirin: Suicune is arguably based off of the kirin, chiefly due to its flowing cloudlike make, the large, crystalline, backwards-pointing horn on its forehead, its ability to Walk on Water, and its nature as a pure and elusive being that avoids contact with humans.
• Late Character Syndrome: They're some of the few Legendaries to avert this; it's theoretically possible to catch them before the fourth Gym, and at Level 40, nothing will beat them for a long time. The real question is, given their low catch rate and their constant running, are you crazy enough to try?
• Leitmotif: Their battle theme, introduced in Crystal. HeartGold and SoulSilver gives each of them their own remix.
• Lightning Bruiser: Raikou (appropriately enough) and Entei are strong, decently bulky, and pretty fast to boot.
• Metal Slime: They started the roaming Legendary trend, where they run throughout the region and can be encountered at random. Every time you encounter one, you have one turn to fight it before it runs away, requiring you to track it down again, although its HP and status is unchanged from the previous battle. Trapping them with moves or abilities won't work for long, since all of them but Suicune in Crystal can just use Roar to end it anyway. And if their speed stat is higher than that of the Pokémon you sent out, they will likely flee before you have a chance to even land a hit.
• Missing Secret: They had never been officially released with their Hidden Abilities, which were Volt Absorb, Flash Fire, and Water Absorb until Gen VII, which were then inexplicably changed to Inner Focus.
• No Biological Sex: They're all genderless.
• Olympus Mons: The three form the second minor Legendary trio in the series.
• Panthera Awesome: For the feline crowd, particularly Raikou.
• Permanently Missable Content:
  • Knock any of them out in Crystal and you can kiss Ho-Oh and the rest of the Tin Tower goodbye.
  • A glitch in FireRed and LeafGreen cause them to disappear for good if they used Roar on you. Suicune hasn't learned Roar naturally starting with Crystal, so it's spared from this.
• Power Incontinence: Entei's Pokédex entries state it's unable to control the sheer power inside it, what with being based on a volcano and all, which is why it's constantly running about everywhere.
• Prehistoric Monster: Raikou is based on a sabre-tooth cat, though it's not actually a prehistoric monster itself, it just takes influence from one.
• Recurring Element: A Trio of Legendary Pokémon that are tournament-legal. They also started the trend of Legendaries that roam the game world, forcing you to try and find them before catching them.
• Required Party Member:
  • Though they don't need to be in the party, Crystal asks that all three of them be captured before the player can get the Rainbow Wing and make Ho-Oh appear on top of the Tin Tower. Make any of them faint, and... oops, hope you don't mind starting over.^*And no, trading them in from another game won't work.
  • In Pokémon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, both Raikou and Entei (version exclusives) need to be in the player's party before Suicune can appear in Ultra Space.
• Single Specimen Species: Their backstory has the trio "created" by Ho-Oh from unidentified Pokémon that perished when the Brass Tower caught fire, with their new forms representing the fire itself, the lightning that started it, and the rain that quenched it. Though some of Entei's Pokédex entries mention stories of new ones being born with new volcanoes, nothing in the games suggest them to be anything more than just stories, with the Ho-Oh creation story having more prominence.
• Stone Wall: Suicune has the highest bulk of the three and the lowest offensive strength, and it can learn a number of moves to assist it in sponging attacks, such as Calm Mind and Substitute.
• Theme Naming: The first syllables of their names are the kanji for thunder, fire, and water, respectively. The second syllables are different kanji meaning "emperor" or "monarch".
• The Unreveal: Many have speculated on what the three were prior to their resurrection — if they always looked the way they did, or were another Pokémon entirely (a common theory being a Vaporeon, a Jolteon, and a Flareon). Pokémon Generations reveals their original forms... as generic silhouetted dog-like creatures who bear no resemblance to any other Pokémon.
• Walk on Water: Suicune, though Entei and Raikou are implied to be able to do the same in HeartGold and SoulSilver, considering you can encounter them on the lake outside Mt. Mortar. Said mastery on water is never reflected in battles; Raikou and Entei cannot learn Surf or any offensive Water-type move (at least until Raikou gained access to Scald in Gen VIII).
• Weak to Magic: Downplayed with Entei; while its Special Defense is its lowest stat, it's only mediocre rather than outright bad, and it can be boosted with Calm Mind. It will struggle to stay alive against a powerful super-effective special attack such as Hydro Pump, however.

