alolan exeggutor isn't the most visually unique but 1) they were right. it IS funny that it's too tall 2) giving it dragon typing just perfects it. it's a dracaena and that's enough to make it literally a dragon. pokemon types have evolved into their own weird little system of meaning
also not a specific design but i love when an evolution line chains together animals that aren't actually related but feel conceptually related. like carvanha and sharpedo
i'm looking around for my picks but i feel like they're also going to be cases of combining inspirations (animal/object) in a way that's unusual but so perfectly fitting that those two things are now associated in my head
current bias: i love how awkward silvally looks. the concept of "superweapon frankenpokemon, whose trainer incidentally is an edgy teen who kins it" could have been, like, unironically cool and streamlined
fucking obsessed with dunsparce. "it's just a tsuchinoko" wrong it's the PLATONIC IDEAL of a tsuchinoko AND IT DRILLS BACKWARDS TO DIG. it's a freak i love it.
A healer (but-)
: the ice cream line is valid and u are valid. i love that it's not even ice cream. it's a fucked up ice monster that likes to put snow on its face like a hat
i'm fucking obsessed with lunatone also i think it's the first moon-derived design ive seen that wasn't like. oh this animal is inspired by the full moon no this is literally a moon rock that was just straight up turned into a bird for ???? REASONS I GUESS?
absol is genuinely also a peak design. black/white duality, edgy, has a sword, furry Cool creature for the kids to hook onto. i know i was insane for absol the first time i saw it. its original in that you can very clearly tell they were going for edgy sparkledog design
When Veluza discards unnecessary flesh, its mind becomes honed and its psychic power increases. The spare flesh has a mild but delicious flavor. Veluza has excellent regenerative capabilities. It sheds spare flesh from its body to boost its agility, then charges at its prey.
latias/latios are probably my favorite dragons in the game. airplanes... they are seriously soooo cute. i love their streamlined shapes. i love having two of them
my picks for "unique in an arbitrary way, not even a clever joke just a weird idea that feels right": doduo/dodrio, chansey, scyther, lapras, girafarig, smeargle, breloom, exploud, tropius, flygon line, shelgon, barbaracle, mimikyu
list drops off after gen 3 because i feel like designs started to get more, like, explicable - still lots of fantastic ones but they tend to be a clever mashup of clear inspirations and less "what the hell is that it rocks"
gen 4 is a little weird to me scrolling down this list bc i think it does have some of the most unique designs but in most cases its kind of in a not great way... the legendaries 100% fuck but looking down this list i'm literally going "wow a lot of these stand up huh"
there's no clear reason for chansey to be an upright spherical axolotl that feeds you eggs, or for the otherwise perfectly draconic bagon line to pupate, or for a giraffe to be backwards, but they just do that and it feels natural
oh god yeah girafarig's whole design being a palindrome in the beta i really wish they kept that but i understand why they replaced the back head with the. tail head
gen 6 has some very nice pokemon-style renderings of creatures like leafy sea dragons, basilisk lizards, and feral keyrings, but barbaracle just stands up for some reason
this is my bias but i think scolipede has an incredible design. it's pink and purple. its got big round body sections that make it look like a beach ball. it's big enough to be rideable. its a horse. it sucks you out of your body like a capri sun when it kills you
Yeah re:veluza it's funny that they keep introducing more ways for pokemon to safely feed parts of their bodies to humans (veluza flesh, tropius bananas, etc) and also supply energy (rolycoly's body flakes off for usable coal)... and since it's such a safe and happy world, they're NOT caged in horrible capitalist farms to extract resources from them
oh I just remembered you can eat crab claws as sandwich ingredients and there's a little explanation there like "they're shed as they grow and are collected that way'
I will always bring up dhelmise because it's a ghost. that out of all things decides it wants to possess seaweed. and then use the seaweed to yeet anchors
now, my second list, my top picks for unique designs that make you go "oh i get it that's clever: galar fossilmons, grafaiai, dhelmise, wishiwashi, spritzee, combee, wailord, shedinja
also, add shuckle to my first list. it does have inspos but they're so heavily mashed up and redesigned that the final product just feels like its own original thing
people totally eat tauros and lechonk and similar they just don't directly say that. which makes it even funnier when an extremely weird method of getting food from pokemon non-lethally is shown
UHHHHHHH ILOVE ALL THE FOSSILMONS IN SWSH. GENUINELY LIKE THEIR DESIGNS ARE SO GOOD. THEY REALLY DIDN'T EVEN TRY TO MAKE THEM COHESIVE THEY WERE LIKE no.
i feel bad for zeraora cuz i feel like it got little attention despite having a movie but like. how can you compare to heel wrestler fire cat. you can't.
oh oh oh uh this is a retroactive concept thing not design strictly but. i am IN LOVE with how gen 7 nervously glancing at yokai watch turned into a revolution of rotom-inhabited devices just existing in the modern pokemon world
it's so pokemon. it is so essentially pokemon. pokemon is always a recognizable modern world but with all these little things tweaked to show that pokemon are there. smartphones are ubiquitous now except their smartphones contain a helpful ghost that levitates it and makes calls for you
entire design based on "stork delivers babies" then you scratch out the baby part entirely - the entire centerpiece of the inspiration - and replace it with "bombs"
honestly while the magikarp-gyarados line has a clear inspo (koi becomes dragon legend) gyarados is so uniquely weird yet badass looking and the line concept being something that shows up so early in every game is wild. fave
you could point to any random pokemon and the dex entry will be like "oh yueah that one has race wars. that other guy turns you into soup. THAT one just violences you on sight"
1 most fucked up pokemon design ever IMO
Veluza has excellent regenerative capabilities. It sheds spare flesh from its body to boost its agility, then charges at its prey.
IS THAT EVEN THE 'HORNS' WERE PART OF THAT
A very sweet and salty ingredient. It's a nutritious processed food made with a concentrate derived from shed Klawf shells.galar fossilmons, grafaiai, dhelmise, wishiwashi, spritzee, combee, wailord, shedinja
ha ha ha oh no!