Characters / Pokémon: Generation VI - Chespin to Hawlucha

Main Character Index > Pokémon: Generation VI Families >
Chespin to Hawlucha (650 - 701) | Dedenne to Volcanion (702 - 721) [Aura Trio (Xerneas, Yveltal, and Zygarde) (716 - 718)]

The character sheet for the Gen VI families got so long it had to be broken into two pages. For the rest, go here.

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Chespin, Quilladin, and Chesnaught (Harimaron, Hariborg, and Brigarron)

0650: Chespin / Harimaron (ハリマロン harimaron)
0651: Quilladin / Hariborg (ハリボーグ hariboogu)
0652: Chesnaught / Brigarron (ブリガロン burigaron)

Chespin

Quilladin

Chesnaught

Kalos's Grass-type starter, Chespin is based on a hedgehog with a chestnut-like helmet. Its first evolution, Quilladin, looks even more like one, with its entire body becoming round and the shell incorporating more into its body. When it reaches its final evolution, it gains the Fighting type, its limbs grow out, its chestnut shell turns brown and grows huge spikes, and it assumes a much more threatening appearance. Alongside the other starters, Xerneas, and Yveltal, Chespin was one of the first Generation VI Pokémon revealed to the public.

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• Badass Adorable: Chespin, unlike most Grass starters who struggle for moves at the start, gets great coverage moves such as Bite and Rollout early on, making it very useful early in the game.
• Badass Cape: The shell on Chesnaught's back evokes the image of a knight's cape.
• Bare-Fisted Monk: Gains the Fighting-type on evolution to Chesnaught.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Chesnaught is said to have a gentle disposition but will fiercely defend itself if threatened.
• Bulletproof Vest: Their Hidden Ability is Bulletproof, which protects them from ball and bomb attacks.
• Carpet of Virility: Chesnaught has a nice fuzzy one on its chest despite being covered in armor.
• Cast from Hit Points: The entire line can learn Wood Hammer, which deals a lot of damage to the opponent at the cost of some recoil damage to the user.
• Confusion Fu: Chesnaught can learn a plethora of moves. The only types it can't use for moves are Fairy, Water, and Ice. This isn't including Hidden Power.
• Cool Helmet: Chesnaught has a shell on its head that matches the armor.
• Curious as a Monkey: It is noted that a lot of them tend to get in trouble often due to their curious nature.
• Cute Little Fangs: Play with Chesnaught in Pokémon-Amie and you'll see them. This notably contrasts with the rest of its line, which have rodent-like buck teeth. Still adorable, though.
• Defend Command:
  • Their former Secret Art Spiky Shield protects the user from most moves, with the added bonus of damaging anybody who uses a contact move on them.
  • They can be bred to have Quick Guard, which protects them and their allies from priority attacks in Double and Triple Battles.
• Discard and Draw: Chesnaught becomes half-Fighting type after evolving, losing a weakness to the Bug-Type and becoming resistent to Rock-Type moves, with new weaknesses to Psychic and Fairy-Type moves and the Flying-Type becomes dangerous to Chesnaught.
• Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors: While starter Pokémon have had the Water -> Fire -> Grass -> Water cycle from the very beginning, these three Gen VI starter Pokémon have an extra cycle within, going Dark (Greninja) -> Psychic (Delphox) -> Fighting (Chesnaught) -> Dark (Greninja).
• Fighter, Mage, Thief: The "Fighter" of the starters. Chesnaught is based on a knight, and as knights are often associated with close-range combat, it is Fighting-typed. The other two top-level starter evolutions are similarly themed with respect to their respective subtypes — Delphox is magician-themed, being Psychic-typed, while Greninja is ninja-themed, being Dark-typed.
• Gentle Giant: Chesnaught is known to be quite gentle and cares deeply about its allies, despite its intimidating appearance.
• Green Thumb: Grass-types based off of hedgehogs.
• Immune to Bullets: Their hidden ability Bulletproof gives them immunity to bomb- and ball-based moves (like Shadow Ball, Aura Sphere, Sludge Bomb, etc), as well as Bullet Seed.
• Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: Chesnaught's attack animation when using Spiky Shield depicts it holding up its arm as if using a shield.
• Meaningful Name: "Bōgu" is a kind of armor, fitting considering Quilladin's armor-like shell.
• Mighty Glacier: Chesnaught has high physical defense and high attack with middling speed.
• Perpetual Smiler: Chespin is always seen smiling and has a happy look in its artwork.
• The Pollyanna: Chespin always keep an optimistic outlook regardless of what happens, and they never worry about the small details. Its artwork shows it having a wide smile too.
• Recurring Element: The Kalos Grass Starter.
• Starter Mon: The Grass Starter of Kalos. It has a good enough movepool that it can handle itself even against some opponents that it has a defensive disadvantage against in the early game, but it gets harder as the player progresses.
• Secret Art:
  • Up until Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, Spiky Shield, which protects Chesnaught from all forms of damage while also dealing damage to contact attackers.
  • Up until Gen VII, it also had a Hidden Ability unique to it in Bulletproof, which protects them from ball and bomb based attacks.
  • Like the rest of the Grass starters before it, Grass Pledge and Frenzy Plant is available to them.
• Stealth Pun: Chespin is literally a Hedge-hog.
• Super-Strength: In X's Pokédex entry, a Chesnaught's tackle can flip a 50 TON TANK.
• Super-Toughness: Chespin is covered in wood armor so thick that it can take a direct hit from a truck and not be fazed. Chesnaught can withstand a bomb going off by holding its arms over its face. This comes into play with its Hidden Ability of Bulletproof.
• Trap Master: They can be bred to have the move Spikes, a field effect which will damage opposing Pokémon as they switch in as long as they're not immune to Ground-type attacks.
• Turns Red: Like all Grass starters, Overgrow boosts the power of Grass-type moves when at low health.

Fennekin, Braixen, and Delphox (Fokko, Tairenar, and Mahoxy)

0653: Fennekin / Fokko (フォッコ fokko)
0654: Braixen / Tairenar (テールナー teerunaa)
0655: Delphox / Mahoxy (マフォクシー mafokushii)

Fennekin

Braixen

Delphox

Kalos's Fire-type starter, Fennekin is based on a Fennec fox cub. Unlike most of the previous fire starters (except Cyndaquil), its body is mostly yellow. When it evolves into Braixen, it becomes bipedal, its legs turn black, and a twig appears in its tail. When it evolves again into Delphox (gaining the Psychic type), its skirt grows larger and turns maroon, resembling a wizard's robe. It still keeps its twig in its sleeve and uses it as a wand. Alongside the other starters, Xerneas, and Yveltal, Fennekin was one of the first Generation VI Pokémon revealed to the public.

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• Asian Fox Spirit: It's modelled after a fennec fox, but its abilities are similar. Delphox may take inspiration from kitsune-mochi, Japanese witches who derive their powers from foxes.
• Badass Longrobe: The fur skirt that it gains as Delphox is evocative of this.
• Balance Buff: Delphox can learn Dazzling Gleam from Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire onwards, allowing it to inflict some sizable damage to Dark-types and Dragon-types.
• Bishounen Line: All three starters become more humanoid as they evolve, but Delphox fits this trope best for its more feminine features.
• Black Magician Girl: Male or female, it has psychic powers (especially as the mage mentioned below) and is sometimes hot-tempered.
• Breakout Character: In an unusual turn of events, especially for starter Pokémon, it's Braixen, the middle stage, who gets the most attention, being Serena's main Pokémon in the anime^note While she would eventually evolve into Delphox, by this time Serena was only a recurring character and was sidelined in favor of Sylveon, and being a playable character in Pokkén Tournament instead of its evolution, Delphox.
• Burn the Witch!: Being based on a witch and part Fire-type, it may be based on the concept of witches being burned at the stake.
• Character Name Limits: Delphox is the first Pokémon in National Dex order with more than five kana in its Japanese name.
• Cute Little Fangs: Fennekin has a set of tiny fangs, and is a very cute fennec fox.
• Cute Witch: Braixen evokes one with its twig sticking out of its tail, resembling a broomstick, and its Psychic Powers.
• Discard and Draw: Delphox gains the Psychic type, negating Fire's resistence to Bug and standing up strong to Fighting- and Psychic-type moves. Ghost and Dark get added to its list of weaknesses.
• Ditto Fighter: Delphox can learn Role Play in order to copy an opponent's ability.
• Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors: While starter Pokémon have had the Water -> Fire -> Grass -> Water cycle from the very beginning, these three Gen VI starter Pokémon have an extra cycle within, going Dark (Greninja) -> Psychic (Delphox) -> Fighting (Chesnaught) -> Dark (Greninja).
• Extreme Omnivore: Fennekin eats sticks to fuel its fire abilities.
• Fantastic Foxes: Fennec fox flavored. Like Ninetales, Zoroark's lines, they are also based on tales about foxes with magical abilities; however, they appear to draw more inspiration from the fabled Reynard from European folklore instead of the Japanese kitsune.
• Fighter, Mage, Thief: The "Mage" of the starters. Delphox is based on several kinds of mystical/magical archetypes, such as wizards, oracles, and mages, and is Psychic-type. The other two final starter evolutions are similarly themed with respect to their respective subtypes — Greninja is ninja-themed, being Dark-type, and Chesnaught is knight-themed, being Fighting-type.
• Foxy Vixen: Braixen and Delphox are humanoid fox-like Pokemon based on witches and boast a feminine appearance.
• Friction Burn: Braixen uses friction from the fur of its tail to ignite its stick to use fire attacks.
• Fur Is Clothing: Braixen's resembles a skirt, and Delphox's resembles a wizard's robe. Delphox's case is also very noticeable, as most other animalistic Pokémon that follow this trope aren't very obvious at first, while Delphox's "robe" is a vastly different color than its main fur.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: They can learn Foul Play through tutoring, a Dark-type attack that uses the opponent's Attack to calculate damage instead of the user's.
• Irony: Witches are well-known for being burned in witch hunts. This fox-witch uses fire to burn its enemies instead.
• Light 'em Up: Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire gave Delphox the ability to learn Dazzling Gleam and Signal Beam, finally giving it a proper chance to stand against Dark-types.
• Magical Girl: Braixen's effeminate appearance, particularly its frilly shoulder fur, skirt-like abdomen, and black legs that resemble stockings makes it seem like it's wearing an outfit typical of magical girls.
• Magic Wand: Braixen wields the stick in its tail like one during battle, complete with a fiery spark animation when casting attacks. It carries over when it evolves into Delphox.
• Meaningful Name: Fennekin/Fokko is a fiery young Fennec fox, Braixen/Tairenar is a brazen braise-like (hot charcoal) bruxa (witch) of a vixen with a bushy tail, and Delphox/Mahoxy is a magical Delphic oracular fox.
• Nothing Up My Sleeve: Delphox hides its stick/wand in the sleeve-like ruffs of fur on its arms when not in use.
• Playing with Fire: This line is the Fire-type starter of Kalos.
• Poor, Predictable Rock: It has the shallowest move pool of the three starters, cannot learn many TMs that could cover its weaknesses and/or make use of its great Special Attack like Energy Ball, and only has five known egg moves.^note Prior to USUM, where it gained Psychic Terrain, they only had four egg moves. Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire remedied this a bit with move tutors.
• Power Up Letdown: Their Hidden Ability, Magician. Not only do they have to not hold an item to activate Magician (in which case It Only Works Once unless they can ditch their item somehow), Delphox already learns Switcheroo from the Move Relearner and Trick via move tutor, allowing them to still steal an item while also crippling an opponent with a deleterious item.
• Precious Puppies: Fennekin's the size of a lapdog and has a particularly adorable bark.
• Psychic Powers:
  • Despite being pure Fire-types, Fennekin and Braixen can learn Psybeam, Psychic, and Psyshock.
  • Delphox is part Psychic-type and can telekinetically control its flames.
• Recurring Element: The Kalos Fire Starter.
• Retcon: Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire allow it to learn Dazzling Gleam through TM, even though the TM was also available in X and Y.
• Ridiculously Cute Critter: Fennekin is an adorable little fox kit with big eyes and fluffy ears.
• Robe and Wizard Hat: Delphox's ears resemble a hat, and the "dress" it had as a Braixen has become a full fledged robe.
• Secret Art:
  • Up until Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, when Mismagius also became able to learn it, Mystical Fire, which deals damage while lowering a foe's Special Attack.
  • Being a Fire starter, it can learn both Fire Pledge and Blast Burn.
• Security Blanket: Braixen keeps its trademark stick wand in its tail whenever it isn't using it to attack, and has a tendency to lose its calm if it isn't there otherwise.
• Seers: Delphox's name references the Oracle of Delphi, and it can see into the future by staring into the flame at the tip of its wand. Its Scarlet Dex entry mentions that humans would use the burn marks left by its wand in the ground as a form of divination as well.
• Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: Sensitive guy to Charizard's (the other Fire-type starter available in X and Y onwards) manly man; Delphox is a feminine-looking magician fox that uses its fire and psychic powers to act as Seers. Charizard is a Blood Knight who searches the land for worthy opponents. That said, they're both tilted towards being speedy Special Attackers.
• Starter Mon: The Fire starter of Kalos. It's effective against opponents that it has a clear advantage over, but its surprisingly shallow movepool holds it back.
• Squishy Wizard: Delphox has the second-highest Special Attack of all the starters and decent Special Defense, but its Attack and Defense are just average.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Fennekin's are sticks, which doesn't make sense for a fox, but definitely for a fire. It stops eating branches once it evolves and uses one as a Magic Wand instead.
• Tsundere: The Sweet type in Pokémon-Amie, towards its trainer. It's so sweet and adorable when you play with it, but if you do something that upsets it, it'll perform the classic Tsundere gesture of folding its arms across its chest and turning away with a 'Humph!' expression.◊
• Turns Red: Like all Fire starters, Blaze boosts the power of Fire-type moves when at low health.
• Useless Useful Spell: The line is capable of learning a lot of physical TMs such as Power-Up Punch, which runs off and boosts their nigh-abysmal Attack, and most of their tutor moves are just as useless because they are also physical.
• Video Game Stealing: Magician allows them to steal a held item when they attack an enemy as long as they themselves aren't holding one.
• Weapon Twirling: Braixen often twirls its wand like a baton during attacks. It doesn't do this as much after evolving into Delphox.

Froakie, Frogadier, and Greninja (Keromatsu, Gekogashira, and Gekkouga)

0656: Froakie / Keromatsu (ケロマツ keromatsu)
0657: Frogadier / Gekogashira (ゲコガシラ gekogashira)
0658: Greninja / Gekkouga (ゲッコウガ gekkouga)

Froakie

Frogadier

Greninja

^Ash-Greninja

Kalos's Water-type starter, Froakie is based on a frog. It has a cape that is made out of foam. While it seems absent-minded, it's really keeping a close eye on its surroundings. Its first evolution gives it a dark blue and more sleek appearance. Its second one (also a Dark-type) becomes a Ninja, and is even darker and sleeker; it also has an Overly-Long Tongue that it uses as a scarf, strangely. Alongside the other starters, Xerneas, and Yveltal, Froakie was one of the first Generation VI Pokémon revealed to the public. A very special Greninja is capable of transforming into a unique and powerful form known as "Ash-Greninja" (so named because it resembles Ash's design from Pokémon the Series: XY), courtesy of an ability known as Battle Bond. This ability activates when Greninja defeats an opponent in battle.

Greninja also joins Pikachu, Jigglypuff, Charizard, Lucario, and Mewtwo as a playable character in the Wii U and 3DS Super Smash Bros. games.

