968: Orthworm

Gen 9 is just KNOCKING it out of the park with representing animals we've wanted for so long in Pokemon! Onix was the closest stand-in we had for a while, but it was almost always called a "snake", but now we have a truly, unambiguously earthworm Pokemon!

And what an ADORABLE one! It's the fairly obvious shape of an earthworm, but featuring a caterpillar-like segmented body, each segment looking a bit like a train car, with little blue spots along its body looking like windows. They even turn the clitellum, the smooth segment of an earthworm, into something resembling the "head car" of a train. With Orthworm being an underground burrower, that makes Orthworm a subway train! What a mild stroke of genius that is!

Its anatomy doesn't end there. As part of the head car, the three blue spots along it actually house some additional little legs or "arms"! It's seemingly not a feature taken off of any annelid in particular, but it's definitely one that befits the phylum, bringing to mind various inflatable, weird organs on a number of worm or worm-like creatures, like the swallowtail caterpillar.

We just wish it wasn't smooth down almost all of its body. Its head and tail have little metallic ridges to hit at the segmented earthworm body, but that doesn't continue onto the rest of its back for some reason? Just a rare moment of a Pokemon feeling a little underdetailed.

It's also, surprisingly, mono Steel type, with no Ground typing in sight. Our idea for an earthworm Pokemon would of course be a Ground type with Dry Skin to give it that healing upon being hit with water and being in the rain, and taking extra damage from fire and bright sunlight that befits a worm so well. Instead they went the opposite, giving Orthworm the ability "Earth Eater", which heals it whenever it would've taken damage from a Ground move. It would've been neat to get another Bronzong situation where you get to pick what your Orthworm's immunity is, but hey. A mono-Steel type at least takes extra damage from Fire moves. It still works! Though it feels like it still aughta be Steel/Ground or Steel/Bug. The latter would've made its only weakness be Fire, but be extra allergic to it.

Our one big umbrage with the thing is its size. You first encounter this 'mon as one of the Titan Pokemon bosses, portraying it as a HUGE worm, around the size Onix is usually depicted as. But then you find a normal wild one and it's...

...Really underwhelming? I mean, MASSIVE for a worm, obviously, but. C'mon! We could've had a giant worm fella! Oh well, hard to complain with this cutie, either way.