Tag: Mr. Mime

I had a bad experience with a Mr. Mime as a child and as an adult am still terrified of them. My boyfriend had a mime jr, who I love to bits but I’m terrified of him evolving :( what do I do?


First and foremost, it’s extremely important for you to communicate with your boyfriend about this. That way, he knows about your condition, and he can (assuming he wishes to prolong your relationship with him) take steps to safeguard your mental well-being. This may even include discussing things with his mime jr. to see if it wishes to evolve in the first place—and, if it doesn’t, what it wishes to do to avoid evolution. You see, mime jr. can only evolve if it’s taught a certain move. Thus, staying in its base form would actually take no effort at all, save for the paltry amount it would take to resist learning Mimic. As you’ve said, you’re comfortable with your boyfriend’s mime jr. as it is, so if mime jr. is comfortable with its form, then your solution is easier than you might think.

However, if mime jr. wishes to evolve, then there are a few options that you could exercise. You could see about perhaps reaching a compromise, where your boyfriend trains his mime jr. up to be the strongest mime jr. that has ever existed, or it could evolve and simply keep its distance. Alternatively, there’s also exposure therapy, which tends to be the easiest and most effective way of treating most pokémon-related phobias, and thus, it may be the most ideal option you have, as it allows mime jr. to assume the form it most wishes to be while at the same time helping you to maintain your relationship with it past its evolution. If you wish to try this method, it’s important for you to find and talk to a certified therapist, as this is, of course, what’s technically a medical treatment (meaning I can’t in good conscience offer detailed advice on how to administer it).

Still, I can’t emphasize this enough: your most important task right now is talking to your boyfriend and making it clear to both him and his mime jr. your concerns. Let them know that it’s not his mime jr. specifically but rather a fear instilled in you by prior experiences that you would be willing to resolve if necessary. In addition to working out possible solutions (the aforementioned compromises), your boyfriend and his mime jr. will likely be your biggest form of support, should you wish to undergo exposure therapy.

Good luck, anonymous.

Out of curiosity, what *are* your theories involving Mr. Mime and evolution?

Oh, quite simply that it can evolve, anonymous.

Let me put it this way. Of the 151 Kanto Dex pokémon, several were archived as single-member evolution families. Of those, four are considered to be standalone, bipedal, borderline humanoid or actually humanoid pokémon: magmar, electabuzz, jynx, and mr. mime. HOwever, in the Johto Dex, three of these were recorded with pre-evolutions (magmar with magby, electabuzz with elekid, and jynx with smoochum). Mr. mime, before the archival of the Sinnoh Dex, was thus considered to be an oddity.

Of course, that changed when the Sinnoh Dex was archived, which added magmortar, electivire, and mime jr. (The conditions a mr. mime needs to meet in order to produce a mime jr. are a bit complicated, hence mime jr.’s obscurity up until this point.) Thus, mr. mime was placed in the same general category as jynx, as being one of the aforementioned Kanto pokémon with a pre-evolution but no evolution.

Granted, the argument against this logic is that mr. mime, when bred without the odd incense, only produces more mr. mime, which means it has more in common with snorlax than jynx, but I say what’s stopping snorlax from evolving? There could be an as-of-yet unknown super-snorlax evolution, just waiting for discovery!

That … is genuinely terrifying, Bill. And this is coming from someone who has heard this exact theory of yours so many times she should be immune to its horror by now. —LH

I honestly don’t know what you’re talking about. Who wouldn’t want to see a bigger, more powerful—oh, now I see what you mean. —Bill

My Mr. Mime has been behaving oddly lately. In particular his actions are in line with signs pointing toward impending evolution in other pokemon, but Mr. Mime doesn’t evolve as far as I am aware. I suppose he could be “miming” the actions of another pokemon, but none of my own other pokemon are displaying any such signs. Do you have advice?

First of all, if you can recall what your mr. mime was doing shortly before this behavior started, be sure to write that down at some point. Also, film your mr. mime in the coming, oh, week or two, just to be on the safe side. I have a few theories involving mr. mime, and I for one would be thrilled to see if one of them was accurate.

Bill. —LH

Edit: Fine, fine. We’ll just go right ahead and miss a golden opportunity to discover a mr. mime evolution for the sake of professionalism and “answering the question properly.”

It’s likely that your mr. mime has seen evolution occur outside of your team at one point or another, be it on television, by watching another trainer’s pokémon evolve, or simply seeing it in the wild. He may even remember how it felt if he began life as a mime jr. Evolution is a very common process in the pokémon world, so I wouldn’t necessarily rule out the possibility that he’s simply miming it if the rest of your team isn’t.

