What do you think of the new formes of Zygarde that were revealed? They turned him into Cell from DBZ.
Oddly enough, Dragon Ball Z’s Cell is not what leaps out at me, though I certainly wouldn’t want to rule him out as a possible influence. Conceptually, the way Zygarde’s forms are described – scattered cells that operate independently, gaining full power when they reunite – that reminds me, more than anything else, of Jenova from Final Fantasy VII. The black and green colour scheme, the notion of many individual units working as one under a single intelligence, along with Zygarde’s existing designation as the Order Pokémon… well, that, bizarrely enough, calls to my mind Star Trek’s Borg Collective. The red and blue elements of Zygarde’s “perfect” form hint at Yveltal and Xerneas being somehow absorbed (or assimilated? :-p) into it – which sounds like Cell, I admit, but is already something that exists in Pokémon, in the person of Kyurem’s augmented forms. In any case… all this possibly has interesting symbolic resonance with Zygarde’s presumed role as guardian of Kalos’ ecosystem, in that Zygarde is itself, apparently, a self-contained ecosystem of sorts, a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. A strikingly appropriate theme for the “Order Pokémon,” I think.
Also, I feel compelled to note that Bulbapedia seems to have decided that Zygarde’s dog and humanoid forms are based (in line with the Norse mythology theme that someone decreed back when X and Y were released) on Jormungandr’s siblings, Fenrir and Hel, respectively. Hel, the goddess of the underworld, who was a beautiful woman above the waist and a rotting corpse below. I mean, okay, maybe this is what they’re referencing, but if so, they’re doing it badly. It’s a stretch, for me. Presumably if Zygarde’s “10%” form were a goat, people would be saying it was based on Tanngniost and Tanngrisnir; if it were a horse, people would point at Sleipnir; if it were a boar, people would point to Gullinbursti. I have little patience for that whole conceptual house of cards.
Pokémaniacal 