Tatsugiri
NEW FAVORITE AGAIN! Yes, this Pokemon is visually speaking a living piece of delicious nigiri sushi, a strange little "fish" atop a whitish puff of "rice," though this is, of course, evolutionary coincidence. What resembles rice is actually an inflatable "throat sac," which the Pokedex refers to rather confusingly as "camouflage," but its intention is precisely the opposite! The more accurately description is mimicry, and the coolest kind of mimicry in nature: aggressive mimicry. The tiny creature deliberately attracts larger predators by being small, colorful, and even allegedly "playing dead," so it's not just a sushi monster, but a fishing lure sushi monster, which is such an elegant thematic combination I feel like it should have crossed my mind years ago, but then I guess I would have made a monster just like this and then I would have had to deal with people retroactively accusing it of ripping off a Pokemon, so I guess it's for the best.
When it comes to design, I adore the creature's simplified shape, a flattened and rounded little cartoon "fish" that suggests it quite possibly isn't even related to true fish Pokemon at all, and could just as easily be some sort of blobby invertebrate. I appreciate the rounded off, flattened face with *only* a pair of adorable cartoon eyes on it and no visible mouth, subtly evocative of where the nigiri has been sliced off. This is most obvious in its basic "curly" form, which is colored like a raw shrimp tail, but it also comes in a "droopy" form colored entire red, like tuna, and a "stretchy" form, resting straight across the rice, as yellow as tamago. Each of these, in turn, has a different shiny model colored like eel, squid, and salmon respectively.
From Zaltiz
When it comes to design, I adore the creature's simplified shape, a flattened and rounded little cartoon "fish" that suggests it quite possibly isn't even related to true fish Pokemon at all, and could just as easily be some sort of blobby invertebrate. I appreciate the rounded off, flattened face with *only* a pair of adorable cartoon eyes on it and no visible mouth, subtly evocative of where the nigiri has been sliced off. This is most obvious in its basic "curly" form, which is colored like a raw shrimp tail, but it also comes in a "droopy" form colored entire red, like tuna, and a "stretchy" form, resting straight across the rice, as yellow as tamago. Each of these, in turn, has a different shiny model colored like eel, squid, and salmon respectively.
From Zaltiz
I also really like the seal-like stance these Pokemon take on land, which further implies these aren't "fish," since virtually all other fish Pokemon are still animated "swimming" when they're out of water. But whatever these thingies are "biologically," their elemental classification is their first lovable twist: these tiny things are dragon type! The smallest non-evolving dragons in the series! It's all because of a Japanese pun "dragon" and "sushi," but I love that truly anything in the Pokemon world can have draconic status.
All this, and we still haven't discussed exactly how these cunning killers prey on whatever they lure. Type advantage is more important than relative size in the Pokemon world, of course, and Tatsugiri actually has a pretty decent special attack stat, so I presume their default slaughtering method is a quick Draco Meteor to the skull of a gullible enough Sharpedo. It does not, however, have the health or defensive stats to take much of a beating, so it prefers not to have to do its own dirty work if it doesn't have to, and that brings us to the central gimmick of both Tatsugiri and our previous Pokemon, Dondozo!
All this, and we still haven't discussed exactly how these cunning killers prey on whatever they lure. Type advantage is more important than relative size in the Pokemon world, of course, and Tatsugiri actually has a pretty decent special attack stat, so I presume their default slaughtering method is a quick Draco Meteor to the skull of a gullible enough Sharpedo. It does not, however, have the health or defensive stats to take much of a beating, so it prefers not to have to do its own dirty work if it doesn't have to, and that brings us to the central gimmick of both Tatsugiri and our previous Pokemon, Dondozo!
Tatsugiri has the unique signature ability commander, which activates only in a double battle alongside Dondozo. This causes Tatsugiri to jump inside Dondozo's mouth, even revealing that Dondozo's tongue is shaped like a wooden serving board, and significantly boost ALL the latter's stats for as long as they're partnered up this way. It's canonically a symbiotic hunting strategy in which Tatsugiri gives battle commands to the less intelligent but much beefier Dondozo and enjoys its modest share of the spoils.
Some fans even thought this creature might be a reference to tongue-eating isopods, and I'd be even more thrilled if that were the case, but there's no apparent parasitism at work here, and it's actually already such a creative and cool concept that for once in my life, if you can believe ANYONE in the history of mankind ever saying what I'm about to say.... I don't even necessarily require parasitic diseases to be happy with this!
Some fans even thought this creature might be a reference to tongue-eating isopods, and I'd be even more thrilled if that were the case, but there's no apparent parasitism at work here, and it's actually already such a creative and cool concept that for once in my life, if you can believe ANYONE in the history of mankind ever saying what I'm about to say.... I don't even necessarily require parasitic diseases to be happy with this!
All Scarlet/Violet sprite animations ripped by adamsb0303!
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