Pokémon Black and White / YMMV

YMMV for Pokémon Black and White.

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Annoying Video Game Helper: Fennel was rather unpopular once the Dream World website launched in North America, given how many a user saw her very image saying nicely that they needed to wait a little more until they could enter the site.
Anti-Climax Boss:
- Morimoto's team has levels on par with the League Champion, but it consists mostly of the evolutions of early-game Com Mons. It is possible to challenge him before your team is likely to be anywhere near as high-leveled as his own, but it's still ultimately disappointing for what's the series' first Creator Cameo battle.
- The final battle with N. His legendary dragon can be easily defeated by your own due to Artificial Stupidity (it loves to use its signature move, which you're resistant to and can power up your own dragon's signature move as well), and most of his other Pokémon can be one-shotted with the proper type matchups. Then you face the real Final Boss, who isn't nearly as much of a pushover...
- In the Pokémon League rematches, if you're strong enough to get through the Elite Four, the Champion battle is relatively pain-free by comparison.
Anvilicious:
- The message about trying to get along with people whose opinion differs from your own is dropped with all of the subtlety of a sledgehammer.
- Some people feel that N is this to the "Stop Having Fun" Guys who only see Pokémon as tools.
Applicability: The themes and dialogue of the games may show parallels to many real-life issues and debates, beyond (obviously) animal rights.
Awesome Art: The games' graphics are the culmination of the "2D era" of Pokémon, and make good use of color, detail, camera angles, and animations to make everything "pop". Many of the locations (such as Skyarrow Bridge) use a 3D view to increase the sense of grandeur, and battle animations are very fast-paced and feature lively animated sprites for Pokémon.
Awesome Music:
- Both versions of Opelucid City and Route 10, for starters.
- The Team Plasma battle theme generally rocks, too. It's a techno song with an organ section in it!
- N's Castle theme as well, due to it sounding like something you would hear out of Castlevania, and adding up to the ominous nature of Ghetsis and N.
- Driftveil City also deserves some mention, for its poppy industrial, pseudo-jazz beats. It's also become something of a meme in and of itself.
- Cold Storage/Twist Mountain, the Surf theme, the Gym Leader theme (especially the Theme Music Powerup when they're down to their last Pokémon), and the Champion battle theme as well.
- And then there's N's theme... especially during the Final Battle.
- Ghetsis' theme and the Village Bridge theme, the first songs in the entire series to have actual singing.
- Unlike in other entries in the series, the Elite Four battle music is quite different than the gym leader theme. It's actually dark and cerebral, which is a nice departure from most battle music, and fitting for the more intellectual Elite Four. Even better is the fact that it doesn't change inside the Pokémon Center, meaning you can listen to it from beginning to end.
- The ending song also counts as this, giving an impression of a Sequel Hook, which actually turned into a reality.
- While it can no longer be heard under normal gameplay anymore, the relic song from Meloetta's event is a slow, beautiful piece. Listen to it here.
Base-Breaking Character: Shares a page with the rest of the franchise.
Breather Boss:
- Burgh is in between two gyms that are fairly difficult, but is easily taken care of. Both his Whirlipede and his Dwebble have rather low base stats and weak attacks (for reference, their strongest STAB moves are Poison Tail and Smack Down, respectively, with each one only having 50 base power), meaning that any decently leveled Pokémon can defeat them without much struggle. His Leavanny may be slightly more difficult due to its superior speed and offenses, but its defenses are low and suffers from quadruple weakness to both Fire and Flying-type moves, from which there are plenty of options before reaching his gym (the Tepig line, the Pansear line in case you chose Oshawott, or the Pidove line in case you chose Snivy).
- If you just bring a decent Electric-type to fight Skyla, you've won. Almost everything in the cave just prior to fighting her will sweep her whole team with no effort at all, with the possible exception being Boldore for being a slow Rock-type Pokémon with a Water weakness. It doesn't help that her main Pokémon is doubly weak to Electric.
- Brycen's gym is based around the Ice-type, the flat-out worst defensive type in the series, bar none. If your Pokémon are near the 35 that the gym expects of you, a properly-equipped team will demolish it all, Victini or no. Besides, powerful Fire- and Fighting-types are pretty much everywhere in Unova. His signature Pokémon, Cryogonal, also has an extremely low base defense of 30, which puts it at risk of being knocked out by almost any Physical move. There is no way anyone programming this could have thought this guy would be a challenge.
- Iris or Drayden are really almost too easy for being the last Gym Leaders. Their premier Pokémon's main Attack also forces it to move last, which ignores its own Speed boost granted by Dragon Dance and exacerbates its unimpressive hit-taking ability.
Broken Base: Shares a page with the rest of the franchise.
Casual-Competitive Conflict: With Dream World Abilities and the like that were impossible to find if you didn't know where to look, casual fans have called foul against the C-Gear and the lack of natural-growing berries. Gen VI attempted to reduce this conflict by making the usual competitive tricks (IV breeding and EV training) much easier for players. And by turning fan-favorite Mons such as Charizard into top-tier threats through Mega Evolution.
Complacent Gaming Syndrome: Generation 5 is known, sometimes derisively, as the Weather Wars. Abilities that created weather conditions ^note were more widely distributed amongst non-Olympus Mons, and since weather generated by ability was permanent until overriden, this allowed for weather-based teams to flourish. Otherwise low-tier Pokémon like Ninetales and Politoed were added onto teams to pair with Pokémon who flourished under their respective weather like Venusaur and Kingdra who had abilities that enhanced their moves or stats in weather — and unless the opponent had a different weather condition, that buff was permanent.
Contested Sequel:
- The games have fallen into this over time, if not to the same polarizing extent as the 3DS entries. It all boils down to what one thinks about the relative importance and quality of the Pokédex, story, characters, region, and mechanics; the most common debate is whether the "unfamiliar" feel of the game and its Pokémon undermine it despite the memorable characters, story, and region. Notably, the games are among the least popular games in the series with more casual fans and gamers due to lacking older Pokémon, even if they aren't lambasted by that sector like they were when they first came out. Competitively, it is widely disliked, as the "Weather Wars" meta made for a very narrow playstyle that required almost every team to have Politoed, Ninetales, Tyranitar, or Hippowdon and a bunch of Pokémon that could make use of the weather they created, and the omnipresence of Dragons made the meta even more bland and formulaic, even after Garchomp was Kicked Upstairs. Furthermore, basically all competitive players will agree that the games added nothing of value to the series from a mechanical standpoint (namely Triple, Rotation, and Launcher Battles, all of which would be removed by Sun and Moon), and the Pokémon introduced were almost all too powerful or too weak; it was rare for a Pokémon from this generation to not either be completely worthless or obnoxious, and some of the most infamous high-tier Scrappies in the history of the series (namely Excadrill and Landorus Therian) were introduced here.