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• Action Initiative: They can all learn Quick Attack, a 40 Power attack with +1 priority. As a Greninja, it can learn Shadow Sneak and Water Shuriken that can hit 2 to 5 times.
• Awesome, but Impractical: Water Shuriken is a pretty unique move, being a multi-hit priority attack, and is depicted as one of Greninja's coolest attacks in TCG art, the anime and Super Smash Bros.. In-game, it's often weaker than desirable, and Greninja is fast enough to not really care about the priority. Pokémon Sun and Moon rectify this by making it a Special move and an increase in power while Greninja is transformed into Ash-Greninja, and being guaranteed to hit three times to remove the luck-based aspect of the move.
• Barrier Change Boss: Their hidden ability Protean allows them to change their type to a move right before they attack. With Hidden Power, it can potentially change into any type except Fairy.
• Bilingual Bonus: Greninja's name is a combination of "ninja" and "grenouille", the French word for frog (the actual animal, not the derogatory term for a French person). Ironically, its French name ("Amphinobi") doesn't contain any distinctly French roots^note it comes from Latin and Japanese roots instead, even though "Greninja" does and isn't distinctly English-sounding itself.^note This is likely due to all foreign names being translated directly from Japanese this gen, so the French translators didn't have a chance to know the name "Greninja".
• Boring, but Practical: They can learn every Gen VI HM except Fly, making them excellent choices for navigating both Kalos and Hoenn.
• Breakout Character: The most iconic starter of its generation, due to being Ash's main in the anime and its appearance in Smash Bros. just like Charizard in Gen I, and to a lesser extent Blaziken in Gen III. It even has an 'Ash-Greninja' special forme that made it to Sun and Moon. Greninja is fact so popular that it won the 20th anniversary general election, beating out Pikachu and Arceus.
• Bubble Gun: They can learn Bubble, but not Bubble Beam.
• Caltrops: Greninja can learn Spikes by taking it to the Move Relearner. The family can also get Toxic Spikes as an egg move.
• Canon Immigrant: Ash-Greninja was first introduced in the XYZ portion of Pokémon the Series: XY, where it was a main focus. Much of the mystery surrounding it was that it was a form that's similar to Mega Evolution, but the exact mechanics were unknown. This form was later introduced into the main games themselves and the Greninja is greatly implied to actually be the very same Greninja from the anime. However, as of Gen IX, Ash-Greninja no longer exists in the games, with its Battle Bond ability now merely granting Greninja a stat boost without transforming.
• Celibate Hero: Unlike others of his species, Ash-Greninja is unable to breed.
• Combat Pragmatist: Greninja gains a secondary Dark typing. The line is also known for picking up and throwing rocks at foes, as evidenced by Smack Down and Fling.
• Confusion Fu:
  • Their hidden ability, Protean, lets them change their type to the attack they use. This effectively makes them get STAB on everything. Add in Hidden Power and it gets even more confusing on just what it can change into^note The only type that it cannot become is the Fairy-type, as Hidden Power cannot be Fairy and the line cannot learn any Fairy moves. They can also learn Water, Ice, Psychic, Dark, Bug, Flying, Ghost, Grass, Ground, and Rock moves. Defending against Greninja becomes very difficult because it's hard to know if it doesn't have a super-effective move, and hitting it for super-effective damage is nigh-impossible unless one's Pokémon carries a move that's super effective against its own weakness.
  • Factor in Ash-Greninja and now facing a Greninja is a guessing game between one that can potentially become 17 types or one that has access to a Super Mode.
• Dark Is Not Evil: Greninja is probably among the best examples of how the Dark-type can represent combat pragmatism rather than malevolence and dark powers.
• Difficult, but Awesome: In order to activate its Battle Bond ability so it can transform into Ash Greninja, Greninja must land the finishing blow on an opponent, which an opposing trainer will most certainly try to avoid. But once it transforms into Ash-Greninja, it's pretty difficult to stop the wrath of Ash-Greninja.
• Discard and Draw: Greninja has the Dark-Type added to it, adding weakness to Fighting and Fairy, resistance to Ghost and Dark, and Immune to Psychic. If Greninja has the Protean ability, its Water/Dark type is changed to the type of the move it uses, as well as all of their strengths and weaknesses.
• Disc-One Nuke:
  • Ash's Greninja is this for the entirety of the Sun & Moon special demo. Most Pokémon you encounter are either lower-leveled or are unevolved (mid-stage top) and they don't resist his Night Slash, which is a powerful STAB attack. The only fairly strong Pokémon (that also happens to resist Dark-Type attacks) is Hakamo-o, but it can be easily two-shotted by the super-effective Aerial Ace. During the Totem Hakamo-o battle as well as against every new trainer that can be fought after the main event, there are two Pokémon in the opposing team, guaranteeing that Greninja will always transform into Ash-Greninja.
  • Averted in the actual Sun & Moon game. While Ash-Greninja can be received early on in the game, he won't really obey you until you have cleared the second Grand Trial due to him being Level 36, which is unfortunately only one level higher than the level cap of the first Grand Trial's completion.
• Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors: While starter Pokémon have had the Water -> Fire -> Grass -> Water cycle from the very beginning, these three Gen VI starter Pokémon have an extra cycle within, which goes Dark (Greninja) -> Psychic (Delphox) -> Fighting (Chesnaught) -> Dark (Greninja).
• Eyes Always Shut: When out of battle in Pokémon Amie, they mostly keep their eyes shut.
• Fighter, Mage, Thief: The "Thief" of the starters; Greninja is ninja-themed, and, having Dark as its subtype, uses a lot of sneaky tactics as a result. The other two top-level starter evolutions are similarly themed with respect to their respective subtypes — Chesnaught is knight-themed, being Fighting-type, while Delphox is magician-themed, being Psychic-type.
• Fragile Speedster: Greninja is the fastest of all fully-evolved starters, but it doesn't take hits very well. Upon transforming to Ash-Greninja, it becomes slightly faster, but it's still just as frail as usual.
• Frog Men: Greninja is a fairly humanoid frog Pokémon.
• Frog Ninja: The line wears their ninja influences on its sleeve with their high speed, but Greninja is the most ninja-like of them with its tongue mimicing a scarf and fashioning throwing stars out of water with its signature move Water Shuriken.
• Fuuma Shuriken: As Ash-Greninja, it carries a large Water Shuriken on its back and it is significantly stronger than the regular, small Water Shuriken.
• Glass Cannon: Continuing to fall in line with its Ninja/Thief theme, Greninja is very fast and also very fragile, but unlike a usual thief, Greninja actually hits hard. Particularly and especially if it has its Protean ability. This is taken even further as Ash-Greninja, gaining a huge boost to both its Attack and Special Attack stat when Battle Bond activates, but both its Defense and Sp.Defense aren't altered at all.
• Hand Seals: Fitting with its Ninja theme, Greninja uses these when performing a special move. Ash-Greninja does a hand seal as its idle animation in battle.
• Hot Blooded Sideburns: Ash-Greninja has black markings and protrusions on both sides of its face that resemble sideburns. Since this form comes into being during the heat of an intense battle, this addition to Greninja's design is appropriate.
• In a Single Bound: It is mentioned that Froakie can jump as high as a three story building, while Frogadier jumps all over the place to confuse its opponents. They even learn the move Bounce. In Super Smash Bros., Greninja has the second-highest jump of all the characters, only beaten by Falco.
• Informed Ability: Downplayed, but it is explicitly said that Ash-Greninja's legs become so strong after transforming that its speed makes it impossible for your eyes to keep up. While it does become a bit faster, the actual Speed boost is rather insignificant in comparison to its offensive boosts.
• Irony: Due to gaining the Dark-type upon evolving, giving it a weakness against Bug-type attacks, Greninja is a frog that's weak against insects.
• Making a Splash: The Water-type starter of Kalos.
• Nerf: Starting from Gen IX, both of Greninja's other abilities were nerfed. Greninja's Protean ability, which let it switch its type to match the type of the move it's about to use, now only works once per switch-in — and with Hidden Power being unusable since Gen VIII, it has lost access to several types. Its other ability, Battle Bond, no longer transforms Greninja into Ash-Greninja upon knocking out a foe; instead, it just raises Greninja's Atk, Sp Atk, and Spd by one stage. Since the effect is now just a stat boost rather than a base stat adjustment, it's subject to the 6-stage stat adjustment cap and fades away if Greninja switches out or if it's subjected to a Status-Buff Dispel move such as Haze or Clear Smog.
• Ninja: This is the line's theme. It becomes more prominent with each evolution. With Greninja, it's in the name as well. The line also can learn multiple ninja moves, like Smokescreen, Haze, Substitute, Mat Block, Spikes, Night Slash, and Water Shuriken.
• Ninja Log: Greninja can learn Substitute by level-up.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: It appears like it is being absent-minded, but Froakie is actually very observant and keeps an eye on its surroundings, implying it is being invoked.
• Overly-Long Tongue: Greninja uses its long tongue as a scarf. Like real-world frogs, Greninja can still use it to grab things that are out of arm's reach.
• Psychic Powers: Greninja can learn Extrasensory by level-up.
• Recurring Element: The Kalos Water Starter, and the second one in a row to be based on a type of Japanese warrior.
• Red and Black and Evil All Over: Averted. Greninja's shiny form is pitch-black with a bright red tongue, but of course it's only an "Evil-type" in Japanese (not an evil Pokémon).
• Retcon: As of Gen IX, Ash-Greninja no longer exists in the games, so Battle Bond no longer transforms Greninja into Ash-Greninja; instead, it raises Greninja's Attack, Special Attack, and Speed by one stage each time it scores a KO.
• Rule of Three: Ash-Greninja's Water Shuriken will always hit three times no matter what.
• Scarf of Asskicking: Has one made of bubbles as Frogadier. As Greninja, it uses its own tongue.
• Secret Art:
  • Until Pokémon Sun and Moon, Mat Block, which acts like Protect and Detect for the Pokémon on the user's side, but has no extra priority, will not protect against status-inflicting moves, and only works on the first turn Greninja is in battle (like Fake Out).
  • Up until Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, Water Shuriken, a priority move that hits 2 to 5 times in a row. Interestingly, the one this move was given to, and the only other Pokémon to know this move as of 2022, is the slug-like Accelgor^note It may just be a huge coincidence, but it's very appropriate that the only other user of Water Shuriken is the Pokémon with the same motif as the slug-themed Tsunade, the wife of Greninja's inspiration, Jiraiya. Accelgor itself is not necessarily based on Tsunade, but it lines up rather neatly.
  • As Water-type starters, they have access to Water Pledge and Hydro Cannon.
  • Greninja is also the only Pokémon to have the Battle Bond Ability.
• Simple, yet Awesome:
  • Greninja's Hidden Ability Protean allows it to change its type to whatever attack it uses. Simple enough, but this also allows Greninja to have universal STAB on all of it moves, meaning that with its movepool, there are very few Pokémon it can't hit super effectively.
  • As Ash-Greninja, Water Shuriken goes from Awesome, but Impractical to this, being strong enough to actually be a reliable priority attack, and being guaranteed to hit three times.
• Starter Mon: The Water Starter of Kalos. Greninja does extremely well against most important battles due to its speed, attacking stats, and its wide movepool.
• Super Mode: First seen in Pokémon the Series: XY and made available in the special demo for Pokémon Sun and Moon, Ash-Greninja is a special form which occurs when Greninja defeats an opponent in battle. Its power is similar to Mega Evolution, but it's the result of a unique ability called Battle Bond rather than a Mega Stone. The stat increase of this transformation is even slightly higher than Mega Evolution, jumping from a base stat total of 530 to 640! It was retconned out of the series starting in Gen IX, however, with the form not being available, while Battle Bond simply raises Greninja's Atk, Sp Atk, and Spd by one stage upon defeating an opponent.
• Super-Strength: It is said to be able to clear a three-story building with a single jump under normal circumstances. Ash-Greninja is also noted to possess extraordinarily strong legs, which give it increased power and speed. In the anime, even before it mastered the form, Ash-Greninja actually shattered the ground when it kicked off into a run, and shattered a wall by sending a Sceptile flying into it. It also dropped a Mega Sceptile and Mega Charizard X to the ground with an axe kick, and even overpowered Mega Charizard X's Thunder Punch by smashing its Water Shuriken into it.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Like the Oshawott line last generation, it starts with a fairly dorky- and confused-looking first stage and then gets a sleeker evolution based on a Japanese warrior.
• Three-Point Landing: The evolutionary line has what appears to be this as their standard pose. Averted with Ash-Greninja, which crouches as its default pose.
• Trap Master: Greninja can learn Spikes and the entire evolution line can be bred to know Toxic Spikes.
• Turns Red: Like all Water starters, Torrent boosts the power of Water-type moves when at low health.
• Useless Useful Spell: Water Shuriken in Gen VI, since most of the time, it will only hit two times and it relies on Greninja's lower Attack stat. Thankfully, Gen VII reclassified the move as Special and made it stronger and hit a guaranteed three times when used by Ash-Greninja.

Bunnelby and Diggersby (Horubee and Horudo)

0659: Bunnelby / Horubee (ホルビー horubii)
0660: Diggersby / Horudo (ホルード horuudo)

Bunnelby

Diggersby

This Pokémon appears to fulfill Kalos's "small Normal-type mammal" niche, in this case a rabbit. It uses its spade-like ears to dig around. When it evolves, its ears become muscular fists and it becomes a Normal/Ground type. It's often used in help with construction.

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• Astonishingly Appropriate Appearance: Not only do their brown patches on their fur look like dirt stains, but Bunnelby has a small brown ruff that invokes its head poking out of a hole in the ground. Diggersby's furry mid-section invokes it being buried up to its chest.
• Big Fun: Diggersby certainly looks the part, being a friendly-looking pudgy Pokémon.
• Boring, but Practical: Diggersby makes an excellent HM mule by learning Cut, Rock Smash, Strength, and Surf. Plus it has Pickup.
• Bunnies for Cuteness: Bunnelby is pretty "daaaw" worthy. Diggersby bucks this trend, though it's still got its own charm and might be considered ugly-but-kind-of-cute by some.
• Com Mons: At this point, players can make an entire team of early-game mammals. However, in contrast to its fellow mammals, the mechanics of the Kalos region's sectors render them surprisingly scarce — Bunnelby is only found in five areas of Kalos, the latest of which is still some distance from the second gym found in Cyllage City, and the only other point you can find them in the quest is by backtracking to one of said routes with later HMs to find Diggersby in the late Lv. 20s.
• Crafted from Animals: According to Diggersby's Shield Dex entry, its belly fur retains heat exceptionally well, so people used to make heavy winter clothing out of their shed fur.
• Disc-One Nuke: One of the Bunnelby line's two normal abilities is Pickup, which means an automatic 10% chance of them picking up something useful, like a Poké Ball, Potion, Full Heal, or Escape Rope after every battle ending with the player victorious. Higher-level Bunnelby or Diggersby with this ability can pick up things like Ultra Balls, Max Revives, Full Restores, Rare Candies, and Leftovers. This makes the entire Bunnelby line useful even as non-battlers, as they will spend their time in the player's party occasionally picking up items that the player will more than often find to be of great use.
• Dishing Out Dirt: It's the "Burrowing Pokémon" that digs with its ears, and is based on a tunneling animal. It gains a Ground-type when it evolves into Diggersby.
• Expy: Diggersby looks just like the mountainmen of the recurring Hiker trainer class.
• Eyes Always Shut: Diggersby's eyes are always shut, lending to its lazy, carefree nature.
• Glass Cannon: With Huge Power, Diggersby's physical attack stat could make Garchomp and Excadrill blush — two Ground-types widely considered on par with Olympus Mons at competitive level in their debut generations. However, an ability as monstrous as doubling its attack doesn't change the rest of its stats likely being what you'd expect of an early-game rodent: Huge Power doesn't make Diggersby fast or bulky, but it does let it hit things really, really hard.
• Gonk: As far as cartoon bunnies go, Diggersby isn't as cutesy as Bunnelby, or Lopunny for that matter.
• Hyperactive Metabolism: Its Cheek Pouch ability can restore some of its HP whenever it uses a Berry in battle.
• Item Caddy: Can have the Pickup ability.
• Killer Rabbit: Almost literally, since it's a rabbit with access to Huge Power as an Ability, which doubles its Attack.
• Lethal Joke Character: Diggersby may be a goofy-looking early-game Normal-type with relatively low overall stats. However, it is one of the few Pokémon to gain Huge Power (as a hidden ability), allowing it to hit as hard as some Legendary Pokémon can. To wit, a Huge Power Diggersby can dish out stronger Earthquakes than Groudon, if you can find one — not a mean feat for any Pokémon, let alone a humble rabbit you'd find outside the starting town.
• Mix-and-Match Critters: While mainly based on rabbits, their standing posture and the "-by" at the end of their names, especially Bunnelby with its Japanese name Horubee doing the same, implies they have a little inspiration from wallabies (taxonomic relative of kangaroos) in their design.
• Multi-Armed and Dangerous: Their ears are fully prehensile and resemble an extra pair of hands.
• Mundane Utility: Their bulldozing and weight-lifting abilities make Diggersby quite valuable in construction.
• Non-Elemental: Normal-type based on rabbits.
• Pint-Sized Powerhouse: Bunnelby and Diggersby are both quite small, but if they're lucky enough to have their hidden ability Huge Power, then dear god, they are going to pack a punch.
• Recurring Element:
  • The new small mammal in line with Rattata, Sentret, Bidoof, etc.
  • It is the closest successor to the Bidoof line. Both families are Gonk-looking, make excellent HM mules, gain unique type combinations upon evolution (Normal/Water for Bibarel, Normal/Ground for Diggersby), and both have hidden abilities that make them Lethal Joke Characters.
  • It's the second rabbit to have Huge Power as an ability, the other being Azumarill.
• Stout Strength: Despite that giant mid-section, Diggersby is powerful enough to pulverize bedrock and heft objects weighing a metric ton. They can also back up the reputation with the Huge Power ability.
• Super-Strength: Their Hidden Ability is Huge Power, which doubles their current Attack stat. Those Earthquakes are going to hit real hard. In-universe, Diggersby is stated to have digging power equal to an excavator.
• Super-Senses: As to be expected from rabbit Pokémon they have an acute sense of hearing, with Bunnelby's Shield Dex entry mentioning that just hearing the flap of their predator Corviknight's wings sends them hiding in their tunnels.
• Tunnel King: Bunnelby and Diggersby live in underground tunnels, and are extremely efficient diggers.

Fletchling, Fletchinder, and Talonflame (Yayakoma, Hinoyakoma, and Fiarrow)

0661: Fletchling / Yayakoma (ヤヤコマ yayakoma)
0662: Fletchinder / Hinoyakoma (ヒノヤコマ hinoyakoma)
0663: Talonflame / Fiarrow (ファイアロー faiaroo)

Fletchling

Fletchinder

Talonflame

Fletchling is a Pokémon based on a Japanese Robin. It's popular due to its beautiful song and friendly nature, but it's quite ferocious in battle. When it evolves, it gains the Fire-type and looks like a male cardinal. On its next evolution, it becomes a falcon, decorated with flame patterns. Its speed is very high, and for some of the evolutionary line, certain moves will go out faster than just about anything else.

