Which of the Gen VIII Pokemon have taken your fancy early-on? Before all the research and all the fun stuff that comes with the reviews have any peaked your interest as fascinating right out-the-gate? Have you accepted our lords and saviors Falinks into your heart yet?
Y’know, I have weird issues with Falinks that are probably specific to me in particular, because I look at Falinks and think that it was probably designed for the British region, and plonked down in an “ancient ruins” area next to the town which is clearly based on Bath, as a reference to soldiers of the Roman Empire. And that’s great and all, but I’m a classicist and Falinks’ design and English name scream to me “classical Greek hoplite phalanx,” which is not the same thing, god damn it, so now I have to read this bit from Falinks’ Bulbapedia article:
and “Spartan helmets during the period of Ancient Rome” is… kind of a phrase that hurts my soul in a way that maybe will not be immediately apparent to a non-specialist
so yeah Falinks is a “no” from me, sorry
There are definitely Pokémon that have rapidly found a secure place in my heart, though. I’m kinda “meh” on all three of the starters, but the whole Dreepy line is wonderfully creative and weird, and I think they might actually be my favourites of the generation. Snom is adorable and perfect (Frosmoth is fine, I like Frosmoth, but it’s not Snom). I would die for Snom. Applin, Flapple and Appletun are the Grass/Dragon Pokémon I have always wanted, although I am still weirded out by the Pokédex talking about children eating Appletun’s skin. I kind of recognise that objectively there’s not really anything terribly interesting or creative about Cufant or Copperajah, but I do like Cufant and Copperajah anyway. I don’t know that I like Perrserker, but Jim the Editor and I had one of our regular nitpicky arguments the other day about the value of Galarian Meowth and Perrserker’s existence, and I was kinda surprised at the vigour of my own defence of them. Runerigus is… fµ¢£in’ bizarre but it’s exactly the kind of fµ¢£in’ bizarre stuff I like (the convoluted-as-hell evolution method can go die in a hole, though). I think those are the ones that stick out to me immediately; I guess we’ll see what happens when I get around to studying the rest.
Pokémaniacal 
Come on! Falinks is adorable. Possibly the adorablest!
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I mean, I’m not gonna argue with that, but I have a vivid streak of “um, ACtually” pedantry about this stuff that runs very, very deep
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It’s all Ancient Grome anyway! 😛
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An admirable quality!
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but what about ‘the Pokemon world does not have a one on one relation with the real world’ and ‘pokemon designs usually take several influences’? :p
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DCMBradley uses counter, the pedantry was reversed!
Falinks is only the English, Spanish and Italian names for our adorable new saviors. タイレーツ is just from the generic word for battle formations, with Chinese and Koreon following suit. And the French and Italians derive from the more generic terms like Legion and Squadron as well (the French Hexadron is a metal AF name). So it’s not our 6-hearted-legend’s fault that the English mislabeled them!
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Interesting little preview… My best friend asked me this exact question and I…kind of had a hard time figuring out even *one* Pokémon that jumped at me the way Minior and Primarina (and even Crabrawler, both literally and figuratively) did in VII. We agree on the starters, but honestly the more I see it, the more I think Centiskorch is the best-designed Pokémon of this generation. I await your individual entries to trade ideas!
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Personally, I love a lot of designs this gen. I made a team of eight (Rillaboom, Corviknight, Thievul, Boltund, Drednaw, Centiskorch, G. Rapidash and Dragapult) and that still left out a bunch of other favs (Appletun, Runerigus and Frosmoth especially) .
This gen has some excellent Pokémon designs, is what I am trying to say.
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*sad Falinks noises*
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Hmmm, I don’t like Copperajah’s appearance at all but I can’t deny that it’s creative. It’s based on both an Indian elephant and traditional Indian copper artwork, both of which were imported into the UK during the colonial era. And its bipedal Gigantamax form is probably a reference to Ganesh. I’m expecting Copperajah to be in the inevitable India region, along with Gumshoos.
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