- They're particularly this to Pokémon Red and Blue, due to Black and White functioning as a sort of soft-reset for the series. Immediately after their release, "genwunners"^note trashed the Generation V Pokémon and compared them unfavorably to their childhood favorites to near-memetic levels, while fans of Black and White loved being able to experience the new Pokémon instead of needing to retread the original 151 all over again. This rivalry has only grown more intense as time went on, due to what is seen as frequent tapping into Gen 1 nostalgia in future entries^note, and gradual shafting of the things that started in Generation 5 (as Triple, Rotation, and Launcher battles were gone by Sun and Moon as mentioned above), leaving fans of Unova and fans of Kanto to debate endlessly on what it means if anything at all. The rivalry is so pronounced^note that some Gen V fans, known derisively as "Unovabortions", have essentially become the "hardcore" equivalent of the largely "casual" genwunners; fans of this type are accused of overglorifying Gen V and its story, characters, and Pokémon designs, and of hating anything Kanto-related on principle and heavily deriding the "nostalgia pandering" in later games as if it were a legitimate design flaw, and have become enough of a stereotype in their own right that fans who call Gen V "the last great Pokémon games" are often accused of being contrarian hipsters who have an emotional aversion to Gen I and worship unpopular and obscure Pokémon species.
Critical Dissonance: The games received some of the strongest Pokémon reviews in years, but (like most other generations) are far more divisive with the core fandom, with some fans considering them among the best games in the series and other fans being apathetic towards them, and competitive players almost universally dislike them and the metagame from that era.
Crossover Ship: There are a few Hilda fans on DeviantArt who ship her with the Normal Card girl turned Perfect Dream Project member Shizuku Osaka from Love Live! School idol festival as well as the sequel Love Live! School Idol Festival ALL STARS.
Demonic Spiders:
- The Patrat line. They learn Bide, Detect, Sand-Attack, Hypnosis, Confuse Ray, Super Fang, and Crunch — moves which either annoy your Pokémon or hurt a lot. And they're very common in the wild (especially Watchog). Worst of all, Team Plasma absolutely love to use these things. They could easily kill a Nuzlocke run. Ironically enough, in competitive battles, they're heavily outclassed by other Pokémon. The first Watchog you'll be seeing is Lenora's, and it makes her battle a living hell for many players.
- Swoobat is an example that's used by Trainers. If they're in the 25-35 range of levels, expect to fall victim to Attract, watch them boost their stats with Calm Mind, and proceed to flinch you time after time with Air Slash. Thankfully, it doesn't appear in the wild.
- If you don't have a way of one-shotting them, preferably by a fighting move, Audino can be really hard and annoying to kill midgame, especially with weaker Pokémon. Attract spam, very good defensive stats, Refresh, STAB Doubleslap, Secret Power (which, when used in tall grass, has a chance to put the target to sleep). Luckily they only appear in rustling grass, but this makes it more annoying to search for other Pokémon exclusive to rustling grass, since Audino is wildly more common than anything else you could find. At least they provide a sizable amount of experience points.
- Anything with Sturdy, since as of this generation, you cannot faint them in one hit when they're at full health and most of them will one-shot your Pokémon back with Selfdestruct or STAB-fueled Stone Edge. It doesn't help that all of them have high attack stats and are everywhere in caves.
Diagnosed by the Audience:
- Some fans have wondered if Bianca has some sort of mental disorder. Her father is unusually protective of her and doesn't want her going out into the world alone. Thing is, she is in her mid-teens, which by Pokémon standards is considered late to go adventuring. One can only wonder if it's because he's worried that she won't be able to function in the outside world without an adult.
- N has been interpreted by some fans as a high-functioning autistic, though his upbringing goes a long way toward explaining his quirks. Still, the whole "thinks more like a Pokémon than a human" thing calls Temple Grandin to mind, and boy has he got the social awkwardness down.
- Many people within the fandom consider the Subway Twins to be autistic as they have some behaviour traits associated with people on the autism spectrum.
  - Emmet has a monotone way of speech, speaks in short statements, is blunt and almost entirely focused on Pokémon battles.
  - Ingo is more polite if loud, speaks more eloquently, has a hard time expressing himself facially and while not as Pokémon-focused as his brother, still seems to care about them a great deal.
  - Both seem to have an fascination with trains that extends past them just liking their jobs (i.e. using many train-related mannerisms and metaphors in their actions and speech).
Die for Our Ship: Some N x Hilda shippers love to make Cheren and Hilbert crazy jealous guys who may even go as far as to hurt N or Hilda. N x Hilbert fans sometimes cast Hilda as a Jerkass or too masculine for N or Hilbert. Hilbert x Hilda fans occasionally write N as a perverted creeper, outright excluding his sympathetic qualities.
Difficulty Spike: After beating the Elite Four for the first time, the trainers of the routes you haven't been on yet have Pokémon that are about level 65 and above, while your team is probably in the mid 50s or lower.
Disappointing Last Level: One of the games' noted weaknesses is the lack of post game content, combined with the Forced Level-Grinding to stand up to wild Pokémon, let alone the trainers and going for the title of Champion at the Pokémon League.
Draco in Leather Pants: While N is certainly sympathetic and a well-written Anti-Villain who was a pawn of Ghetsis' plans, many fans treat him as if he's completely innocent, when he was willfully blind to the reality of the world around him and potentially endangered Unova by summoning his dragon. This is likely why the manga made him a bit more of a cruel-spirited Jerkass Woobie.
Ensemble Dark Horse: Found here.
Evil Is Cool:
- Despite Ghetsis being an irredeemable wreck of a human being, he is also a major Love to Hate character. His badass Pokémon team and battle theme also help.
- Despite its later weakness to Fairies, Hydreigon is a well-liked pseudo-legendary for its cool design, Dark/Dragon typing, and vicious temperament, and being a perfect choice for Ghetsis' signature Pokémon. Many fans were miffed when it didn't get a Mega Evolution in Gen VI, largely due to its aforementioned weakness to Fairy-types and being unable to catch up to Salamence and Garchomp. Then Pokémon Sword and Shield threw it a bone by allowing it to learn Nasty Plot, and by getting rid of many of the Fairies that weren't weak to its Flash Cannon.
