You ready to pucker up for the Bradster?

316: Gulpin

These two have always felt a bit like unsung icons of Gen 3. Gulpin just kind of encapsulates the vibe of Gen 3: awkward, weird, and hard to dislike. Gulpin is yet another fairly abstract Pokemon, not really having a pin on being any animal in particular, but rather a Pokemon based on the idea of a stomach.

Categorized as a "Stomach Pokemon", Gulpin is just some odd, stretchy creature whose body is mostly its stomach and mouth, possibly even being one in the same. Because of this, it's one of the more interesting applications of the Poison type! Rather than being based on any venom or pollutant, it's based on acidic stomach acid!

Gulpin itself is simply adorable though. The sleepy expression and puckered lips hiding just how wide its mouth can get is fun. And the odd antenna is a nice feature too, just to keep Gulpin from being a little bit not-there in design. That said, could take or leave the big black diamond on its back.

Is it the mustache? Who knows...

317: Swalot

Swalot may not be as charming as Gulpin, but there's still plenty neat to it! Where Gulpin's elastic mouth definitely feels like it's meant to be a source of comedy, for Swalot it feels more like it's meant to be creepy.

This thing largely does the same puckered-lips-hide-a-huge-mouth thing, but the sheer size of that mouth suddenly becomes unnerving. Feels like it might just be based on how certain fish have deceptively huge mouths that they can gulp prey whole with. Perhaps a touch of catfish? It does have whiskers, after all! Maybe odd to have two catfish-inspired Pokemon in one Gen, but Swalot's detached enough.

The only thing about the design still not doing it for us are those black diamonds that feel like you could peel them off like stickers. They're clearly there so Swalot isn't just almost a single, solid color all over, but there's more graceful ways to divide up a design.