Let's Talk About Pokemon - Zubat and Golbat

041 - Zubat

Zubat gets too bad a rap. An understandable bad rap, but it's not its fault it got saddled with a notoriously high encounter rate! For how common it is, Zubat is a surprisingly solid design, at least as far as Pokemon that are unambiguously a particular animal goes, because it steps away from being a simple stylization like Ekans, Pidgey, or Pikachu, and gets into being much more strange in features.

And what's particularly striking about Zubat is its lack of facial features, with no nose or eyes, just a big, gaping mouth where a face aught to be. Nor does it have proper legs, rather what more look like a pair of tails that one could presume are specialized for hanging off cave ceilings. Real life bats that hide in caves or other dark hiding places mostly do so for their sleeping periods, emerging from said cave to feed. Zubat, on the other hand, is almost like if a bat were to evolve specifically to remain in a cave for the near-entirety of its life, becoming more and more reliant and echolocation and less reliant on eyes. Which is even somewhat realistic, as there are a number of mammals, especially mole species, that have eyes so small, let alone completely buried under fur that they're effectively blind and visibly don't even look like they have eyes.

Zubat is neat in the fantastical elements that it REMOVES from its real-life counterpart. Usually the removal of detail can be chalked up to stylization, but here it's very distinctly the removal of overall physical features, which makes Zubat stand out as so much more unique among fantasy bat critters.

Personal Score: 8/10

042 - Golbat

Which is a shame, cause Golbat could have hit the same amount of greatness. The good that it brings to the line is that now its ENTIRE body is almost completely made up of a horribly wide-open maw, which is a fantastic way to advance Zubat as a concept. Unfortunately, that ISN'T where they stopped with Golbat, because they also gave it unmistakable eyes and legs. I could take or leave the feet, as they don't really look that functional for hanging on cave ceilings, but also barely resemble feet, so they're kind of just in an awkward middle ground. But why does it have eyes now??? Glue those peepers shut, Golbat! Also not helping it are the massively shrunken ears, which just look out of place now.

But I think the biggest crime Golbat commits with this is that it feels like it subtracts meaning away from Zubat. Like the lack of eyes or legs actually didn't have much intentionality behind it, just an incidental stylization that is once again synonymous with Pikachu's lightning bolt tail. Which is such a shame. Golbat and Zubat could've both been up there as plenty solid 'mons, but Golbat just feels a lot less freaky, in a cool way. I can't bring myself to not like Golbat at least a little bit, but it is conceptually a significant downgrade.

Personal Score: 6.5/10

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