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• Action Initiative: Its Hidden Ability, Gale Wings, gives priority to Flying-type moves. It also learns Quick Attack naturally. With Gale Wings, Talonflame's Brave Bird becomes the strongest priority attack in the game, but only on its first use starting from Generation VII, as the recoil disables Gale Wings.
• Arrows on Fire: Fletchling's name, Talonflame's typing and Japanese name, and the ability to learn fire moves suggest that the line was based off this idea.
• Beak Attack: Fletchling learns Peck and will mercilessly peck at anything invading its territory.
• Blow You Away: Flying-type, like most birds.
• Boss Battle: Elite Four Malva's most powerful Mon.
• Breaking Old Trends: The first Com Mon regional bird archetypes not to be Normal/Flying-type to the end, as it gains the Fire typing upon evolving into Fletchinder.
• Burning with Anger: While not Fire-types yet, Fletchling's Ultra Sun and Shield Dex entry mentions that when excited their body temperature can reach high enough temperatures to burn people who try to touch them barehanded.
• Crafted from Animals: Talonflame's Ultra Sun Dex entry mentions that they used to make firefighter outfits out of Talonflame wings due to their flame-retardant feathers.
• Cast from Hit Points: Can naturally learn Brave Bird and Flare Blitz.
• Character Name Limits: Fletchinder's name is 11 letters long, in case you hadn't already noticed that the 10-character limit from the first five generations has expanded to 12.
• Com Mons: Surprisingly subverted; Fletchling are some of the most common encounters in the first two routes and forest of Kalos, but compared to any other regional bird it's downright scarce in the long run — wild Fletchling aren't found in any areas past Santalune City (both the first gym location and first town you reach after gaining the ability to catch Pokémon), and Fletchinder can only possibly be found in Kalos's post-game Friend Safari, a stark contrast to the likes of Staravia and Tranquill in Sinnoh or Unova respectively.^note To compare: imagine if the Pidgey family stopped showing up in the wild entirely after Viridian Forest in the Kanto games! Even the similarly less-than-prevalent Diggersby can be found at a reasonable mid-game level if you come back to Route 22 after getting Waterfall. However, perhaps this makes sense, as Talonflame turns out very good, one of the best of its kind — it's perhaps up there with Staraptor and Stoutland in terms of late-game ability.
• Extra-ore-dinary: Learns Steel Wing naturally, which is notable since the move is only available to most Pokémon via TM.
• Fragile Speedster: Extremely fast — Talonflame is the fastest Fire-type Pokémon, which is fitting for a Pokémon based closely on the peregrine falcon — and all of its Flying-type moves have +1 priority when paired with its Secret Art, but it doesn't have much raw attacking or defensive power.
• Gameplay and Story Integration: Talonflame is described as very fast and in the games this is reflected through its high base 126 Speed stat.
• Informed Ability: Despite its Y Pokédex entry stating that Talonflame finishes off prey with a colossal kick, it doesn't learn any kicking move.
• Killer Rabbit: While Fletchling is adorable and its Pokédex entry in Y states the beauty of its lilting voice, it's merciless to intruders that dare to enter its territory.
• Magikarp Power: For a long time, the line learns very few moves of its types — you're stuck with Peck and Ember until level 39. Aerial Ace and Fly by TM and HM help, but it's when you get to the move relearner that you can learn Flare Blitz, and you can relearn Brave Bird or wait until much later for it. Even if you leave Brave Bird out, you'll still be at the point where Talonflame finally gets Acrobatics as well, so you'll be doing a lot more damage thanks to your newly-gained high-powered moves.
• Mundane Utility:
  • It's easy to find, has the Flame Body Ability when it evolves (early), and can learn Fly, making it the best egg hatcher there is^note Volcarona also learns Fly and has Flame Body, but it evolves from Larvesta at level 59, making it a chore to obtain.
  • Fletchling's Ultra Moon Dex entry mentions that since they're always warm, Trainers living in cold areas will sleep with them in their beds.
• Nerf: In Pokémon Sun and Moon, Gale Wings was changed so that it only works when Talonflame's HP is full.
• Noble Bird of Prey: Peregrine falcon which hunts other bird Pokémon.
• Non-Elemental: Fletchling is part Normal-type. When it evolves to Fletchinder, it changes its Normal-type to Fire-type.
• Playing with Fire: Fletchinder and Talonflame are part Fire-type and learn several Fire-type moves. Fletchling can learn a few Fire moves as well; pre-release, it was shown using Flame Charge, which clued nearly everyone in that its evolved forms would be Fire-type.
• Poor, Predictable Rock: Talonflame has a shallow offensive movepool, only getting its STAB attacks, Normal attacks, U-turn, Steel Wing, and Solar Beam.
• Recurring Element: Kalos’s small bird following the line of Pidgey and the rest.
• Scissors Cuts Rock: Talonflame's Sun Dex entry mentions that among its regular prey is the part Water-type Wingull and presumably its evolved form Pelipper as well, which have a type advantage over it.
• Secret Art: The sole user of the ability Gale Wings.
• Super-Speed: Fletchling's Ultra Moon Dex entry mentions that its speed after takeoff puts in in the top speed class of all bird Pokémon, while Talonflame can reach speeds of up to 310 mph (500 km/h) when diving after prey.
• Super-Strength: Talonflame's Scarlet Dex entry notes that it can easily fly around while carrying objects weighing over 220 pounds in its talons — it isn't slowed down at all (and this presumably isn't even its maximum carrying capacity — just how much it can comfortably carry). Note that Talonflame itself only weighs 54 pounds, which is a bit less than one-fourth of 220 pounds.
• This Looks Like a Job for Aquaman: Fletchinder (Talonflame would be overleveled) is extremely well-suited for the Grass Trial in the Alola games. Its Fire/Flying dual-typing gives it a double resistance to Lurantis's Solar Blade, Lurantis's own use of Sunny Day powers up Fletchinder's Fire-type STAB attacks, and its high Speed and the Sunny Day boost make it easy for Fletchinder to take out Lurantis's backup before they can use their Rock-type attacks.
• Useless Useful Spell: A frail Pokémon like Fletchling isn't going to get any mileage out of a Defense-based ability like Big Pecks after the early-game (where NPCs tend to spam Defense-lowering moves). It's downplayed for Fletchinder and Talonflame — they also have low defensive stats for their ability Flame Body to kick in without taking lethal damage, but Flame Body can activate on a lethal blow (making it a potential last-breath "screw you") and their availability early on in the game and their ability to fly make them great for hatching eggs quickly.
• Weak, but Skilled: None of Talonflame's stats except for Speed are very high, but Gale Wings makes it difficult for its opponents to get the jump on it.
• Wreathed in Flames: Fletchinder and Talonflame can have Flame Body, which burns foes that use contact moves on it. They're also capable of learning Flame Charge, and Talonflame can pick up Flare Blitz for extra punch.

Scatterbug, Spewpa, and Vivillon (Kofukimushi, Kofuurai, and Viviyon)

0664: Scatterburg / Kofukimushi (コフキムシ kofukimushi)
0665: Spewpa / Kofuurai (コフーライ kofuurai)
0666: Vivillon / Viviyon (ビビヨン bibiyon)

Scatterbug

Spewpa

Meadow Pattern Vivillon

A three-stage insect line, decorated with pixel patterns. Scatterbug isn't much to write home about, being a little grey caterpillar. When it evolves, it gains a white fluffy protective coat while waiting to evolve again. Vivillon is a butterfly-like Pokémon sporting pixelated wings; the color and patterns vary depending on what part of the world it originated from.

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• Big Creepy-Crawlies: Bug-type. Scatterbug's family are actually the only completely new Bug-types in Generation VI.
• Bilingual Bonus: Vivillon's name is derived from "vivid" and "papillon" (French for butterfly).
• Blow You Away: Vivillon, a Bug/Flying-type. Look out for its Hurricane.
• Boss Battle: Vivillon is Viola's ace, the first leader of Kalos.
• Captain Geographic:
  • The colors of Vivillon's wings in Kalos and Alola are dependent on where the trainer is in real-life via their 3DS' location settings. For instance — Sandstorm pattern for players in Arabia, Polar pattern for players in Canada, a southwestern American High Plains pattern for California, and so on. Here are all the patterns, and where the designs change.◊
    • The Poké Ball pattern Vivillon averts this, as it is handed out at events. The Fancy pattern was distributed worldwide during the summer of 2014 to celebrate 100 million trades on the GTS.
    • Tying into Gameplay and Story Integration, the default pattern for Vivillon in both official artwork and the Boss Battle with Viola is the Meadow Pattern, which can be found in many parts of France, the country that Kalos is based on, including the part of France that Santalune is based on.
  • Pokemon GO has similar functionality using postcards; players can exchange postcards from real-life locations, and then use them to summon Scatterbug that will evolve with the patterns corresponding to those locations.
  • Zigzagged for Scarlet and Violet: In the base game, all Vivillon caught or bred by the player will be Fancy Pattern, with other patterns are used by NPC trainers. However, importing postcards from GO will change wild Vivillon patterns to match the card's geolocation.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: One could easily brush off Vivillon as another Crutch Character, but it gets a nice amount of moves to keep itself useful. For instance, like Galvantula, it can augment a high-power move (Hurricane in this case) with Compound Eyes and has a move to screw over any mons that would invoke Kill It with Fire with Powder.
• Glass Cannon: Vivillon has low defenses as expected of a mon of its type, but surprisingly good Speed and Special Attack for an early bug. Keep one with Compound Eyes around long enough, and it'll learn Hurricane, which has 110 Power with 91% (normally a scant 70%) accuracy. It's no Volcarona, but it's not entirely bad either.
• Hoist by Their Own Petard: Vivillon's Powder move blows up a foe that attempts to use an otherwise super-effective Fire move against it.
• Last Lousy Point:
  • Trying to get all 18 regular Vivillon patterns? Good luck, as several of the patterns are only obtained by Vivillon from very specific regions (the Ocean pattern is only found by players in Hawaii, for example). There are a lot of Vivillon on the GTS, and even then it'll be hard to find the one you're after, provided you get past the people wanting Olympus Mons in return or event lengendaries, which can never be traded over the GTS, and see if you can still find the Pattern you want.
  • Good luck getting a Poké Ball Pattern Vivillon, as that kind is only given at Nintendo events. There's also a 20th Pattern of Vivillon, the Fancy Pattern, that was distributed worldwide for 100 million GTS trades during July 2014. The Fancy Pattern became attainable in Scarlet and Violet where it's the only pattern available to the player.
  • Then there's Shiny Vivillon. While the regular ones are obtainable via GTS, this one generally isn't because people ask for Mythical Pokémon.
• Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: Spewpa naturally learns Protect.
• Number of the Beast: Averted. While it is Vivillon's National Dex Number, it has no bearing on its design.
• Palette Swap: Vivillon can come in different wing patterns; this is purely aesthetic and only shows where the mon was generated from (based on real life, with each region getting a pattern).
• Power Up Letdown: Their Hidden Ability is Friend Guard. Not only does Vivillon benefit massively from Compound Eyes increasing the accuracy of Sleep Powder and Hurricane, Friend Guard lacks any effect whatsoever in Single Battles.
• Pretty Butterflies: Vivillon is designed to place great emphasis on the beauty of its wings.
• Recurring Element: An early bug stand-in for the original Caterpie line. Although Caterpie can also be found alongside it in Kalos.
• Ridiculously Cute Critter: Scatterbug and Spewpa can be seen as pretty cute, but Vivillon in particular is adorable.
• Secret Art: Before Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, Vivillon was the only Pokémon to learn Powder, a priority move which coats the foe in powder that explodes, makes them lose a quarter of their HP, and wastes their turn if they attempt to use a Fire-type move.

Litleo and Pyroar (Shishiko and Kaenjishi)

0667: Litleo / Shishiko (シシコ shishiko)
0668: Pyroar / Kaenjishi (カエンジシ kaenjishi)

Litleo

Male and Female Pyroar

A Fire/Normal lion cub Pokémon. They are hot-blooded and love starting fights. As they mature, they start living alone. Depending on gender, it evolves into either a large lion with a fiery mane or a lioness with long, fiery hair.

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• Brought to You by the Letter "S": Male Pyroar have yellow streaks as part of their mane. The design forms a kanji that resembles both "fire" (火) and "big"^*It's the kanji seen in the move Fire Blast, a reference to the daimonji festival that has lighting fires on mountains to form the kanji of big (大).
• Combos: In double battles, Pyroar can use Entrainment to give its partner (such as Garchomp) Moxie, allowing a potential sweep with a multi-target move.
• Cute Kitten: Litleo — fiery lion cubs!
• Exactly What It Says on the Tin: Litleo's Japanese name is literally "lion cub". Pyroar's Japanese name literally means "Flame Lion".
• Fiery Lion: Fire/Normal-type Pokémon resembling lions with flame-colored manes, with the male's mane even being shaped like the sun with the yellow pattern being similar in shape to the Daimonji, a bonfire lit during the Japanese festival Gozan no Okuribi in the shape of the symbol 大 (meaning great or large)(see also : the move Fire Blast). A Pyroar serves as one of the main Pokémon of Lysandre, the Big Bad of Pokémon X and Y, who is associated with fire and heat.
• Fiery Redhead: Both members of the line have red manes. Litleo is Hot-Blooded, and Pyroar is a ferocious lion. And they have literal fire powers.
• Flaming Hair: Litleo's little mane heats up in battle. It's hazardous to pet in Pokémon-Amie.
• Glass Cannon: Pyroar has high Special Attack as well as Speed, but it's pretty frail.
• Hot-Blooded: Described as having this sort of personality, appropriate for a Fire-type.
• Kill Streak: Its Hidden Ability is Moxie, which raises Attack if it knocks out a Pokémon.
• King of Beasts: Pyroar. It's known as the "Royal Pokémon".
• Make Some Noise: Learns several moves based on its loud voice, including Hyper Voice, Echoed Voice, Round, and Noble Roar.
• Mama Bear: Female Pyroar protect the cubs of their pride.
• Non-Elemental: The entire line is Normal-type based on lions.
• Not Completely Useless: In Doubles, a Moxie Pyroar can use Entrainment on its partner, preferably a fast physical sweeper with Earthquake/Rock Slide, allowing its partner to let loose a Total Party Kill.
• Panthera Awesome: Pyroar, whether male or female, is a fully-grown lion with a high Special Attack stat.
• Playing with Fire: The entire line is part Fire-type.
• Secret Art: Noble Roar for the line, at least until Pokémon Sun and Moon, which lowers both the Attack and Special Attack of a foe by one stage.
• Shown Their Work: This line has a skewed gender ratio in favor of females. In real life, a pride of lions may have one to (uncommonly) two males, compared to 6-8 females.
• Tertiary Sexual Characteristics: Male Pyroar have a mane akin to male lions, while females have long hair reminiscent of Pidgeot's crest.
• Useless Useful Spell:
  • Its standard abilities are fairly situational. Rivalry boosts Pyroar's offensive stats if its opponent has the same gender as Pyroar, but the effect is reversed if the opponent has the different gender as Pyroar. Unnerve simply prevents the opponent from consuming its berry. Meanwhile, its Hidden Ability, Moxie, is useless on it, as its Attack is too low for boosting it to be worthwhile.
  • Outside of the usual Fire-type, Normal-type, and Dark-type moves, Pyroar can learn Wild Charge and Bulldoze, as well as Iron Tail and Bounce through tutoring, but it can't take advantage of these physical moves very well due to its low attack.

Flabébé, Floette, and Florges

0669: Flabébé (フラベベ furabebe)
0670: Floette (フラエッテ furaette)
0671: Florges (フラージェス furaajesu)

Red Flower Flabébé

Red Flower Floette

Red Flower Florges

For some people, when they hear the word "fairy," they think of diminutive, pixie-like critters (some based on small humans or magical animals). This is one such fairy: a Fairy-type Pokémon that lives in flowers. When they're born, they immediately find a flower and live there their whole life. Floette is a bit larger, to the point that they use their old flower as a weapon. A Shiny Stone evolves them into Florges, which pretty much is a flower. Along with Sylveon, they are one in a handful of Pokémon that is the new Fairy type.

One particular Floette was the Pokémon of the ancient King of Kalos. When she died in a war, he built a machine to grant her eternal life. In his grief, the king then transformed the machine into the ultimate weapon to end the war at the cost of thousands of lives, both human and Pokémon. After finding out what her trainer had done, she left him. The ancient king still wanders Kalos in search of her.

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• Bag of Sharing: Their Hidden Ability, Symbiosis, allows them to share their item with allies if theirs is used up.
• Berserk Button: According to some of its Gen IX Pokédex entries, Florges is usually gentle and good-natured, but if you vandalize its garden, it will obliterate you… and yes, that means it will straight-up murder you, slasher villain style.
  Yellow flower Florges, Violet entry: This Pokémon battles by drawing forth the power of yellow flowers. It ruthlessly punishes anyone who tramples on flowering plants.
  Blue flower Florges, Scarlet entry: Though usually compassionate, Florges will hunt down anyone who vandalizes its flower garden, showing no mercy even if they beg for their lives.
• Blush Sticker: Flabébé has pink blush-like marks on its cheeks, emphasizing its cuteness.
• Born from Plants: Inverted. They are born from flowers, but that they live on, and turn into, a flower as they evolve, and possibly die. They are born from eggs like every other breedable Pokémon, and they start from hatching, already with a flower. Flabébé's sprite contains a large flower that they cling to. Flabébé's Y and Alpha Sapphire Pokédex entries states: "When it finds a flower it likes, it dwells on that flower its whole life long. It floats in the wind's embrace with an untroubled heart.", while the last sentence of the X and Omega Ruby entries is: "The flower Flabébé holds is most likely part of its body." As a Florges, it seems to become fused with its flower.
• Boss Battle: Florges is the ace Pokémon of Tulip, Paldea's Psychic-type Gym Leader located in Alfornada; she uses Terastal to make it fit her type specialty.
• The Bus Came Back: Usable once again in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, after not being programmed into, and thus usable, in any Generation VIII game.
• Combat Medic: Florges has above average Special Attack, letting them hit back while healing.
• Com Mons: Flabébé is available on a few early routes, and is in multiple flowers and grass patches.
• Crippling Overspecialization: The line effectively has no ability in Single Battles, since both of their abilities^*Technically, testing shows that Flower Veil works for the user if they are a Grass-type, which the line is not. only affect ally Pokémon on the field.
• The Fair Folk: Blue Florges' Scarlet Dex entry mentions that they will viciously kill anything that messes with their flower gardens, even if they beg for mercy.
• Friend to All Living Things: To plants. Their ability Flower Veil protects ally Grass-type Pokémon from stat reductions. They also have Symbiosis as a Hidden Ability, which lets an ally Pokémon use their items.
• Green Thumb: They draw energy from their flower to attack; the line also learns many Grass-type moves, and they have an Ability that only aids Grass-type Pokémon. Bizarrely, the line itself does not have the Grass typing.
• Happy Dance: According to Floette's Pokédex entry, it appears and celebrates with an elegant dance when the flowers of a well-kept flowerbed bloom.
• Improbable Weapon User: Flabébé and Floette draw power from the flower they carry around.
• Last of Its Kind: According to the Pokédex, the Eternal Flower AZ's Floette carries is the last survivor of its species, as it can no longer be found blooming anywhere in Kalos. It's also the source of that Floette's immense power.
• Lilliputians: Flabébé is as tall as Joltik and weighs as much as Gastly, making it the smallest Pokémon ever. Floette isn't much bigger.
• Long-Lived: Florges' Ultra Moon Dex entry states that they can have a lifespan spanning several hundred years, and presumably their earlier forms can live around that long as well, though AZ's Floette is old even for their kind at over 3,000 years.
• The Medic: Can learn Wish and Aromatherapy to heal allies, and both of their abilities focus on helping their teammates. Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire also adds a plethora of support moves via Move Tutor.
• Meaningful Name: They have pretty descriptive names, with Flabébé being a flower baby, Floette being a flower girl, and Florges looking like a gorgeous flower.
• Missing Secret: AZ's Floette apparently has its own unique stats, model, and movepool, but it hasn't been made available at all. It even has its own Pokédex entry in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon despite it still being unavailable.
• One-Gender Race: They're always female.
• Our Fairies Are Different: Fairy-types with a flower motif. They happen to be one of the very first Fairy-types the player encounters in X and Y, and the very first original Fairy-types in National Pokédex order.
• Palette Swap: A non-shiny version. Depending on the location where they were found, Flabébé have differently-colored flowers. They come in white, red, yellow, orange, or blue.
• Pintsized Powerhouse:
  • Florges is 3'07 in height, huge compared to their earlier stages but tiny compared to other fully-evolved Pokémon. That being said, their Special Defense is the same as Ho-Oh and Lugia, and still packs noticeable Special Attack.
  • Eternal Flower Floette is the same size as a regular Floette, but her Special Attack is comparable to Hydreigon's, and Light of Ruin is even stronger than said Hydreigon's Draco Meteor. Its base stat total is just a single point lower than Florges's.
• Plant Person: Upon evolution, Florges merges with the flower it holds and pretty much resembles a living flower. Oddly, they're still not Grass-types.
• Poor, Predictable Rock: All they get for offensive options are STAB, Normal-type, and Grass-type attacks. And Psychic. ^note The attack called Psychic, not Psychic-type attacks in general. Basically, they don't like Steel-types very much.
• Ridiculously Cute Critter: As one of the most recognizable Fairy types. Flabébé is so tiny! Floette, too.
• Secret Art:
  • The Eternal Flower Floette is the only Pokémon to get Light of Ruin, the strongest Fairy-type move in the game (beating out Magearna's Fleur Cannon by ten points), which heavily damages the target, but inflicts recoil equal to half the damage dealt.
  • The family's two possible abilities (Flower Veil and Symbiosis) used to be exclusive to them until Generation VII.
• Squishy Wizard: Florges has above average Special Attack and their Special Defense stat is the same as Ho-Oh and Lugia, but they have average HP and below average Defense.
• This Is Unforgivable!: According to its Ultra Moon Pokédex entry, Floette never forgives anyone who messes up a flower bed.
• Unique Enemy: You'll never get a Floette that looks like AZ's... legitimately, at least.
• Useless Useful Spell: The line's abilities are all designed for Doubles gameplay, and as such, do absolutely nothing in Singles.

