Let's Talk About Pokemon - The Charmander Family

004 - Charmander

It's not exactly hard to see why the Charmander line is the biggest fan favorite, especially between the Kanto starters. And while child me was too filled with the wonder of discovery to truly find any Pokemon to be "mid", yeah, as I got older, I've only been less and less impressed with this line, I'm afraid.

Charmander itself is, sure, just about any cartoon "baby lizard" I've ever seen, and unlike Bulbasaur, not really coming off as all that unique. The main eye-catching feature it has is the lit flame on its tail, but all-around that's kinda all this line has going for it.

005 - Charmeleon

Charmeleon doesn't exactly change this, much. It pulls the Ivysaur treatment, where it gets taller, meaner, but here it highlights what tends to be the problem with starter middle-stage evolutions. These are quite often called "awkward teenage phases", and it's not hard to see why, with it trying to bridge the gap between a sweet summer child and a big, mean, dragon, and having mixed success at doing so.

Also I never got why it turned red, given Charizard is the same orange Charmander is. So that's weird.

006 - Charizard

And I'm sorry, any Charizard fans reading this. But like I said, I can't say I'm impressed with Charizard, any. Sure, maybe it hits a little different to have this Pokemon be your partner, but it is just an all-around generic-looking dragon to me, that doesn't have much at all, in the way of cool features. Like, obviously it's very conventionally cool, but conceptually cool it most definitely isn't, which is what tends to impress me way more.

As it is, the thing almost defies description just because I'd be describing just about any dragon. It has a lot of angry shape language, with two horns swept back past its brow, two wings that look a little too small to lift the thing, and the much longer tail that still has a flame on the tip.

I'm not sure what I could even suggest to make it appeal to me better, because there's so little to work with, here. The biggest idea I have is to make it so Charizard itself can't breath fire, but it most certainly can grab its tail by the tip and shout into it, to spread its flame around with a gaseous breath. That way you could bring a bit of a "singer" spin to it, and like, see? Wouldn't that at least make it like, 30% more metal? It'd be something!

Personal Score: 5/10

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