The Bellsprout Line

Bellsprout
The Flower Pokémon
Type: Grass/Poison
Official Registration #: 69
Entry: In Johto, this pitcher plant-like pokémon is a symbol of endurance and flexibility, as its thin, stalk-like body will bend hypnotically with every movement it makes, but it will never break. In fact, this concept is so well-known in Johto that one of its historic landmarks, Sprout Tower, is said to be built around a giant bellsprout whose body became the swaying central pillar the building is known for. These stories of giant bellsprout roaming the countryside—along with Johto’s various other odd notes of folklore—are to this day passed down from generation to generation, none of whom have ever taken these stories as evidence that the traditional beer of our ancestors was made with an herb other than hops and rice.

Weepinbell
The Flycatcher Pokémon
Type: Grass/Poison
Official Registration #: 70
Entry: The evolved form of bellsprout, by battle experience. Weepinbell use their hook-like stems to hang themselves on branches with their wide-open mouths pointing down. When prey comes close to it, it douses said prey with a poisonous powder and subsequently drops from its perch directly onto its target, sliding itself over its catch. Thereafter, it closes its mouth and allows the acid within its body to break its prey down into a liquid sludge. It should go without saying, then, that if your college friends offer you several thousand poké-dollars to stick your hand into a weepinbell’s mouth, the more sensible plan of action that avoids a rather awkward trip to a hospital is to not do that.

Victreebel
The Flycatcher Pokémon
Type: Grass/Poison
Official Registration #: 71
Entry: The evolved form of weepinbell, by exposure to leaf stone. It is said that victreebel live in massive colonies in the middle of jungles, where they help one another out by producing sweet-smelling sap that lures prey into their mouths in droves. How anyone could know this—given that no one has returned from trips to verify these claims which, incidentally, are generally made by young trainers under the employ of a certain researcher whose name shall not be given but rhymes with “Hickamore”—is, of course, a matter of pure curiosity within the pokémon research community.

Mankey and Primeape

Mankey
The Pig Monkey Pokémon
Type: Fighting
Official Registration #: 56
Entry: This primate-like pokémon lives in the treetops of Kanto in large colonies. Renowned for both its sociability and its hot temper, mankey will fly into a blinding rage over anything from a lack of food to a strange glance sent in its general direction. Because of the suddenness of these tantrums, no one, not even its own friends and family, are safe from its violent rampages, and thus, when a mankey flies into a fit of rage, it will instantly drive away anyone who is not within arm’s reach. Yet strangely enough, because of its sociability, it will also fly into a rage out of loneliness if members of its colony ignore it, which is to say mankey will often resort to massive amounts of personal and property damage until it finally exhausts itself.

Primeape
The Pig Monkey Pokémon
Type: Fighting
Official Registration #: 57
Entry: The evolved form of mankey, by battle experience. Although known for being just as destructive and violent as its pre-evolved form, in actuality, this behavior is only displayed when primeape is in the presence of others. When it believes to be completely alone, it reverts to a more passive, docile personality. Although this is very rarely observed, scientists have discovered that in this state, primeape enjoy gathering and arranging flowers, tea, cookies, complex literature, classical music, and the subtle but intelligent humor of British television.

Lapras

Lapras
The Transport Pokémon
Type: Water/Ice
Official Registration #: 131
Entry: An elusive but gentle sea monster pokémon. In ages past, lapras had been herded because their firm shells and hardiness, along with their docile personalities, made them ideal pokémon for ferrying people across large bodies of water. However, their friendliness towards humans have also made them easy to capture en masse—which, of course, humans did. Thus, lapras has become the physical embodiment of that age-old saying, “And this is why we can’t have nice things.”