Fan Myopia: From both ends. Many Sacred Cow supporters of Gen V are unable to fathom why Black and White failed to redefine the franchise and become the breakout hit they were meant to be, aside from "genwunners" disliking the games for their lack of "nostalgia pandering", despite the fact that many elements of the game^note caused a massive Broken Base at the time and continue to do so. At the same time, detractors of Gen V treat them as if they were widely disliked games that had very few good ideas, despite the fact that Black and White were very popular at the time and continue to have a fairly strong fanbase and were one of the earliest successful attempts at winning back the favor of older fans.
Fan Nickname: Lots and lots of them:
- Snivy's canon name initially wasn't as popular as the fanon nickname Smugleaf (which even the game journalists were asking for!). Some also call Snivy "Excalibur" or Snively.
- Snivy's final evolution, Serperior, is subsequently known as "Smuglord" by the fans.
- Oshawott was known as Wotter/Derpderp/Snowoobie/Vampijumaru. With the reveal of its English name, it was memed as Revolver Oshawott, which then inspired "Solid Snivy" and "Tepig Boss", as seen here.
- Samurott was called Shellgun towards the beginning of the Generation.
- Seed Bby, also known as Petilil/Churine, is gathering quite a following on the PokéCommmunity Forums.
- Braviary is known as Colbeagle, Keith, Tomahawk, Dyna Blade, and AmeriCAW! Its pre-evo, Rufflet, is referred to as Freeglet.
- Alomomola is known as Sexdisc/Luvhands/Hatedisc due to its visual similarity to Luvdisc.
- Sandile is known as Swagodile/Cool Croc/Crocostyle/Gaterrain. Its final form, Krookodile, is commonly called Kaminacroc because of his sunglasses and overall badassery.
- Excadrill is known as Big Daddy. Many of the people who refer to Krookodile as Kaminacroc call Excadrill Simole the Digger.
- The Dragon-type Haxorus is known as Axeface.
- Blue Eyes White Dragon & Red Eyes Black Dragon for Reshiram and Zekrom. Unfortunately, there is no third dragon nickname for Kyurem.
- Reuniclus is known as Gummy Bear/Booger/Jelly Green Ghost/Flying Salad Monster.
- Tepig has had too many puns to have a generally agreed nickname. Popular ones include Pignite, Pignition, Boarbecue, Hamferno, Burncon, Piglit, Spork, Keroswine and Blazorback. Pignite ended up becoming the official name of its second stage.
- Emboar has been called Ganon, Ganonpork, Gammondorf, and Hamdalf.
- Before the player characters' canon names of Hilbert and Hilda were revealed, they were respectively known as Black and White. These names were used in promotional screenshots of players visiting each other's worlds.
- Don George and Swanna have both been called "Carl" for their slight resemblance to the Aqua Teen Hunger Force character while the new early bug, Sewaddle, is going by Countapillar, Bugleaf, Smugbug, Fraterpie, Collarpillar and Vampillar. A comparison.◊
- Bouffalant already has too many nicknames to count, but all of them note a particular feature in its appearance. Its official English name even uses said feature as a name basis.
- Sarcophaghost for Cofagrigus. However, that exceeds the games' character limit, so coming up with shorter names is a bit of a pastime. Another is Koffin.
- Thanks to people mishearing his battle theme, Ghetsis is often jokingly called "DENNIS". For a short while, it also applied to Genesect when dataminers assumed Ghetsis' battle music belonged to it. Other nicknames for Ghetsis include Geechisu, Geetis, and (thanks to 4chan) Gaycheese.
- "Pokémon Gray/Grey" for the theoretical third version of the games.
- "Plankster", "Jokirder", and "Clowncrete" for Timburr, Gurdurr, and Conkeldurr respectively. Timburr is also called Jonny quite a bit for that plank it carries around all the time.
- The member of the Elite Four who uses Fighting types is Westley Snipes.
- The Elite Four was nicknamed "Mystery Inc." due to a few resemblances to the titular Scooby-Doo characters. Shauntal being Velma, Grimsley being Shaggy, Caitlin being Daphne, and Marshal being Fred.
- Swoobat is the Derp Bat, while Stunfisk is Derpfish.
- Ghetsis's Hydreigon has been dubbed Haxdreigon and variations thereof.
- Also from 4chan, Galvantula has been dubbed "Tarantesla".
- Throh and Sawk get called Bert and Ernie a lot due to their resemblance to the Sesame Street characters. Alternatively, Judo Jim and Karate Carl.
- Thundurus is often referred to as "Thundy", while Landorus is often called Lando or Garfield.
- PONY for Keldeo and its resemblance to My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic's character designs.
- Elesa is often known as Lady Gaga.
- "Reimu" was used for Cilan prior to his official name being revealed.
- Emmet and Ingo are usually known as "Submas" together, standing for "Subway Masters"^note
Fanon:
- People like to portray Reshiram as female and Zekrom as male, giving a juxtapose contrast of a maternal goddess figure and a wrathful god figure.
- Of the two legendaries, it's far more common to see people draw N with Reshiram and the hero with Zekrom than it is for it to be the other way around, as people find the idea of hero of the game pulling a Screw Destiny over the supposed truth of Pokémon and humans needing to separate more appealing than the idea of beating down ideas with the supposed truth.
Fashion-Victim Villain:
- Ghetsis. His collar is made to look like the top of a castle, his yin-yang themed robes look as if Wind Waker's Ganondorf walked through a paintball fight, his chunky red monocle, triangular hair fringes, and his hilariously skinny ankles on display just put the last nails in the design coffin. If not for his big-time Knight of Cerebus nature, nobody would've taken him seriously. The sequels fixed this by giving him a more sinister attire.
- The Team Plasma grunts also fall victim to this. It's hard to take their Knight Templar personality seriously when they literally dress like them. The baby-blue/white coloration and hoods don't help either.
Franchise Original Sin: Shares a page with the rest of the franchise.
Game-Breaker: The fact that, from these games onward, you're now able to infinitely use TMs means that literally all your Pokémon have repeated access to powerful moves such as Flamethrower, Psychic, and Thunder. Granted, a lot of these TMs can only be found as you progress through the game, but it still beats only being allowed one per save file.
Genius Bonus:
- When you consider his obsession with formulas and equations, N is likely named for the fact that n is a commonly-used variable in mathematics. His real name is Natural, as in natural numbers, commonly drawn as a capital N.
- Scolipede and its Japanese name Pendoraa are derived from Scolopendra, the scientific genus for giant tropical centipedes.
