974: Cetoddle
And because Gen 9 is absolutely not done spoiling us with new animals, Cetoddle here marks our first narwhal Pokemon! Cetoddle is a little baby narwhal, overall cartoon-cetacea in shape with exaggeratedly long flippers for arms and a tiny horn. But it also picks up a weirdly shaped mouth, that curves up into its actual face. This gives it such a unique face, despite otherwise being fairly conventionally cute.
Cetoddle is also NOT a sea animal, rather it has two legs to walk around on as if it were a land mammal. But on top of that, it also folts its arms and tail up to give it a spherical shape to roll around with. Cetoddle is far from a design we're super excited about, but it does what it does very competently.
975: Cetitan
Its evolution, Cetitan, is what really steals the show here. It actually diverts quite a bit from being strictly a narwhal, though still having several horns on its head to not lose the plot completely. It also seems to have a little bit of a "plane" thing going on, with it having outstretched arms like wings and a tailfin that resembles a plane's a bit.
Cetitan goes even harder on having a weird mouth, too. It's really fun how it looks pretty cool on the surface, but one opening of the maw and it's like. Oh god, what on earth is your lips? And those freaky teeth? Or, more likely, a whale's baleen. It's a Pokemon that doesn't shy away from showing off how creepy whale mouths can be, without just being a Wailmer and turning a whale's baleen into a simple toothy grin.
And if the name "Cetitan" being a match for "cetacea" wasn't enough, the Pokedex does go out of its way to refer to it as a "Terra Whale Pokemon", rather definitively calling it a land-dwelling cetacea. Which is somewhat true to real life! Sea mammals like dolphins and whales and all their cousins and nephews didn't just come straight from fish. They evolved into land mammals, before moving back into the ocean and developing things like fins again! In fact, if you look at a cetacea's skeleton, there's a mammalian "hand" inside those flippers! Cetitan is a bit of a "what if a whale evolved to be a terrestrial animal again?" Which would make it one of evolution's most indecisive animals.
There's also reason to believe it's based on the "Ningen", an Antarctic cryptid created by Japanese internet-goers. Most iconically known for showing up in Japanese memes, but it's portrayed as a pure-white cetacean creature that is either humanoid in shape, or walks on two humanoid legs.
And Cetitan is so cool for it. It's another Pokemon out of this Gen that feels really undefined in terms of what animal it is. Sure, it's called a "whale" and resembles a "narwhal", but those are just suggestions to what it is. Cetitan is best called a "whale-adjacent creature", rather than anything that 100%, or even 80% exists in real life. Feels very Gen 1 in that sort of way, going up alongside Rhydon, Kangaskhan, and Pinsir in the school of "only just barely resembles a real animal."
Personal Score: 9/10
i really like cetitan. probably one of my favorite pokemon from this gen. it just looks so cool and menacing and i also love cetaceans a lot so i'd rate it 9/10. very solid design
ReplyDeleteCetitle and Cetitan were both Pokémon I initially didn't care for when they were first revealed (tbf that goes for a lot of Pokémon in this generation), but this review as well as seeing it in-game definitely helped me warm up to these whale-narwhal-ningen thing. I'd personally give these two an 8/10, I don't absolutely love them but they're both a very solid pair of designs.
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