hello! this is my first time asking or saying anything to you, I’ve to say everything you write is pretty awesome! please keep’ em coming! I wanted to ask about your thoughts on shiny pokemon, I’ve read almost all your entries and I can’t recall ever reading about it. In game or in anime, any thoughts? What about Ash’s Noctowl? I stopped watching the anime so I’m not sure if there are more than one shiny variation, as opposed to the games.

I feel like this has come up before, probably in a question someone asked me… yeah, here it is.  They’re not something I find terribly interesting in themselves – mostly I figure it’s just a rare recessive gene that happens to be prized by collectors, although it would be interesting to see how communities of wild Pokémon react to the trait.  I suspect they do not generally view it positively, or you would expect it to become more common.  As far as the games are concerned it doesn’t alter their abilities at all; Ash’s Noctowl was also very small and unusually intelligent even for a Noctowl, but as far as I know no other shiny Pokémon in the anime have exhibited special properties.  They don’t really turn up often enough to see any particular patterns in their behaviour or status.