"This one doesn't look like a Pokémon"

As soon as any amount of new Pokémon are revealed, whatever forum or community you experience it with, there is always someone who starts the "they don't look like Pokémon"-topic.

The thing is though... it happens every time (except at the beginning obviously) with every bunch of starters revealed, every set of cover-legends, every secret event legend, with new waves of mega evolutions etc.


I'm always flabbergasted when reading posts like those, because they either have no actual argument besides the assertion itself (which often happens to draw a line between whatever generation that person lost excitement in Pokémon at, ala "gen x were still cool, then it went downhill"), or the arguments are extremely flawed.

Yes it is literally trash, but it is also the cutest
and most thought through well balanced
living trash-monster design ever.

Often they would point out the weirder Pokémon, with a prime example being Trubbish. Now, when I first saw this Pokémon, I immediately loved it simply from realizing it will be the star of these topics, because it offers the most obvious pun ever: "it's literally trash".
Being a generation 5 Pokémon (a generation meant to show that Gamefreak can make fresh unique interesting designs even if they are direct homages to older pokémon, proving that even if they ever "ran out of ideas", that wouldn't stop them from making more Pokémon, but that's another of these topics), the hypocrisy is easy to point out however: one just has to realize Grimer is a thing, yet no one ever complained about it in that manner.

Taking a proper look at the vast number of Pokémon, it turns out that weird designs and concepts are actually quite common in the franchise and have always been part of it.


If pokémon only included generic animals with an element slapped on them, Or if they were only insects... or only dragon-like creatures, or only humanoid designs, only plants, only spirits etc. it would lose one of it's main aspects.
Instead the inspirations for the designs come from everywhere, with the result being that everyone finds some they like.

It's one of the aspects that give Pokémon so many levels of diversity.

I would argue that the designs usually picked on tend to be ones that are actually one of the more original and creative of them.

Pokémon would not be Pokémon without all the strange designs thrown into the mix.
Some fans like the cool badass dragon designs the most, some prefer the cute ones, some like ones because of particular themes, colors and details their designs combine, others like ones with darker or mysterious backstories... and some like the strange ones.

Personally, I embrace that whole spectrum and always find something likable about them and try to figure out what non-obvious interesting origin they might have.

So, keep expanding this colorful family Gamefreak :3