Larvitar, Pupitar, and Tyranitar (Yogiras, Sanagiras, and Bangiras)

0246: Larvitar / Yogiras (ヨーギラス yoogirasu)
0247: Pupitar / Sanagiras (サナギラス sanagirasu)
0248: Tyranitar / Bangiras (バンギラス bangirasu)

Larvitar

Pupitar

Tyranitar

^{Mega Tyranitar}

Mega Tyranitar debuts in X and Y

A small green reptile-thing with a bird-like tail, which then builds a cocoon around itself and later emerges as an angry armored Godzilla-like dinosaurian Kaiju ready to rampage. Its very high attack power, natural bulk, and its ability to summon sandstorms makes it quite useful in battles. Similar to the Dratini line in that it is hard to find and capture, but when fully evolved is one of the most powerful non-Legendary Pokémon in the game. It gained a Mega Evolution in X and Y. With increased attack, defenses, and speed, Mega Tyranitar is fierce.

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• Balance Buff: Tyranitar gets Sand Stream as its ability in Generation III, automatically summoning Sandstorm whenever it's sent out. Generation IV would further make all Rock-type Pokémon receive a 50% Special Defense boost under sandstorm, greatly benefiting Tyranitar as it happens to be part-Rock-type, bolstering its already high special bulk even further.
• Belly Mouth: Downplayed. While not to the level of Dusknoir or Guzzlord, Mega Tyranitar's chestplate has a pair of insect-like "fang" protrusions.
• Blood Knight: According to the Pokédex, Tyranitar spends its days eagerly seeking a good fight, and can take a good beating without even flinching thanks to its armored skin.^note Unless you hit it with Fake Out or something along those lines. According to its Ultra Sun Pokédex entry, if Tyranitar finds an opponent that is not worthy to challenge it, Tyranitar will just ignore it and move on.
• Body Horror: Tyranitar's back splits open when it Mega Evolves. The only thing keeping it moving are its destructive instincts, and it's unclear whether it can even hear its trainer's commands.
• Boss Battle:
  • In Colosseum, a Shadow Tyranitar is present on the team of the Final Boss Evice.
  • In the main series, while no trainer has Tyranitar as their ace, it often appears on Blue's postgame teams, particularly the rematches in FRLG, HGSS, and as a potential pick for him in the Battle Tree in Alola.
• Boss in Mook Clothing:
  • Pokémon Black and White (and its sequels Pokémon Black 2 and White 2) have rustling grass on Route 15. A wild Tyranitar appeared!
  • In Black 2 and White 2, a Veteran on Route 18 challenges the player with a sole Lv 70 Tyranitar.
• Bragging Rights Reward: In their debut generation, Larvitar can only be obtained in the final area, Mt. Silver. By the time you reach Mt. Silver, there's only one trainer it's worth using against, especially considering how difficult it is to raise on top of the gen's nightmarish level curve. Downplayed in Pokémon Crystal, where you can get a Larvitar at Celadon City's Game Corner as soon you reach Kanto. The remakes rectify this by letting you catch it as early as the fifth/sixth Gym in the new Safari Zone, allowing more mileage out of it.
• The Brute: Tyranitar is the archetypal example of a Dark-type associated more with violence and brutality than trickery and deception.
• Confusion Fu: Tyranitar gets a large number of move options via TMs and Move Tutors, which can make it unpredictable.
• Dark Is Evil: Tyranitar is a Dark-type with a violent and selfish temperament. Evice uses a Shadow Tyranitar as his main Pokémon as the Final Boss of Pokémon Colosseum, and it's common for Pokémon poachers in the anime to have one of them around.
• Dark Is Not Evil: Tyranitar in the hands of the player is no more inherently evil than any other Pokémon despite its Dark typing, and in addition, the Tyranitar of Team ACT in Red and Blue Rescue Team is a Hero Antagonist at worst.
• Determinator: Larvitar has Guts^note boosts Attack by 50% if afflicted with a status ailment as its standard ability, though it loses it upon evolving into Pupitar.
• Dinosaurs Are Dragons: While not a Dragon-type, it's a reptilian Pokémon that can learn a lot of Dragon-type moves and has a stat distribution and movepool comparable to many Dragon-type Pokémon. While it's only one of two pseudo-legendary Pokémon that isn't Dragon-type (along with Metagross), unlike Metagross it still looks draconic. It even shows up on Dragon-type specialist Lance's team in Pokémon Stadium 2.
• Discard and Draw: Tyranitar's secondary type changes from Ground to Dark when it evolves from Pupitar.
