Time to get the old creative writing juices flowing again...

Charmander. Totodile. Treecko. Piplup. Snivy. What do these Pokemon have in common? They're all based on animals, they all have elemental powers, and they all evolve twice, once in their teens, and once in their thirties. These five Pokemon have one more thing in common. They are available to Trainers beginning their journey as a "Starter Pokemon". Each of the five Pokemon I listed comes from one of the five existing generations of Pokemon games. Charmander, along with Bulbasaur and Squirtle, round out the Generation I games (don't mention Yellow version and no one gets hurt). Totodile, Chikorita, and Cyndaquil are the starters from Gen II games. Treecko, Torchic, and Mudkip round out Generation III. Piplup, Turtwig, and Chimchar are the Gen IV starters, and last but not least Snivy, Oshawott, and Tepig are the newest installment in the long list of starter Pokemon, making their debut in Gen V.

The fifteen starter Pokemon and their evolutions

These fifteen Pokemon follow a very popular Fire-Water-Grass core, where each starter Pokemon is strong against and weak against one of the others. Kind of like rock-paper-scissors, but with less definite results and more explosions and bloodshed.
Competitively, starter Pokemon have always been decent, but rarely have they been game changing. Blastoise and Meganium were bulky but not incredibly so, Feraligatr and Sceptile hit hard but not that hard, and most of the starters, like Venusaur and Samorott, walk a fine line of averageness. They can do a lot of different things, and well too, but they don't excel at anything. It is this dedicated averageness that makes starters so damn versatile; even a six year old with only rudimentary reading skills can beat the game with a Charizard, while many other Pokemon cater to more specific strategies.
This has been both a blessing and a curse to starter Pokemon. A blessing because it is a rare find indeed to find a player whose team does not contain his or her starter in-game. However, this omnipresence all but evaporates during the switch to competitive battling. Very few starter Pokemon have a truly solid standing on the competitive scene, often falling back into the lower tiers where their averageness is slightly better than everything else's averageness. Only a few starters have risen above this handicap to become true contenders on the competitive scene, Swampert and Infernape, and more recently, Blaziken.
Starters often hold a soft spot in their Trainer's heart. They are the first Pokemon received, are often the most powerful Pokemon on a team, and players often form string emotional bonds with their starters. My very first Pokemon in any game ever was my bro Totodylan the Totodile (I know, I know, I didn't play Gen I until after I played Gen II, call up the angry mob). He was one of only a very small handful of Pokemon I ever bothered to level up all the way to 100. He wasn't the strongest Pokemon I've ever had, not even the strongest Totodile. But he will always be remembered for the mind numbing addiction that he instilled in me.

Bros for life

My favorite Pokemon of all time is another starter Pokemon, from the land of Hoenn. As my name might indicate, I am a huge fan of Treecko, the Wood Gecko Pokemon. Treecko has an attitude that went unmatched in the Pokemon world for two generations. With the introduction of Gen V, Treecko's smugness may finally have met its match, in a Pokemon so smug that his nickname before his English name was released was actually Smugleaf. That's right. Smugleaf. This cocky sunofabitch is so arrogant, you feel bad telling him to do things because you can just tell it's killing him to take orders from someone so inferior as you. Still, Treecko's level of not giving two cents is pretty epic in its own regard. This is a Pokemon that performs its "Haters Gonna Hate" walk on the ceiling, for Christ's sake. As if that wasn't enough, he turns into Sceptile, arguably the best Pokemon to ever be cursed with the pure-Grass typing. Lightening fast and strong enough on the special side to reduce most Pokemon to bleeding lumps of mush, Sceptile has more BA points than James Bond. Yeah, I said it. Come at me bro.
So riddle me this, what's your favorite starter Pokemon? Is there a reason? Or do you just leik Mudkipz? Do you remember your very first starter? Tell me about it. I'm dying in anticipation... but seriously tell me!

Everyone's favorite little hairball.

This was a post from my original blog, which I drag over here to let people who didn't see it before get a chance to look at it.


I want to set something straight here: I greatly dislike Pikachu. I think Pikachu is an overrated, over-hyped Pokemon that doesn't deserve the throne it has been placed upon. Gross personal bias aside, I still think Pikachu is a terrible Pokemon that is worth roughly two Pidgey turds and a regurgitated HootHoot pellet. Okay, maybe I haven't put the bias away yet. Anyways, here we go...

What about this is cute?