Skiddo (Meecle) and Gogoat

0672: Skiddo / Meecle (メェークル meeekuru)
0673: Gogoat (ゴーゴート googooto)

Skiddo

Gogoat

Grass-typed goat Pokémon with shrubbery growing on them. They both make excellent mounts. They are guided by their rider's grip on their horns, through which they can also read feelings.

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• Boss Battle: Ramos' signature Mon, being the fourth leader of Kalos.
• Confusion Fu: Has a surprisingly large move-pool for a straight Grass type, learning Bulldoze, Earthquake, Rock Slide, Brick Break, Wild Charge, Milk Drink, and Horn Leech, the latter two notable in having been the Secret Art of a single Pokémon previously, to name a few.
• Cool Bike: Their horns resemble bicycle or motorcycle handlebars, to fit with their riding theme.
• Crutch Character: Gogoat has all around solid, but not spectacular stats and a really large movepool. The fact that it can be caught so early makes it designed for a lot of newer players, but later on, more powerful Pokémon will be able to outshine it.
• Early-Bird Cameo: Gogoat was one of the first Gen VI Pokémon to make a proper appearance in the anime. It appears as Alexa's Pokémon, alongside Helioptile. Meanwhile, Skiddo appeared in the screenshot◊ for Lumiose City as an "off-hand" cameo. Some people speculated that they were bushes, until finally being confirmed as Gogoat's pre-evolution.
• The Empath: They can sense the feelings of people touching their horns.
• Energy Absorption: With Sap Sipper, they can nullify Grass-type attacks and boost their Attack.
• Exactly What It Says on the Tin: Gogoat is a goat that goes!
• Green Thumb: They're pure Grass-types based on goats.
• Heal Thyself: Can learn the healing moves Synthesis and Milk Drink, the latter previously exclusive to Miltank. In Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, it can learn Grassy Terrain as an egg move, which under its effects heals a bit of HP each turn to both sides of the field.
• Ironic Name: Their names in all languages refer to them as speedy goats, but in terms of stats, they're Mighty Glaciers.
• Lactating Male: Milk Drink can be learned by males and females alike.
• Leitmotif: A theme plays when the PC is riding a Skiddo. Another version of the theme plays when the PC is riding Gogoat in Lumiose City.
• Life Drain: Can learn Horn Leech, previously exclusive to Sawsbuck, as well as Leech Seed (level up) and Giga Drain (move tutor).
• Magic Knight: Despite looking the part of a physical attacker, having a natural moveset consisting entirely of physical attacks and an ability that boosts the aforementioned stat, its Special Attack is only 3 points behind its physical Attack, allowing it to dish out pain from either side with equal ease.
• Making a Splash: Uniquely for a Grass-type (excluding the part-Water Ludicolo line), it can learn Surf.
• Mighty Glacier: Great HP and Offenses, but is slow. Which is odd, since a lot of emphasis is placed on how they're ridden and the sheer speed of the Skiddo on Route 12's ranch. Maybe they just have poor reflexes and/or acceleration.
• Planimal: The mixture of a goat and a grass pelt fur that covers its back.
• Power Up Letdown: Gogoat appreciates the immunity to Grass-type moves plus Attack boost provided by Sap Sipper far more than the Defense boost provided by Grass Pelt, their Hidden Ability. Even worse, they were unable to learn Grassy Terrain on their debut generation.
• Power Up Mount: The user can ride around on them. Skiddo can jump over small ledges on Route 12 and Gogoat is used primarily for transport in Lumiose City.
• Ridiculously Cute Critter: Skiddo certainly fits the bill, especially the sleeping ones in Lumiose City that have been abandoned by their trainer and are patiently awaiting the trainer's return, in much the same vein as Hachikō.
• Secret Art: The Grass Pelt Ability is exclusive to this line.
• Shown Their Work:
  • Skiddo is said to be one of the first Pokémon that befriended humans. In real life, goats were one of the earliest animals to be domesticated.
  • Gogoat are able to learn Milk Drink regardless of their gender. Male goats are actually capable of lactating in real life.
• Super-Toughness: Their Hidden Ability is Grass Pelt, giving them a boost to Defense when fighting on grass (such as if you're in a grassy area in the overworld, or the move Grassy Terrain is in effect). Ironically, it couldn't learn Grassy Terrain itself until Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, forcing it to rely on its allies to make use of Grass Pelt.

Pancham and Pangoro (Yancham and Goronda)

0674: Pancham / Yancham (ヤンチャム yanchamu)
0675: Pangoro / Goronda (ゴロンダ goronda)

Pancham

Pangoro

Fighting-type panda Pokémon. Pancham is the unevolved form, depicted with a leaf sticking out of its mouth. It tries to be intimidating but is rarely successful. When you have Pancham and a Dark-type Pokémon in your party, it evolves into an aggressive brawler with a wild temperament, gaining the Dark-type.

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• Action Initiative: Pangoro can learn Bullet Punch as of Sun and Moon, which strikes first.
• Badass Adorable: Pancham is, essentially, a baby panda — and also a capable Fighting-type Pokémon. They struggle to hold onto their thuggish facade when they are pleased and end up breaking into adorable grinning, especially in Pokémon-Amie.
• Bare-Fisted Monk: Pancham is a pure Fighting-type until it evolves into Pangoro.
• Bears Are Bad News: Pancham's Japanese name comes from "yancha", which means "naughty". It evolves into the "Daunting Pokémon" and gains a Dark typing, but this ends up being a subversion since despite Pangoro's intimidating appearance and aggressive temperament, it won't stand for others being bullied.
• The Berserker: According to its Pokédex entry, it charges into battles uncaring about any hits it might take.
• Black Eyes of Evil: The black eyes both represent the black eye patches pandas exhibit as well as the "dark eyes" used to portray a typical gangster or delinquent in an anime or manga.
• Bruiser with a Soft Center: Pangoro is characterized as such: It has a wild and aggressive temperament, but is known to be kind and gentle to those it considers friends and won't stand for others bullying the weak.
• Bully Hunter: Pangoro isn't exactly a nice guy itself, but it despises bullying and will oppose anyone that does so.
• Childish Tooth Gap: All Pancham are shown to have an adorable gap in their front teeth.
• Coat Cape: The fur on Pangoro's back looks like a loose-hanging coat.
• Combat Clairvoyance: Pangoro is able to predict the moves of its opponents using the leaf in its mouth.
• Combat Pragmatist: Pangoro gains a Dark type upon evolution. Their Parting Shot is a rather dirty tactic where they use a threat to lower the foe's offensive ability before exiting and letting a friend take their place.
• Confusion Fu: Pangoro is capable of learning damaging moves from 17 out of 18 types, with Fairy being the sole exception.
• Dark Is Not Evil: Pangoro is described as cantankerous and violent, but has a kind heart and doesn't allow anyone to bully the weak.
• Face of a Thug: Pangoro looks intimidating and can be violent at times, but it's actually kindhearted and greatly opposes those who bully others. The Pokédex states that Pancham are prone to putting this kind of expression up, only to fail.
• Fighting Panda: Pancham and its evolution Pangoro, introduced in Pokémon X and Y, are Fighting-type Pokémon that resemble panda bears.
• I Just Want to Be Badass: Pancham's Dex entry describes it as trying to look intimidating to other Pokémon, but it has a habit of smiling.
• Japanese Delinquents: With the Oral Fixation, Coat Cape, and Bully Hunter tendencies, they're quite clearly based on banchō.
• Mighty Glacier: Like the other bears, it hits quite hard (especially with Iron Fist) but it won't outrun much. Unlike its cousins, however, it has no way of working around its poor Speed (as Ursaring does with its Quick Feet Ability, and Beartic does with Swift Swim/Slush Rush and Aqua Jet). It doesn't even have access to moves like Sucker Punch or Mach Punch, despite its typing, although Generation VII at least gave it Bullet Punch.
• Mundane Utility: Like Haxorus, Pangoro gets Mold Breaker and Earthquake, allowing it to take out hordes of Geodude and Graveler in Kalos Victory Road with one hit.
• Oral Fixation: Pancham has a leaf in its mouth. Pangoro, sticking to its bancho look, now has a twig with leaf that it uses to sense the movements of its opponents. In the anime, Pangoro apparently become distraught should their bamboo shoot be destroyed somehow and they're very picky when it comes to the right one.
• Perpetual Frowner: In contrast to Pancham, Pangoro never smiles and always looks serious. In Pokémon-amie, its "affection" animation is to chew on the twig in its mouth and look up, as if trying not to smile. Playing "Making Faces" sometimes leads to it making a hilarious grin, though.
• Punny Name: Pancham/Yancham is a naughty (yancha) punching champion panda, while Pangoro/Gororonda is a rumbling (gorogoro) rogue (gorotsuki) panda.
• Recurring Element: A teddy bear-like creature that becomes an intimidating full-grown bear like Teddiursa and Cubchoo.
• Required Party Member: A Dark type must be in the party for Pancham to evolve into Pangoro at at least level 32.
• Scary Teeth: Pangoro's teeth are very sharp and jagged.
• The Rival: Pangoro in the Galar region often duel with Obstagoon.
• Secret Art: Pancham and Pangoro are the only Pokémon who have access to Parting Shot, a move that cuts the target's Attack and Special Attack before switching the user out, until Pokémon Sun and Moon. Later, among the Pokémon that made it into Pokémon Sword and Shield, they're the only ones with access to Arm Thrust.
• Smug Smiler: Pancham always has a condescending smile on its lips. Allegedly though, it's all just a front to look tough.
• Stout Strength: Pangoro has quite the gut, and certainly manages to deliver in strength.
• Switch-Out Move: The line's signature move is Parting Shot, which cuts the target's Attack and Special Attack before switching the user out.
• Touch the Intangible: With their Hidden Ability, Scrappy, which allows them to hit Ghost-types with Normal and Fighting-type moves. Particularly useful if Pangoro is holding a Choice item and thus can't switch to a Dark-type move without switching out.
• Toxic Friend Influence: Pancham needs a bad influence around (that is, you need a Dark-type in your party) to become Pangoro.
• Tsundere: Pangoro's behavior in Pokémon-amie makes it come across as the Harsh type; it likes to act tough and aloof, but it's described as secretly being kind-hearted. Even its "affection" reaction is it trying to look tough while twitching its ears as a sign of enjoyment.

Furfrou (Trimmien)

0676: Furfrou / Trimmien (トリミアン torimian)

Natural Form Furfrou

A Normal-type poodle Pokémon. Players have the option of changing its hairstyle and dying its fur different colors. This Pokémon is held in high esteem in Kalos, and apparently has been since ancient times.

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• Action Initiative: Naturally learns Sucker Punch, a +1 priority Dark-type attack that only works if the target is going to use an attack as well. Additionally, Furfrou can learn Baby-Doll Eyes, a +1 priority status move that reduces the target's Attack.
• Armored But Frail: Downplayed. Furfrou's ability Fur Coat halves physical attack damage taken. This patches up its otherwise mediocre base 60 defense stat, however, its base HP is still just 75.
• Bilingual Bonus: If you talk to the NPC ones in the game, their dialogue consists of them saying "Ouaf!", the French onomatopoeia for a dog's "Woof!".
• Canine Companion: According to its Y and Alpha Saphire Pokédex entries, it's a very loyal Pokémon that is said to have been the guardian of the ancient King of Kalos.
• Crutch Character: Furfrou has an effective base stat total of 532, which is significantly higher than anything that will be available as early as you get it. As you proceed in the game, its offenses fall to below average territory, but it can still fulfill a support role with Thunder Wave and U-Turn.
• Dog Stereotype: Zigzagged in that it's a French standard poodle that can be customized and colored, but its Y entries depict it as a loyal guardian of the King of Kalos, traits normally not associated with poodles in popular culture.
• Early-Bird Cameo: Appeared in the second Pokémon Direct. It appeared within only a single frame in that instance, which is really hard to catch. It also appeared in the Pokémon XY anime teaser when Ash comes out of the plane. At first it can be confused as an Absol, but in the episode itself it is confirmed as a Furfrou.
• Important Haircut: According to the Pokédex, Furfrou who have been groomed are faster, but the ability Fur Coat will remain regardless while their Speed stat won't be affected.
• Meaningful Name: Furfrou's Japanese name can be romanized as Trimmien, which fits its gimmick.
• Mister Muffykins: Averted. It's a standard poodle, not a toy poodle. One NPC is shown to treat his Furfrou like a Mister Muffykins, and the Furfrou clearly hates it.
• Non-Elemental: A pure Normal type based off poodles.
• Ojou Ringlets: Its La Reine cut adds very large drill hair cuts to its ears. How fitting, because La Reine is French for "the queen".
• Puppy-Dog Eyes: Can learn the move Baby-Doll Eyes, which goes first and lowers the foe's attack.
• Put on a Bus: As of "The Indigo Disk", Furfrou is one of the nine Pokémon who haven't been usable in a main series game since Pokémon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon in 2017.
• Quirky Bard: Of its most notable features, its biggest selling point is the ability to be customized. Fortunately, similar to Sawsbuck, Furfrou's customizability gimmick is entirely separate from its battling strategy. While it has an exclusive Ability in Fur Coat, said Ability actually provides a straightforward and useful effect, in stark contrast to many of the other Quirky Bards populating the series, like Plusle, Minun, Castform, and Kecleon, whose Ability slots were wasted on their respective gimmicks.
• Secret Art: The only user of the Fur Coat Ability, at least until Pokémon Sun and Moon, when Alolan Persian also got Fur Coat.
• Stone Wall: Furfrou's offensive stats are nothing special, but its Fur Coat-boosted Defense makes it fairly hard to bring down, and its Special Defense and HP aren't too shabby. It can also learn Cotton Guard by level up.
• Super-Toughness: Has the Ability Fur Coat, which reduces all damage from physical moves by half (this even includes the moves Psyshock, Psystrike, and Secret Sword). It also gets Cotton Guard, cranking it up even further.
• Truth in Television: One might wonder why a coat of fur would reduce physical damage; after all, it's not like it's armor or anything. The truth is that many hunting and guard dogs are actually bred to have very long fur because it does indeed protect them from wild animals. Notably, anything that tries to bite such a dog gets a mouthful of fur for its troubles.

Espurr and Meowstic (Nyasper and Nyaonix)

0677: Espurr / Nyasper (ニャスパー nyasupaa)
0678: Meowstic / Nyaonix (ニャオニクス nyaonikusu)

Espurr

Male and Female Meowstic

Psychic-type cat Pokémon that use their ears to hold off their psychic powers. Espurr is an almost creepy-looking ragged grey kitten with staring purple eyes. When it evolves into Meowstic, it exhibits the strangest case of Bizarre Sexual Dimorphism yet — not only do the genders look different, but it also learns different movesets. Females are mostly white and are meant to be attackers, while males are mostly dark blue and meant to be supporters.