• Dishing Out Dirt: Larvitar and Pupitar are Rock/Ground-types, and Tyranitar retains the ability to learn Ground-type moves despite dropping Ground for Dark.
• Eat Dirt, Cheap: Larvitar's diet is mainly soil.
• Extra Eyes: Mega Tyranitar has a Pupitar-like "face" pattern on its torso. It has two "eyes", and the fact that they glow bright red when Tyranitar Mega Evolves implies they are for more than just show.
• Flying Brick: Pupitar's dex entries state how it can fly around like a rocket using pressurized gas and how it can topple a mountain with its thrashing and collide with solid steel without injury.
• Foil:
  • They become this to the Aggron line in Pokémon X and Y. Both of them are Mighty Glaciers that evolve twice, are version exclusives, are part Rock-type, take massive damage from Fighting-type attacks, and have Mega Evolutions that make them even stronger Mighty Glaciers. Additionally, while Tyranitar is known to destroy its environment, Aggron is known to preserve it.
  • Gameplay-wise, Tyranitar serves as one to Abomasnow. Both are Mighty Glaciers with an unfortunate seven weaknesses (one double), were the first ones to possess their respective weather-setting Abilities^note Sand Stream for Tyranitar, Snow Warning for Abomasnow (while also having a fairly situational Hidden Ability), and gained Mega Evolutions in X and Y that retain said Ability.
• Final Boss: Evice uses a Shadow Tyranitar as his flagship Pokémon in Pokémon Colosseum.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation: Many of Tyranitar's Dex entries mention that its body can't be harmed by any attack, but in-game Tyranitar can be fainted just like any other Pokémon.
• Glowing Eyes of Doom: When Tyranitar becomes Mega Tyranitar, the "eyes" on its chest glow a bright red. Should you witness this, this is usually a sign of your impending defeat.
• Infinity -1 Sword: The Second Generation's Pseudo-Legendary with a Base Stat Total of 600.
• Jerkass: Just like Godzilla himself at his worst, Tyranitar is described as an uncaring and insolent Pokémon that destroys entire landscapes if enraged (and even just to build its nest). Quite fitting, considering it's a Dark-type. In some forms of canon, however, there are also accounts of them being very protective towards their young.
• The Juggernaut: Tyranitar's Pokédex entries have stated that it's able to destroy mountains when it rampages, and its body cannot be harmed by any sort of attack.
• Kaiju: Explicitly based on the Kaiju, that is to say Godzilla himself.
• Kryptonite Is Everywhere: As of Generation VI, Tyranitar has a total of a whopping seven weaknesses, one of which is double.^note Water, Grass, Ground, Steel, Bug, Fairy, and Fighting (the double one). They're tied with Exeggcute, Regular Exeggutor, Celebi, Nuzleaf, Shiftry, Cacturne, Terrakion, Snover, Abomasnow, Zarude and Calyrex for having the most weaknesses out of all Pokémon. On the bright side, Tyranitar has just as many resistances/immunities, and has very good defensive stats.
• Late Character Syndrome: It got hit with this hard in Gold/Silver/Crystal. Wild Larvitar aren't found until Mt. Silver, no higher than Level 20 in an area otherwise full of Level 40+ wild Pokémon, and they don't become Tyranitar until Level 55. And this is after the player has defeated every Gym Leader, and is on the doorstep of a True Final Boss with a team in the high 70s and low 80s. The remakes thankfully let you capture Larvitar much earlier in Johto's new Safari Zone. In Pokémon Crystal, you can get a Larvitar at Celadon City's Game Corner for 8888 coins as soon you reach Kanto. It comes at level 40, making it easy to evolve it and stomp Kanto's gym leaders with it.
• Mage Killer: Tyranitar's high Attack and Special Defense, combined with the 50% boost the latter receives from its sandstorm, makes it extremely dangerous to and resilient against special attackers, while being shakier against physical attackers. Likewise, its typing of Rock/Dark has good matchups against common special attacking types like Fire, Psychic, and Ghost, while being vulnerable to common physical attacking types like Ground, Steel, and especially Fighting.
• Magic Knight: Tyranitar has a respectable base 95 Special Attack and a more than respectable special movepool to make use of, which is a rarity amongst Rock-types.
• Magikarp Power: Like most pseudo-legendaries, it evolves at high levels and levels up slowly. This is not helped by its terrible defensive typing. But once it does, you've got a tank on your hands. Larvitar does naturally learn Rock Slide early, giving it a workable move to use.