Smoochum and Jynx

Smoochum
The Kiss Pokémon
Type: Ice/Psychic
Official Registration #: 238
Entry: A childlike pokémon noted for its extremely sensitive lips. Smoochum possess a high number of nerve endings in their lips, which they use to sense their environments. Much of their behavior revolves around getting close to things that they wish to inspect and giving them a kiss, an act that allows smoochum to take in touch, taste, and smell all at once. This act is also rather unfortunate because smoochum also use their lips to perform the attacks Lick, Sweet Kiss, Lovely Kiss, and Heart Stamp, and as baby pokémon, they have very little control over when their powers are activated.

Jynx
The Human Shape Pokémon
Type: Ice/Psychic
Official Registration #: 124
Entry: The evolved form of smoochum, by battle experience. Jynx are humanoid pokémon whose communicative patterns strongly resemble a combination of the spoken language and interpretive dances of human beings. Because of this, it is thought that jynx may be the first pokémon with whom humanity may one day establish verbal communications. However, all attempts to decipher the jynx language has been rather fruitless for the most part, as most translations of any given recording seem to be strings of expletives concerning “stupid humans on our burial grounds” … which surely must be a mistranslation of some kind.

The Slowpoke Line

Slowpoke
The Dopey Pokémon
Type: Water/Psychic
Official Registration #: 79
Entry: A sweet sap leaks from the tip of this strange pokémon’s tail. Although mysterious in its production, this sap tastes exactly like a sweeter form of honey and thus is effective in attracting pokémon. Slowpoke frequently use this to their advantage, as the core of their behavior centers around their fishing rituals, in which they flock to the banks of a slow-moving body of water, dip their tails in, and wait for a bite. However, as slowpoke are not the brightest pokémon nor pokémon with the fastest reflexes, they often fail to notice when they get a bite—or, for that matter, much about their environment at all. Which leads into the second fact: that some humans have found that slowpoke tails are not particularly nutritious but are quite frankly fun to chew on. How we as a species discovered this about a creature who is completely incapable of noticing when anything—human or otherwise—is chewing on its tail is probably best left up to one’s imagination.

Slowbro
The Hermit Crab Pokémon
Type: Water/Psychic
Official Registration #: 80
Entry: The evolved form of slowpoke, by battle experience. Or, rather, to be more accurate, slowpoke evolves into slowbro after it gains enough strength to fish in waters where shellder naturally live. This is relevant because it is the shellder that enables a slowpoke to evolve by clamping down on the tip of its tail. However, curiously enough, a slowbro will always revert to a slowpoke when the shellder is removed, which raises several questions about the nature of slowpoke’s evolution. One possible hint to the existence of slowbro as its own pokémon lies in the fact that due to shellder’s hold on slowbro’s tail, the slowbro host can no longer fish and is, therefore, forced to hunt literally by hand. Thus, slowbro is quite possibly not a true evolution but instead what happens when a slowpoke is forced to give up its sheer laziness.

Slowking
The Royal Pokémon
Type: Water/Psychic
Official Registration #: 199
Entry: The evolved form of slowpoke, when given a king’s rock and traded. It is said that a king’s rock is actually a piece of fossilized shellder that, when traded, reverts back to being a shellder and subsequently bites its companion slowpoke’s head. Upon dual evolution, this shellder then leaks toxins into its host, which breaks down slowking’s literal mental barriers and gives it a drastic boost in intelligence. Given that this means slowking’s intelligence is chemically enhanced, the writer would like to take the time to note to younger readers that drugs do not, in fact, result in intelligence boosts in humans. Just say no, children, and stay in school. Unless you go on a trainer’s journey, at which point never eat mushrooms you can’t identify.

