953: Rellor

A dung beetle feels like it's been a long time coming, and Rellor is a serviceable enough representation of one! It's funny how Rellor is the odd one out this generation in being the one with the incorrect number of limbs between it, Nymble, and Tarountula.

Its design itself has some clever little tricks though. Of course, it has the ball that it rolls around, and it's a Pokemon that stands upside-down most of the time. And as such, it gets a face that looks like a face no matter if you look at it right-side up or upside-down, with its "lip" and unibrow looking interchangeable.

The pink face and blobby schnoz feels like an odd choice for an arthropod, but we suppose the joke is that the Pokemon that rolls around shit all day has a big nose to whiff it with. And speaking of feces, its belly pattern even looks like a cartoony pile of poo while upside-down! It's also funny to see so many dung beetle Fakemon incorporate the spiked head as a mustache, but here the official one makes some Bart Simpson hair out of it.

We also like this animation touch where it climbs on top of its ball to look around. Real dung beetles do that too! Dung beetles actually have a pretty fantastic sense of direction, even using the sun to help them find their way to the point where you can actually confuse the hell out of a dung beetle if you reflect the sun off of a mirror.

Solid Pokemon all around! Except why isn't it Bug/Poison type? SURELY a Pokemon with a dungball would be Poison ty--

Oh BOOOOO!!! COWARDLY!!!!! It's just a mud ball???? C'MON guys!!!! You can have Pokedex entries that allude to things like blood-sucking, suffocation, and human abduction but we can't so much as imply Rellor here collects Donphan poop?

Ponder the orb.

954: Rabsca

We guess it would've been for naught anyway, with Rellor turning into the Bug/Psychic Rabsca. It definitely plays more into the mysticism that surrounds scarab beetles, since they're symbols of rebirth and giving new life in Egyptian mythology. This is even represented by this Pokemon being the other, way cooler user of the move Revival Blessing.

The rebirth theming doesn't just end there, though. The Pokedex states that Rabsca itself barely moves, leading the Pokedex to suggest that its true self is inside the big ball it holds up in the air. Though the opposite Pokedex entry just says that an infant sleeps inside the ball as Rabsca cradles the ball gently with its legs to keep it asleep. You can even see something slightly resembling a grub inside the ball when it lights up! This is another "true to real life" case with dung beetles, as the whole reason they go around playing Poo Patrol is because they lay their eggs inside their dung balls, as the dung is a food source for baby dung beetles.

This definitely plays up Rabsca's weird-factor, but we think what does it is the oddly pink, bubbly, and organ-like "dung" ball that it carries around. Like, with it holding its baby inside that thing, does that make this a Pokemon that actually alludes to a womb, of all things?!

Rabsca itself is also plenty cool. It becomes a metallic solid color throughout, which definitely solidifies it as scarab beetle-shaped jewelry. Though some species of scarab beetles do actually have a metallic sheen to them! Though what we like most about this design is the oversized mustache. Rabsca still only has four legs, but the way the big mustache is posed looks like another pair of insectoid legs!