The question, then, is why would he want to do such a thing?

If he’s miming another pokémon’s evolutionary signs, then it could be an indication that he doesn’t feel as if you’re giving him enough affection. Evolution is seen as an important time of a pokémon’s life, both to the pokémon themselves and their trainers, and pokémon realize this. They know that evolution pleases their human partners (usually). Thus, some pokémon who have yet to evolve or who have evolved to their fullest but still aren’t quite as strong as others may undergo what researchers call “preevolution anxiety.” It’s a condition in which a pokémon constantly believes that their human partners won’t love them unless they do evolve, so they go through any lengths they can to achieve that process, even if they’re actually fully evolved. If this is the case, it’s important to be there for your mr. mime and to reassure him that he’s important to you. Oddly enough, I do not recommend telling him that you would love him regardless of his form (as this can be seen as invalidating his worry) but rather that he’s powerful enough in his current form. Verbal reminders and affection are fine, but it’s also a good idea to increase the amount of time you spend battling with him so that he can see his strength for himself. Battling will also reinforce the bond between the two of you, which in turn will help dispel any notion he has that you don’t appreciate him as he is.

If he’s miming his own evolution, then what’s actually happening is a reversal of what you would think it is. To put it simply, mr. mime is mentally regressing to his mime jr. stage and forcing himself to relive evolution. There are many reasons why a pokémon may “regress” to earlier stages, but the most common is security. There are elements of the above in this logic; as in, he may be reliving his evolution in part to seek your approval. However, on top of that, earlier stages of certain evolutionary lines are sometimes seen as younger versions of oneself. In other words, he’s seeking the security he felt when he was younger, and to do that, he’s acting as if he’s a mime jr., right at the cusp of one of the most major processes he has ever undertaken. It is, thus, a two-in-one feeling: he gets both the sense of impending approval from the evolution and the youthful, carefree state of his prior evolutionary stage. If this is what your mr. mime is doing, then while you should still reassure him as you would in the previous paragraph, you should also work towards building his sense of self-confidence, safety, and mindfulness. Integrate him into more of your life and set aside time to meditate with him. Both of these actions may help to reduce his worry that he’s in any sort of danger (of being abandoned, in general, or so forth) by increasing your presence in his life and reassuring him that he’s not alone. Any other activity you can do together that will instill in him the idea that you’re there to help will further reinforce his sense of security.

Alternatively, it could be something else entirely. If he’s tensing up or if he looks like he’s struggling to hold something back (say, evolution), it could be a dietary problem. Add more leafy greens to his diet and increase his liquid intake. If he seems to have more energy or that he’s constantly irritable, consider increasing the amount of time he spends meditating, decreasing his sugar intake, and ensuring that he’s getting the proper amount of sleep.

But, ah, if he does evolve, please send the video and any data you’ve collected to [EMAIL ADDRESS REDACTED]. That kind of discovery could stir things up in the Pokémon Symposium, and I would certainly love to see the look on some of my colleagues’ faces when they’re presented with information that proves them wrong about mr. mime evolution.

Bill. —LH

What? Oh, it’s not as if you wouldn’t find it entertaining either! —Bill

Bill, what do you have to say about the Mr. Mime family?

Ah, the mime family.

Mime Jr.
The Mime Pokémon
Type: Psychic/Fairy
Official Registration #: 439
Entry: As a defensive maneuver, mime jr. mimics the expressions and motions of its predators. The enemy pokémon is thus so taken aback by this display that it can’t help but to hesitate long enough for the mime jr. to get away. The effectiveness of this maneuver may be difficult for some people to understand, so for a better idea of how and why this works, one should spend any amount of time in the general vicinity of a person and their younger siblings.

Mr. Mime
The Barrier Pokémon
Type: Psychic/Fairy
Official Registration #: 122
Entry: The evolved form of mime jr., by battle experience if the specimen knows Mimic. Despite its name, the mr. mime species is actually capable of being both male and female. Although it is difficult for this writer to admit, the name came from a notoriously sexist period of pokémonology and is based entirely on the misconception that only male organisms were capable of being terrible enough to manipulate impressionable humans into believing an object exists when it doesn’t until it does. As it turns out, both sexes of mr. mime do this, and the pokémonology community spent the ensuing sixty years pretending that the name came from an unfortunate translation error.