Let's Talk About Pokemon - The Abra Family

063: Abra

This family's an odd bunch. As much as I like the line, I've seldom paid it mind and have yet to use it in one of my ingame teams. I'd love to give them a whirl, but the awkwardness of acquiring an Abra that will teleport away on the first turn it you don't successfully catch it, along with training up said weak Abra, and then it having a trade evolution later on are all roadblocks vs. just picking up a Pokemon and using it.

The elusive Abra is a cute monster sort of thing, as weird as it looks. It's KIND OF like a fox? That's the popular theory, anyway. Which wouldn't be impossible, it and the Keaton Mask from Majora's Mask look quite similar, so there may be some connection there. But maybe that's just coincidence. Despite it looking mammalian, it looks like it has an exoskeleton.

I do like the idea that it just sleeps most of the time and teleports away when it senses danger. Which would be a sensible defense mechanism for something with psychic powers.

064: Kadabra

Kadabra's quite a cool, psychic monster. The star on its forehead seems like a bit of an out of place detail, but whatever. Its a simple color scheme that the red adds a nice little splash to. I like it. I also liked the "sleeping psychic" aspect of Abra that sadly Kadabra doesn't develop on. But all that said, I can't deny Kadabra's just cool-looking.

Kadabra's actually based on a specific magician, its Japanese name being named after Uri Geller in Japan, who claimed to be able to bend spoons with his mind. This has gotten Gamefreak in quite a bit of trouble though, as Geller wasn't too pleased with how he was depicted in the Pokemon world, calling it an evil, occult character, and attempted to sue. Which is why Kadabra's not been in the TCG since Gen 3, with them trying to avoid that controversy again. Until recently, that is! He's apparently had a change of heart and has allowed Kadabra to be featured in media once more.

065: Alakazam

I think Kadabra was too fast an escalation from Abra, because then when it came to evolving Kadabra to Alakazam, there was already a lot there for it to build off of. Because honestly, Alakazam actually detracts A LOT of Kadabra's cool bits. All the red is gone, its huge tail disappears, but I suppose it traded those in for a cooler-shaped head... And another spoon. Worth? Mayhaps this detraction of details is meant to mirror primates eventually becoming homo sapiens, seeing as one of Alakazam's biggest consistent notes in the series is that it's a Pokemon with a really high IQ.

The resemblance to a fox are for the most part gone as well, which is what makes me doubt the similarities in the first two were there for that purpose. A secondary theory is that the line is based on goats. Which, it's funny they say that, with that upside-down star-shaped head of theirs, which turns out, has similarities to the Sigil of Baphomet.

And if you weren't there for the Pokemon Fever in the 90s, THAT didn't blow over very well in the US of A. I don't think there's any denying the resemblance to the pentagram there. Is it on purpose? Maybe by accident, but the evengelical types sure love dogpiling the latest things popular with children to explain why they're trying to indoctrinate children into satanic cults. Star Wars was satanic because "The Force" functioned vaguely like magic. Dungeons and Dragons was Satanic cause you fought demons in it (??????????). Yu-Gi-Oh was Satanic cause, I mean.

I'm one of the fortunate ones that had a fairly Christian family growing up and didn't buy into any of that guff, thankfully. Let it say something about these goobers when my Grandmother is VERY Christian and called these people idiots. You go, Grandma. But tragically, I wouldn't be surprised if this demonizing has lead to some kids not being permitted to enjoy Pokemon. And especially as an adult, even past all the weirdly specific reads like "There's a fire, earth, and water element, therefore witchcraft." Things tend to get labeled demonic not for promoting cult mentality, but for demons simply existing in said piece of media. Which in that regard, wouldn't The Bible be "demonic" for talking about Satan a bunch?

...And it honestly IS just nothing more than that group of people getting mad that something out of their control is a hit with kids and their feeble attempts to shoot it down. Pokemon blew up with these demonic accusations back during the first Pokemon blow-up, but a little over a decade later we got a literal Poke-God that didn't so much as raise an eyebrow. Then again, some of them were convinced the Pokemon Go app was actually manifesting these "Pokemon demons" in the real world, so what do I know.

Anyway, we were talking about Alakazam...

Mega Alakazam

I got mixed feelings about this Mega. Mega Alakazam fixes my problems with regular Alakazam, but only a little bit. The extra spoons may or may not be a bit much. I like the beard, making it look like an old wizard. Something about Mega Alakazam doesn't look as good though. I assume it's the new head shape, which looks a little too depthless to me. But now that Sun and Moon gave us Pokedex entries for Mega Evolutions, and telling us that ALL of its energy is put into its psychic powers, and how none of its muscles have the strength to keep the thing standing. That's pretty metal.

Personal Score: 7.5/10

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