Written by Jonathan Wojcik

   Going straight back to the first generation, Pinsir has spent over eighteen years as an odd bug out. It's the only pure bug-type pokemon without any evolutions, alternate forms or other immediate family, even after its original red/blue rival, Scyther, evolved into the Bug/Steel Scizor. Luckily, there's nothing about Pinsir's design that could ever really be improved upon. It's such a pleasingly squat, simple thing, like an armored potato, with a freaky alien bug-face slapped on the front and an equally pleasing set of limbs. Really look at those limbs. There's just something inexplicably satisfying about how those skeletal stick-arms complement its fat, stumpy legs.

   Of course, Pinsir's main claim to fame are the destructive, barbed horns of its namesake, sometimes exceeding the length of its entire body depending on the illustrator. That squat, simple, chunky body is all just to support those terrifying implements of destruction, which the Pokedex explicitly states can tear an opponent in half. I love how many things the pokedex says that the cartoon would never, ever be allowed to show. Just about the only thing scarier than those horns is that glorious mouth. It's not only disquietingly vertical, but its teeth look more like nasty little rib bones, and in its 3-d appearances, they all move independently, like bony fingers! I would love to be able to watch this thing eat.

   Pinsir is one of those Pokemon that look the very least like the animal they're supposedly based on, but that's alright, because what Pinsir does look like is a perpetually furious, chitin-plated demonspawn. Not so much a stag beetle, but perhaps some mad wizard's experimental hybrid of an antlion and a pinecone. There may not be much to Pinsir at first glance, but what more do you need? It's an angry chunky bug with angry spiky bits for ripping heads off.

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