- ↓ 0.15
- ꩜ 0.38
- ↑ 4.98
{R} → Flare : 10
{R}{R} → Magma Ring : 20
The Defending Pokémon can’t retreat during your opponent’s next turn.
illus. Kagemaru Himeno · LV.27
External: Bulba ↗ · Shop: TCGplayer ↗, cardmarket ↗, Amazon ↗, eBay ↗
It never sleeps. It has to keep moving because if it stopped, its magma body would cool and harden.
Blob Takeshi
This is the last Johto Pokémon (even though it can only be found in Kanto in GSC) to have a card.
Ambassador
I mean, this is kind of why this whole contemporary trend of referring to Pokémon as being the region that they’re from wasn’t a thing for a very long time. We’d just refer to Pokémon as being “from” their respective generation, rather than indulge this weird branding exercise (that TPCI in particular seems to have really taken to over the last 5-10 years) of referring to Pokémon/games/etc. as products of the respective in-game region¹.
Slugma’s a great example in that it *isn’t* a “Johto Pokémon”, but if someone wanted to refer to it as part of the group of Pokémon I assume they’re trying to get at, “Gen 2 Pokemon” will work quite fine.
¹ I really don’t understand from where this terminology took off, but it’s not natural to the fanbase. I know even as late as Gen 4 I was reading/participating in online forum threads where people would post, for example, “it’s interesting to realize that Gen 1 Pokemon like Pinsir and Scyther are actually Sinnoh-native species”, without having to worry about the conversation getting derailed by some of the less intelligent talking points that have become endemic to the western Pokémon fanbase nowadays. (“Why do the Johto gym leaders use so many Kantomons?” is a good example of a grating one that seems only to be an endemic topic of discussion because some people have realized that playing dumb is an effective trolling tactic.)
Aisling
There are two things I can see being the cause of this. 1 is Unova’s dex being exclusively “Unova” Pokémon until the post game. Or, more likely, it is probably the regional variants. We didn’t really have adjectival forms of Pokémon regions until that happened, and while it was only Kantonian and Alolan in Sun/Moon, the other names sort of spiraled from there. My friend group has gotten into arguments over whether Melmetal should be considered a Kanto mon or not because of Let’s Go so these arguments can get pretty silly.
I’ve always seen the Safari Zone as a topic on this discussion though. In most games, the Safari Zone features Pokémon not native to that region. So I feel like calling Tauros a Kantonian Pokémon is inherently false. And yet everyone would call you crazy if you referred to them as Johtonian Tauros
Ambassador
Yeah I completely dipped on this franchise during Gen 5, and I think that’s representative of a sizeable portion of older fans. As much as people bemoan what Gen 6 did in terms of “Kanto pandering”, it felt less like that and more “oh, hey, they finally did a handheld 3D game! I get to see my old favs in 3D at an affordable pricetag” and we came back, speaking at least for myself, expected to continue exactly where things were left off. It’s kind of crazy to realize how in the span of only a few years an entirely new group of fans came in and introduced this entirely new worldview/terminology/topics of discussion that often feels wholly incompatible with prior fanspace convo and a continued point of friction. I’m sure some of that can be attributed to generational differences, some of that can also be attributed to very different direction in philosophy in the worldbuilding of the games themselves.. I’d also point to a divergence in how the games are localized? BW have the unfortunate distinction of not having Nob Ogasawara being involved in their translation whatsoever.
And staying on the topic of regional designators as introduced by SM and onwards; I don’t see a problem with just continuing to calling Tauros Tauros. The comparison I feel like is apt is “Canada Goose”. You might now and again refer to a species incidentally with a regional qualifier, but it’s not like we then go about identifying every other goose by its nationality – we’re not giving these things passports, right? I remember trying to look into this a bit to see where exactly this idea of referring to, e.g. “Kantonian Marowak” as that, vs. just Marowak, had any Japanese equivalent in marketing, fanwikis, or otherwise, and so far it seems to be something someone at TPCI came up with of their own volition, but it’s an entirely ridiculous thing. Your example of Tauros is great. I’d definitely roll my eyes at “Kantonian Tauros”, but I think I’d object to Johtonian Tauros, too. Who’s to say it’s not Sinnohian Tauros? It actually ruins the immersion to propose (or imply) these Pokémon necessarily happen to originate in the order in which they’re introduced to the series.
Twylis
I think the increasing focus on Gen 1 nostalgia starting in Gen 6 is definitely a factor here too, because that has so much overlap going on with terms. Every Gen 1 pokemon is *also* a Kanto pokemon (in the “in the Kanto Pokedex” sense), so you can use the terms interchangeably there with no real problem. Because they’re also the generation of pokemon that get referred to as a distinct group most frequently, it allows that interchangeability to get very normalized.
TPC(i?) worsened the issue, likely because they want region names to be more at the forefront of people’s minds than generation classifications — especially in cases like LGPE, whose status as a gen 7 game was a bit controversial sometimes due to being on a new console. Regional variants obviously made them even more inclined to make sure fans knew the names of regions and regarded pokemon with regions in mind.
The Pokemon of the Year poll from 2020 is probably the highest-profile case of this phenomenon.
https://m.bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Pok%C3%A9mon_of_the_Year