• Mighty Glacier: Tyranitar's speed is decidedly lackluster, but it hits extremely hard with a fantastic overall bulk, and being part Rock-type, it receives a 50% Special Defense boost during the sandstorm. Several of its Pokédex entry states that it is so powerful that during rampages, it knocks down mountains and buries rivers, rendering maps outdated.
• Morphic Resonance: You can trace the pattern of dark spots around its chest and eyes from one evolutionary stage to the next, and likewise with the spike patterns of its head.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast:
  • Tyranitar's name is based partially off of tyrant.
  • Its German name is "Despotar."
  • Besides all three having Japanese names that sound similar to Godzilla's, one possible translation for Bangiras in particular is "savage hate".
• Not Zilla:
  • Tyranitar is based on Godzilla (its Japanese name is Bangiras, which even sounds like Godzilla's Japanese name Gojira or his ally Anguirus). Pokéstar Studios in Pokémon Black 2 and White 2 even have the "Giant Monster" series of films, which is basically a watered-down version of the Godzilla movies, but with Tyranitar in place of the Big G instead!
  • Its Mega Evolution looks like Super Godzilla from the game of the same name. Its body proportions also more closely resemble the various versions of Godzilla in general.
• Pint-Sized Powerhouse: Larvitar and Pupitar are able to learn damage dealing moves like Rock Slide, Earthquake (with a TM, no less) and Bulldoze despite their small statures.
• Pupating Peril: The Larvitar line is a unique non-insect example. As Larvitar, it starts out as a small baby reptile before evolving into the cocoon-like Pupitar. When it fully evolves into the Godzilla-esque Tyranitar, it drops the Ground sub typing for a Dark-type, as they're fearsome Pokémon that can destroy mountains.
• Recurring Element: Johto's version of the Dratini line, setting the draconian pseudo-legendary trend. Ironically enough, the line's typing doesn't include Dragon, a trait that is only shared by the Beldum line among pseudo-legendaries.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Averted with Tyranitar, which has black eyes even though its previous stages had red eyes. Played straight with Mega Tyranitar, however.
• Regional Redecoration: Tyranitar's Pokédex entry states that it can knock down mountains and bury rivers when it's angry. Maps have to be redrawn accordingly.
• The Rival: According to the official website of Pokémon Sword and Shield, Tyranitar share a habitat with, and often clash against Duraludon.
• Shout-Out:
  • While its design takes a lot after Godzilla, it also appears to be partially based on the famous Ultraman kaiju, Bemular, having similarly-shaped back ridges and short stubby arms.
  • Its Japanese name "Bangiras" appears to reference Godzilla's famous ally/adversary, Angiras AKA Anguirus.
  • It having a pupa form is a reference to Mothra, which has a pupal stage between its smaller larval form and its fully sized kaiju form.
• Spikes of Villainy: Mega Tyranitar has gigantic spikes jutting from its body and tail.
• Status Buff:
  • They get Curse and Dragon Dance by breeding. The first makes Tyranitar even more of a Mighty Glacier by beefing up its Defense and Attack at the cost of Speed, while the latter makes it into a Lightning Bruiser by increasing its Attack and Speed.
  • Since Rock-types get a 50% boost to Special Defense during a Sandstorm, Tyranitar essentially gets a buff to its already good defenses whenever it switches in.
• Super Mode: Tyranitar gained a Mega Evolution in X and Y, which has better Attack, defenses, and slightly better Speed, while still keeping its type and Sand Stream ability.
• Super-Toughness: Tyranitar can No-Sell just about anything (according to the Pokédex) and can destroy mountains by itself.
• T. Rexpy: Tyranitar, which is obvious from its name ^note its French name Tyranocif is even more evocative of ol' Rex, although it looks a bit more like Godzilla.
• Useless Useful Spell: Tyranitar gets Unnerve as its hidden ability; preventing the opponent from eating Berries is far more situational than getting a defensive boost everytime it switches in.
• Weather Manipulation: From Generation III onward, Tyranitar whips up a sandstorm merely by appearing on the battlefield with the Sand Stream ability. As of X and Y, the sandstorm is no longer permanent but lasts five turns.

