Pros: Cute, simple, charming thematic

311: Plusle

Thus the trend of having a Pika-clone per generation is more formally introduced. And it stinks that one of the coolest ideas in the series kinda goes to waste pretty consistently. The idea that the Pokemon world has a "genus" of rodents with electrically charged cheek pouches is really cool, and honestly, something we wish was done more in the series. The closest thing otherwise is how Charizard and Magmar share the flaming tail feature. But alas, this isn't done nearly often enough to feel like it's on purpose.

Anywho, as you can guess from the tangent, Plusle isn't too terribly interesting. It's sort of just a smaller Pikachu with plus signs on it.

Cons: Unoriginal, boring, derivative

312: Minun

And Minun here is largely the same, just blue and with minus signs instead. The idea between the two is that of a positive and negative charge, which is cute enough. There's also something of a cheerleading theme going on, with them being portrayed with electric pom poms sometimes, and the move they're most known for being Helping Hand, as well as having the "Plus" and "Minus" abilities, boosting each other in battle. Yeah, they're Pokemon here to flaunt the new Double Battle format they just introduced.

The two are cute but there definitely could be more to them. Most notably, their lack of an evolved form is really lame, Pikachu had Raichu, y'know! It also feels like Minun could've used a more downer personality to go with the "Negative" thing. Not as in make it depressed or anything, but having it look like an emo kid a bit to contrast with Plusle being a beaming ray of positivity would've made them a more fun pair. Instead, they're sorta just clones of each other.