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• Action Initiative: Male Meowstic get Prankster as a hidden ability, adding priority to status moves. Both male and female variants learn Fake Out and Sucker Punch naturally as well.
• Armor-Piercing Attack: Able to have Infiltrator as an ability, which bypasses Safeguard, Reflect, Light Screen, and Substitute.
• Berserk Button: It's not a good idea to touch their ears in Pokémon-Amie.
• Bizarre Sexual Dimorphism: When Espurr evolves into Meowstic, not only do both genders have drastically different appearances, but both have different movepools (males have more status moves while females have more attacking moves). They even get different hidden abilities which compliment their preferred play styles.
• Boss Battle: Female Meowstic is the seventh gym boss of Kalos, as Olympia's ace.
• Cats Are Mean:
  • Played straight by female Meowstic; its Pokédex entries in the gen VIII games state that it's more selfish and aggressive than the male, and will torment you with its psychic abilities if you don't give it what it wants. Still, as you might expect from a cat, its unfriendliness is part of its charm.
  • Averted by male Meowstic, which is stated to have a strong defensive instinct and fights hardest when defending those it cares about.
• Combat and Support: Female Meowstic learn offensive moves via level-up while males primarily learn support moves.
• Confusion Fu: Psychic, Psyshock, Disarming Voice, Charge Beam, Signal Beam, Shadow Ball... and that's just Female Meowstic's normal level-up pool.
• Creepy Child: Espurr is a semi-anthropomorphic kitten with devastatingly deadly powers that it has to constantly fight to keep under control, resulting in it always wearing a blank, perpetually staring expression.
• Cute Kitten: Espurr is a bipedal kitten; it's quite cute, but its Thousand-Yard Stare and disheveled appearance can be unnerving.
• Cute Little Fangs: Whenever the line relaxes enough to express themselves, they're shown to have some notable little fangs, and the fact they're mainly being expressive when happy means the fangs enhance their cuteness, which is especially prominent in Pokémon-Amie where you can more easily see them being happy.
• Early-Bird Cameo:
  • Espurr's overworld model was visible in one of the commercials.
  • In Pokémon GO, Espurr started appearing in 1-star raid battles a full day before the Kalos dex was formally introduced.
• Eyes Do Not Belong There: The things inside Meowstic's ears resemble eyes, especially in the female form. This is the source of their psychic powers, hence why their ears are usually closed. The truth is even creepier: they're apparently auxiliary brains.
• Fragile Speedster: They're decently fast, know a couple of situational priority moves and male Meowstic have Prankster as their Hidden Ability, but taking hits isn't their forte.
• Gold and White Are Divine: Both Shiny Meowstic have this color scheme.
• Guys Smash, Girls Shoot: Subverted. Guys Support, Girls Shoot.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Female Meowstic get Competitive instead of Prankster, making it a bad idea to debuff them lest The Gloves Come Off.
• Informed Ability: Like many, many Pokémon whose Pokédex entries and base stats don't match up, Meowstic is said to have strong enough psychic power to demolish a 10-ton truck, but its Special Attack is unimpressive.
• Irony: The battle animations for the moves Baby-Doll Eyes, Mean Look, and Tearful Look use Espurr's eyes, but Espurr can't actually learn any of those moves itself.
• Masculine Lines, Feminine Curves: The Male Meowstic's ears, tail, and collar are made up of angular shapes while the female's has more curved shapes.
• Missing Child: The 2014 "Espurr Wanted!" merchandise campaign revolves around an Espurr who has run away from home and its two Meowstic parents who are looking for it.
• More Deadly Than the Male: Zig-Zagged. Female Meowstic are offensively optimized, while the males are support Pokémon. This is something of an Informed Ability, as male and female Meowstic have identical stat spreads, and get the same moves from TMs and breeding (and many of the useful attacks females get are available via TM anyway), so it's not at all difficult to make an offensive male Meowstic or a female supporter. However, males and females get different Hidden Abilities which do provide distinct advantages to their stated battle styles, and there are a few gems in the natural movepools of both variants. The anime actually brings attention to this, with a male Meowstic whose trainer was a hot-head who only used attacking moves while the female Meowstic's trainer taught it moves like Protect.
• Multiple-Tailed Beast: Meowstic has two tails, probably to make it resemble a nekomata.
• Pale Females, Dark Males: The male Meowstic has a dark blue color scheme with white details, while the inverse is true for the female Meowstic.
• Person of Mass Destruction: If its Y Pokédex entry is to be taken at face value, Espurr would release enough psychic power to blast everything within 300 feet of itself if it were to lose control. Its Special Attack stat doesn't exactly back this feat up.
• Power Incontinence: Espurr's psychic powers are strong enough to blast everything in a 300-foot radius. It has no control over this power, but it keeps its ears folded to prevent it from leaking out.
• Power Limiter: Their folded ears act like one, to keep in check their ridiculously powerful psychic powers. Espurr's species name is the "Restraint Pokémon", and Meowstic's is the "Constraint Pokémon".
• The Prankster: The male Meowstic is characterized as this in Pokémon Super Mystery Dungeon, expressing a love for mischief and playing pranks.
• Psychic Powers: Pure Psychic-types based on cats.
• Punny Name: Espurr/Nyasper is a purring/meowing esper, Meowstic is a stoic mystical cat, and Nyaonix is a meowing clawed psionic.
• Puppy-Dog Eyes: In Generation VII, the battle animations for Baby-Doll Eyes and Tearful Look are based on Espurr's eyes. Oddly, Espurr itself can't learn either of those moves.
• Recurring Element: They follow in the footsteps of Meowth, Skitty, Shinx, and Purrloin before them, as Kalos's resident early-game cat Pokémon — a role they share with the Litleo family.
• Ridiculously Cute Critter: They're tiny, humanoid felines that seem designed to look like adorable fraternal twins, along with fluffy tails, ruffs, and shiny eyes.
• The Stoic: They tend not to show their emotions, though in Pokémon-Amie, they'll become more expressive as their affection for you grows higher. And they'll still get angry if you touch their ears. While it's expected for cats, their powers are what are really keeping them so guarded.
• Support Party Member: Male Meowstic, with Prankster as a Hidden Ability to give priority to its variety of support moves.
• Thousand-Yard Stare: Espurr's default expression (unless you're in Pokémon-Amie).
• Tsundere: Meowstic seems to give off this vibe a little: they are usually The Stoic, but occasionally show what is akin to shyness in Pokémon-Amie, such as looking away from you when you make them happy. Like Braixen, the female Meowstic also does the arm-cross when angered.
• When She Smiles:
  • Espurr looks a lot less creepy when smiling. Aaawww!◊
  • The anime makes Espurr even more adorable◊.
• Youkai: Meowstic, like Espeon, is based on a nekomata.

Honedge, Doublade, and Aegislash (Hitotsuki, Nidangill, and Gillgard)

0679: Honedge / Hitotsuki (ヒトツキ hitotsuki)
0680: Doublade / Nidangill (ニダンギル nidangiru)
0681: Aegislash / Gillguard (ギルガルド girugarudo)

Honedge

Doublade

Blade Forme and Shield Forme Aegislash

A sheathed sword with an ornately-decorated sheath and blue tassel attached to the hilt. It may look like a powerful weapon, but pick it up and you'll quickly learn that this is no ordinary sword. It's a Steel/Ghost type, giving it many resistances. The sword itself resembles a Chinese jian, with a blue tassel serving as an arm. During battle, this sword Pokémon will unsheathe itself. Its evolved form consists of two swords, and their scabbards fuse into a coat-of-arms, while its eyes and tassels turn a vivid fuchsia. For the next evolution, the sword turns gold and its scabbard gains a shield, which allows it to alternate between defensive and high offensive playstyles. Notably, Honedge was the first Pokémon to have its French name (Monorpale) revealed before any of its other foreign names, at a French anime convention.

Aegislash is a playable DLC character in Pokkén Tournament Deluxe. For more information, see that game's character page.

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• Achilles' Heel: King's Shield is a protection move that harshly reduces an opposing Pokémon’s Attack stat if they made direct contact with it. However, unlike most protection moves, King's Shield doesn't block any status move, leaving Aegislash wide open to them.
• Action Initiative: Naturally learn the Ghost-type priority attack Shadow Sneak, which allows them to strike before the opponent.
• Always Accurate Attack: Honedge and Doublade have No Guard, which makes all of the moves they launch and receive never miss.
• Animate Inanimate Object: The line consists of possessed swords.
• Armored But Frail: The whole line has below-average HP stats compensated for by their huge Defense — and, in Aegislash's case, Special Defense. Of the line, Doublade is the most extreme, with its enormous, potentially Eviolite-boosted base 150 Defense protecting a mere 59 base HP.
• Artifact of Death: Honedge drains the life energy of those who carelessly hold it. Zigzagged with Aegislash. While it can detect people with leadership qualities, it may help said leaders manipulate the masses.
• Audible Sharpness: The cries of the entire line sound like this, though Aegislash's sounds a little rusty.
• Beehive Barrier: King's Shield shows it throwing up one of these.
• Berserk Button: Honedge does not like having its tassels petted in Pokémon-Amie, as you can see from the reaction, as well as Aegislash being touched on the hilt.
• BFS: Aegislash is 170cm/5'7" and weighs in at 53kg/116.8 pounds.
• Bishōnen Line: Downplayed. Honedge and Doublade are non-anthropomorphic (sets of) possessed swords. Aegislash evokes the image of a humanoid warrior with its upright posture and functional arms that it uses to wield its shield.
• Black Swords Are Better: Aegislash's shiny coloring is black and red.
• Blessed with Suck: Honedge and Doublade have No Guard, which makes all attacks it uses and those used on it 100% accurate. Problem is, the majority of the moves they learn have 100% base accuracy, which makes it pointless for them.
• Bling-Bling-BANG!: Aegislash, which is typically gold-colored.
• Boss Battle: Aegislash, as Elite Four Wikstrom's ace.
• Confusion Fu:
  • Move-set wise, it can learn Steel, Ghost, Dark, Normal, Fighting, Flying, Rock, and Bug attacks. Aegislash also has 150/150 attacking stats, letting it hit hard on either spectrum.
  • In practice, its ability and King's Shield make it very hard to predict what it's going to do each turn. Knowing an opposing Aegislash has King's Shield forces you to be wary of it for fear of a sharp Attack loss, and it has low Speed normally ensuring the second hit, but also has Shadow Sneak for priority. In short, Aegislash forces a war of I Know You Know I Know mindgames for both its user and the opponent, with the former having to be very unpredictable to use it properly.
• Cool Sword: Honedge is a living sword. Its evolved forms, Doublade is two living swords, and Aegislash is a living sword wielding a shield. Naturally, they can learn many sword-based moves such as Sacred Sword and Swords Dance.
• Creepily Long Arms: Aegislash. Its "arms" are attached to the base of its hilt and as long as its blade.
• Cyclops: Although Honedge and Doublade's two parts appear to have another two "eyes" when sheathed. Aegislash plays this straight.
• Defend Command:
  • Aegislash's Secret Art, the move King's Shield. It's similar to Protect, blocking damage from most sources while lowering the Attack of any Pokémon that tries to use a move that made contact. Using the move also changes Aegislash from its offensive Blade Forme into its defensive Shield Forme.
  • It can be bred Wide Guard, handy in Doubles where said move negates one of its biggest weaknesses (Earthquake and Heat Wave) and can be used in succession without fail.
• Disc-One Nuke:
  • In Pokémon X and Y you can find Honedge in Route 6 way before the second Gym. The type combination of Steel and Ghost is not damaged easily by much until later in the game (and even then it has a ton of resistances to abuse), has pretty high stats at the point you get it, and starts off knowing the attack-boosting move Swords Dance and the increasingly lethal Fury Cutter so it can eventually cut through any opponent if given some time.
• The Dividual: Doublade. The two swords will communicate with each other telepathically to carry out complicated attacks together.
• Dual Wielding: Doublade consists of two swords, meaning it's dual wielding itself.
• Empathic Weapon: Pokémon that are also swords. It's not a good idea to actually try using it as a weapon, as Honedge and Doublade will try to suck out your soul if you hold them.
• Equippable Ally: Subverted; Honedge's trainer may count as its ally, but if he or she were to try and use it like a sword, it would suck his or her life energy instead. Aegislash, on the other hand, is more benevolent and can detect the qualities of a king, but is too Arceus-damned big for a human to wield like a sword.
• Evil Weapon: Aegislash is said to have helped kings control their kingdoms with less-than-good methods.
• Evolving Weapon: Rather literally, since it's a Pokémon.
• Extra Eyes: It normally has only one eye, but when sheathed, the blade engravings seen through the holes in its hilt give it the appearance of two more eyes (and teeth).
• Extra-ore-dinary: As expected by Pokémon that resemble swords, they are all Steel-types.
• Faceless Eye: Their eyes are just tacked onto the side of the blade, though Honedge looks like it has a face when sheathed due to the design.
• Flying Weapon: Animated swords that attack without a wielder. Despite floating, they are not eligible for Sky Battles, and can be hit with Ground-type moves.
• Glass Cannon: Aegislash in Sword Forme has very high Attack and Special Attack comparable to Olympus Mons, but it will fold to any moderate hits due to its low defenses. In fact, Aegislash's Sword Forme boasts the single highest Special Attack of all non-Legendary and non-Mega-Evolved Pokémon in the game period before Gen VII^note and still does if one counts the Ultra Beasts as Legendary Pokémon, and among the Ultra Beasts, only Blacephalon and Xurkitree have higher Special Attack, with an utterly monstrous 150^note To give one an idea, all the other Pokémon with 150 Special Attack are: Primal Groudon, Kyogre, Rayquaza, Normal Forme Deoxys, Dialga, Palkia, and Reshiram.
• Hungry Weapon: Honedge will try to steal the souls of anyone trying to wield it like an actual sword.
• Kryptonite Is Everywhere: In-game, there are multiple Pokémon that carry Dark, Ground, Fire, and Ghost attacks.
• Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: Aegislash's two sheaths have merged into a shield, just as its two swords from Doublade merged into a big sword. Its King's Shield move protects it from damage as well as lowering the attack of a foe, but it doesn't block Status Effects or other non-attacking moves like Taunt. Furthermore, its defense is greatly increased in its shield form.
• Magic Knight: Aegislash's Sword Forme has excellent attacking stats on both the physical and special sides.
• Mighty Glacier:
  • Honedge and Doublade have good Attack and extremely high Defense^note With an Eviolite and max defense, Doublade manages to beat out Shuckle's base 230 Defense, at an equivalent of 249.1363636, but weak Special Defense. Both of them are slow, but they can naturally learn Shadow Sneak to bypass this.
  • Aegislash can make very good use of its lack of speed, as Stance Change only works when it moves, meaning it'll switch from the Stone Wall mode to the Glass Cannon mode after the opponent already attacked, and then switch back at the beginning of the next turn since King's Shield is a priority move.
• Multiform Balance: Aegislash's signature ability, Stance Change, changes its form depending on whether it's attacking or defending. The forms are polar opposites of each other in attacking and defensive stats. Both have low speed, however.
• My Master, Right or Wrong: Aegislash. If its owner has "the qualities of a king," it will do whatever they want. This includes acts of villainy.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Aegislash's Korean name is Kill-guard.
• Nerf: As of Pokémon Sword and Shield Aegislash receives a nerf to its base stats, losing 10 in both its Attack and Special Attack in Blade Forme and 10 in both Defense and Special Defense in Shield Forme. This makes Aegislash the first Pokémon to have its base stats nerfed, barring the Special split in Generation II. In addition, its signature move King's Shield is only half as effective in reducing the attacker's Attack stat.
• No Biological Sex: Strangely enough, averted. Unlike most Pokémon that are based on inanimate objects, they can be male or female.
• Not Completely Useless:
  • The one attack they can abuse No Guard with is Fury Cutter, which had its Power doubled to 40 while retaining its old "get stronger until it misses" effect. Doublade probably has better things to do than throw around a non-STAB Bug attack, but lower-leveled Honedge can reliably turn into wrecking balls.
  • No Guard is useful against in-game opponents that spam Double Team or Sand Attack.
• Numerical Theme Naming: Honedge, Doublade. Japanese similarly uses Hitotsuki^*Japanese for the number one, but used when counting, Nidangill^*Japanese for the number two. The French names also follow a similar concept with Monorpale and Dimoclès, but with an additional theme. Aside from the numerical prefix (mono- and di-), part of the names also refer to a fictional sword (Vorpal Sword and Sword of Damocles).
• Only the Chosen May Wield: Aegislash acts like Excalibur in that it chooses who is its trainer based on how worthy they are. It doesn't care how their trainer uses them, however.
• Our Ghosts Are Different: This one is a sword possessed by an ancient spirit.
• Purple Is Powerful: Aegislash's tassels are purple, and has the same offensive stats as Rayquaza.
• Real Men Wear Pink: All three of them may have feminine colors (teal, pink, and purple), but they're still badass.
• Recurring Element: This Gen's multiplying metal object like Magnemite, Beldum, and Klink. Like the Magnemite line, only the first evolution actually multiplies the objects; the final evolution is more of a transmogrification.
• Required Secondary Powers: "Stance Change" is Aegislash's ability which allows it to turn into a Glass Cannon while attacking, and a Mighty Glacier when defending, and will always be active no matter what. As a result, this has the secondary effect of making Aegislash's ability one of the very few that cannot be copied, suppressed, or changed (making it immune to moves such as Skill Swap, Gastro Acid, and Worry Seed, as well as to abilities such as Trace or Mummy).
• Reverse Arm-Fold: Shield Forme Aegislash seems to be doing this with its tassels.
• Secret Art: Aegislash has King's Shield, which acts like Protect with the added effect of harshly lowering a foe's attack should they use a contact move, but cannot block Status moves and non-damaging moves like Taunt. It also has a unique ability, Stance Change, which can't be removed, replaced, or copied, and will not work for a Pokémon who copies it via Transform or Impostor.
  • To a lesser extent, there's also the move Sacred Sword, as it's otherwise exclusive to the Swords of Justice, the Oshawott line^*via breeding, Kartana, and Zacian.
• Skill Gate Characters: King's Shield's secondary effect makes it easy to abuse against the AI and less skilled human opponents, but being predictable with it can backfire against smarter adversaries since it doesn't block Status Effects and can potentially let a Glass Cannon come in for free and threaten Aegislash back. However, Aegislash can still be extremely deadly in the hands of a skilled player if they don't just mindlessly spam King's Shield.
• Soul Power: Ghost-Type sword Pokémon.
• Stance System: Aegislash is probably the best example in the series, as it can freely switch between two Formes with very different stat distributions. When attacking, it goes into its Glass Cannon Blade Forme, and when using King's Shield, it turns back into its Stone Wall Shield Forme. Its ability is even called Stance Change.
• Stone Wall: When in Shield Forme, Aegislash has very good defenses and an amazing defensive typing, but terrible attacking stats. Not that the latter point matters, as Aegislash automatically goes into Blade Forme when it attacks.
• Sword Beam: Aegislash has a fairly barren Special movepool, but with an absolutely monstrous Special Attack in its Attack Forme, it can make very good use of the few Special moves it has, such as Shadow Ball and Flash Cannon.
• Taking You with Me: They can have Destiny Bond bred onto them via a Yamask/Cofagrigus.
• Talking Animal: A Honedge in the Wyndon hotel greets the player in the lobby with a simple "Welcome". None of this is explained.
• Technicolor Blade: Aegislash is a gold-and-silver blade. Somewhat justified as it's meant to be a royal sword. Shiny Honedge and Doublade are red in color.
• They Call Him "Sword": Of course, the theme is reflected in its names as well.
• Too Dumb to Live: Any trainer who tries to use Honedge like an actual sword will have their life energy drained.
• Useless Useful Spell: It can learn Power Trick naturally, which switches its Attack and Defense. This means Aegislash has sky-high Attack in Shield Forme when it cannot attack, and sky-high Defense with pathetic Attack in Blade Forme when it tries to go on the offensive. Doublade has some more utility for it with 110/150 Attack and Defense and no Stance Change to work around.
• Unorthodox Sheathing: It uses its tassel to unsheathe itself and hold the sheath in battle.
• Use Your Head: Despite lacking anything resembling a proper head, they learn Iron Head and Head Smash. They most likely utilize these techniques with their hilt^note the most logical choice, as using the pommel of a sword to bash opponents over the head is a proper tactic for swordfighting, which seems to be made of metal, or the tip of their blade, in which case... yikes.
• Was Once a Man: Honedge's Sword Pokédex entry states that its soul once belonged to a person, and that the sword that said soul is inhabiting is the sword that was used to kill them.
• Weak to Magic: Honedge and Doublade take much more damage from special attacks than physical ones. Averted by Aegislash, whose physical and special defenses are equal.