Tower Duo: Lugia and Ho-Oh (Houou)

0249: Lugia (ルギア rugia)
0250: Ho-Oh / Houou (ホウオウ houou)

Lugia

Ho-Oh

Generation II's mascots, and the first Legendary Pokémon to grace a game's box art, based on the mythical Japanese rivalry between the dragon and the phoenix. Lugia — a Psychic/Flying-type — is a white draconic bird monster with blue features and handlike wings. Ho-Oh — a Fire/Flying-type — is a phoenix whose feathers are the seven colors of the rainbow. Their power is noted to be godlike, even above other Pokémon: Lugia is able to spark a devastating and long-lasting storm with but a flap of its wings, and Ho-Oh can raise the dead (and pay interest).

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• Acrofatic: Lugia's hefty, teardrop-shaped build is very similar to Charizard's, but it's very fast at 110 Speed and is a fantastic flyer.
• All Flyers Are Birds: Inverted with Lugia. It's supposed to be some sort of bird monster, but it more closely resembles (and is partially based off of) a dragon. It also doesn't act very-bird like, considering it prefers to sleep in underwater caves rather than nesting somewhere on land (it did once perch on the Brass Tower, until it accidentally destroyed it with a storm). It has feathers, though.
• Canon Immigrant: Lugia was created specifically for the movie Pokémon 2000, whose head writer Takeshi Shudō was surprised to later see it in the games.
• Cartoon Creature: Lugia doesn't resemble real-life birds like Ho-Oh does, but it isn't Dragon-type despite its draconic features and isn't even treated as a dragon on occasion like Charizard^note which could later become a true Dragon-type and Gyarados are^note other than one NPC stating that it looks like a dragon and a bird, and also has several features in common with sea mammals and dinosaurs. According to the creators, Lugia is whatever the viewer's/player's imagination says that it is.
• Code Name: "Pokémon X" for Lugia; "XD001" for the Shadow Lugia featured in Pokémon XD.
• The Corruption: Shadow Blast, a Shadow-type variant of Aeroblast, sharing its pure counterpart's high Critical Hit ratio as well. Oh, and the Shadow-type is super effective against everything.
• Confusion Fu: Lugia has a surprisingly diverse offense movepool. In addition to the usual fare of Psychic-, Flying-, and Normal-type moves, Lugia is also capable of learning numerous Water-type moves, as expected from its aquatic theming, as well as Electric-, Ice-, Ground-, Ghost-, Dragon-type moves with Punishment and Giga Drain.
• Dark Is Evil: Shadow Lugia from XD is said to be the 'strongest Shadow Pokémon' and therefore, (supposedly) immune to purification. Notably, its appearance is noticeably different from its normal counterpart, mainly its dark-purple body, and glowing red eyes.
• Dark Reprise: Inverted: Lugia's first Leitmotif was Vs. Shadow Lugia, which was then converted into a less dark song for Vs. Lugia in HeartGold and SoulSilver.
• Disc-One Nuke: In Black 2 and White 2, if you had the Dream Radar side game and a copy of the Johto Gen IV games in the cartridge slot (HeartGold for Ho-Oh, SoulSilver for Lugia), you could battle the corresponding box Legendary in Dream Radar and send it to B2/W2. This could be done as soon as you acquired the Pokédex, both Legendaries would have your Trainer ID so they would always obey you, and they come with their otherwise-inaccessible hidden abilities — Regenerator for Ho-Oh and Multiscale for Lugia.
• Dinosaurs Are Dragons: Exaggerated with Lugia, which is a draconic and vaguely reptilian bird monster (birds are classified as dinosaurs) that learns multiple Dragon-type moves.
• Divine Birds: Ho-oh is an enormous bird with rainbow feathers that seems to draw inspiration from both the phoenix and the fenghuang. It is associated with both rainbows (one follows it as it flies, and it's said to nest at the foot of a rainbow) and fire (its signature move is in fact called Sacred Fire). Its Pokédex entries and in-game lore credit it with a number of divine attributes and acts, including only showing itself to pure-hearted trainers, having the ability to bring eternal happiness to those who see it or find its feathers, and the resurrection of three unnamed Pokémon who died in a fire to create the Legendary Beasts Entei, Raikou, and Suicune.
• A Dog Named "Dog": Ho-Oh, or 鳳凰, means phoenix or Fènghuáng (a Chinese phoenix), which is exactly what it is.
• Early-Bird Cameo: Literally for Ho-Oh, who debuted in the first episode of the anime and consequently was the first Gen II Pokémon to ever be revealed. Lugia was created specifically for Pokémon 2000 and later added to the games.
• Early-Installment Weirdness:
  • Unlike the later Legendary mascots, they are not version exclusive (though one will be available earlier than the other) and lack a third member to form a trio. In fact, they're heavily associated with a trio themselves (Articuno, Zapdos and Moltres for Lugia, and Raikou, Entei and Suicune for Ho-Oh).
  • In their debut game, the regular wild encounter theme played when fighting them, unlike other Legendary mascots who had a separate theme. They eventually received their own themes in the remakes.
  • Unlike other Legendary mascots, they have no relevance to their debut game's plot, and in fact you can ignore them entirely. The remakes changed this by making it so you're required to fight them right after getting your eighth badge.