- Gigalith is known as the "Compressed" Pokémon. If you know your geology, you'll know that it is based off Metamorphic rock, rocks that have been compressed under extreme heat and pressure and are usually found along with crystals (explaining the crystals on it).
- The reason why Cubchoo and Beartic, Pokémon based on polar bears, have the Hidden Ability of Swift Swim is because polar bears spend the majority of their lives out at sea and are adapted to swimming, hence their scientific name of Ursus maritimus. Beartic's incredible size, at 2.6m or 8' 06", reflects how polar bears are the biggest bears in the world.
- Parts of Unova are based on New York City. What is the cookie most associated with the metropolitan area? The black and white cookie.
Germans Love David Hasselhoff: While Zekrom's quite popular in Japan (but less so than Reshiram), it's easily the most popular of all Generation V Pokémon in the West thanks to its manlier and more conventionally dragonlike design, with a fanbase that rivaled that of Mewtwo and Charizard at the time. It's also responsible for White selling more English copies than Black. That's not to say Reshiram is unpopular per say, but there's definitely a larger fanbase for Zekrom.
Good Bad Bugs:
- If a Pokémon reaches 1809 or more Speed using Status Buffs, they will ignore Trick Room.
- The Sky Drop glitch lets you completely immobilize a Pokémon for an entire match during a Double or Triple Battle by abusing an exploit with the move Gravity. This actually got the move banned from random Wi-Fi and official tournaments.
- The move Assist is able to call upon moves known by unhatched eggs.
- Kadabra will still evolve into Alakazam if it is traded holding an Everstone, which normally prevents evolution.
- At the very beginning of the game, Professor Juniper uses Minccino as an example of what Pokémon are supposed to be. On very rare instances, it is possible for that Minccino to appear as a shiny.
Goddamned Bats:
- The Durant that appear so frequently on Victory Road. If you don't have a Fire-type to exploit their one weakness, or a strong special attacker, their high attack/defense powers and speed will cause you some serious trouble.
- Tympole, at the entrance to Pinwheel Forest. They can be a real pain to fight, what with their high speed, ability to hit hard with Bubblebeam, and Supersonic.
- Boldore and Roggenrola. They appear as frequently as the Gravelers and Geodudes you're used to seeing in every single cave, but they're even worse because of the new mechanics for the Sturdy ability, which prevent you from killing them in one hit. Effectively, every Boldore and Roggenrola you meet is holding a Focus Sash, forcing you to waste more time and PP dealing a second hit, and giving them a turn to fight back and hurt you.
Hilarious in Hindsight: Check the main page.
Ho Yay:
- Both the male and female player characters get one Gay Option for the Ferris Wheel Feeling Check. Hilda gets a Waitress. Hilbert gets a Hiker.
- N also takes the character on the Ferris wheel... Even when you're Hilbert.
- Fennel and Juniper don't even share a lab while at work (Fennel's work is primarily done in Striaton City), but this hardly stops the fans from interpreting the two this way. To be fair, when Fennel was first revealed, all that was known was that she was "Professor Juniper's Assistant," and once that allowed for certain implications, the idea of Juniper/Fennel took off. Apparently, they were also roommates in college.
- Lots of fans like to pair Elesa with Skyla (often in a suggestive manner) due to the latter's offhand mention of them getting along well. They appear as close friends in a memory link in Pokémon Black 2 and White 2, with Elesa confiding in Skyla about her decision to change her cool image.
- There's also Cynthia hanging out with every important female Pokémon League official at her villa, and Iris being Bianca's "bodyguard".
- One of the female swimmers in Undella Bay asks if you've come to see Cynthia wearing a bathing suit. Yes, even if you're playing as Hilda.
- After beating Cynthia, she'll talk for several text boxes, finishing by saying that travelling has improved her life because, "[she] met you and [her] world became wider."
- In the battle subway, one trainer you can fight (Lady Won) says you look gorgeous at the beginning of the battle. If you defeat her, she says that she "feels drawn to you". The same interactions happen if you play as Hilda.
Hype Backlash:
- Even before the game was released in English, some fans were already complaining about the hype. The perfect 40 score in Famitsu didn't help matters.
- The games have a very vocal fanbase (possibly second only to Generation I in that respect, regardless of its size) and are endlessly praised and bashed in some circles such as /vp/. This can be irritating or confusing to those on the other side of the Broken Base, or those who try/revisit the games due to the praise and end up being alienated or underwhelmed. Even if you do genuinely like the games, praising them so often devolves into fans bashing modern mainline titles that you may associate the hype with negativity.
I Knew It!:
- Castelia City, at least, is officially based off New York, confirming the speculation of many fans.
- For some, N being Team Plasma's king (and/or a pawn) was this as well.
- Many people called Tepig's final evolution being called Emboar.
Incest Yay Shipping:
- Oddly enough, shipping the Striaton brothers seems to be rather popular. There's no real Incest Subtext in the games between them, but since when has that ever stopped shippers?
- The Subway Bosses are commonly paired together due to being twins with contrasting personalities.
It's the Same, Now It Sucks!: The Fire-type starter's evolutions were revealed to be Fire/Fighting types. Just like the last two generations. Some fans got pissed due to perceived laziness on the part of Game Freak. There are plenty of people complaining about the other starters being respectively pure Grass- and Water-type as well, but it's generally not seen as bad as giving the Fire starter the same secondary type three times in a row.
- Klink's evolution line can also apply to this, due to each evolution stage essentially consists of adding an extra gear part onto Klink.
It Was His Sled: N is a Team Plasma member and Ghetsis' son. And Ghetsis is Team Plasma's true leader and doesn't truly care about liberating Pokémon from humans — he just wants to disarm all trainers in Unova so that only he and Team Plasma can use Pokémon.
Jerkass Woobie: Gothorita and Gothitelle. According to the Pokédex entries, they kidnap children, but only out of loneliness, and when it finally gets a friend, a trainer, it can predict his/her death and cries out of sadness.
Just Here for Godzilla:
- In an inversion of the usual case for Pokémon, some people praise and enjoy the game for elements other than the then-new Pokémon themselves, most notably the characters and story. N and Ghetsis continue to be among the most popular characters in the series, and the latter's return in Pokémon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon was widely praised among the returning bosses for Team Rainbow Rocket.
- Reshiram and Zekrom themselves were a selling point for the games, for a similar reason to why Charizard became a Breakout Character in the greater franchise — they're awesomely powerful dragons with cool, contrasting designs and motifs.