Spritzee and Aromatisse (Shushupu and Frefuwan)

0682: Spritzee / Shushupu (シュシュプ shushupu)
0683: Aromatisse / Frefuwan (フレフワン furefuwan)

Spritzee

Aromatisse

A strange Fairy-type critter that looks like a little pink bird. Known as the Perfumed Pokémon, it uses its scent to mesmerize its opponents. It later evolves into Aromatisse, which looks rather like an avian can-can dancer in a fluffy dress that can either give off a pleasant fragrance or an odor so foul that it can turn battles in its favor. They are exclusive to the Y version.

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• Cartoon Creature: Spritzee is generally bird-shaped, but Aromatisse is a lot more vague. Its face makes it look like some kind of bird (unless that’s a curved snout, and not a beak). The pink color brings flamingoes to mind, but the large eyes, facial disk, and general body shape resemble a strange owl. But it also has paws, and according to the Pokédex, fur.
• Foil: To Swirlix, being strange version-exclusive Fairy-types that are themed around senses, support the party in some fashion with their ability, and evolve by trading while holding certain items.
• Gameplay and Story Integration: In Pokémon GO, for Spritzee to evolve into Aromatisse, in addition to 50 Spritzee candies, the player needs to use Incense while Spritzee is their buddy. An item with a powerful smell for a Pokémon associated with the sense of smell.
• Life Drain: It learns Draining Kiss, a Fairy-type version of Mega/Giga Drain.
• Meaningful Name:
  • Spritzee's name contains "spritz", which refers to spraying of liquids (or in this case, perfume), along with the German word "Spritze", which means syringe. Shushupu meanwhile is based on the Japanese onomatopoeia for spraying.
  • Aromatisse is an aromatic being that moves with finesse, while Frefuwan is a freshly fragrant being with a fluffy, light, and airy (fuwafuwa) presence to it.
• The Medic: Has the ability Healer^note which heals an ally's Status Effects in double/triple battles and knows the move Aromatherapy^note heals all status effects on your team. Fitting, because part of Spritzee's design is based on plague doctors.
• Mighty Glacier: Great HP, Special Attack, and good Special Defense, but is as slow as Musharna. Its Defense is also below-average.
• Mundane Utility: Spritzee's Y Pokédex entry states that instead of using perfume, royal ladies would carry around a Spritzee to waft a preferred fragrance.
• Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: A plague doctor bird combined with a perfume bottle squeeze bulb that turns into a bird mixed with a can-can dancer.
• Our Fairies Are Different: Pure Fairy-types that are a mix between colorful birds and plague doctors, hence the mask-like beaks.
• Plague Doctor: Their faces resemble the masks plague doctors wore in the past.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: They aren't actively malicious, but if they want to, they can concoct a painfully overpowering aroma to hinder adversaries while buffing themselves and their teammates with many more. Many trainers are even noted to struggle just being around them, as even the smell they give off while passive is rather potent.
• Secret Art: In Gen. VI, they were the only users of the Aroma Veil Ability and the Aromatic Mist move (which raises its allies' Special Defense).
• Sensory Abuse: Uses the sense of smell variety to gain an edge in battle. Unfortunately, this occurs passively as well, and some Trainers might have trouble being with it.
• Socialization Bonus: Needs to be traded while holding a Sachet in order to evolve.
• Waddling Head: Like Swirlix, Spritzee is mostly a head on tiptoes with wings.

Swirlix and Slurpuff (Peroppafu and Peroream)

0684: Swirlix / Peroppafu (ペロッパフ peroppafu)
0685: Slurpuff / Peroream (ペロリーム peroriimu)

Swirlix

Slurpuff

A strange Fairy-type critter that looks like a big ball of cotton candy, or possibly a poodle. Its entire body has been rendered sticky and sweet like candy due to the fact that it's all it eats. It later evolves into a critter that looks a lot like an anthropomorphic cupcake. They are exclusive to the X version.

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• Acrofatic: With Unburden as their Hidden Ability, a flabby build, and an appetite for all things sugar, a Slurpuff will become this if said ability is allowed to kick in.
• Anthropomorphic Food: A cotton candy poodle Pokémon^*and unlike Vanillite, this one actually has the taste of cotton candy from eating it all the time that evolves into a creature that looks a bit like a puppy combined with a cupcake/whipped cream/some other sort of dessert (called the Meringue Pokémon).
• Awesome, but Impractical: They can combine Belly Drum and Unburden to to max their Attack and double their Speed in one turn, but their low base stats mean that they're not impossible to out-speed or take a hit from (especially since they have exactly 3 physical moves to use outside of tutoring and TMs). Topping this all off, they don't resist most priority attacks, so any attempt to Total Party Kill can easily be rendered moot by a random Quick Attack or Aqua Jet.
• Big Eater: In Pokémon GO, Swirlix must be fed 25 berries while they're the player's buddy before they can evolve into Slurpuff.
• Cast from Hit Points: Learns Belly Drum through breeding.
• Depending on the Artist: Swirlix's feet are clearly visible on its in-game model, but they are absent in the anime and official artwork.
• Foil: To Spritzee. Both are strange version-exclusive Fairy-types that are themed around senses, support the party in some fashion with their ability, and evolve by trading while holding certain items.
• Green Thumb: Naturally learns Aromatherapy, Cotton Spore, Cotton Guard, and Energy Ball.
• Informed Ability: Despite what its dex entry in Pokémon X says about it using sticky threads to entangle opponents, it never learns String Shot, though it does get Cotton Spore, which does the same thing, and Pokémon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon added Sticky Web as an egg move (which then became part of its natural learnset), which, while closer to what the dex entry states, it does not affect its current opponent. Swirlix and Slurpuff would later get String Shot as a level-up move in Pokémon Sword and Shield.
• The Insomniac: Its ability prevents allies from falling asleep. Depending on the situation, this is either very good or very bad.
• Jiggle Physics: Slurpuff's flab jiggles a lot every time it moves.
• Life Drain: It learns Draining Kiss, a Fairy-type version of Mega/Giga Drain, and can be tutored Drain Punch.
• Making a Splash: Like Bunnelby and Helioptile, they can learn Surf without being Water-types or aquatic. What makes this odd is that they're based off of something that dissolves in water.
• Mascot: Slurpuff is apparently the main mascot of Malasada shops in Alola... Despite the fact that they aren't native there.
• Master of None: Slurpuff has pretty balanced stats, but none of them are very high.
• Meaningful Name: Their names in just about every language denote them as living cream-puffs that lick things with their exposed tongues.
• Mundane Utility: Chefs use Slurpuff's ridiculously powerful sense of smell to aid in their cooking.
• The Nose Knows: Slurpuff's sense of smell is a hundred million times more sensitive than a human's, letting it detect even the faintest of scents.
• Precious Puppies: Even when fully evolved, it still has all of the cuteness of a puppy.
• Playing with Fire: Despite not being Fire-types, they are able to learn a few: Flamethrower and Sunny Day.
• Our Fairies Are Different: Fairy-type, and very different — it's literally made of sugary stuff.
• Secret Art: In Gen VI, the Sweet Veil ability is exclusive to them.
• Socialization Bonus: Needs to be traded while holding a Whipped Dream in order to evolve.
• Stealth Pun: It's based on cotton candy and is a Fairy-type. In Australia (and old American) slang, cotton candy is/was referred to as "fairy floss."
• Sticky Situation: According to its Pokédex entry in Pokémon X:
  "To entangle its opponents in battle, it extrudes white threads as sweet and as sticky as cotton candy."
• Sweet Tooth: It only eats sweets, which makes its body sticky like candy.
• Waddling Head: They can't be seen in Swirlix's official art, but it does have feet. Slurpuff's feet are more visible than its pre-evolution.

Inkay and Malamar (Maaiika and Calamanero)

0686: Inkay / Maaiika (マーイーカ maaiika)
0687: Malamar / Calamanero (カラマネロ karamanero)

Inkay

Malamar

A line of Dark/Psychic bioluminescent vampire squid Pokémon. Inkay can switch its lights on and off like strobe lights to mentally drain its opponents, while Malamar has powerful hypnotic powers with which to manipulate them. They appear to do things in a topsy-turvy way, considering the line's signature move and one of their abilities; Inkay even turns upside-down when it evolves.

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• Adaptational Villainy: The anime ascends Malamar from already malicious Pokémon to outright independent super villains. Zigzagged since it also demonstrated that benevolent Malamar exist. There are no villainous Inkay in the anime besides Team Rocket's (which expectedly isn't all that evil).
• Bioluminescence Is Cool: The spots on their bodies can glow, which they can use to manipulate their opponents.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Inkay, when it isn't being cowardly.
• Combat Pragmatist: Dark-typed, and their battle strategy consists of doing things backwards and using the lights on their bodies to brainwash, confuse, and manipulate others.
• Confusion Fu: Besides Dark and Psychic moves, they naturally learn Flying and Fighting moves in addition to Fire, Poison, Electric, and Rock-type moves via TMs. Oddly enough, despite being squids, the only Water-type move they could learn for a while was Rain Dance via TM. Sword and Shield rectified this by allowing them to get Liquidation via TR.
• Cthulhumanoid: Malamar is a family-friendly version, with a humanoid shape, tentacle arms, and tentacle hair. Not to mention it's Psychic-type as well, and a powerful mind-manipulator.
• Dark Is Evil: One of the few Pokémon that is outright mentioned as sinister and manipulative.
• Dark Is Not Evil: Though this apparently doesn't apply to all of them, as noted with the above examples of James's Inkay and the benevolent Malamar. In the games, a Malamar is also used by Galar's Dark-type Gym Leader Piers, who's a pretty decent guy.
• Flying Seafood Special: Inkay floats in its animation and is found in tall grass rather than water.
• Guide Dang It!: The way to evolve Inkay. Once you see the message that it leveled up to at least 30, physically turn the 3DS or handheld Switch you're holding upside down and then continue the messages.
• Hoist by His Own Petard:
  • Malamar specializes in this. Its Contrary Ability causes any attempt to lower its own stats (notably, effects like Intimidate, moves like Crunch and Shadow Ball, and the new Sticky Web entry hazard) to increase them instead, it naturally learns Foul Play, an attack that uses the target's Attack stat, naturally learns Pluck to use any Berry the target might be carrying, and, of course, its Secret Art Topsy-Turvy, which takes any Status Buffs its target has used and turns them against it. Unfortunately, Contrary can backfire on it: If you use the moves Swagger or Flatter on it, Contrary will lower the appropriate stat and leave Inkay/Malamar confused on top of it.
  • It can be bred to have Power Split, allowing it to leech off the power of opponents with higher offensive stats by averaging its own okay-but-nothing-special strength with them.
• Hypnotic Creature: Inkay and Malamar use bioluminesence to hypnotize others. In Inkay's case it's mainly for self-defense to distract would be predators, but for Malamar it has taken this ability to an extreme, to a point where it's said to have the strongest hypnotic powers of all Pokémon, and can make others do whatever it wants, be they human or Pokémon.
• Interface Screw: Inverted. In order to evolve Inkay, you have to turn your 3DS or handheld Switch upside down when it hits Level 30.
• Jack of All Stats: Malamar's stats are all-around average, with Attack being the highest.
• Light Is Not Good: Especially when said light is used for brainwashing.
• Lovecraft Lite: It's a Dark/Psychic-type with tentacles. Not to mention that Malamar looks like Cthulhu's would-be lover, has strong mind-control powers, and has an arsenal of capabilities (Topsy-Turvy, Contrary) created to render all established rules of the universe null and void. It couldn't be more of a reference to H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu if you brought H.P. Lovecraft back from the dead and asked him to create it.
• Making a Splash: Subverted. They are inspired by vampire squids and are in the Water 1^note The only other Pokémon in this group that aren't Water-types are the Dratini line, Delibird, Stunfisk, and a couple Pokémon who evolve into/from Water-types and Water 2^note Inkay and Malamar are the only Pokémon in this group that aren't Water-types, even though they're based on aquatic animals Egg Groups, yet are not Water-types. They can't even learn any Water attacks outside of Rain Dance... at least, not until Sword and Shield gave them access to Liquidation.
• Mind Manipulation: Malamar is said to be able to do this. Inkay to a lesser extent. To quote Malamar's X entry:
  "It wields the most compelling hypnotic powers of any Pokémon, and it forces others to do whatever it wants."
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Malamar ("mal," one of many prefixes meaning "bad"). Both of them in Japanese include ma (魔), which means "demon", so both of them are partially named "devil squid".
• Non-Indicative Name: In the West, at least. There's nothing in the games to imply that Inkay can produce ink. It can't even learn the ideal Octozooka attack, that spits ink at the opponent. This doesn't seem to have gone unheard in the East, since the anime has actually shown Inkay spitting ink as a defense mechanism.
• Psychic Powers: Part Psychic-types based on vampire squids that use hypnosis to control their targets.
• Punny Name: Inkay's Japanese name references the Japanese flying squid (maika), only with that taken much more literally as a Flying Seafood Special.
• Ridiculously Cute Critter: Inkay. It even lacks the malicious or sneaky look that most Dark-types have. Then again, this could be part of its ability to drain an opponent's will to fight.
• Secret Art: Topsy-Turvy, a move that reverses stat buffs into stat de-buffs (and vice versa).
• Squishy Wizard: By type match-ups alone, Inkay and Malamar have absolutely no resistances, but do have an immunity and two weaknesses (to Bug and Fairy, the former being a quadruple weakness).
• Supernatural Floating Hair: Malamar's upside-down body plan makes its tentacles resemble this with its humanoid appearance and Psychic typing.
• Tentacle Rope: Both naturally learn Constrict.
• Tentacled Terror: Malamar are malicious-looking Dark/Psychic humanoid squids (based on vampire squids) that are the Pokemon's equivalent of Mind Flayers. They can hypnotize others into doing their bidding, and it doesn't help that they are used by trainers for nefarious purposes. Its pre-evolved form Inkay is more timid and less overtly malicious, but it's still a Dark-type.
• Tentacle Hair: Malamar is a vaguely humanoid upside-down squid, so its tentacles act as hair.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: When evolving. Inkay is rather cowardly and tries to evade enemies, whereas Malamar is malicious and uses its lights to hypnotize and lure foes in before killing them.
• Truth in Television: Cuttlefish (the animal Inkay and Malamar are based on) really do use hypnosis and flashing lights to brainwash their prey into submission.
• Weak, but Skilled: Malamar's stats are quite mediocre all around, but its fighting style involves things like combining Contrary with Superpower to boost its stats at the same time it attacks, turning the stat boosts of an opponent into debuffs in a single turn, turnings the debuffs of a partner into boosts... So it carries its weight.
• Who's on First?: Inkay's Japanese name can mean "Oh, all right." Similarly, part of the English and Korean names is "Okay".

Binacle and Barbaracle (Kametete and Gamenodes)

0688: Binacle / Kametete (カメテテ kametete)
0689: Barbaracle / Gamenodes (ガメノデス gamenodesu)

Binacle

Barbaracle

A Rock/Water creature consisting of a rock with two barnacles attached to it, that are topped with spikes that make the barnacles resemble hands. If the barnacles don't get along, one of them will simply move to a different rock. When it evolves, it turns into a humanoid monstrosity made of more rocks and barnacles.