Bill, in case you were still wondering why Fennel won’t leave Amanita with you unless another adult is present to supervise, this. This is why. —LH

The Caterpie Line

Caterpie
The Worm Pokémon
Type: Bug
Official Registration #: 10
Entry: A small caterpillar pokémon with a voracious appetite for leaves. It spends considerable amounts of time preparing for evolution, usually by focusing on consuming large amounts of leaves. As such, it seems vulnerable and weak, but in actuality, it hides several techniques that it uses to protect itself during its hunt for more leaves. Namely, its antennae have the capability of releasing a strong, foul-smelling odor reminiscent of rotting cabbage. However, this is only one part of its defense mechanism. The rest of its defenses involve wrapping anything that comes close to it with String Shot and proceeding to Tackle until the aforementioned foul-smelling oils are rubbed all over the offending creature, which is then left in the sweltering Kantonian summer heat for hours on end as said offending creature struggles desperately to break free and get to a shower.

Metapod
The Cocoon Pokémon
Type: Bug
Official Registration #: 11
Entry: The evolved form of caterpie, by battle experience. A tenacious pokémon, metapod sits perfectly still as it waits for evolution. Its rock-hard shell is resilient on its own, but it uses its only move, Harden, to toughen its body even more in order to resist damage from predators. Even a pinsir’s spiked mandibles are no match for a metapod’s body. Incidentally, the fact that it will not move until evolution, as well as the facts that it is twenty-one pounds and a durable pokémon at that, make it the perfect pokémon to serve as a doorstop. Not that this writer has ever tried, of course.

Butterfree
The Butterfly Pokémon
Type: Bug/Flying
Official Registration #: 12
Entry: The evolved form of metapod, by battle experience. While the writer would normally talk at length about butterfree’s obsession with honey, the toxic dust that coats its wings, or the fact that much of its free time is spent either consuming vast amounts of honey or mating, in truth, this writer is more astounded by the fact that metapod—a pokémon incapable of independent battling, whose entire existence is devoted to avoiding any sort of movement whatsoever—can only evolve into butterfree by battling.

Gym Leader Dex: Kanto

Brock
The Rock-Solid Pokémon Trainer
Type: Rock
Positon: First Badge—Boulder
Entry: A mature, responsible pokémon trainer, breeder, doctor, and expert of the rock-type. Vastly intelligent compared to the majority of the Kantonian gym leaders, Brock would make an ideal conversational partner for anyone interested in pokémon knowledge … assuming an attractive woman is not also present. If that’s the case, then Brock may still provide some level of entertainment if the attractive older woman happens to be your misanthropic, black-belt older sister.

Misty
The Tomboyish Mermaid
Type: Water
Positon: Second Badge—Cascade
Entry: This young woman will bring boys of questionable virtue to your front yard because she has decided it’s the most romantic spot in Kanto, and you’re going to let her because she has a starmie and a temper, and you don’t have a death wish.

Lt. Surge
The Lightning American
Type: Electric
Positon: Third Badge—Thunder
Entry: A former officer of the U.S. Army, a specialist in electrical attacks, and a bodybuilder who can benchpress a car and snap the average pokémonologist’s body in half. That having been said, the writer would like to emphasize that this man is an upstanding citizen and a saint, and there is absolutely nothing funny about him whatsoever.

Erika
The Nature-Loving Princess
Type: Grass
Positon: Fourth Badge—Rainbow
Entry: The daughter of a former kimono girl and an expert in grass-type pokémon, Erika is well-versed in Japanese traditions (including those of traditional flower dancing and flower arranging), wise, elegant, and the epitome of grace and politeness … all according to the writer’s mother, who frequently tells him that she finds it utterly fascinating that the children of everyone else in her former troupe has gotten married and had children except the ones who moved to Kanto.

Koga
The Poisonous Ninja Master
Type: Poison
Position: Fifth Badge—Soul
Entry: Koga’s ninjitsu skills, as well as mastery of poison-type pokémon, are unrivaled and come as a result of decades of intense ninja training. It is entirely possible to learn all about this upon waking up in the hospital three days after a casual conversation with his daughter, Janine.

