LOST POKEMON, ROUND II:
BLOB LANTURN

After all these years, I know the truth about my underwhelming nemesis: Lanturn was in fact designed first, and the perfect, beautiful, wonderful Chinchou was designed afterwards to give it an unevolved form. Frankly, once they designed Chinchou they should have reworked Lanturn a whole lot more than they did, but I'd have also liked this goofball at least a little more than the dull dolphin-looking critter we ultimately received. It's no fangly anglerfish and it's no Chinchou, but the delightful pudginess and dot eyes of this sea friend are hard not to love on some level, and they make it all the more amusing that this is an anglerfish, you know, that thing that lives in total darkness and lures other fish close enough to swallow whole. The sleeker, more anime-eyed version we wound up with is "cool" enough looking for this to no longer be hilarious, but not cool enough looking for me to care much about it.