Poltchageist and Sinistcha
Another new spin on an eighth-gen Pokemon, huh?
Poltchageist is a restless spirit possessing tea, just like Sinistea, but this one has possessed Chinese-style green tea, becoming a grass/ghost Pokemon. Instead of a teacup, its green goo body is contained by a little ceramic pot with a face scribbled on it, similar to Polteageist's but in drippier black ink.
Poltchageist also has a pretty cool "true" form; like Sinistea, it has a single yellowish swirl in its liquid mass that may be an "eye," and sometimes this pops out of its top like a little gooey cyclops head! Yay!
Just as malevolent as its British equivalent, Poltchageist apparently taints food and drink with its supernatural green tea powder, and drains the vitality from anybody who ingests it. As for where it actually comes from, it was first unveiled by its a short ghost story with a nice visual style of its own.
Poltchageist is a restless spirit possessing tea, just like Sinistea, but this one has possessed Chinese-style green tea, becoming a grass/ghost Pokemon. Instead of a teacup, its green goo body is contained by a little ceramic pot with a face scribbled on it, similar to Polteageist's but in drippier black ink.
Just as malevolent as its British equivalent, Poltchageist apparently taints food and drink with its supernatural green tea powder, and drains the vitality from anybody who ingests it. As for where it actually comes from, it was first unveiled by its a short ghost story with a nice visual style of its own.
Poltchageist evolves into Sinistcha, which is even more obviously the same sort of ghostly entity as Sinistea's evolution, Polteageist, with the same sort of little swirly-eyed liquid specter peeking out of it, albeit green instead of purple. It even has the little feet that dangle out the bottom!
Fairly cute, then, that these two Pokemon reverse both their naming convention and their design principle; Sinistea occupied a teacup, then evolved into a teapot with a lid named Polteageist. Poltchageist occupies a pot with a lid, then evolves into a cup of green tea named Sinistcha. I'm not saying this is genius or anything, I'm saying it's cute. It's a cute little twist. I'm glad that this time, the container keeps the painted-on features, giving the evolved form two complete faces. It also wears an antique tea whisk on top of its head, which gives the inner ghostie an adorable witchy "hairdo!"
I've had a lot to say about this line, considering it isn't even necessarily in my top personal favorites, but what we haven't yet touched upon is how unique its relationship actually is with its "Sword & Shield" forebears.
Paldea already introduced two "convergent" Pokemon lines, designed and named in reference to past Pokemon but entirely unrelated in either gameplay terms or canon biology. Toedscool is a ground/grass fungus that just so happens to look exactly like a species of water/poison jellyfish. Wiglett is a water type eel that just so happens to look and live a great deal like a ground type mole. Our first instinct, then, is to consider Poltchageist "convergent" with Sinistea in a similar fashion, but that's not the case at all; they're both ghost types inhabiting tea! Fundamentally the same kind of creature, if not the very same "species" of "ghost." No, it's the tea that's "convergent," just like in real life, because a lot of different human cultures who never met one another still hit on the concept of boiled leaf water as a beverage. And in the Pokemon world, it seems, angry little ghosts who never met one another still hit on the concept of boiled leaf water as their physical vessel of revenge against the living. Why not!
I've had a lot to say about this line, considering it isn't even necessarily in my top personal favorites, but what we haven't yet touched upon is how unique its relationship actually is with its "Sword & Shield" forebears.
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