Let's Talk About Pokemon - Ekans and Arbok

023 - Ekans

Now this is the point where Pokemon start picking up in being interesting. Ekans feels like a more apt introduction into the Poison type than Weedle does, and a snake feels appropriate for our first! And Ekans is a pretty adorable snake, with its toothless mouth constantly agape, and in a stereotypical "coiled up" pose, with its rattle showing. Not many snakes follow the poisonous warning colors, they prefer to blend into their surroundings, but its purple and yellow color scheme is decently distinct, perhaps to give off the impression we're slowly stepping into some more fantastical animals.

024 - Arbok

Arbok sadly loses a lot of Ekans' charm, namely the verticle-slit eyes it had in favor of the more boring anime triangle-eyes that are on dozens of other Pokemon in this gen alone. It's also a little duller in color, making it feel a bit more "realistic", but it also traded its tail-rattle for a cobra's hood! Cobra hoods tend to mostly be a tactic for making a snake look larger than it actually is, at best having some eye-spots on them, but Arbok goes the extra mile for a meaner, smiling face on it.

Something definitely lost today in the 3D era of Pokemon is how, back in the day, Arbok didn't have a standardized pattern for said hood in its sprites, each one being slightly different from the last, giving the impression that these were sort of minor versions of "regional variants" - I really dig the "Hoenn" variant of Arbok, with its more pronounced pupils and the vampiric smile! And even better is the third variation from the "Professor Oak Lecture" segments of the anime, where it almost has a giant insectoid face on its hood! Which would be such a hilarious Pokemon-ified adaptation, since this is indeed a setting with huge, man-sized insects!

But sadly, these days, they've "corrected" Arbok into just having the hood represented on its official artwork. Boooooooo! It would've been neat to have this concept keep evolving with the series, just to add a little soft species variation! Surely they could pull this off again in an era where they're picky-choosey about which Pokemon make it into a given game.

Personal Score: 7/10

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