Late Character Syndrome: Whilst the Pokémon series is no stranger to this trope, Generation 5 has a surprising amount of Pokémon^* that evolve fairly late (as in, ≥ Level 50). While it's somewhat expected for say, Larvesta or Zweilous (as they are intended to be Magikarp Power) this ends up making them hard to incorporate into the team due to the game being largely done by the time you finally evolve them.
Launcher of a Thousand Ships:
- Surprisingly, it's more so the male protagonist being shipped with a lot of Pokémon characters, mostly being shipped with N, Hilda, Bianca, Cheren, Professor Juniper, Skyla, Caitlin... also Snivy and Reuniclus (NO, SERIOUSLY!).
- N's been shipped off — at least on Pixiv — with everyone and their mother.
- The female protagonist has been paired off with N, Hilbert, Cheren, Bianca, the Subway Masters (especially Ingo), the Striaton triplets, Grimsley and Sawk, among many others.
LGBT Fanbase:
- Both Marshal and Alder became a hit with Bara fans pretty quickly, due to both of them having muscular, handsome designs and Alder being a fair bit more rugged-looking than most male characters in the franchise.
- N is as popular with gay, bisexual, and transgender men as he is with fangirls, likely due to his non-masculine design and (to put it lightly) complicated relationship with his family. Having Ship Tease with the player character regardless of said player character's gender doesn't hurt either.
Love to Hate: Ghetsis, to the point where fans were ecstatic that he returned for the sequel. His complete lack of redeeming personality traits and megalomaniacal goal make him an entertainingly vile villain for Pokemon fans who consider him one of the franchise's most brilliantly rotten characters.
Memetic Badass:
- Genesect. Thanks to its possible name origin (genocide + insect), as well as its classification as the Paleozoic Pokémon, it's been theorized that it caused the extinction of the dinosaurs. And it snowballed from there.
- Terrakion gets this treatment for its design, its stats, and its curbstomping tendencies in both the games and TCG. Smogon even labeled it the manliest Pokémon in Black and White.
Memetic Mutation: Shares a page with the rest of the games.
Memetic Psychopath: Ghetsis often gets this treatment from the fandom due to his Knight of Cerebus nature. It's common to depict him in fanfictions as outright murderous — which is somewhat in-character, but has never been depicted on-screen unless you count his vow to "eliminate" Hilbert/Hilda to keep their defeat of N a secret, or his fairly ambiguous freezing alive-or-to death of Nate/Rosa. In Pokémon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, he holds Lillie as a hostage after being defeated and very unambiguously threatens to kill her with his bare hands if the player character doesn't surrender all their Pokémon. The full 3D facial expressions just make his "psychopath" reputation even more well-deserved. Furthermore, Pokémon Generations fleshes out his character more using the game's events as a base, qualifying that version of him for Complete Monster territory merely by showing a few more of his vile actions onscreen.
Misaimed Fandom: Guess who was popular with PETA? Clearly the fact that Team Plasma's real leader had no real intention of freeing/liberating Pokémon and was using that as a front for his own selfish ends flew way over their heads.
- Similarly, the idea that Team Plasma are right about humans and Pokémon ignores the variety of evidence that Pokémon legitimately enjoy battling and gaining human masters, and the vast majority of NPCs treat them as pets and companions. Even the Player Character of each game is usually stated to forge close bonds with their team, despite the early games lacking mechanics that let you spend time with your Pokémon outside of battle. Even characters like Silver from the Johto games recieve some form of Positive Friend Influence from the creatures they initially view as tools, putting the various evil teams in a miniscule minority.
Misblamed:
- No, sorry, Ken Sugimori didn't design every single Pokémon — some, like Vanilluxe's line, Golurk's line, and the Mandibuzz line, were actually designed by former Genius Sonority employee James Turner.
- Yes, James Turner designed the Vanillite line. No, James Turner did not also design every Animate Inanimate Object Pokémon from this generation and onward.
- The traditional "This series sucks, why do people still like this?" threads are up. Pokémon has been around since the 1990s — we knew what happened in the games since before they were released outside of Japan thanks to the internet. And yet people still are pointing fingers at Nintendo, one of the publishers, for stuff that is clearly out of their hands. Poor Game Freak — they saved the Game Boy and still have received no credit outside of Japan.
Moe: Bianca's cheery, plucky attitude and clumsiness in battling make her endearing to many players.
Moment of Awesome: Has its own page here.
Moral Event Horizon: Ghetsis' phony claims and selfish desires are bad enough, but his treatment of N makes him unforgivable for most players.
Narm:
- The battle theme used for your two rivals does suit Bianca, but sounds too peppy and joyful to suit Cheren. Black 2 and White 2 didn't bother to fix this either.
- Anytime the Plasma grunts try to be intimidating, they shout their team's name (PLASMAAAAAAAAAAAA!), but the way it played out makes them look as goofy as the Galactic grunts instead.
Never Live It Down:
- Emboar's status as the third Fire/Fighting starter in a row. Game Freak hasn't made a Fire starter part Fighting since, but fans have grown wary of one popping up again because of Emboar.
- To a lesser extent, all three starters collectively forming the least powerful set of starters across all (then) five generations, even beating Johto's. In Smogon's metagame, all three of them were in the NU tier to begin with, with Emboar only rising to RU due to a player abusing a loophole in their tiering system, and Serperior only rose to OU with its Hidden Ability five years after its debut and well after BW hype died down.
- This generation made Pikachu more infamous for being the franchise's main Spotlight-Stealing Squad. While Pikachu and its evolutionary line are unobtainable in Black and White, the Pokémon franchise outside the games continued to market it heavily. This was especially jarring for some due to the fact that it was the only old Pokémon in said marketing^noteaside from Meowth in the anime, yet was often the most prominent, making its appearances seem forced.
- N's Room and his sheltered upbringing have a few hints of him being a Manchild. Fans, however, tend to exaggerate these hints and combine it with The Ditz, despite N actually being quite intelligent when it comes to science.
Nightmare Fuel: Has its own page. A lot of it tends to overlap with Fridge Horror too, particularly owing to Ghetsis.
Nightmare Retardant: Mishearing the Ominous Chanting in Ghetsis's battle theme turns perhaps the Biggest Bad in the series to date into "DEEEEEENNNNNIS".
No Yay: Ghetsis and most of the other characters. Except perhaps his own Hydreigon. (Yes, it exists)...
Older Than They Think: It's often said that these were the first games to include Team Preview for competitive play. Team Preview has in fact been around in every console battler since the original Pokémon Stadium, and was used for nearly every official tournament since then.
