If you could pick an animal to base the next pika-clone on, what would it be?
can I pick something that doesn’t exist so it doesn’t get made
uggggghhhhh fine
obviously there is only one animal in all the infinite cosmos that is worthy of this… dubious honour
and that is its majestic lordship the capybara
Pros:
- It’s a fat sack of $#!t, which I strongly empathise with
- Can swim, which is an excellent excuse to have it be Water/Electric
- Big enough to stack all the other Pikachu clones on top of it
- I admit I’m not sure how that would be helpful, but it seems like a plus
- Mysterious gland on its snout can be adapted for dispensing electric death
- Often has a bird sitting on its head
- Good excuse to do a Brazil/Amazon-inspired region
- Despite being literally an obese guinea pig, can run as fast as a horse
- Skin grease can be used in traditional medicine
Cons:
- Literally none???
EDIT: I will it so, and it is done! Here’s reader voltorb1993’s take on “Zapybara”!
Pokémaniacal 
zapybara
LikeLiked by 4 people
perfection
LikeLike
Sadly, one of the many traits that pika-clones steal from their progenitor is using their Japanese name in all languages (Emolga is only a partial exception due to accidentally containing a racial slur, which Japan wouldn’t have noticed on its own due to xenophobia)
LikeLike
ザピバラ
LikeLike
Yeah, in hindsight, trying to argue with a professional arguer was probably a bad idea. (That’s pretty much what scholars are, right?)
LikeLike
I mean, I get the objection and all, but the Japanese word for capybara *is* also kapibara/カピバラ so I think it kind of works?
LikeLike
Well, there is the con of “it’d be a Pikachu clone” but other than that I agree with your assessment.
LikeLike
Yeah, but if the assignment is “make a Pikachu clone” then that’s a con regardless of the response. We could make Pikachu clones based on narwhals, concrete mixers, the moons of Jupiter, feudalism, or the concept of mood lighting, and that’d be a con for all of them.
…why does that suddenly sound like a good idea…?
LikeLiked by 1 person
An Electric/Psychic-Type based on the concept of mood lighting actually does sound like a cool idea. After all, the best dual-type designs generally come from existing overlap points…
LikeLiked by 1 person
I like designing fakemons so I took this as a small challange. This is the result: https://i.imgur.com/2aUA30m.png 😀
LikeLiked by 1 person
That’s a really good initial design from the brief!
Nice job.
LikeLike
Isn’t the next pika clone going to be in the Galar region though?
LikeLike
Yeah, but presumably that one’s already been designed.
LikeLike