Perhaps something along the lines of telescoping generations in aphids? Some species reproduce asexually as well as sexually- females are born pregnant with a genetically identical daughter, and that unborn daughter is already developing a daughter of her own. When mating with males, they lay eggs which can hatch into either males or females. Maybe each newly hatched Kangaskid is already parthenogenically pregnant and gives birth when she becomes Kangaskhan offscreen.

Well, that seems to be more or less what happens, except that there are no male Kangaskhan, which would mean that actual Kangaskhan eggs are a weird anomaly that only ever happen with hybrids, and most of them just clone themselves ad infinitum. They’re just… kind of a strange species.

Have you seen the new CoroCoro scans? If so, what do you think of the new type chart?

Nope; I’m quite deliberately ignoring everything to do with X and Y.

I have a theory about why Kangaskhan has a baby in its pouch as soon as it’s born. When a Kangaskhan egg hatches, the baby inside replaces the one in the Kangaskhan’s pouch, while the one previously in the pouch instantly matures into an adult Kangaskhan, complete with baby in pouch. Baby Kangaskhans themselves are simply multicellular versions of egg cells and get genetic information from the father through the mother Kangaskhan’s milk. Thus all Kangaskhan are perpetual mothers. Your thoughts?

So… what you’re saying is that the egg doesn’t actually hatch into a Kangaskhan at all; it hatches into a ‘Kangaskid’ or whatever you want to call it, and that prompts an existing Kangaskid to leave its mother’s pouch and ‘evolve’ (offscreen, as it were) into an adult Kangaskhan, producing another Kangaskid in the process?

It’s… an interesting idea; the trouble is that, in the games, there doesn’t actually need to be another Kangaskhan present in order for an egg to hatch. You can be wandering around with nothing in your party but a Kangaskhan egg and, say, a Magcargo, and when the egg hatches, you’ll still get a complete set of Kangaskhan + baby (in the anime, on the other hand, there’s nothing all that unusual about seeing a Kangaskhan without a baby, so there’s nothing that needs to be explained anyway).

Do you think the pokemon breeding mechanics should be retconned into producing the lowest evolutionary form of either parent instead of just the mother’s, or are they satisfactory to you as of now?

I’m good with them as they are now. If you imagine Pokémon breeding as being biologically analogous to real-world animal reproduction (which, of course, is not a given, but let’s assume for the sake of argument), then the young will likely develop inside the body of the female – even if they’re in eggs, it still makes sense that they will follow the basic form of the female parent. In terms of game mechanics, too, there is a good reason – at present, there is a division between male and female of the things the child receives from its parents: species and (if applicable) Dream World ability from the mother, egg moves from the father. If you make species inheritable from the father, then that’s another dimension of things you have to watch out for when trying to breed egg moves onto a Pokémon – not only do you have to get the nature and ability you want, preferably with solid stats, the children might not even be the right species!

Do you think it’d be interesting to see items like repels have use in battle? Like, repels could lower the accuracy of physical moves.

Apologies to whoever asked this question (and the other two I’m about to answer) which I received about a month ago, just before I stopped posting… Anyway.

Well… to be honest, I’m not sure what it would add. Using items in battle isn’t a new thing (potions, X attack, etc.), so it’s not really adding a new dimension to the game, and repels are useful anyway. Also, apart from repels and escape ropes, I can’t really think of anything you could expend on an in-battle effect that wouldn’t be much more valuable out of battle: Heart Scales and shards are too important for learning moves; stones and fossils are too rare to waste; held items like Leftovers or Choice Specs will be far more useful in the long run if you keep them for your Pokémon to use – you get the idea. All in all, it just seems like a fairly inconsequential change.

Do you think rapid spin should be stronger, have its strength increase when it blows away an entry hazard, and be learnable by almost every flying type? (Yes, this is my idea to try to counter the over-use of stealth rock in competitive play)

Well, this would aim to weaken entry hazards in general, and it’s not really entry hazards that are the problem. I don’t think anyone really believes that Spikes or Toxic Spikes are over the top; it’s only Stealth Rock that’s particularly controversial, partly because it takes only one turn to set up, partly because it so dramatically tips the odds against any Pokémon vulnerable to Rock attacks (that is, Flying-, Bug-, Ice- and Fire-types). Honestly, I think the best fix (assuming that straight up eliminating Stealth Rock is out of the question, which I suspect it is) would be to add more entry hazards, with different elemental properties, which cannot be used in conjunction with Stealth Rock (the attack just fails if there’s a set in place already). Add, for instance, Grass- and Fire-type versions (let’s call them, say, Vine Trap and Burst Mine) – with three alternatives in play, the impact of each individual one will be lessened, and instead of four types being victimised, there will be nine that have to watch their backs. Of course, anything dealing with type dynamics is difficult to go into in detail, when we know we’re going to have a new type thrust upon us soon…

Do you have any personal opinions on how the Pokemon anime shall end?

Shall or should?

Quite honestly, I don’t think they have any plans for it to ever end. As long as they keep making new Pokémon, they’ll need to introduce them in the anime, and continuing to make new Pokémon is pretty much the heart of Game Freak’s business model. They’ve shown that they don’t care about Ash being in a state of general stasis with regards to his personal development (not to mention his age), and they certainly don’t care about recycling plots (compare, for instance, the Johto episode All That Glitters with the more recent Dancing With the Ducklett Trio, or Charmander’s backstory with Tepig’s), although, to be fair, the newer versions are often improvements.

If the anime ever ends, it will be because they ran out of money. We can only pray that someone will have the presence of mind to write some sort of conclusion for the last few episodes.

I know that your a collage student and on a completely random but have you ever read the Percy Jackson books, I only ask because you seem to love mythology and it does a decent job combining modern life with mythology.

The Percy Jackson series is something of a guilty pleasure of mine. I know it’s sort of supposed to be for children and teenagers, but- wait a minute, this is my Pokémon blog; I don’t have to justify myself on this. I love the author’s exhaustive use of just about every mythological figure in all of classical literature, and his often hilarious interpretations thereof. As a classicist, reading those books is pretty much one big long stream of “I see what you did there.“

Do you normally nickname Pokemon?

I do, usually. Lots of Greek- and Roman-sounding names, generally. I have two Volcarona, for instance, both female; one is Helia (from helios, the ancient Greek word for the sun), the other is Invicta (from the Roman sun god Sol Invictus – “the unconquerable sun"). Other times I go with a theme – on White 2 my Pokemon were all named after characters from A Song of Ice and Fire.

If you could live anywhere in the Pokemon world, where would it be and why?

I’m going to be a hipster on this one and pick Six Island, in the Sevii archipelago. It has ruins to study, but it’s not quite as much of a hick town as Seven Island (the people are quite spread out – there are really two towns – but they are there). I also like island climates, having lived in New Zealand all my life. Continental towns are too changeable for my taste.