#007 - Squirtle

SQUIRTLE

IN SHOW

135 episodes. That was how long Squirtle was a member of Ash’s pokemon team. He is the only one of the trio that actually ever left Ash (Bulbasaur takes care of the other pokemon with Prof. Oak and Charizard is training) and that deserves some credit. Squirtle was originally a member of the Squirtle Squad a gang of Squirtles who wore cool sunglasses and terrorized a small town. Why it never occurred to any of these people to catch the Squirtle I’ll never know. But what I do know is that I probably wasn’t the only one to be broken hearted when Squirtle left Ash to be leader of his old group, who are now firefighters. So he may not be with Ash, but he’s saving the world. Like a boss.

Also, you know how when Ash turned his hat shit was going down? Same thing with Squirtle. Only he’d pull out his shades and you KNEW someone was gonna get it.

WHY YOU WANT A SQUIRTLE

Squirtle could kill Brock. There was no question. You only needed to train a few levels and Brock would go down like a pebble you threw in a lake. Yea, that was terrible but it needed to be done because when you chose Squirtle you would not need another pokemon except for Pikachu, and that was only so that you could beat Misty just a little bit easier. Squirtle was going to survive for those two gyms, and that was probably the thing that mattered the most to many potential trainers. Based purely on the first gym Squirtle was the best choice.

WHY YOU DO NOT WANT A SQUIRTLE

Squirtle’s game picture was cute. In a sort of...idiot doesn’t know any better sort of way. The Squirtle they presented to you did not have the potential to wear shades. It just would’ve looked dumb. Everyone wanted their Squirtle to wear shades. This one could not.

IN SUMMARY

For the part of the game Squirtle was in, he rocked. He rocked in the show too. It sucked that he couldn’t live up to the massive personality he was given in the show, but he could definitely hold his own when it was required of him. And trust me, for the first gym battle it was required of him. It could be the difference between giving up and starting again or actually being able to progress through to the end of the game.

#006 - Charizard

CHARIZARD

IN SHOW

I could write a novel about all the adventures Ash and his Charizard have been in, but I won’t. We each have our private favourite episodes of the pair, so I’ll just capture what I deem to be the most important. The first thing is, man, we all HATED Charizard when he evolved. He saved Ash and we thought, great! No more Charmeleon, life is going back to the way it should be. We were wrong. It was 59 episodes before we would ever like Charizard or trust the creators of pokemon with our hearts. Why had they made us love Charmander so much only to make him into such an ass for the remainder of his life?

Then the worst happened, an ice beam froze Charizard and many thought that this was the end. Charizard was gonna die and we could get a better Charmander who wouldn’t destroy our hopes and things would go back to normal. But Ash saved Charizard’s life and they have been best friends ever since. Whenever Ash is in a pinch he can call on Charizard. They’ve flown together. They’ve beaten the toughest trainers. And they showed us that friendship needs dedication and trust more than anything else. Plus, Charizard is Ash’s strongest pokemon and that’s cool too.

WHY YOU WANT A CHARIZARD

Many would look at that statement and respond with ‘Why WOULDN’T I?’ I’ll get to that in a bit, so be patient. Charizard can Fly, Cut and move boulders around with Strength. He’s an HM whore, and we loved it. Though people only ever taught him Fly and Strength because who ever uses Cut and we needed those two extra slots for Flame Thrower and Fire Spin. Yes, in Red and Blue he sort of looked like a Dragonite, but at least he looked better then that awful Charmeleon and he looked amazing in Yellow.

WHY YOU DO NOT WANT A CHARIZARD

Unfortunately for Charizard, as gym battles wear on we eventually move to the Elite 4 where no pokemon trainer is safe. We had gone through the whole game believing nothing could beat fire, except water, so for the first member of the Elite 4 we were stoked. Ice! How simple is that? We know what happens when you put a flame near an ice cube. According to the first generation of pokemon games, it melts and turns to water which puts out your flame. Because yes, your Charizard, the pokemon whose level you maxed and who you suffered through Charmeleon for, was defeated by the programmers making Ice strong against Fire. Against all logic. Even in grade school we could see the problem with this.

IN SUMMARY

The show taught us to believe in the power of Charizard. That he may be down, but he is never out. The game built him up by making him one of the most useful pokemon to ever exist. And then Lorelei took it all away with her Water/Ice combination. And we had put Charizard out front and everything because we expected the game to make some semblance of sense. Ice is not stronger than Fire. Maybe it was revenge for our awesome looking Charizard.

#005 - Charmeleon

CHARMELEON

IN SHOW

Charmander took some time to evolve, about 32 episodes, and by that time we had gotten pretty attached to the little guy. He’d beaten up Team Rocket multiple times, been a fast and loyal friend, and had even had some hilarious moments like helping Ash show that he is magic. We did not have a chance to appreciate Charmeleon as he evolved 3 episodes after his first appearance, but we didn’t want to. He was ungainly, mean, and not the sweet little thing we’d come to know and love. Was he suffering teenage angst? Was he rebelling because of the pain his original trainer had caused him? Was he jealous of Pikachu? Did he just think he was better than us?
It didn’t matter because of he was only a star for a short time, but we really sort of hoped for more.

WHY YOU WANT A CHARMELEON
Having a Charmeleon meant you were one step closer to that Charizard. Plus, because of how early Charmander would evolve because of the hard work we had to put in so that we could beat the first two gym leaders we had a high level pokemon so that not a lot of trainers standing on the side of the road could beat him. Plus after Lt. Surge came the Grass Pokemon gym and everyone knew who to call when that happened. Charmeleon was a strong addition to any team, especially when it came time to crush Erika.

