Let's Talk About Pokemon - The Poliwag Family

060 - Poliwag

Here's a bit of a mixed line. Poliwag is an adorable little tadpole creature! Maybe getting into a pedantry a little bit, especially for a franchise that regularly sticks legs onto things that don't have legs, but Poliwag does seem to be a middle-stage tadpole; when their legs have grown in but they're not quite ready to be terrestrial frogs yet. Though Poliwag is still plenty capable of walking on land. Along with those legs is a very spherical body, along with tadpole tail, and a face that includes a tiny mouth with big, pink lips that almost look a bit like a beak.

But this family's more famous feature, of course, is that swirl on its belly, a pattern that enables it to use moves like Hypnosis. But as the Pokedex states a number of times, the swirl pattern is actually its internal organs showing. Which, you kinda have to nod and say sure, given the abstraction. But if anything, it's true to real life, as tadpoles have skin thin enough that you can see their intestines wrapped up in a spiral pattern in there!

061 - Poliwhirl

Poliwhirl is a more grown-up cartoon frog! With funny proportions to it, an almost perfectly spherical body, eye bulges poking out the top of it, and the same nubby feet present on Poliwag, just now with a new pair of arms with cartoon gloved hands on the ends of them. It does retain the intestine-swirl tummy as well, and I do think it's curious how Pokemon's debut frog creature doesn't feature a visible mouth whatsoever. Just given frogs are basically mouths with legs attached to them. And on top of that, this omits a cartoon frog's feature of a long, sticky tongue. Though, real frog tongues don't stretch out that far, that's more a feature of chameleons.

062 - Poliwrath

Poliwrath is definitely an odd design, because it's probably the posterchild of Gen 1 evolutions that just barely change what the previous stage looked like. And for my money, evolutions should feel like a significant physical step up from a previous stage, so some Pokemon almost feel like they got three stages in a way that feels a bit like filler.

Either way, Poliwrath is basically Poliwhirl, but angry and visibly a bit more buff to denote its Water/Fighting typing. Which to its credit, is still to this day, a reasonably unique typing, only really shared by mostly legendary Pokemon, plus a starter and alternate form much later on. Again, it feels like it achieves the minimum to get there, but sure. It's just funny cause there was a time where I had a bit more active disdain for Poliwrath, but it felt a little misaimed, since it hardly feels like it ruins the line at all, and probably the Pokemon I dislike the most are the ones that feel like vast downgrades compared to their prevos. Not that I don't think this line kind of conceptually sputters out here, but I dunno if it's a Pokemon that feels like a complete waste to me like I once did.

Personal Score: 6/10

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