  • The Gen III games made it so that Lugia and Ho-Oh could only be obtainable via Mystery Gift or transferring them over from XD and Colosseum, unlike future games where these two (and other Legendaries for that matter) could be obtainable normally within their respective games (although, depending on the game in question, doing so often had specific in-game requirements). ^note The Sinnoh games did the same thing, but if you had an extra DS to trade with, the issue was rendered moot with the release of HeartGold and SoulSilver.
• Everything's Better with Rainbows: Ho-Oh is the Rainbow Pokémon, since it has feathers of various colors and leaves behind a rainbow wherever it flies.
• Feather Fingers: Lugia inverts this by having wings that look like square-ish hands.
• Flight: Flying-types.
• Healing Factor:
  • Both can learn Recover, and from Diamond and Pearl onwards, Roost.
  • Ho-Oh gets Regenerator as a Hidden Ability, which heals it for 1/3 of its total HP whenever it switches out.
• Holy Hand Grenade: Ho-Oh's Sacred Fire has elements of this.
• Incorruptible Pure Pureness: Ho-oh is said to only show itself to the most righteous of trainers.
• Infinity +1 Sword: In the original Gold and Silver, both were completely optional, the difference being that the title Legendary could be caught before the Elite Four. It would easily crush the remainder of the game... provided you can catch a Legendary with a base catch rate of 3 who randomly heals its HP with Recover and blocks your attempts to status it with Safeguard. They are mandatory in the remakes, but thankfully lack the healing moves.
• Informed Ability: Lugia is said to be extremely destructive even when it doesn't mean to be — a single flap of its wings will cause a 40-day-long storm — yet such abilities are unheard of in the games outside of Primal Kyogre. Its Attack and Special Attack are unimpressive for an Olympus Mon, being on par with the Com Mon Beedrill's Attack.
• Informed Attribute: Ho-Oh's feathers don't shine in the seven colors of the rainbow like the Pokédex states.
• Kraken and Leviathan: Not immediately obvious in that it more closely resembles a dragon and isn't even a Water-type, but Lugia spends most of its time living deep beneath the ocean, and is appropriately large and monstrous. And it learns a plethora of Water-type moves as well.
• Leitmotif: Since HeartGold and SoulSilver, each of them have their own theme.
• Let X Be the Unknown: Prior to its debut, Lugia was referred to as "Pokémon X" in various media, especially in the Pokémon anime. In Pokémon XD, a Shadow Lugia is also assigned the Code Name XD001.
• Life Drain: Through Move Tutor, both can learn Giga Drain.
• Lightning Bruiser: Ho-Oh is strong, very bulky (especially when it comes to Special Defense), can Heal Thyself with Roost and possibly its hidden Regenerator ability, and is decently fast. Compared to other Olympus Mons, Ho-oh behaves more like a Mighty Glacier as its Speed is average for their standards.
• Lord of the Ocean: Lugia lives within the ocean and acts as a mediator between Zapdos, Articuno, and Moltres, preventing one element from overcoming the others. It has the power to control the weather, calming storms with the beating of its wings.
• Mage Killer: If you consider special stats to be magic stats and physical stats to be, well, physical, then Ho-oh is this trope. Ho-oh's stat distribution is a rarity in the series — generally, Pokémon with a high Attack stat will have its Defense higher than its Special Defense (and vice-versa for Special Attack). Ho-oh's high Attack stat and powerful physical moves in Sacred Fire and Brave Bird, combined with its exceptional Special Defense stat, make it an excellent choice to defeat physically-frail special attackers. It is not that good against physical attackers with its average Defense stat and glaring weakness to the often-physical Rock-type.
• Magic Knight: While Ho-Oh's Attack is a high 130, its Special Attack also happens to be a great 110, and it gets a wide variety of moves on both ends, allowing it to easily run physical, special, or mixed sets with no problems.
• Making a Splash: Lugia learns a few Water attacks, sleeps in the depths of the ocean, and its Silver Pokédex entry calls it the guardian of the sea. However, it isn't a Water-type outside of the TGC (which uses an altered version of the franchise's type system).
• Mana Drain: Their normal ability is Pressure, which increases an opponent's Power Point usage.
• Mix-and-Match Critters: Lugia is mostly dragonlike, but also has features of birds (of course), whales, stegosaurus, and plesiosaurs.
• Moveset Clone: They have the same base stats as Mewtwo, just rearranged. It ended up setting the mold for future cover Legendaries having the same base stat total.
• No Biological Sex: Played straight in the games. However, one Lugia shown in the anime has been known to have given birth to a baby Lugia nicknamed Silver. Interestingly, Takeshi Shudō considered Lugia to be "both male and female", citing its dual nature as being symbolic of how people can coexist in harmony despite their differences.
• Olympus Mons: The first Legendaries to make it onto the box art, no less.