Japanese Charmeleon

Western Charmeleon

WHY YOU DO NOT WANT A CHARMELEON

Remember how I said that Charmander actually looked pretty good in game? Charmeleon ruined it. The Japanese version is laughable, but the one released in the West was NOT much better. You wanted to punch this pokemon in the face not because you didn’t love him but because he looked so smug and his face was already deformed enough so how could it hurt it? Also, Charmeleon is a fire type, right? So you’d think with your Charmander levelling up you’d learn some new fire type moves. Ivysaur learned some new grass moves, so Charmeleon should too. Well you’d be wrong. Charmeleon relied on TM’s and whatever you hopefully taught your Charmander. So if you deleted all your fire moves for moves of other types in the hopes that you’d get some better moves off of Charmeleon, you’d be dead wrong and that fight with Erika? Well that could be a wipe.

IN SUMMARY

It’s hard to find redeeming qualities for Charmeleon. He didn’t get enough face time on the show to leave an impression that would get redeem his failures in the game, and he has some pretty big ones. Yes, he has his good qualities, but Charmander has the exact same ones so you might as well keep your Charmander until you’re only two levels away from Charizard so you only have one level of that terrible Charmeleon picture looking at you.

#004 - Charmander

CHARMANDER

IN SHOW

In the show Charmander made his first appearance as a sad little thing sitting on a rock in the rain. Ash, Misty and Brock took pity on it and tried to save it but the poor thing wouldn’t budge. Giving up the group goes to a PokeCenter to overhear a jackass trainer talking about his weak Charmander and how he made it sit on a rock and is never going back for it, and then they talk to Nurse Joy and she tells them if Charmander’s flame goes out he will DIE. So the group goes back and saves him, he heals but runs away, the trainer decides he wants him back, Ash fights the trainer and Charmander goes with Ash to have many incredible adventures until he evolves into a Charmeleon.

And that’s what we loved about Charmander. He was insecure about his power, but unyielding in his loyalty to his trainer. His past actually affected his future in the series to a great extent, and the poor guy almost died in his very first appearance! Every boy wanted to make him burn stuff and every girl wanted to cuddle him.

REASONS WHY YOU WANT A CHARMANDER

Charmander was awesome in the games. His later evolution could learn to FLY and we all wanted that. He had the best character model out of the three starters, he looked intimidating, and like he could handle himself, which was a change from the normal character we were used to. One he got a few good moves he could completely obliterate and gym leader that he came across, and that first forest full of bugs? Once you got ember at level nine those bugs might as well have been dried up leaves for all the damage they would cause you.

REASONS WHY YOU DO NOT WANT A CHARMANDER

Brock and Misty. These were the FIRST TWO gym leaders and if you picked Charmander you better hope you had a good team for Brock and that you could find a Pikachu to deal with Misty because you were screwed otherwise. The reason so many Charmanders were higher level at lower gyms was because you had to bust your ass trying to beat these guys and your starter pokemon was always the strongest so they’re supposed to be your best bet against gym leaders. It did mean that for the first two gyms you’d have a much more balanced party but come on! Everyone wanted to power through the game relying on only their starter, like Ash, and this sucked!

IN SUMMARY

Most kids chose Charmander as their starter pokemon. There’s no denying it. He may have made life difficult in earlier stages of the game but later on you were destined to kick butt and take names. Your party tended to be more balanced because of the fact that you had to make tough choices in order to beat the first two gym leaders, and outside of those gym battles he was as good as gold. Charmander won our hearts in the television show and he would go on winning them in the video game. This is the reason why when you ask most 90’s kids what they’re favourite pokemon is they’re gonna respond with one of the evolutions from the Charmander line. Because this bad boy made the grade.

#003 - Venusaur

VENUSAUR

IN SHOW

May’s Bulbasaur evolved into a Venusaur. Honestly, that’s all I know about it on the show, because no other Venusaur appearance really stood out to me. Other then the giant Venusaur in the episode where Bulbasaur decided he didn’t want to evolve. It’s a pity to because I always thought Venusaur was really cool. I would like to point out though that May’s Bulbasaur was never shown as an Ivysaur which just proves my ‘Ivysaur isn’t important as an evolutionary stage’ theory, but maybe that’s just me.

REASONS WHY YOU WANT A VENUSAUR

I hate to sound like a broken record, and I know I will, but Venusaur is giant, bigger, better version of Bulbasaur that can also use solar beam. Solar beam is one of the most ICONIC moves in Pokemon history and it was designed purely for this pokemon. I mean the pokedex literally states ‘The plant blooms when it is absorbing solar energy. It stays on the move to seek sunlight.’ And the yellow version takes it one step further but talking about how it uses the energy it absorbs. In a beam. A solar beam.

REASONS WHY YOU DO NOT WANT A VENUSAUR

The problem with the first generation of pokemon games was that a lot of the pictures of the pokemon sucked, and one of the pokemon families that had it the worst was the Bulbasaur family and poor Venusaur was no exception. He looked better in Red and Blue then he ever would in the Japanese versions, but it wasn’t much better. Everything about that picture is wrong, poor guy he looks like what your grandfather might if he were a plant. He looks like he needs dentures. And then you might lose to a much better looking Charizard and how could the embarrassment levels get any higher?

IN SUMMARY

Venusaur the pokemon was badass. He was intimidating, as all three of the final evolutions of starters were, but he lost his power in the game as he looked like an old man trying to be scary. I’m sorry Grandpa, but it doesn’t matter how many times you jump out of the closet and say ‘Boo’ you are not as scary as you think you are. But you have to scream anyway and pretend to be impressed because otherwise you’ll hurt the poor thing’s feelings or he’ll leave you out of his will. But replace ‘will’ with ‘solar beam’ and ‘leave you out of it’ with ‘shoot you with a’ and that’s Venusaur. He deserved so much better.