Once Original, Now Common: A major driving force behind Black and White hype was that they strived to be "darker" and more "mature" games that were more inclusive of the Periphery Demographic, during a time where Pokémon was largely seen as a "kiddy" franchise that was embarrassing for adults and teenagers to like. Since then, the franchise has become far more inclusive of teen and adult fans in the content of the games and other media^note, as well as marketing, thus making this aspect of BW no longer seem groundbreaking.
One True Threesome: The Subway Masters are the masters of invoking this trope with the fandom when they're not shipped with each other. A common one is with Elesa as her aides or fellow models given their fabulous outfits.
Paranoia Fuel:
- The main plot becomes this when you consider how it would look from N's perspective. Imagine finding out you were being groomed as a tool for your entire life, everything you were raised to believe is a lie, and your own father orchestrated it all.
- N informing you that the Shadow Triad has been spying on you and your friends when you meet him in Chargestone Cave can be pretty paranoia-inducing as well.
Play the Game, Skip the Story: The plot is more prominent in these games than in others, but that doesn't stop some fans from viewing it as such and only getting in the way of the gameplay.
Popularity Polynomial: When Black and White were first released, they were extremely popular and beloved by the fandom, but also infamously drew vocal hate from "genwunners" for being such a departure for the series, particularly with the Unova Dex. Game Freak attempted to rectify this with Pokémon X and Y and its heavy emphasis on Gen I nostalgia, and Black and White quickly fell out of favor come the next generation. However, as the "honeymoon period" ended and more 3DS entries were released that retained some major flaws of X and Y^note, some people began to come around to Black and White again, if not universally so.^note Many fans are thankful that the games have some of the best plots and characterisations of the series, and the great amount of post-game content for a generation's maiden pair of games, and as succeeding generations began to remove more and more features, fans began to appreciate this generation as one of the possibly final attempts to go all-out and create the "ultimate" Pokémon game for the Periphery Demographic.
Replacement Scrappy:
- Many new Pokémon felt this way. Those who weren't killed by overdoses of Zubat, Geodude, Machop, and Tentacool before (or just liked them for their venerability in the franchise) were frustrated when Woobat, Roggenrola, Timburr, and Frillish took over. It doesn't help that they feel like updated releases of the old families replaced. There's a reason why fewer than expected Pokémon from this generation where chosen to receive a Mega Evolution and Gigantamax form.
- Emboar is often considered a lackluster replacement for the Fire-type starters that came before it (Charizard, Typhlosion, Blaziken, and Infernape), mostly due to its uninspired Fire/Fighting typing, poor competitive worth, and overly brutish design. The next Fire-type starters, Delphox, Incineroar and Cinderace, were also divisive, but went over much better for having sleeker designs (particularly Cinderace) and not being Fire/Fighting (although Incineroar got some flak for having the look and feel of a Fire/Fighting type, particularly Emboar itself).
Rescued from the Scrappy Heap:
- The ability Sturdy was changed from "immune to Fissure, Sheer Cold, etc." (mostly useless) to "can't be KO'd at 100% health"/"built-in Focus Sash" (which is incredible) and "immune to Fissure, Sheer Cold, etc."; what's even better is that there are very few counters for it unless your opponent has Mold Breaker.
- The Bug-type was slowly getting better in Gen IV with stronger moves like X-Scissor and U-Turn, but these games gave the type a serious boost with many new Bug-types that weren't Crutch Characters, with great stats, movepools, and diverse types beyond Flying or Poison (as well as the type's first Olympus Mon in Genesect). The introduction of Quiver Dance^* also allowed past Bug-types to stand up better, particularly ones with Baton Pass. For more context: the Champion of the Pokémon League has three Bug-type Pokémon. The most powerful trainer in the land has Bug-types as half his team.
- Venusaur was overshadowed by Charizard and Blastoise for having a "less cool design." Generation V gave it a massive buff in the form of Chlorophyll, and thanks to that, Venusaur emerged as the strongest of the original three starters (and one of the strongest starters period) in the competitive scene. This won the Bulbasaur line some long-deserved love... until the next generation, where Venusaur's sun-sweeping potential was Nerfed, but all three starters gained useful and powerful Mega Evolutions, putting them on a roughly equal playing field and rescuing them all from the Scrappy Heap.
Ron the Death Eater: Bianca's father is quite clearly an overprotective worrywart who fears for her safety away from home, but a lot of fans love to twist him as an abusive asshole in various fanfics.
Sacred Cow: In some circles. Because Black and White are the most unconventional and deliberately-different Pokémon games, a small but vocal subset of the fandom treats them as the pinnacle of the franchise for their innovation and bold creative decisions. Such fans tend to blame "genwunners" and their refusal to accept new things for why Black and White didn't become the breakout hits they were planned to be and didn't influence future games in the series; however, other fans argue that much of it was poor foresight among all the positive changes.^note
Salvaged Gameplay Mechanic:
- After four generations of people being really hesitant to use Technical Machines due to being expensive, tedious to grind for in the case of those available as prizes at game corners or battle facilities, or being one of the many that are only available once in a save file, Game Freak finally relented and gave them infinite use like Hidden Machines.
- The abundant number of new Fire-types can be seen as an apology for the previous generation's Pokémon Diamond & Pearl notoriously introducing and including few Fire types in their initial release.
- Likewise, the massive amount of new Bug-types (most of whom have above-average stats and movesets) has done a lot to improve the type's reputation, since previous generations tended to relegate them exclusively to Com Mon and Crutch Character status.
Scrappy Mechanic:
- The XP gain is proportional to the level difference between mons, so a low level beating on a higher one will gain more XP, but this also means a higher level beating on a lower level will gain less, making leveling your mons once you've outleveled everything else difficult.
- Remember how auto-leveling worked in player vs player battles before Gen V (at least in Gens III and IV)? Being able to have a team of 6 automatically be raised to level 100 or raised/lowered to level 50 was very convenient. In Gen V, the only leveling option you have is the Flat Battle ruleset, which has many of the same restrictions as a battle facility: All Pokémon are dropped to level 50, no more than one of the same Pokémon nor item, and only 3 and 4 Pokémon can be used in single and double battles, respectively. The only other option available allows you to turn the Wonder Launcher on/off. Also, unlike battle facilities, Pokémon beneath level 50 do not have their levels raised. Combined with the aforementioned mechanic, this means a lot of grinding if you want have a 6 on 6 battle with no restrictions where everything is at an equal level.
- Most berries can only be obtained via NPCs that hand them out or in the now-defunct Dream World. It's impossible to grow berries in the actual game anymore, and it's ridiculously hard to obtain most of the few varieties available in-game.
