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280: Ralts

Now to begin on one of the most infamous lines in Pokemon history, but Ralts is an innocent child, so we won't get into that here. Ralts here is a nice design and seemingly meant to be this generation's response to the Abra line; a Psychic type that's obscenely hard to catch and its most notable move is teleport. Thankfully the Gen 6 type retcon came around to give the line Fairy so that it was a little differentiated. At least, if not, outright better.

Ralts has an overall adorable vibe, with a nerdy little "bowl cut" and body that looks a bit like robes. Still to this day we don't know what's up with this line's red bits. Obviously as a design feature they're there to be an accent splash of red for a little extra color, but what it's even made out of is a mystery.

Ralts' lore shtick is that it can sense the emotions of humans, and tries to avoid confrontation because of its emotionally sensitive nature. And yeah, we can read that as making sense for its design! It just looks the part of a shy lil kid.

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281: Kirlia

Kirlia introduces a dancing angle to the line, with the robe fanning out into more of a skirt shape and it standing on what appears to be its tippy-toes. A little left-field considering Ralts' more reserved design, as opposed to Kirlia that goes all ballet dancer, but sure, suppose we can just say Kirlia got over its shyness. It's here that the things on its head look more overtly like "horns", so mayhaps they're just bone? Does the Ralts line have red skeletons? That's pretty metal if you ask us.

Personal Score: 8.5/10

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282: Gardevoir

Well, we know we've been a little bit on the contrarian side with certain Pokemon, as not-likers of fan favorites like Charizard or Lucario, so maybe reasonable to expect us to tear into this one and why it's terrible ass garbage. Though, if you do know us you probably also know we do unironically like Gardevoir a lot.

Of course, Gardevoir is a Pokemon notorious for... THAT particular corner of the fandom. A corner of the fandom that we can't help but wonder are even Pokemon fans at all or just see the pretty, vaguely monster-esque babe and can't help themselves. Either way, it's a Pokemon loads of people faun over for totally different reasons than your usual fan favorites in a way that's hard to ignore when discussing Gardevoir.

All that said though, yeah, Gardevoir is a pretty great design. Gardevoir is the "Embrace" Pokemon, supposedly making it very devoted and loyal to its trainer, I guess moreso than Pokemon already are or something. That does have the possibility of teetering onto that "weird" edge, with Gardevoir being so human-like, but sure whatever. It's even said to be able to read the future and will protect its trainer from any impending danger, thus confirming every Gardevoir has their own Monado. Though their devotion even means potentially risking their life too. Dang Pokemon, don't need to get so dark-but-wholesome!

It's also curious that the "horns" moved down into its chest, does it still serve psychic-amplifying power? Its it meant to denote that its psychic power is an extension of its "heart" or whatever? Who knows! Though we do wonder if it's on purpose that it looks a bit like a heart folded in half now.

Though arguably the most interesting tidbit about it is its Japanese name, "Sirknight". Making it rather spelled out that this this is... based on knights of all things? Well that must be where the undying devotion and protective instinct comes from! It's really interesting to get a "knight" Pokemon that almost looks nothing like a knight, and rather takes the idea or fantasy of a knight who will protect someone at all costs and translate that into a creature that defends their human master because of a strong emotional bond.

And also yes, we're gonna praise this here because this is, annoyingly, a rarity in Pokemon. Even once Gen 2 invented gender in Pokemon, they didn't hesitate to make the lines that follow human gender conventions into gender-exclusive Pokemon, including 'mons like Tauros, Miltank, the Hitmons, and Jynx. And even since then, any Pokemon that is vaguely "pretty" looking ends up 100% female and most Pokemon that are overtly masculine are 100% male.

Gardevoir breaks this mold with a sweet, sweet 50/50 split on the gender, and honestly? Thank fuck! We've always found gendering what are supposed to be wild animals by very human gender conventions very tedious, boring, and unimaginative. Like we legitimately don't understand why the idea that gender is something formed almost solely by a human understanding of self-expression is such a difficult thing to grasp when it's very rare that animals ever abide by this "natural order" people love to claim so much. You'd swear most people would think male peacocks were female because they're the "pretty" ones. Animals don't know what gender is!!! They just think procreation is cool!!!!!!! Fuck!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Mega Gardevoir:

Ahem, anyway, yeah Gardevoir got a Mega and it's a pretty nice one. Not so much a fan of how it's seemingly gotten even thinner than it already was, but the wedding gown thing is nice. It's cool to get a Mega that doesn't just go overboard. Could be a little more battle ballgown but sure, that's probably a very difficult look to execute in Pokemon.