     Pikachu, the Mouse Pokemon. 1'4" of pure adorableness and... wait a minute, this thing is only barely cute by Pokemon standards. If you want a cute Pokemon, there's always Jigglypuff, Clefairy, even Sandshrew has more charm than the original Pikachu artwork. In recent years, Pikachu has been slimmed down and given a more humanistic appearance, but this doesn't excuse the fact that Nintendo picked a seemingly arbitrary Pokemon to lead their blooming franchise. So let's assume for a minute that Pikachu wasn't settled upon for its good looks. Maybe someone had the bright idea that if they picked a weak Pokemon, it would be all the more memorable when it won. Okay, Nintendo, I'll play along, but what about the other inexcusably weak Pokemon that could have fit this role equally well, if not better? Why couldn't Clefairy, which is inarguably cuter, or one of the Nidorans, which have more potential for growth and development, have been the mascot? If they wanted a fluffy mascot to make little girls squeal with delight, Pikachu was NOT it. If they wanted to make an underdog mascot who rose into magnificent glory, Pikachu was NOT it. Even now, over a decade later (though apparently people don't age in anime, because Ash still looks ambiguously young), Pikachu is still defeated by weak and inexperienced opponents. The thing has to be level 100 by now, right? I'm sure someone, somewhere, has tracked all the experience Pikachu has earned and knows exactly when it did hit level 100, but I am not that person. The point is, Ash is on his fifth region now, and Pikachu has been a core member of his team in literally every important battle he's had. Does anyone else find this a little boring? I love the variety of Pokemon Ash had had over the years, from the violent Primeape to the woefully inept Gible. What does Pikachu bring to the table? Thunderbolt, Iron Tail, Quick Attack, and Volt Tackle (which, by the way, it learned, not as an egg move, but by sheer luck). Volt Tackle is interesting but no more so than Quick Attack, which half of Ash's Pokemon seem to know at any given time. Iron Tail was taught to Pikachu in the anime's version of TMs, meaning that literallyanything with a tail could have learned it. Thunderbolt has been Pikachus go-to attack since episode one, and frankly, with over six hundred episodes between then and now, it's lost the charm it once had. Okay, so Pikachu's moveset is a little shallow, you say? Okay, let's spice it up... but that's when it hits you. Pikachu doesn't learn anything else. Those four moves are about as good as the anime is going to get, and frankly, it's boring. Nintendo should have abandoned ship right after the Johto arch, when Ash dumped the rest of his "friends" and decided he was too good to be seen in their company.

I must admit, this still made me smile.
  At this point in Pokemon's history, it seems that Pikachu is literally wasting a spot in Ash's team. It brings nothing new to the table, doesn't ever change, and seems to stick around just for the sake of "Well, Ash has a Pikachu, hurrdurr". Give it a rest, Nintendo. Or, better yet, give it a Thunderstone.

Pokemon is a registered trademark of Nintendo, Gamefreak, and so on and so forth...

Why hello, did you miss me?

Hello, my trusted minions,
You may or may not have read my previous blog posts at sweepingtrecko.blogspot.com. As it is, when my school's emailing system changed format in August, I was forcibly ejected from my old account on here. After months of sulking, I'm back and better than ever! I plan on updating this as frequently as my sometimes very hectic schedule allows, so check back in frequently. For those of you who haven't read my blogs before, the following is the first post from my previous blog, word for word. Expect all following blogs to be composed in such a style. Enjoy:


     Have you ever had a hobby? If no, what a sad, boring life you must lead. If, and this is probably more likely, you have had a hobby, then I have a follow-up question: has that hobby ever transcended the bounds of a hobby and become more of a way of life? If yes, and that hobby is something slightly more interesting than stamp-collecting, then you will know exactly what I mean when I say that Pokemon has become that hobby for me. The subtle nuances, the ever expanding variety of critters, and even the never-ending quest to catch 'em all (well, I suppose it would end, if I ever bothered to finish) keep me playing the games for more hours than I'd care to admit.

Seriously, who's idea of a wild animal was this?

     In this blog, I will explore the various creatures called Pokemon, as well as the world that surrounds them. Why aren't there any starter Pokemon anywhere but in the labs of crackpot researchers who entrust fire-breathing dragons, giant metal penguins, and floral dinosaurs to ten to fourteen year old children? Why doesn't Hitmonlee have a mouth? And who at GameFreak thought Vanilluxe was a clever idea?

     If anyone thinks they have a good idea for a blog, leave it in a comment, send me a message, or write it on a message in a bottle and throw it out to sea in the hopes that it washes up here on the Maine coast for me to find. I will do my best to at least address each idea, even if I don't necessarily write an entire blog about it. Who knows, you might give me my next 

big idea!

     For my first real blog (I don't think this should count, rather like the prologue isn't really the first chapter in a book, or that notice to shut off your cellphone isn't the start of a movie), I'll start on the world's most iconic Pokemon, one that can be recognized by people who don't even know what Pokemon is about. Stay tuned for my ramblings on the one, the only, Pikachu.