- The highly-useful menu interface on the touch screen in HeartGold and SoulSilver was replaced by the C-Gear, which, while excellent for multiplayer, was utterly useless in single-player and for people with no friends nearby who had the game. While the C-Gear was active, it continuously used the DS's wireless functions, draining the battery, and it was active by default. Whenever you booted up the game, it prompted you to turn on the C-Gear, and you had to confirm a second time if you wanted to keep it deactivated. Not to mention the Pokétch in Pokémon Diamond and Pearl was a very useful system, which had the ability to check the Pokémon in your party's health, a daycare checker to see if you have an egg created, and several other handy apps. None of this is in Gen V.
- Many good Unova Pokémon have rather obscene level requirements for evolution, and as such evolve very late in the games when there is no good reason to, which doesn't help their rather weak base forms. Coupled with the new EXP system, raising Pokémon in these games is a chore at best and hellish at worst. Even worse, while some of those high levels could at least be justified for their placement in the game, future games retain the high level requirements even when such Pokémon are encountered at much lower levels than they previously were. Have fun playing Pokémon Sun and Moon with a Rufflet/Vullaby that, due to the EXP system's return, their early game placement, and evolution level of 54, will never evolve until the very end of the game!
- While generally not a major problem, Fishing Rods are not available for the player until the post-game. This is made worse since, unlike the Gen IV games, not even the Good Rod is in these games, and Water-types in Unova are very limited, just like how Fire- and Electric-types are scarce in both Hoenn and Sinnoh. Fans of aquatic Pokémon aren't pleased at this decision.
- Wanted to use the shiny Johto legendaries to unlock Zoroark in multiple copies of the game? Well, you can’t. For some reason, after catching Zoroark with a specific dog once, their data is specially modified so they can’t activate the event again on any other playthrough, essentially acting as pseudo-DRM. Combined with the dwindling number of event Johto dogs, this means that the event eventually cannot be legitimately replayed and saved much faster than other events.
Self-Fanservice:
- The girl trainer (canonically known as Hilda) is established to be 14 years old, and has a cute and tomboyish but overall modest design. However, the very fact that she was part of the first pair of "older" player characters in the series, along with her Tomboyish Ponytail and short shorts, has caused a lot of fans to sexualize her in fan art, often emphasizing and increasing the size of her chest and/or butt to make her look 2-3 years older. This is despite the fact that she's widely accepted to be underage, and is still very young and small compared to the series' adult characters; to be fair, she is a mute Blank Slate that represents the player, and has been depicted as 16 years old in works based on Pokémon Black 2 and White 2 with the same appearance.^note She is also commonly depicted as a tall girl in fanart, while Pokémon Masters shows her to be almost comically shorter than her successor Rosa.
- Ghetsis, while he isn't ugly, he certainly isn't someone you would consider "handsome". However, fanart has an alarming tendency to ditch his robes and harsher features and make him a full-on Pretty Boy.
- Gothitelle joins Gardevoir as one of the "waifu Pokémon" and is sexualized by fans. However, as per usual, the franchise makes an over-the-top and disturbing effort to establish it as an inhuman creature; in this case, its "dress" is its actual body and the anime shows it to have tiny, stubby legs and feet underneath.
- Inverted for Reshiram; while it's already a stern, majestic giant reptile to begin with, a lot of "realistic" fanart downplays its mammalian and avian features in favor of its reptilian ones, to make it look fiercer and more like a traditional fire-breathing dragon.
Sequel Difficulty Spike:
- Unova's wild Pokémon are noticeably higher levels than other regions (previous generations); this is partly to help alleviate the Anti-Grinding, but it still means they're more of a threat when you're Level Grinding; there are also more Com Mons equipped with moves like Protect/Detect and Bide than previous generations.
- Many species of Unova Pokémon evolve at higher levels when compared to Mons of other regions, so it takes longer to build a team of fully evolved Mons in the late game.
- The game's first Gym also has three Leaders, and you fight whichever one gets a type advantage against your starter (as opposed to the fixed elemental themes in previous games, where having the right starter could give you a clear advantage over the first Gym). A nearby NPC offers to give you an elemental Pokémon that can counter theirs, but you're still in for a fight. Additionally, they spend several turns using "Work Up" to boost their attack power, so if you can't knock them out in that time, you could be facing a Total Party Kill once they start actually attacking you.
Ship Mates: It's a pretty popular practice for those who ship N with the player character to also ship Cheren and Bianca, sometimes making them the Beta Couple.
Ship-to-Ship Combat: The shipping community for the games is usually (mostly) civil compared to the anime, but for some reason, these particular games have caused some very nasty flame wars. The most notorious of these is the N x Hilda vs. N x Hilbert vs. Hilbert x Hilda war, with Die for Our Ship in full effect for the member of the triangle excluded from one's OTP.
Slow-Paced Beginning: The early game of Unova is both very linear and very repetitive. Up until you clear the first gym, you can only catch three different Pokémon, only one of which is anything to write home about. Those three Pokémon also happen to be incredibly common in the hands of other trainers, to the point that up until you face the Striaton Gym Leader, his elemental monkey and Cheren and Bianca's starters are literally the only thing you'll have encountered to not be one of the three. The Character Select Forcing with the monkeys doesn't help matters any. Even once you're clear of Striaton, it takes a while for encounter and enemy variety to open up (not helped by the second Gym being a Normal Gym), though gratefully, once you are clear of that Gym, things start improving in a hurry.
Squick: Darumaka's White Pokédex entry mentions that, as a Fire-type, its droppings are very hot... and that people used to put them in their clothes to keep themselves warm.
Strawman Has a Point: Team Plasma may be hypocritical (and in some cases, dishonest) about their desire to free Pokémon from humans, but the fact remains that Pokémon battles would be a serious case of animal cruelty in a more realistic setting. Furthermore, most sympathetic characters say that Team Plasma is wrong, but Drayden is the only one with a strong counterargument: if Pokémon ever wanted to leave humans, they would. However, Drayden's counterargument falls flat on its face in the wake of numerous incidents of abuse by trainers of their Pokémon, especially the various criminal groups in the games and other media where the Pokémon don't leave their trainers despite being given plenty of opportunity.
That One Boss:
- Lenora, mainly because her Watchog will absolutely rip your Pokémon to shreds with its powerful Retaliate. And if you try to get around this by using a move like Roar or Whirlwind to take it out first, her Herdier knows Retaliate, too.