Sabrina
The Mistress of Psychic Pokémon
Type: Psychic
Positon: Sixth Badge—Marsh
Entry: A young but powerful psychic, Sabrina is gifted with all manners of abilities, including telepathy, precognition, and telekinesis. Due to a combination of these gifts, she also possesses the ability to hold psychic conversations with psychic pokémon, an ability she relishes during League summits, when she holds lengthy conversations with your kadabra about what is apparently your death—a subject that she assures you is far in the future but nonetheless arouses fits of laughter from both parties for reasons you neither currently understand nor would probably never want to understand.

Blaine
The Hotheaded Quiz Master
Type: Fire
Positon: Seventh Badge—Volcano
Entry: A brilliant former geneticist and master of the fire type. In truth, despite the fact that the writer is more interested in holding a conversation with Blaine than with any other Kantonian gym leader, yours truly knows very little about this man. Why? Because evidently, the writer’s father owes Blaine a hefty amount of money over a very long story involving a bet about ditto and a pub quiz, and Blaine stresses the importance of this by summoning his magmar to use Fire Blast at the very mention of the writer’s last name.

Ditto

Ditto
The Transform Pokémon
Type: Normal
Official Registration #: 132
Entry: A blob-like pokémon capable of rearranging its entire cellular structure to become perfect mimics of other pokémon. Once transformed, a ditto is capable of not only looking and sounding like another pokémon but also battling like a perfect copy of its target. While this may sound like a godsend to most trainers—and, indeed, many breeders have found this level of mimicry incredibly useful in their lines of work—in actuality, it should be noted that a ditto in its natural state is actually quite vulnerable and can be beaten by anything faster than it, such as tyranitar, donphan, weedle, blissey…

Munchlax and Snorlax

Munchlax
The Big Eater Pokémon
Type: Normal
Official Registration #: 446
Entry: A cub pokémon known for its insatiable appetite. It is highly inadvisable to pick a munchlax up unless one is prepared, as despite the fact that its average height is only about two feet, its average weight is over 230 pounds. To be fair, most of this weight is not actually the munchlax itself but rather the vast quantities of food it stores within its shaggy fur throughout the hot and humid months. …Then again, considering the fact that these pokémon often forget about these stores of food for months on end, it may be more advisable to avoid coming into physical contact with a munchlax altogether.

Snorlax
The Sleeping Pokémon
Type: Normal
Official Registration #: 143
Entry: The evolved form of munchlax, via happiness. Snorlax is notoriously a difficult pokémon to train. This is a fact not so much because of its sheer strength or because of its unparalleled laziness but instead because of the fact that it eats over 880 pounds of food per day and begins sleeping immediately after each meal. Many snorlax follow a strict schedule when it comes to these meals, as the species also requires at least twelve to eighteen hours of sleep per day. Yet despite the fact that it is almost impossible to train due to the fact that most of its day is spent either sleeping or eating, its bulky body give it impressive defenses—which, combined with its arsenal of devastating attacks—make it a natural battler. In other words, despite spending most of its time doing anything productive, it excels without needing practice or training, much like that roommate everyone has at least once in college.

Aerodactyl

Aerodactyl
The Fossil Pokémon
Type: Rock/Flying
Official Registration #: 142
Entry: A ferocious, pterosaur-like pokémon that once ruled the skies of ancient Kanto. Aerodactyl is noteworthy in that it helped establish many practices used in modern paleo-pokémon ethology, which itself is an extremely specific but fascinating field. Much of what goes into paleo-pokémon ethology is guesswork, really. For example, when one sees a set of serrated teeth such as those of aerodactyl, one can safely assume that this pokémon used them for cutting into meat. When one sees wings and claws, one can assume that the pokémon in question was an aerial hunter. Of course, this method of hypothesizing and assuming behaviors based on physical traits of fossilized remains is not infallible. For another example, it was once assumed that aerodactyl was a vicious, fearless hunter, but recent resurrections of specimens using fossil revival technology has proven that aerodactyl are more like very large, very confused, very vocal parakeets.