There are over a thousand different Pokémon, and not all of them are bangers. Some of them have designs that might make you recoil, while others are just plain uninteresting. How often do you think about, say, Dewpider? or Seaking? Have you considered the humble Taillow lately?
Well, let’s all stop being such judgmental snobs, because it turns out every Pokémon is beloved by someone out there, and there’s a new website that proves it.
This is “Every Pokémon is someone’s favorite,” where you can name a Pokémon, write a little note about why you love it, and add it to a growing index of love for both popular and unpopular monsters. The website, which just went up yesterday, is already doing way better than the Super Bowl ad at highlighting love for individual Pokémon, and has already accumulated over 55,000 declarations of love for all 1,025 Pokémon—yes, every Pokémon has at least one admirer! From the website you can see the stats and read notes left for each Pokémon, as well as push an “Explore” button to see a random declaration for a random Pokémon, like so:
The declarations in here are genuinely delightful. Some are sentimental, like this one on Unown: “i adore how useless unown are in fights. they are also the cutest thing ever and their weird essence touched my off-putting and isolated soul as a child who barely knew any english. I may not have known what any of the words in the games meant, but I knew I loved unown.”
And some are silly, like this one for Gible: “Hes just a hungy fella” or for Wailord: “big whale cute.”
The stats page presents an interesting picture of which Pokémon are the most popular among users. At the time of this post, Gengar is sitting on top with 725 declarations, followed by Mimikyu, Bulbasaur, Absol, and Arcanine. Surprisingly, Pikachu isn’t anywhere in the top 10 at all. You can also see the least popular monsters, including the final five that were chosen to finish the on-site Pokedex: Arrokuda, Capsakid, Brute Bonnet, Nymble, and Quaxwell. A lot of the less popular creatures are from the most recent games, which suggests to me that people just haven’t had quite as much time to get to know them as they have the other monsters.
It looks like the least popular member of the original 151 is poor Goldeen with only four declarations, though she has a couple of great notes left about her: “I had the card when I was five and I thought it was the prettiest” is one, as is “She is beauty, she is grace, she is a transmasc king waiting to flower. I feel in love with her gen 1 pokemon card, and regardless of her stats in-game, regardless of whether or not she is useful in-game, I think she is the best. She reminds me of the goldfish in Fantasia. Anyway, I love goldeen.”
22 Pokémon are currently sitting at the bottom with only two declarations, and most of them are new guys. Cascoon is sitting down here and has an adorable declaration that reads, “It reminds me of my mom because it looks like a ball of yarn and she used to knit alot. Plus it evolves into Dustox who’s pretty cool and it looks like (•w•) <- that. I named mine Ham Chowder :3” and a second one that just says “silly little guy.” I’m surprised to see Igglybuff down here, as well as Maschiff, who I thought would do well simply by virtue of being a dog.
The one downside of this index is that it doesn’t account for different forms, because if it did, I’d be declaring for Alolan Raichu instantly. As it stands, I’m going to go write a nice note for Totodile, my bestest chompy buddy, even though he rightfully has plenty of fans already. Also, sorry to say, you can’t pick any of the three upcoming new starter Pokémon for Winds and Waves. No Pombon for you.