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• Boss Battle: Barbaracle is Siebold's strongest Mon.
• Confusion Fu: Barbaracle has a crazy wide movepool; the only types it doesn't get a move for (barring Hidden Power, which it doesn't have the stats to use) are Fire, Electric, Psychic, Fairy, or Steel. It can also put some force behind them with Tough Claws and its high Attack.
• Critical Hit Class: Can have the Sniper Ability, which boosts the power of Critical Hits by 50%. It naturally learns Slash, Stone Edge, Night Slash, and Cross Chop, and can be taught Shadow Claw, all of which work best with the Ability.
• Cyclops: Four of Barbarcle's barnacles have only one eye.
• Dishing Out Dirt: They're Primary Rock-types, as they are based on multiple barnacles sharing a rock (or two in Barbarcle's case).
• Eyeless Face: The barnacles that form Barbaracle's feet don't have eyes at all — which makes sense, since they're going to be on the ground most of the time.
• Eyes Do Not Belong There: Barbaracle has eyes on its hands. Justified in that each limb is a separate creature.
• Gonk: Binacle has a rather ugly nonstandard facial design. Barbaracle isn't much of a looker either.
• Leader Forms the Head: "Barbaracle's legs and hands have minds of their own, and they will move independently. But they usually follow the head's orders."
• Magically Inept Fighter: Barbarcle's good base 105 Attack is contrasted by its poor base 54 Special Attack.
• Making a Splash: Secondary Water-type based on barnacles.
• Meaningful Name: The reason why the barnacles look like hands is because, in Japanese, the word for barnacle is "turtle's hand."
• Mighty Glacier: Barbaracle has high attack (further boosted by Tough Claws) and Defense, but middling speed.
• Multi-Armed and Dangerous: Binacle grows more barnacles when it evolves into Barbaracle; four of them become arms while two become legs.
• Multiple Head Case:
  • Subverted with Binacle. According to its X entries, each barnacle can detach itself from the rock and move to another one.
  • Barbaracle's hands and legs could technically be those.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Its non-English names all reference it as "death barnacle" or "pain barnacle". Barbaracle's name comes from "barbarian".
• Organ Autonomy: Barbaracle's limbs, due to each of them being a separate creature attached to the same rock "torso".
• Our Monsters Are Weird: Barbaracle's head is a hand. That's just the start of what's strange about it.
• Power Up Letdown: Pickpocket. While Barbaracle can afford a hit, unlike most other users of the Hidden Ability, its standard abilities are far more useful and powerful.
• Shown Their Work: Barbaracle has high attack and can have the ability Tough Claws to increase contact move damage or Sniper to increases Critical Hit damage. Real life barnacles are razor-sharp and can cause deep cuts. This is also reflected in it learning the move Razor Shell.
• Status Buff: Can use Shell Smash to boost its Speed and offenses at the cost of its defenses, or Rock Polish to improve its Speed.
• Video Game Stealing: Its Hidden Ability is Pickpocket, which steals the opponent's item if hit with a contact move. Unlike the other users of this ability, Barbaracle can afford to take a hit.
• Wolverine Claws: Barbaracle. Its ability Tough Claws also increases the damage of its contact moves.
• The Worm That Walks: Barbaracle is made up of multiple barnacles.

Skrelp and Dragalge (Kuzumo and Dramidoro)

0690: Skrelp / Kuzumo (クズモー kuzumoo)
0691: Dragalge / Dramidoro (ドラミドロ doramidoro)

Skrelp

Dragalge

This weedy seadragon may resemble rotten kelp, but woe betide the fish who approaches it, as it will poison and kill them. When it evolves into a leafy seadragon, it becomes much more territorial, attacking ships that trespass the water it resides in. They are exclusive to Y, Omega Ruby, Ultra Moon, Shield and Scarlet.

---

• Acid Attack: According to the Pokédex, Dragalge can spit acid powerful enough to dissolve the hull of a tanker. In-game, any acid-based attacks Dragalge learns still do diddly-squat against Steel-types. Generation IX gave it Acid Spray via TM.
• Casting a Shadow: Can be taught Shadow Ball through TM.
• Combat Pragmatist: Naturally learns Feint Attack, and Dragalge's Violet Dex entry mentions they hunt Finizen via sneak attack because the latter are better swimmers.
• Dragons Are Demonic: Dragalge is a Poison/Dragon type who will sink any ships entering its territory with their acidic poison.
• Foil: To Clauncher, being version-exclusive aquatic Pokémon that have specially-oriented Mighty Glacier stat distributions.
• An Ice Person: Can learn Hail, Haze, Snowscape and Icy Wind, with the latter being useful for overcoming their slow speed.
• In a Single Bound: They can be tutored Bounce, oddly enough.
• Informed Ability: Despite Dragalge's poison being supposedly able to eat through the metal hull of a ship, its Poison-type attacks are still No Selled by Steel types, and it doesn't get Corrosion as an ability.
• Ki Manipulation: Dragalge can learn Focus Blast, which can help it overcome Steel-types who resists its STAB attacks.
• Magikarp Power: Skrelp has a decent but underwhelming typing, a bleh movepool, takes forever to level up, evolves at level 48, and has balanced yet poor stats. When it evolves, it gains a wicked typing and becomes much more durable and hard-hitting.
• Making a Splash: Skrelp's secondary Water type. Though Dragalge is not a Water type, it can learn plenty of Water-type moves.
• Mighty Glacier: It has great Special Defense and good Special Attack and Defense, but it is slow and somewhat lacking in Physical Attack. Dragalge's hidden ability, Adaptability, makes its Poison and Dragon attacks deal more damage than normal — those Draco Meteors and Sludge Bombs/Waves are going to be painful.^note Just to give an idea of how powerful it is, Adaptability Dragalge's Draco Meteors and Sludge Bombs/Waves are more powerful than those used by fellow Poison/Dragon Eternatus.
• Mix-and-Match Critters: Dragalge gets its body shape and color scheme from the weedy seadragon, but its appendages more closely resemble those of the leafy seadragon.
• Odd Friendship: Dragalge's Ultra Sun Dex entry mentions that for some reason it gets along really well with Dhelmise.
• Our Dragons Are Different: Dragalge drops the secondary water type for a Dragon type. Makes sense, as it is based off the leafy sea dragon. Notably, Dragalge is one of only four Dragon types in the games that are neither a Legendary nor a Mega Evolution to not have a weakness to Fairy attacks.^note If Ultra Beasts are considered Legendary Pokémon, that number drops down to three.
• Poison Is Corrosive: Apparently, Dragalge's poison is strong enough to eat away at tanker hulls. However, it can't have Corrosion as its Ability.
• Poisonous Person: Primarily Poison-type (the only completely new Poison types in Generation VI, in fact). They can also have Poison Point, which poisons foes that make contact with them, or Poison Touch, which poisons those they use contact moves on.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: There is a reason why you had better pray that you don't accidentally pilot seacrafts into their territory.
• Sea Monster: "Tales are told of ships that wander into seas where Dragalge live, never to return."
• Seahorses Are Dragons: Much like the Horsea family, the Skrelp family is also strongly associated with dragons. Skrelp even becomes a Dragon-type upon evolving.
• Seahorse Steed: Skrelp's a bit small to be one, but anything's possible with Surf. Dragalge is much larger at 5'11 (1.8 m), but it has a rather slim body frame.
• Shock and Awe: Both can learn Thunderbolt and Shock Wave, and Dragalge can learn Thunder through TM.
• Status Buff: Learns Acid Armor through breeding. On the opposite end, it can also learn Haze and Venom Drench, the former resetting all stat boosts/drops back to normal and the latter dropping the Attack, Special Attack, and Speed of a poisoned target by 1 stage each.
• Tail Slap: Naturally learns Dragon Tail, Aqua Tail, and Poison Tail, and can also be tutored Iron Tail. In fact, Dragalge's main physical attack animation shows it delivering a surprisingly hasty swing of its tail.
• Trap Master: Can learn Toxic Spikes through breeding, or TM/TR.
• Useless Useful Spell: Poison Touch is a nice ability, giving an extra chance for contact moves to inflict Poison. However, Dragalge's stats and movepool favor special, non-contact moves.

Clauncher and Clawitzer (Udeppou and Bloster)

0692: Clauncher / Udeppou (ウデッポウ udeppou)
0693: Clawitzer / Bloster (ブロスター burosutaa)

Clauncher

Clawitzer

A sharp-shooting pistol shrimp with one oversized claw. It uses that claw to attack its prey and defend itself. When it evolves, the claw grows to gargantuan proportions, allowing it to fire powerful shots and act as a propulsion system. They are exclusive to X.

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• Arm Cannon: Given that it's a pistol shrimp, it's a given that its big pincer is this.
• BFG: Clawitzer's pincer cannon is more than twice the size of its body. There's a reason its ability is called Mega Launcher.
• Boring, but Practical: Though it only has five moves to work with, Clawitzer's massive Special Attack combined with the power boost from its ability makes the moves boosted by Mega Launcher very powerful. With the four attacking moves, it has decent type coverage, and in double and triple battles, it can use Heal Pulse to recover 75% of a partner's HP.
• Combat Medic: Clawitzer gets Heal Pulse, which restores the target's HP upon use. Since Heal Pulse is a pulse-based move, it actually gets boosted by Mega Launcher, healing for 75% instead of the normal 50%. Unfortunately, Clawitzer doesn't benefit from the healing itself.
• Foil: To Skrelp, as both Pokémon can be found in the opposite version of the game as of Generation VI and VII.
• Giant Enemy Crab: It's rather large compared to real-life pistol shrimps, especially its claw.
• Healing Shiv: Clawitzer can learn Heal Pulse (though you'll need to take it to the Move Relearner). Interestingly, Mega Launcher actually increases the healing effectiveness of the move (from 50% of max HP to 75%).
• Kamehame Hadoken: Their entire gimmick; Clawitzer's ability Mega Launcher powers up aura and pulse-type moves; namely Aura Sphere, Water Pulse, Dragon Pulse, Dark Pulse, and Heal Pulse.
• Making a Splash: Pure water-types based off of the pistol shrimp.
• Mighty Glacier: Clawitzer has very high Special Attack and good defensive stats, but is on the slow side.
• Monster Suit: That big jagged thing with feelers isn't Clawitzer. The sky blue pipsqueak waving it around is.
• Mundane Utility: Clawitzer can use its huge claw as a propulsion system to get around quickly.
• Poor, Predictable Rock: Mega Launcher only works with five moves, and since Clawitzer's stats are designed to work with Mega Launcher, it gets limited use out of other moves.
• Power Pincers: While they only have one pincer (since their other arm is just a claw), the singular pincer they have more than makes up for it.
• Punny Name:
  • Clauncher and Clawitzer are portmanteaus of "claw" and either "launcher" or "howitzer", due to their claws being Arm Cannons, with the latter having a BFG claw as powerful as a howitzer.
  • Udeppou possesses a water gun (mizudeppou) arm (ude), while Bloster is a crustacean like a lobster that blows water like a blaster, in addition to being an outright anagram of "lobster".
• Recoil Boost: Clawitzer's main mode of transportation is firing backwards. Hence, it can learn Aqua Jet.
• Red Live Lobster: They are aversions as they are shrimp with a blue coloring. Their shiny variants, however, are a straight example by being red.
• Right Hand of Doom: A very notable feature of the line is the enormous right claw.
• Secret Art:
  • Like the other crustacean-based Pokémon, they learn Crabhammer.
  • After Mega Evolution was deprecated post-Gen VII, and Mega Blastoise with it, they're the only Pokémon with the Mega Launcher ability.
• Super-Powered Shrimp: This family is based on the real life pistol shrimp taken to its natural extreme. The shooting arm dwarfs the rest of the Pokémon twice over, and it has the Mega Launcher ability so it's wringing the most benefit out of the arm it can. Real pistol shrimps are able to shatter glass jars with their arms, Clawitzer's shooting arm can pierce through metal.
• Useless Useful Spell: It can naturally learn Swords Dance and some other physical attacks (like the aforementioned Crabhammer). Too bad it makes use of its Special Attack stat more in conjunction with its ability. Clawitzer's physical movepool also isn't as colorful as its Special movepool. Clawitzer can also be taught Focus Blast, which, while a good coverage move, it doesn't get boosted by Mega Launcher, is notorious for missing, and has a low PP count. Thus, Aura Sphere will provide the same power while being unable to miss and can be used much more.

Helioptile and Heliolisk (Erikiteru and Elezard)

0694: Helioptile / Erikiteru (エリキテル erikiteru)
0695: Heliolisk / Elezard (エレザード erezaado)

Helioptile

Heliolisk

An Electric/Normal-type frilled lizard. It can charge its electric powers by basking in the sun, and this gives it enough energy that it usually doesn't need to eat normal food. Helioptile resembles a cartoonish lizard mixed with a puppy, while Heliolisk more closely resembles a real frilled lizard.

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• Badass Adorable: Helioptile is the latter, Heliolisk the former (also with the latter).
• Boss Battle: Heliolisk is the most powerful Mon of Clemont, the fifth gym leader of Kalos.
• Cast from Hit Points: Its Hidden Ability Solar Power increases its Special Attack while in the sun, but it also loses some health each turn.
• Confusion Fu: It has a surprisingly diverse movepool, including: Dark Pulse, Focus Blast, Bulldoze, Grass Knot, its normal electric and normal-type moves, and Surf. Interestingly, despite being the Solar Pokémon, it couldn't learn Solar Beam or Sunny Day until the generation 8 games.
• Dishing Out Dirt: Helioptile can learn the Ground moves Mud-Slap and Bulldoze via level up or TM as well in the case of Bulldoze.
• Early-Bird Cameo: Was one of the first Gen VI Pokémon to make a proper appearance in the anime. Helioptile appeared as Alexa's Pokémon, alongside Gogoat and Noivern near the end of the gen 5 portion of the anime.
• Glass Cannon: Heliolisk has good speed, good special attack, and decent special defense, but its other stats are lackluster.
• Happy Dance: Heliolisk does one when happy in Pokémon-Amie.
• Healing Factor: Dry Skin Heliolisk will heal itself by 1/8 of its HP at the end of each turn under rain.
• Irony: The line is themed after The Power of the Sun but its abilities, typing and movepool insure it does so much better under the opposite weather condition, rain. Solar Power makes it stronger, but gradually drains HP, and its movepool lacks the tools to properly abuse harsh sunlight. Meanwhile, Dry Skin gives it a much appreciated immunity to Water-type moves, and under rain, passive regeneration, a stronger Surf and a perfectly accurate Thunder - which is also boosted by STAB to become a powerful nuke.
• Life Drain: Learns a new move called "Parabolic Charge" that works like an Electric-typed Giga Drain. It's also the only draining move capable of targeting everyone around the user, meaning it'll likely heal a lot of health and help quell the negative aspects of being a Glass Cannon.
• Lovable Lizard: Helioptile is a timid and cute frilled lizard. It evolves into Heliolisk, which has been shown to have playful mannerisms in Pokémon-Amie and the anime.
• Making a Splash: Both of them can learn Surf. They likely able to learn this due to Heliolisk being partly based off of the basilisk; a lizard that is capable of running on water, which also explains its high speed.
• Meaningful Name: Their English names reference Helios, Greek god of the Sun, in relation to them possessing Power of the Sun, while their Japanese names reference the "Elekiter", a device for generating and storing static electricity, in relation to them generating and storing electricity by converting solar energy.
• Non-Elemental: It has Normal as its secondary type, which, in the many years the Pokémon franchise has been around, is a first (or second, if one applies to National 'Dex order).
• Our Dragons Are Different: They're not Dragon-types, but they belong in the Dragon Egg Group. They also learn a variety of Dragon-type moves like Dragon Pulse, Breaking Swipe and Scale Shot.
• Power Up Letdown: Despite the line being thematically designed around solar power, it doesn't get much mileage out of Solar Power because of a number of reasons. Not only does the line lack moves that benefit from harsh sunlight (until Gen VIII provided it with Weather Ball and Solar Beam, and even then, none of these moves are boosted by STAB), the ability compounds its frailty by slowly draining its HP at the end of each turn.
• Power of the Sun: It uses sunlight to build up electric charge, and its Hidden Ability is Solar Power. Helioptile also requires a Sun Stone to evolve. The frills of Heliolisk fan out in a shape similar that of how the sun is depicted in art. Despite this, it couldn't learn Solar Beam until the Generation 8 games gave it access.
• Protection from the Elements: With their Sand Veil ability, which prevents residual damage from Sandstorm.
• Punny Name:
  • Helioptile is a heliophilic reptile with Power of the Sun, while Heliolisk is an obelisk-like basilisk lizard with the same powers.
  • Erikiteru is an electricity-generating shining (teru) frill-necked lizard (erimaki tokage), while Elezard is an electricity-generating frill-necked lézard.
• Ridiculously Cute Critter: Helioptile looks like a lizard mixed with a puppy.
• Secret Art: Electrify, which turns the target's next move into an Electric-type move.
• Shock and Awe: They are primary Electric-types based off a frilled lizard.
• Signature Move: They're most heavily associated with Parabolic Charge.
• Useless Useful Spell: Electrify makes the target's next move an Electric-type move, but Heliolisk has far better things to do with its time than that, since it cannot take advantage of it in any way — it has no Abilities that let it benefit from being hit with Electric attacks, nor does it have the stats or movepool to utilize Electrify as a form of Damage Reduction to stall the opponent to death. It has a bit more utility in team battles, where, when partnered with an ally with Lightningrod or Volt Absorb, it can play some neat tricks, but it's still a very gimmicky move that isn't very useful.
• Weather of War: Notable for being the most weather-versatile Pokémon, since each of its abilities and Hidden Ability can work in different weather conditions.

Tyrunt and Tyrantrum (Chigoras and Gachigoras)

0696: Tyrunt / Chigoras (チゴラス chigorasu)
0697: Tyrantrum / Gachigoras (ガチゴラス gachigorasu)

Tyrunt

Tyrantrum

This T.rex Pokémon lived millions of years ago. While the young Tyrunt is known to be temperamental and bratty, Tyrantrum is so powerful that nothing could stand up to its powerful jaw, and so it lived like a king. These are the first fossil Pokémon to possess the fabled Dragon type — quite fitting, considering Tyrantrum's king-like nature and how dragonlike T. rex was in real life.

