What?

349: Feebas

Another favorite trend of ours in Pokemon that's a little trickier to pin down AS a trend is the pathetic, unassuming Pokemon that evolve into much stronger creatures, much like Magikarp into Gyarados. Feebas feels like the only direct call-out to this, obviously being a weird little basic fish that doesn't look like much. Feebas is a rare Pokemon that's actually referred to in-universe as being generally unappealing. People in the Pokemon universe hang out with sentient magnet balls or piles of sludge like they're common house pets, but a ragged, brown little fish with deep eye sockets? Apparently crossing the line!

Feebas is mostly known for its frankly obscene rarity, especially in the first game it was introduced in, with it only appearing on a few randomized but specific tiles of water on one particular route that you have to fish for, and even then it's not guaranteed. And even then, evolving it was a mess of making the perfect Pokeblocks of a specific type and feeding them to Feebas until you maxed out its beauty stat.

You're the one who sets the bar,

The hairdo king, the Fashion Tzar!

You're fabulous! (I'm fabulous!) You're fabulous! (Oh, I'm fabulous!)

350: Milotic

Under these extremely specific circumstances, your reward is Milotic. Feebas' shtick is that it evolves from one of the most unattractive Pokemon to a Pokemon most well known for its beauty. A "be careful who you call ugly in middle school" type of deal. It's a sentiment we honestly feel is a bit banal, seeing as the premise is that whether you're conventionally attractive or not is a fair judgment of your character as a person.

BUT, also there's transgender undertones here, with Feebas just feeling unpleasant, being a one-in-a-few-hundred kind of encounter, and basically taking hormones until it becomes beautiful and ultra-powerful. Yeah, let's read it like that! This thing's practically a bigger trans icon than Sylveon!

In all seriousness, we think it helps that the contrast between Feebas and Milotic, while huge, isn't SO big that it just comes off as a boring formality to have the "ugly thing turns beautiful" angle. Feebas's ugliness isn't so exaggerated past the point of looking like a regular cartoon fish, so it doesn't feel like an insult. Does that make sense? Maybe?

Milotic is a very cool sea serpent, with a rather simplistic front end where the yellowy skin and red bits complement each other pretty nicely. Especially as you move further down and see the stained-glass-like pattern it has along its mermaid tail, with the blue, red, and black looking VERY cool together. The feathered tailfin is a neat look too! Milotic's face also has a nice mix of pretty and menace, with rather clean and simplistic features contrasted with the bright red eyes and angry expression.

What really sells Milotic as an excellent design is how it's still so monstrous despite being a creature known for its beauty. It very easily could've gone far too humanoid and far too obviously feminine which would've very much made the beauty angle feel a bit patronizing. It has some "hair" but that's about it, really. Its beauty isn't something to undermine the fact that it's a cool creature you can collect and train.

But a feature we find eye-catching about it is how it has holes down its neck for gills. A trait shared with LAMPREYS of all things! This beauty pageant Pokemon is part lamprey and that's just hilarious. The one thing that would've made it better would be if it had the sucker mouth like a lamprey, but sadly it has a store brand variety mouth. Milotic is still a perfect design, just that this would've made it perfecter.