• One-Letter Name: "Pokémon X", the Code Name for Lugia.
• Our Dragons Are Different: Lugia learns some Dragon-type moves by level-up, and is based on a mythological dragon (the Ryujin), although it's unclear whether it's supposed to be a dragon or a bird (an NPC in HeartGold and SoulSilver refers to it as resembling both, and it's officially a Cartoon Creature).
• Permanently Missable Content: In addition to the two being gone forever if knocked out (prior to Gen IV, anyway), in Crystal Ho-Oh can only be accessed if Raikou, Entei, and Suicune are all caught. And if one of them is knocked out, the Rainbow Wing — and by extension Ho-Oh and the rest of Tin Tower — is permanently locked off to the player.
• The Phoenix: Ho-Oh is based off of one (and literally named after its Japanese counterpart), but lacked their regenerative traits (outside of it resurrecting Entei, Raikou, and Suicune) until Black 2 and White 2 gave it the Regenerator ability.
• Physical God: Both of them are the equivalent of gods in the Pokémon Universe, and are responsible for the very forces of nature.
• Playing with Fire: Ho-Oh is a Fire-type.
• Power Incontinence: The reason why Lugia stays at the bottom of a ocean cavern is because it can't control its destructive power.
• Pre-Final Boss: In Pokémon XD Shadow Lugia is the penultimate boss fight of the game.
• Psychic Powers: Lugia is a Psychic-type. Ho-Oh also has hints of possessing them, and naturally learns Extrasensory in HeartGold and SoulSilver.
• Purposely Overpowered: Like Mewtwo and the version mascots of future generations, Lugia and Ho-Oh have their use limited in the Battle Tower, cups in the 3D Pokémon battle simulators (such as Pokémon Stadium), most tournaments, and random Wi-Fi battles.
• Purple Is Powerful: The Shadow Lugia in XD is colored dark-purple and possesses two powerful moves that hit all non-Shadow Pokémon for super-effective damage: Shadow Blast and Shadow Storm. It's also said to be impossible to purify.
• Required Party Member: In Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, either one of them are needed to be in the player's party while soaring to find the Trackless Forest where the Legendary Beasts' portals are located.
• Secret Art:
  • Sacred Fire was exclusive to Ho-Oh before Entei could learn it in Gen VI, but it's still associated with Ho-Oh, while Lugia has Aeroblast. Both have the same power, PP, and accuracy, but Sacred Fire is a physical Fire-type attack that has a high 50% chance to burn the target, while Aeroblast is a special Flying-type attack that has a high Critical Hit ratio instead.
  • In Pokémon XD, Shadow Lugia has the Shadow-type counterpart to Aeroblast, Shadow Blast; once purified, this is replaced with Psycho Boost, which is otherwise exclusive to Deoxys. Oddly enough, with Deoxys absent in Pokémon Sword and Shield, the move technically becomes its own other Secret Art, with it being the only Pokémon that can know the move and exist in the Galar games.
• Single Specimen Species: Played straight normally, but in the anime, this is averted in one episode, where there is both a baby Lugia and its adult parent.
• Stone Wall: Lugia's offensive stats are a bit underwhelming, but it has one of the highest overall defensive stats in the game, with access to Roost and (potentially) the ability Multiscale making it ridiculously hard to KO, and even without Multiscale, Pressure generally ensures that the opponent runs out of PP before Lugia runs out of HP. Unusually for this trope, it's also very fast, at 110 Speed, though not to the level of relative Glass Cannons such as Mewtwo and Normal/Attack Forme Deoxys.
• The Stormbringer: According to its Pokédex entry, Lugia sleeps on the bottom of the sea to avoid this trope. For instance, a Pokédex entry states that it can unleash a 40-day storm by flapping its wings.
• Sword of Plot Advancement: In HeartGold and SoulSilver, the developers changed it so that you must encounter and either catch or defeat the title Legendary. To make things easier, its initial movepool will no longer contain Safeguard or Recover.
• Technicolor Fire: Ho-Oh's signature move Sacred Fire is usually depicted as blue or purple.
• Temporary Online Content: Throughout Gen III and Gen IV prior to the Johto remakes, Lugia and Ho-Oh were only available via location-based events (or transferring them from XD and Colosseum, respectively) owing to a lack of backwards compatibility with G/S/C. Because of this, the two aren't required for National Pokédex completion in Gen III and the Sinnoh games.
• Too Awesome to Use: Catching Ho-Oh is often the only way to get the Sacred Ash item, which it holds when caught. It revives all fainted Pokémon in your party at once and completely restores their HP, but getting more is either very difficult or outright impossible, depending on the game.
• Wind from Beneath My Wings: Both are Flying-type birds and learn Whirlwind. Lugia's Aeroblast is a super-powered wind attack that has a high Power and increased chance to land a Critical Hit.
• Your Size May Vary: At the Whirl Islands/Bell Tower in HeartGold and SoulSilver, the two use overworld sprites that are larger and more detailed than those of any other Pokémon in the game. While following the player, their sprites are noticeably smaller (though still larger than average).