- Elesa as well, thanks to her irritating Emolgas who ignore Ground attacks, are irritatingly prone to paralyzing your Pokemon, and will constantly swap places in and out of battle with her hard-hitting speedster of a Zebstrika.
- Rounding out the Gym Leader trio is Clay, whose Excadrill will annhilate your entire team at once thanks to Hone Claws, which boosts its attack by a considerable amount. Unless you have a powerful Water-type.
- But Ghetsis just might be the worst of the bunch: his entire team is full of dangerous and powerful Pokémon, but his infamous underleveled Hydreigon has ridiculously good stats and a wide and diverse movepool that has an answer for just about anything you throw at him. It's not common to have your entire team single-handedly wiped out by this thing, even if his others don't put up much of a fight.
That One Level: Route 4 is a desert constantly plagued by a sandstorm and includes movement speed-reducing deep sand in which you'll encounter wild Pokémon. Due to the sandstorm, all types other than Rock, Ground, and Steel (and those with weather negating abilities) will take damage every turn. The most common Pokémon on the route is Sandile, which is fast enough to make running away difficult and knows Sand Tomb to further trap you in battle. Mercifully, the required part of the route is relatively short, but if you want to collect all of the items and explore Relic Castle, you'll have to endure much more time in the area.
That One Sidequest: The Pokémon Seek game in the Dream World — whereas the other 5 games that you play to befriend Pokémon (at least the ones available to the states) allow some form of strategy, Pokémon Seek is a Luck-Based Mission.
They Changed It, Now It Sucks!:
- The Wifi/Competitive play mechanics. There were significant changes to Player vs Player gameplay, including the inability to do IV battles, and the dominant type becoming 3v3 instead of 6v6, alongside the ability to preview your opponent's team. The competitive battle circles had a fit about this, as it threw a wrench into the min-maxing dynamic created over the past 4 generations. Interestingly, a good number of these changes appear to have been done specifically to break up the existing Metagame.
- Competitive players (like Smogon) were not pleased with Rotom's appliance forms losing their Ghost typing, as they can no longer block Rapid Spin. (Though ironically, Rotom ended up getting more use, as it synergizes well with rain teams.)
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
- Given what Genesect is — a Prehistoric Monster revived and turned into a cyborg by Team Plasma, only for the project to be cancelled by N out of disgust — you'd expect it to have some role in the plot. Unfortunately, because it's a Mythical Pokémon, it has no role in this game or the sequels beyond a side event where you get the Drives.^* What's more, unlike Mewtwo, little to nothing about Genesect's personality is revealed in its Pokédex entries beyond reminders that Team Plasma made it (at best, Black mentions it was feared in its era as the strongest of hunters).
- Anthea and Concordia are featured in the game's intro, sport very unique designs, and are N's adoptive sisters who raised him. Unfortunately, their presence in the games is very minimal as they only appear at the very end of the main adventure just to explain more (optional) exposition about N's past. They don't do much of anything in the sequels either.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
- N's navelgazing about the relationship between Pokémon and humans would provoke a good deal of analysis about the sentience and free will of Pokémon, as well as how it could possibly be symbiotic when humans depend on Pokémon for everything from construction work to conflict resolution. Unfortunately, this analysis is never explored beyond being the villain team's motivation, and even then, the real villain is only using it as a front to Take Over the World by hoarding Pokémon for himself. Even more of a shame that N is in the wrong due to being specifically raised to believe that philosophy.
- Generation V introduced Triple Battles, and also had a trio of brothers serving as co-Gym Leaders. Unlike Tate and Liza, who were introduced in the same generation as Double Battles, you never get the chance to fight all three at once, not even in the sequels.
Trans Audience Interpretation: A girl you can meet in the Icirrus City Entralink says that she's a boy in the real world, implying that she's a Supernaturally-Validated Trans Person.
Ugly Cute:
- Trubbish is probably the most adorable garbage bag you will ever see.
- Scraggy and Scrafty. Especially the former thanks to its sprite animation where it attempts to pull its pants-skin upwards with temporary success.
- Eelektross may be a giant levitating, Psycho Electric Lamprey, but the little dance it does in its sprite animation is both hilarious and cute.
Viewer Gender Confusion:
- Cheren◊ looks enough like a short-haired girl to be mistaken for a bifauxnen before the games' release. Doesn't help that the shirt under his coat looks exactly like Whitney's.
- There's also Burgh, the Camp gym leader of Castelia City.
- N introduces the Shadow Triad as men, but that hasn't stopped the fans from questioning their gender, especially since it is only addressed once. In Pokémon Adventures, they look like masked versions of Mello. Not helping. At all. Fixed in the sequels, where they have more masculine sprites and one of them speaks with an identifiably male voice in the animated trailer.
- Zoroark is also often confused to be female due to its long ponytail, despite the species having a rare chance of being female.
Viewer Pronunciation Confusion: Many people pronounce Sigilyph's name as "SIGG-ihl-lyph", and it was worse back before the fourteenth movie and especially the anime episode "Explorers of the Hero's Ruin!". Its name is a pun on Sigil and (Hiero)glyph, so the correct way to pronounce it would be "Sih-jih-lyph".
Viewer Species Confusion: Zorua and Zoroark are often mistaken for wolves, with many viewers thinking that the latter is a werewolf, when they're actually both foxes, based on the kitsune, possibly of the more mischevious yako or nogitsune variety.
The Woobie:
- According to its Pokédex entries, Yamask's gold mask is its face from its time as a human thousands of years ago before turning into a mummy, and it still has memories from those times. It occasionally stares at the mask, sobbing.
- Kyurem. Since it's frozen, everyone is afraid of it, and it can't even use its powers to their full potential, Kyurem fans decide that it needs a hug. Confirmed in the sequels. The legend about Kyurem eating people is said to be untrue, and Kyurem is indeed made to suffer hard at Team Plasma's hands.
- Bianca. As if having self-esteem issues, an overprotective dad (at first), and getting the short end of the stick starter-wise wasn't bad enough, she enters her third battle with you feeling confident and sure that she'll do well, only to lose all heart (she even says she won't ever be as good as you or Cheren) when you end up defeating her. Yeah, that's right — the game makes you Break the Cutie in order to continue. Most would say that's worth a cuddle. And if it's still not enough, she got her Munna stolen by Team Plasma.
- N. Ghetsis could give Cipher a run for its money in sheer callousness. That's grounds for a hug right there. And Concordia's words just make it even sadder: "N's heart is pure and innocent. But there is nothing more beautiful and terrifying than innocence." He's also a Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds.

YMMV / Pokémon Black and White

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