Let's Talk About Pokemon - Meowth and Persian

052 - Meowth

Another Pokemon on the more wideley famous end, Meowth is honestly, to this day, still one of the better feline Pokemon to date. Not THE best, but certainly one of the better shining examples of personality, especially thanks to being one of the old guard stars of the anime where Team Rocket's Meowth quite often steals the show. Almost to a point where he overshadows his own whole species. Like what do you mean there's other "Meowth" out there? Jesse and James are just followed around by some strange cat thing. He's just the resident Japanese cat mascot character that puts "Nya" at the end of his sentences.

As a design, Meowth is plenty charming, with it being a bipedal cat that has somewhat long, noodly arms, a huge, oversized head almost made specifically for showing off that funny mug it has. Especially a fan of the huge cat eyes. And naturally, the design is topped off with the whole theme of the line, the coin that rests on its forehead. If you've osmosis'd anything about Japanese culture, you're probably aware of what a beckoning lucky cat looks like. Or at the very least have seen one in a Japanese game at some point. Meowth is that! With one of its more unique moves being "Pay Day", a move that scatters money on the ground so you can pick up the pocket change after completing a battle.

The fact that Meowth is such a recognizable face in the anime is almost itself a double-edged sword, because Meowth certainly does feel like it'd be lost as one of Gen 1's lesser-knowns if it wasn't for that Meowth in particular giving it the popularity bump. Especially with a design that's a bit more downplayed, or at the very least plays into being a funny creature a bit more than other Gen 1 critters. Just what tends to be Gen 1's most iconic Pokemon are the really cool or the really cute ones. It would be a shame! But Meowth has a lot of variations going with it as we get much later into the series, so I guess I feel a little less bad.

Personal Score: 7.5/10

053 - Persian

We've already had a handful of Pokemon that feel like aesthetic downgrades to their previous forms, but Persian is definitely a substantial downgrade. I hesitate to call it outright bad, but if Meowth is already sadly tip-toeing on the line between memorable and forgettable, Persian is firmly in the territory of the latter. The vibe is definitely meant to have it be a snobby rich person's pet cat, but. That's kinda all it is. It loses almost all of its fantastical elements, spare an extremely puny gemstone on its forehead in place of a coin, but otherwise misses out on all the charm and uniqueness Meowth had going for it. There's a number of Pokemon throughout the series that just eerily feel like they're just a stylized animal and little else, and boy does Persian feel the most like it's just some anime animal. Yawn. Anime Meowth is definitely correct in disliking Persian.

Personal Score: 4/10

< Prev < | Archive | > Next >