One lunatic's love-hate relationship with the Pokémon franchise, and his addled musings on its rights, wrongs, ins and outs. Come one, come all, and indulge my delusions of grandeur as I inflict my opinions on anyone within shouting distance.
What would You think if Game Freak released an Ultra Beast game? You would play a member of the Ultra Recon Squad traveling between ultra wormholes, stopping hostile Beasts from rampaging, and training your own Beasts. All the old Ultra Beasts would return, plus about 100 new ones.
uh
well, it’s certainly an idea
Continue reading “Grand Duke Khollow asks:”Continue reading “KalosianPorygon asks:”I have legitimate, serious problems about Poké Balls that isn’t about what’s inside or how they catch Pokémon.
In all medias the humans have Poké Balls, video games, animes, mangas, when they want to send out a Pokémon, they throw it. When they switch Pokémon (fainting, Volt Switch/U-turn, changing Pokémon, whenever), they call them back in their Ball, with the Trainer holding the Ball.
I have a couple questions about Balls:
First, why do we never see Trainers pick up their thrown Poké Balls after calling their Pokémon? It’s not like they are one-use items.
Second, why do Trainers THROW their Poké Balls when sending a Pokémon in battle? Why can’t they keep them in their hands at all times?
Third, Pokémon Eggs are kept in Poké Balls as soon as you get them. Where do those Balls came from? Do the Pokémon Day Care have boxes of them? And why are Eggs always inside Poké Balls in the games?
Fourth, so Beast Balls are one of the only Poké Ball type that has a decent catch rate against Ultra Beasts. This would make sense, as Ultra Beasts are creatures from another dimension and not (initially) acknowledged as Pokémon. Except, the Master Ball can also catch UBs without trouble. So… how does the Master Ball keep its perfect catch rate against UBs?
Today’s Pokémon is Blacephalon, whose special skill is to blow up its own head.
And… well, you know, call me crazy, but I would have thought that would be the end of it. Nonetheless, here we are. This is the last Ultra Beast, and I just have to deal with it.
Like Stakataka, Blacephalon doesn’t appear in the original Sun and Moon, and its homeworld doesn’t appear in the sequels. It doesn’t even have a very big anime role, since it co-stars in an episode with Xurkitree and doesn’t get the spotlight to itself, although the dynamic between the two is at least somewhat interesting. Blacephalon is just… a bit of a weird non sequitur of a Pokémon. It appears, it blows up its own head…
…
…profit???
Continue reading “Blacephalon”
Finally, we’ve dealt with ALL the Ultra Beasts. Nihilego, Buzzwole, Pheromosa, Xurkitree, Celesteela, Kartana, Guzzlord, all seven of them have been reviewed.
…
…what do you mean, they added more!?
Okay, so… 802 Pokémon was not enough, it’s never enough, it will never be enough until I’m dead, so Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon added another five Pokémon that weren’t in the original Sun and Moon, and can’t be traded back to those games either. Four of those were additional Ultra Beasts, and for the sake of thematic unity I’m going to cover them before returning to the legendary Pokémon of Alola. Our subjects for today are the first two, the only Ultra Beasts to evolve: Poipole and Naganadel, the Poison Pin Pokémon (the same species name as Nidoran!).
Continue reading “Poipole and Naganadel”[First of all: apologies for this one being late. I lost quite a bit of writing time last week flying back from Athens and recovering from jet lag (which, for me, tends to involve sleeping for 15 hours straight), but I think everything is just about back on track now!]
Ever had a paper cut?
Hurts, doesn’t it?
Well, today’s Pokémon, the Ultra Beast Kartana, would like you to know that it lives to cause you that pain. Every time you turn a page in a book too quickly and feel a sudden, sharp sting, or every time you lick an envelope and your tongue or lip screams at you to abort the mission because something has gone horribly wrong, Kartana is there, watching. And laughing.
You’re welcome.
Continue reading “Kartana”I thought you were going to talk about something similar to what you said in the celesteela article…
…oh yeah
right, we were going to use that space question as an excuse to go off on that tangent about Ultra Space that I didn’t do in the Celesteela thing
bollocks
See, this is why I keep him around.
Right, let’s talk about that now. So the thing about Ultra Space that I think is a bit weird is that it’s… not altogether clear what it actually is.
Continue reading “Jim the Editor asks:”
Today’s Pokémon is a bamboo alien, a moon rocket, and an ancient Japanese princess.
…no, I promise it makes sense.
Celesteela’s rocket-booster arms, long flowing hair, steel gown and tiny head make it one of the most bizarre of all the Ultra Beasts, but once you dig through its lore and inspiration… well, you can see where they were coming from. Let’s take a look at the Launch Pokémon.
Continue reading “Celesteela”
One of the perennial hazards of modern life is having to keep all of our different wires straight. Everything you own has a different charging cable, and all of them, if they are ever moved or placed in a bag or, gods forbid, allowed to come into contact with each other, will instantaneously morph into eldritch spaghetti as soon as your back is turned. Xurkitree is, as far as I can tell, the result of letting too many of your different charging cables get tangled up until they achieve a collective malevolent sentience, then steal your Christmas decorations and elope with a bunch of zip ties. But now, just when you thought the lunatic nightmare was over… Xurkitree has returned from outer space. For revenge.
Continue reading “Xurkitree”
Last time on Pokémaniacal, we met Buzzwole, a horrendously jacked space mosquito who can drink an entire Snorlax in under a minute, and one of two Bug/Fighting-type Ultra Beasts. The second is our subject for today: Pheromosa, who almost couldn’t be more different, and seems like it might be meant as a high-feminine counterpart to the arch-masculine Buzzwole (which would make sense given their status as version-exclusive Pokémon for Moon and Sun, respectively). Let’s take a look.
Continue reading “Pheromosa”
Today’s Pokémon is our second Ultra Beast, the abomination of hulking muscle and red life-juice that is Buzzwole. While clearly just as weird and arguably un-Pokémon-like as Nihilego, Buzzwole is weird and un-Pokémon-like in very different ways, the main commonality being that Buzzwole also lacks well-defined facial features (I mean, it kind of has eyes, but they look more like real insectoid compound eyes than the heavily anthropomorphised eyes that Bug Pokémon often have, and are very small and indistinct). However, unlike the unrelentingly alien Nihilego, Buzzwole is if anything weirdly and unsettlingly human while simultaneously being obviously insectoid – fitting for the Bug/Fighting type combination, but a striking contrast to the one previous Bug/Fighting Pokémon, Heracross. Let’s take a closer look.
Continue reading “Buzzwole”
Pokémaniacal 