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• Adipose Rex: Tyrantrum is quite beefy, and is both kingly and a literal "rex".
• Awesome Moment of Crowning: Its two "ridges" as Tyrunt becomes crown-like as it evolves into Tyrantrum.
• Badass Adorable: Tyrunt looks like a character straight from The Land Before Time, but its respectable Attack stat should not be underestimated.
• The Berserker: A favored playstyle, as Tyrantrum has an utterly monstrous Attack stat and two abilities that heavily benefit from it. It also learns Thrash as it levels up, which causes it to lose control for several turns.
• The Caligula: Highly implied. Tyrantrum certainly had to have gotten its classification of the "Despot" Pokémon from somewhere.
• Cast from Hit Points: Learns Head Smash. With their Hidden Ability Rock Head, the recoil is removed.
• The Charmer: The Tyrunt line can learn Charm; although an odd fit at first glance, the Japanese name for Charm is "Spoiled Pout"; fitting, as Tyrunt is a Royal Brat.
• Closest Thing We Got: Its 'dex entry in Ultra Sun mentions that complete restoration via fossils is impossible, as it allegedly had feathers once.
• Combat Pragmatist: Tyrantrum can learn a diverse variety of attacks through level up, move tutors, egg moves, and TMs (Crunch, Poison Fang, Iron Head) to defend itself against its countertypes like Fairy, which were introduced in its debut generation and are more specialized in Special Defense rather than Defense, giving it a chance to beat them down.
• Cool Crown: The orange ridge on Tyrantrum is designed to be like one.
• Crown-Shaped Head: Tyrantrum has five scales on its forehead that form a fan-like crown.
• Dinosaurs Are Dragons: Its secondary type is Dragon. Makes sense, considering the Japanese word for "dinosaur" directly translates to "Terrifying Dragon".
• Dishing Out Dirt: As fossil Pokémon, they're part Rock types and can learn Ground attacks like Earthquake, especially through level up.
• Dual Boss: With Amaura during Grant's gym battle.
• Ermine Cape: Tyrantrum's light underbelly has lines in contrast to the rest of its orange body, all matching up to its shoulders and back with its feathery mane. It gives the royal coat-like look.
• Feathered Dragons: Much to the delight of paleonuts everywhere; essentially a Tyrannosaurus rex with an impressive "mane" of feathers around its neck, as well as a sort of feathery pseudo beard on its chin. In Ultra Sun's 'dex entry for it, it's claimed that Tyrantrum may have had more extensive plumage back in its home time period.
• Fire, Ice, Lightning: Can learn all 3 elemental fang moves via breeding.
• Foil: They are this to the Aurorus Line. Both species evolve at mutually exclusive periods (Daytime for Tyrunt, Night for Amaura), Amaura and Aurorus seem kinder and gentler than Tyrunt and Tyrantrum, their specialties are on opposite ends of the attack stat spectrum, and while Tyrantrum is based on one of the most popular dinosaurs, Tyrannosaurus rex, Aurorus is based on the obscure Amargasaurus. Aurorus' Ice-type moves also counter Tyrantrum's Dragon type, but Tyranturm's Rock-type moves can just as easily defeat an Aurorus. It's visual, too, as Tyrantrum represents toughness and power, while Aurorus represents majestic beauty.
• Fossil Revival: In order to get a Tyrunt you need to revive it from a Jaw Fossil.
• God Save Us from the Queen!: Being the Despot Pokémon, a seldom-seen female Tyrantrum qualifies as this.
• High Collar of Doom: Tyrantrum has one.
• Irony: Can be taught both Draco Meteor and Meteor Beam, which would symbolically represent what made the non-avian dinosaurs extinct.
• Kryptonite Is Everywhere: Their typing (Rock/Dragon) grants them a total of six different weaknesses.
• Last Chance Hit Point: Tyrunt's Hidden Ability is Sturdy.
• Magically Inept Fighter: Tyrantrum has great Attack but its Special Attack is poor and it learns only a handful of special-based moves.
• Man Bites Man: The Strong Jaw ability. It boosts the power of all biting moves by a whopping fifty percent.
• Mighty Glacier: A number of good Pokémon can easily outspeed Tyrantrum, but it has decent Defense stats to make up for this. Which is to say nothing about its Attack; a good hit from this will take down nearly anything in one shot and both of its Abilities can power up its physical moves (Strong Jaw and Reckless, its hidden one). This can be added to by breeding it with Curse, boosting its Attack and Defense at the cost of losing what little Speed it has. God help you if you're staring one down and there's a Trick Room active...
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Tyrantrum has the title of "Despot Pokémon". Its name also counts.
• Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: They're tyrannosaurs and dragons at the same time, and Tyrantrum has elements of a medieval king.
• One-Hit KO: Naturally learns Horn Drill.
• Our Dragons Are Different: Not overtly based on any traditional depictions of dragons, Tyrunt and Tyrantrum are the Dinosaurs Are Dragons trope played as straight as possible.
• Poisonous Person: Can be bred with Poison Fang.
• The Power of the Sun: Evolves at level 39 during the Day.
• Recurring Element: Part of this gen's fossil duo with the Amaura line.
• Requisite Royal Regalia: Tyrantrum's design incorporates various objects associated with royalty.
• The Rival: In New Pokémon Snap, Tyrantrum will get into turf wars with Charizard when the two of them interact, echoing the Anjanath^note a red, feathered T. Rexpy dragon vs. Rathalos^note a red, flying fire-breathing dragon that lacks Dragon typing and acts as a Series Mascot turf wars in Monster Hunter: World.
• Royal Brat: Tyrunt is the "Royal Heir Pokémon", and is known to be selfish and throw fits when it doesn't get its way. Tyrantrum is unlikely to be any better, given how its name combines "tyrant" (a ruthless, totalitarian leader) with "tantrum" (what bratty, ill-behaved kids throw when their parents or any kind of adult figure tries to discipline them/refuses to give them what they want).
• Shown Their Work:
  • It's one of the few examples of a feathered tyrannosaurid in fiction. In fact, Tyrantrum's Ultra Sun dex entry even relates how it's possible that the feathery covering was originally extensive (referring to how at least some large tyrannosauroids had extensive feathery coverings, though others seemed to have had scales covering at least parts of their bodies) and the more scaly look of the restored animals is because complete restoration is impossible.
  • A lot of emphasis is put on Tyrantrum's powerful bite. In real life, Tyrannosaurus rex holds the record for the strongest bite force of any land animal, extinct or extant^note T. rex's bite force was beat out by certain prehistoric marine predators and crocodilians, hence the qualifier "land animal".
  • The crests or ridges of Tyrunt and Tyrantrum are clearly based off of the keratinous rugosities tyrannosaurids most likely had in real life, in contrast to most portrayals of Tyrannosaurus, which give it a head that's smoothed over on the top.
• Status Buff: It is possible to breed Dragon Dance on a Tyrunt. Not only will this jack up its offense power, but it will be much faster. It can also learn Rock Polish via TM, which will increase its speed even more than Dragon Dance does, without boosting its attack stat; and Scale Shot via Move Tutor, an attack that, if it doesn't miss, will boost its Speed but lower its Defense.
• Trap Master: When you first revive it, Stealth Rock will be in its moveset.
• T. Rexpy: The Tyrunt line is very clearly modeled after the T. rex, with heavier armor, a few feathers, highly aggressive personalities, and the ability to tear a car to pieces with their jaws.
• Use Your Head: Tyrantrum can learn Head Smash.
• Weak Against Magic: Tyrantrum's base 119 Defense is contrasted by its base 59 Special Defense, giving it a major weakness to special-based attacks.

Amaura and Aurorus (Amarus and Amaruruga)

0698: Amaura / Amarus (アマルス amarusu)
0699: Aurorus / Amaruruga (アマルルガ amaruruga)

Amaura

Aurorus

These Amargasaurus-like Pokémon lived long ago in the frozen northlands. Unthreatened by predators and calm in nature, they were right at home. The sails on their heads evoke the image of the polar auroras, which become larger when they evolve. With a Rock/Ice-typing and an ability that changes certain moves to Ice type, they thematically fit the wintery lands they dwell in. Today they're extinct, but Trainers can find fossil remnants to give to scientists so they can revive the majestic creature. It's a powerful fighter, as long as it can keep safe from its many type weaknesses.

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• Awesome, but Impractical: The combination of Rock and Ice lets them hit a lot of Pokémon for super effective damage...at the cost of having one of the worst defensive pairings (Steel and Fighting moves can smash it with a whopping 4x damage, and Water, Grass, Ground, and Rock can hit almost as hard with only 2x damage).
• Came Back Wrong: Their fossils can be found in Alola in Ultra Sun and Moon. However, as pointed out by its Ultra Moon dex entry, even though they can be brought back to life, a dinosaur adapted to cold climates isn't expected to survive for very long in a tropical environment like Alola.
• Counter-Attack: Amaura can learn Mirror Coat as an egg move, countering any Special Attack move that hits it.
• Dishing Out Dirt: As fossil Pokémon, they're part rock-types and can learn Ground moves.
• Dual Boss: With Tyrunt during Grant's gym battle.
• Expressive Hair: Their sails light up in different colors depending on their mood — red when attacking or angry (in Pokémon-Amie), green when happy (in Amie), and blue when they faint (possibly when they're upset in general).
• Foil: As the other set of fossil Pokémon, they are this to the Tyrantrum Line. Both species evolve at mutually exclusive periods (Daytime for Tyrunt, Night for Amaura), Amaura and Aurorus seem kinder and gentler than Tyrunt and Tyrantrum, their specialties are on opposite ends of the attack stat spectrum, and while Tyrantrum is based on one of the most popular dinosaurs, Tyrannosaurus rex, Aurorus is based on the obscure Amargasaurus. Aurorus' Ice-type moves also counter Tyrantrum's Dragon type, but Tyranturm's Rock-type moves can just as easily defeat an Aurorus. It's visual, too, as Tyrantrum represents toughness and power, while Aurorus represents majestic beauty.
• Fossil Revival: In order to get an Amaura you need to revive it from a Sail Fossil.
• Gentle Giant Sauropod: Aurorus lives up to the gentle reputation of sauropods. Justified as it doesn't have any natural predators and therefore has no need to be aggressive, which also may have been the case for the largest sauropods in real life.
• An Ice Person: Not only Ice-types, but their ability Refrigerate turns all Normal-type moves into Ice-type, and powers them up.
• Kaleidoscope Hair: Their head sails can change color.
• Kryptonite Is Everywhere: They have 6 weaknesses (Fighting, Steel, Ground, Water, Grass, and Rock, with the first two being double weaknesses), all of which are common during the story mode.
• Lunacy: Evolves at level 39, but only at night.
• Make Some Noise: They can learn Hyper Voice via move tutor. With Refrigerate, it's almost a Blizzard with base 100% accuracy.
• Meaningful Name: "Aurorus" contains "aurora", a light display commonly seen in the night skies of polar regions (hence its sail colors, Ice-typing, and the whole evolving-only-at-night deal).
• Mercury's Wings: Amaura's sails on its head resemble wings.
• Mighty Glacier: Ice puns aside, the Amaura line has high HP and Special Attack, and boasts some impressive defenses. However, it's low speed and plethora of weaknesses weight it down a bit.
• Power Crystal: Both of them have tetrahedral crystals on their sides, which emit extremely cold air. They're hazardous to pet in Pokémon-Amie, as they'll freeze your hand. However, they can't learn Power Gem for some reason.
• Press X to Die: Thanks to their double weakness to Steel, weakness to Rock, and grounded condition, Amaura and Aurorus can be remarkably KOed from full health, just by switching in, if its side of the battlefield has three layers of Spikes, Stealth Rock, and sharp spikes created by G-Max Steelsurge.
• Recurring Element: Part of this gen's fossil duo with the Tyrunt line.
• Ridiculously Cute Critter: Both of them look like they came from a Lauren Faust adaptation of The Land Before Time.
• Scissors Cuts Rock: They naturally learn Freeze-Dry through level up. Freeze-Dry is a special Ice-type move inverts the type matchup against Water, and deals super-effective damage on Water-types. Even though these Pokémon are weak to Water-type moves, one should think twice switching Water-types in against them.
• Secret Art: Their ability, Refrigerate, although other lines have abilities that do the same thing for other types, and Mega Glalie also has Refrigerate as of Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire. Freeze-Dry was introduced in Generation VI as an exclusive move to Aurorus, though other Pokémon can learn it as an egg move, with Aurorus being the main breeder for it.
• Shock and Awe: Learns Thunder Wave naturally, can use the TMs for several Electric attacks (only missing out on Volt Switch), and can be bred to have Discharge and Magnet Rise.
• Shown Their Work:
  • Aurorus has the proper foot configuration of a sauropod, having a single large claw on the forefoot, and three on the hindfoot.
  • The fact the Amaura lineup live in cold climates is also a reference to polar dinosaurs (though Amargasaurus is not one of them), as well as dinosaurs being warm-blooded.
  • Auroras are produced when the magnetosphere is battered by solar winds, which explains this line's high affinity with Electric moves.
• True Blue Femininity: Both Amaura and Aurorus are feminine-looking Sauropods with an Ice-Type and a cool blue color.
• Useless Useful Spell: Refrigerate can be this, as Aurorus doesn't have many Special Normal-type moves to use with it, just Round, Echoed Voice, and Hyper Beam. However, in on-line matches and in battle facilities, it can use Nature Power as a loophole. Nature Power becomes the Normal Tri Attack in these locations, giving Aurorus the equivalent of a 100% accuracy Blizzard with a chance for Burn, Paralysis, or Freezing. Thankfully, Aurorus got Hyper Voice by Move Tutor in Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire and can be taught it via TR in Sword/Shield.
• Weather Manipulation: Its Hidden Ability is Snow Warning, which causes the weather to passively change to Hail when brought on the field.
• Winter Royal Lady: Aurorus might be based on one, further establishing it as a Foil to the kingly Tyrantrum. The markings on its head look like a tiara, the ice crystals on its body bring to mind a dress with jewels sewn into the fabric (which were often worn by queens), and even its sails resemble the headdresses high-ranking women wore in medieval times.
• When All You Have Is a Hammer…: The line's only special Rock-type move is Ancient Power, which only has a measly 5 PP (and doesn't even have good Power). However, if you're lucky enough to get the universal stat boost, then prepare to start curb-stomping opponents. Subverted after they became available in Sword and Shield, which gave them a desperately-needed alternative in Meteor Beam.

Hawlucha (Luchabull)

0701: Hawlucha / Luchabull (ルチャブル ruchaburu)

Hawlucha

A Fighting/Flying luchador hawk Pokémon. Despite being small, it moves at blinding speed to take its opponents down. With this Pokémon, the Flying-type has now been paired with every other type, including itself and the new Fairy-type, thanks to a retcon. Its signature Flying Press move puts both of its types to use at once.

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• Bare-Fisted Monk: A part Fighting-type that naturally learns many Fighting-type attacks.
• Bird People: Hawlucha looks more like a person in a bird-themed wrestling costume than an actual bird. The fact that it's in the Human-like egg group along with the Flying egg group drives the point further.
• Blow You Away: Flying-type. With Hawlucha's introduction (and the Togepi line's type change), Flying became the first type that has been paired with every other at least once. A bit of a subversion that it keeps itself firmly on the ground, and in some media, it is depicted as unable to fly and instead jumps really high and uses its wings to glide. Indeed, while it can learn the Fly HM, it is interpreted more like it performs a leap and land attack.
• Boring, but Practical: Can be used as an in-game HM Slave, as it learns the HMs Cut, Fly, and Strength and the TM Rock Smash.
• Boss Battle: Korrina's strongest Mon (during her gym battle, anyway).
• Death from Above: Their preferred way of attacking foes. The animation for its Secret Art, Flying Press, has it do this to the opponent.
• Face: Hawlucha's main colors evoke the standard Face design of a luchador.
• Feather Fingers: It's a bird with hands on its wings.
• Funny Animal Anatomy: It has a beak-like nose, with a human-like mouth underneath and pronounced pectoral and bicep muscles in the anime.
• Glass Cannon: Hawlucha with Unburden can output ridiculous damage with Acrobatics and Hi Jump Kick while outspeeding almost all other Pokémon, even those with a Choice Scarf.
• Heal Thyself: Naturally learns Roost.
• Heroic Build: Not the most aerodynamic of designs, but Hawlucha sports one.
• Heel: Its shiny colors (red body, black arms, purple wings, green head-feathers) fit the standard Heel design. In fact, when the shiny form of Hawlucha appeared in the anime, it was given the nickname of "Dark Hawlucha" and played a villain character in a theater troupe.
• Jack of All Stats: Leaning towards Fragile Speedster as its speed is noticeably its best stat, but it doesn't really have any poor stats.
• Kryptonite Is Everywhere: As badass as Hawlucha is, its typing leaves it wide open for Fairy, Electric, Ice, Psychic, and even its own second type (Flying) to defeat it. On the plus side, Ground-types don't do anything against it, and Rock-types (which have long been the secret to taking down Flying-types — especially Bug/Flying, Fire/Flying, and Ice/Flying) only deal normal damage against it.
• Large Ham: In Pokémon-Amie, it shows its happiness by waving in a sweeping, grandiose way as though it's greeting an audience. It is based on a Mexican wrestler, after all.
• Masked Luchador: Its facial design looks like a Mexican wrestler's mask, and it strikes wrestling poses when attacking.
• Mouthy Bird: It resembles a hawk, but its mouth is positioned on the bottom of its “beak”.
• Retcon: Sword and Shield adds Hawlucha to the Flying egg group when it was solely in the Human-like egg group beforehand.
• Secret Art: Flying Press, which is pretty much a wrestling move. It's a Fighting-type move that deals both Fighting and Flying type damage. The only other Pokémon that can learn it is Pikachu Libre, who's also a Masked Luchador.
• Super-Strength: Comes with the territory as a Fighting-type. However, while its skill is usually more emphasized than its raw power, the anime shows that even before being caught, Ash's Hawlucha had enough raw physical strength that it could evenly clash with and hold back a Machamp fighting at full power, despite their massive difference in size. It also inflicted so much damage on a trainer's Slaking that even after using Slack Off to recover, the damage it accrued caused its leg to give out and lead to its defeat.
• Useless Useful Spell: While Flying Press sounds cool, being the first dual-typed attack, in practice it's not very useful. There's only a small handful of Pokémon in the entire series that are weak to both Flying and Fighting, compared to many more that are weak to one type and resist the other, including damn near every single Rock, Bug, and Steel-type. Thus its dual-typing is more a hindrance than a boon, causing Flying Press to have inferior type coverage against enemies that would be weak to normal Fighting or Flying attacks, which Hawlucha can learn plenty of. The result is that Flying Press is more a novelty than a viable move.
• Weak, but Skilled: Its X Pokédex entry, at least, describes it as this; it's small, but its skill enables it to stand up to bigger fighters like Machamp and Hariyama. The aforementioned Flying Press exemplifies this. As a Fighting-type move, it would be the most likely choice for Hawlucha to use in a brawl, especially if it sees said brawl as a fighting competition. Due to also doing Flying-type damage, it's super-effective on Fighting types, as an example of Hawlucha using its technical skill to gain the advantage against better fighters without having to rely on any dirty tricks (i.e. non-Fighting moves).

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