Let's Talk About Pokemon - The Oddish Family

043 - Oddish

Oddish almost feels like it's meant to be a mascot for the Grass type even more than Bulbasaur is, with it being even more of what a sort of simple "plant elemental" monster looks like. Almost built like a plant with a big, bulbous root like a radish, it has a simple fan of leaves on its head, underneath it being the actual body of the Pokemon, which is little more than just a head with two feet. At the same time, its Yellow entry also mentions that if you pull it out of the ground, it begins shrieking loudly, very much implying this is Pokemon's answer to a mandrake.

The Pokedex also mentions that it is a "nocturnal" plant that's more active in the moonlight than it is daylight, which is in and of itself an interesting concept for a fantasy plant critter. Me bringing all this up because I do kinda wish these various concepts where present on a more visually interesting Pokemon. It's very much a Pokemon that begins a trend that a lot of Pokemon going forward have a riff on, where Oddish here is the basic first-stage of a Grass line and all said future Pokemon will be copying a bit of homework from. The only real point of intrigue Oddish itself as, though, are the bright red eyes on an otherwise unassuming body.

Personal Score: 6/10

044 - Gloom

Gloom, thankfully, dials up the intrigue quite a few notches. Its body plan is largely the same, but the leaves have turned an autumny red-brown, looking a bit wilted, and also it now has a flower atop its head, one that, even in its more abstract form, resembles the rafflesia flower a whole lot more than Venusaur's flower does, just with bulb-shaped petals.

But the good details keep piling on with the way it wears an adorably dreary expression, with a kinda sleepy-look to its eyes along with a mouth that's perpetually drooling. It's also a Pokemon that wears being a Grass/Poison type better than the Bulbasaur line does, honestly, with its basis as a rafflesia flower being further referenced with the way the Pokemon is said to smell really, really bad, much in the same way a rafflesia smells like a rotting corpse to attract insects.

And all this plus that drool that Gloom perpetually dribbles is also a type of nectar that it uses to attract "prey", whatever that may be in this context. But the mere suggestion that this old-looking, wilted plant monster gets sustenance off of animals is a funny, cool little detail about the line. What bumps it up to more than just base-line "interesting"! That and it's, in general, such a rarity among Grass Pokemon, even to this day, to be a visibly older and decaying plant, a look that's only ever been matched by Bramblin come almost 30 years later. Gloom's underrated, I think! It's creepy and unique in a lot of ways!

Personal Score: 8.5/10

045 - Vileplume

Which, you can maybe tell by the separate score that I'm not nearly as impressed with Vileplume, sadly. It's at least got more going on to it than Oddish does, but it does also have a lot less going on than Gloom. In a way that's surprising, given a vast majority of Pokemon up the "ante" with a design with the addition of details rather than the subtraction, right?

Either way, the plant on its head is a lot more obviously a rafflesia, though, Vileplume's dex entries are less concerned with the stink of the original flower and care more about making it spread a poisonous pollen that triggers intense allergic reactions. Which, I dunno. It feels like details like that are on just about any poisonous plant monster. It just doesn't seem interested in being a rafflesia necessarily, which is a big shame, since it's one of the cooler, more unique plants out there. Unless maybe we're to read that the line gets the real life plant's parasitic properties from being a creature that just has a plant growing out of its head, though nothing in the dex that I see suggests this.

That said, sure, its face is a little creepy. Missing a lot of the charm of Gloom, but creepy. I LIKE it more than Oddish at least, but I'm still a bit bitter on it for being one of those final stages that just ditch almost everything I liked about the Pokemon that leads to it.

Personal Score: 7/10

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