Celebi

0251: Celebi (セレビィ serebii)

Celebi

The strange and mystical Celebi is a Pokémon that boasts many abilities. Its main power is its ability to travel through time, though it also has the ability to revive plants. Due to this, forests that Celebi inhabit are said to thrive. Like Mew, this Pokémon is a Mythical Pokémon — a secret character not obtained through normal play, and only through special distributions. At least, until the Virtual Console release of Pokémon Crystal added the ability to catch one without events, wherever, whenever.

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• Adaptational Wimp: In the anime, it gets easily smacked around by Shuppet, Houndoom, and even a human^note Grings Kodai wielding little else but an extendable mechanical claw. Compare that to Mew, who's just as cute but easily holds its own against Mewtwo in a fight.
• The Artifact: Despite being one of the most stereotypically fairylike Pokémon in the franchise, Celebi was not retconned to be part Fairy-type when the type was introduced in Generation VI, possibly due to its already being a non-Normal dual-typed Pokémon.
• Green Thumb: A Grass-type based off of a fairy.
• Healing Factor: It has Natural Cure, allowing it to recover from status effects after being swapped out, and it can be tutored Synthesis.
• Informed Ability: It's said to be the guardian of the forest, but more often (in the anime) the forest needs to be the guardian of it.
• Jack of All Stats: Its stats are all at base 100.
• Kryptonite Is Everywhere: Celebi is infamous for having one of the worst defensive typings in the series, with a double weakness to Bug and six other weaknesses. On the bright side, it's got just as many resistances.
• Late Character Syndrome: So you've beaten the Elite Four in the Virtual Console port of Crystal, and have captured Celebi. Congratulations! Now have fun getting the Level 30 Mythical up to speed with the rest of your Champion team, although Gen II's skewed level curve and Celebi's excellent stats alleviates it somewhat. It's even worse in the original Japanese release of the game — there, getting every Kanto Gym Badge is another prerequisite to getting the GS Ball. At that point, you're facing down Red!
• No Biological Sex: Though an explicitly female one (which is shiny and pink) appears in the second set of Mystery Dungeon games (though still genderless for the purpose of Attract), and the regular-colored one in Pokémon Super Mystery Dungeon is explicitly referred to as male.
• Olympus Mons: Guardian of the forest and time travel Pokémon.
• Our Fairies Are Different: This fairy-like being can time travel. It's not a Fairy-type, though, but it can learn Dazzling Gleam.
• Pint-Sized Powerhouse: It can do a lot of damage with moves despite its small stature.
• Psychic Powers: Psychic-type.
• Purposely Overpowered: Like Mew and future Mythical Pokémon, Celebi is restricted in battle facilities, cups in 3D fighters, official tournaments, and random Wi-Fi.
• Recurring Element: Like Mew, it's a Ridiculously Cute Critter resembling a pixie, with good, well-rounded stats and only being available as Temporary Online Content (or at least, for around eighteen years).
• Required Party Member: An event Celebi released at the tail-end of Generation IV can be imported into Pokémon Black and White via the Relocator function, and is the only way to obtain a Zorua in those games (the sequels made it more accessible).
• Ridiculously Cute Critter: Quite possibly one of the cutest, and it's the second generation's all-100 cute Mythical.
• Secret Character: Prior to the Virtual Console release of Crystal, it was only available via special distributions, and could not be obtained legitimately in normal gameplay.
• Secret Art: It is one of the few Pokémon that can have Hold Back when received through an event, and the first of such Pokémon.
• Status Buff: A Celebi event released around HeartGold and SoulSilver's release gave it the move Nasty Plot, which sharply boosts its Special Attack by two stages. Notably, this was the only way for Celebi to learn the move until Nasty Plot became a TR in Sword and Shield.
• Temporary Online Content: Like Mew and all future Mythicals, if you miss a real world event for a Celebi, your only options for getting one are to hope another event comes or else hack the game. Notably, Celebi was the first Mythical Pokémon in the pre-DS era to actually be online content (or at least, the GS Ball required to access it in Crystal was). However, the Virtual Console release of Crystal makes the GS Ball (and thus, Celebi) available in-game after defeating the Elite Four.
• Time Travel: It's an ability that is shown off in HeartGold and SoulSilver, and Celebi itself is also known as the Time Travel Pokémon. Occasionally, it's said to bring an egg back from another time period.
• Weaksauce Weakness: While Celebi has quite a few weaknesses, its biggest weakness is none other than Bug.

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