Pokémon Fans’ Aversion To Bipedal Starters Runs Deep

Since Game Freak revealed Pokémon Winds and Waves’ starters, one of the funnier discussions surrounding the RPGs is the speculation from fans as to whether or not Pombon, the Pomeranian fire puppy, is going to evolve into a bipedal Weregarurumon-looking guy by the time it reaches its final form. These discussions are born from years of starter Pokémon debuting as cute little guys and evolving into something that looks like furry bait. As soon as everyone saw Pombon’s dopey little face, the memes started and did not stop.

I was listening to the latest episode of Pokémon podcast It’s Super Effective, in which the hosts talked about the history of starters standing on their hind legs by the time they reach their final evolved form, and tried to get to the bottom of why it’s such a contentious topic. I think they come to the right conclusion that ultimately a lot of fans don’t want their Pokémon to become “too humanlike” when they start out looking like they could be a pet. Charizard and Blastoise are two of the original starters from the first games, and they end up bipedal, but they are definitely not anthropomorphic and still look like monsters. 

Compare this to Pokémon like Delphox, Cinderace, Meowscarada, and Incineroar, all of whom look much more humanoid. If you put a period-appropriate outfit on them, they wouldn’t look that out of place in something like Disney’s Robin Hood. In part, fans’ disapproval of this tendency can be chalked up to anti-furry sentiment, especially because these criticisms are not nearly as often levied against Blaziken, a bipedal bird from Generation III that people have a lot of nostalgia for.

But really, the biggest factor in all these misgivings about Pokémon sometimes looking less like a Pocket Monster and more like a human in a costume may be that fans don’t want starters to keep feeling like more of the same, a criticism you can see manifest in ways other than simply wanting Pombon to keep all four of its feet on the ground. Across the board, only seven of the 27 final starter forms we know of stand on four feet, with the other 20 standing on two legs. If Pombon turns into another two-legged starter, it could retread similar design space as previous fire-type starters like Delphox, Cinderace, and Incineroar, which have different themes to their design, but do end up lumped in the category of “bipedal, anthropomorphic fire animal” that fans have grown tired of.

A lot of mock-ups of possible Pombon evolutions are already circulating around the internet because Pokémon fans work faster than anyone with a pen, and some of the standouts have leaned into a Cerberus theme with the little doggy dumbass turning into a fearsome, three-headed beast. That’s a cool concept we haven’t seen in Pokémon yet, and would work best if Pombon doesn’t learn to stand like a person by the time it reaches level 40. Though I imagine that a great many folks will still pick the fire-type canine in their eventual Winds and Waves playthroughs regardless, it would be nice for Game Freak to throw us a surprise or two, rather than going back to the well for something that has become so common, fans are already bracing for it.