Arceus, I have a ton of stuff to add here. But first, before I get to that, I want to talk about stuff people have already talked about where I haven’t heard what I think about them yet, so I’m dropping my own thoughts about them...
1) Garbodor
Honestly, I love Garbodor for the same reason so many people hate it: it’s hideous. It’s clearly designed to be as hideous as possible. From the beady eyes that look derpy and stupid, to the deformed trash hand, to all its pokedex entries just making it sound like just the most disgusting thing ever. And nobody knows where those pink and blue spots came from.
It’s overall just really trashy and disgusting...
...just like real trash.
It’s like they took the idea of trash, and did their absolute best on selling the idea of trash, really painting a picture of what trash would be as a Pokemon. And they nailed it
hard.
2) The Klink Line
So Klink. It’s two gears that move. At first that seems kinda dumb and silly, but think about where you catch it: Chargestone Cave right? With all those weird magnetic and electric rocks everywhere? Probably the same kinds of rocks that spurred ancient Joltik and Galvantula to become electric types? Is it really that much of a stretch to assume that these same rocks spurred a pair of gears to become living creatures?
To me, Klink perfectly represents the wonders of Chargestone Cave, and reinforces the kind of ethereal otherworldliness of that location in Unova. So not only do I like Klink and its evos, they even contribute to worldbuilding too!
And the very mechanical and weirdly simple designs they have reinforces that. Why does Klinklang look like just a bunch of gears slapped together? Because it literally
is a bunch of gears slapped together. It’s not supposed to look like it can survive. It’s not supposed to
exist. It’s a freak of nature. It exists through pure accident. An accident by Chargestone Cave’s hand.
Now what the heck Klink and its evos would be doing in Kalos is beyond me. But that’s less an issue with Klink itself and more an issue that Pokemon likes to reuse concepts that are based on a specific event without justifying how that happened again. It’s stupid with Klink, and it’s stupid every time they’ve done it, but HEY, PEOPLE LIKED THAT STUFF, SO WE HAVE TO THROW IT IN ANYWAY!!!
3) The Vanillite Line
This design also makes sense to me. Much as the electricity in Chargestone Cave gave Klink its sentience, so too did the cold of that Unovan Freezer give Vanillite its sentience. Then again, I believe the lore says that Vanillite have been around for a long time, so I guess that’s not the case? So exactly why they’re around beats me. And I'd definitely like a clearer answer on that, because origin stories always fascinate me. But until then...asking why there’s sentient snow-cones is a lot like asking why there’s sentient sludge, and the answer for that is the same: because there just is. This is a weird wacky world with weird wacky creatures that form through weird wacky ways. That’s just how this world works. It’s happened all the time, and it will continue to keep happening. Good enough for me.
As far as the design itself, it’s clearly designed to be cute ice cream. And well...it’s ice cream. That looks cute. Vanillish looks a little weird, what with its blank stare and slightly deformed mouth. And Vanilluxe gets even weirder, looking like it tried to split into two but failing. Does this mean they reproduce by budding? Maybe.
Also notice that in the Gen VI moving sprites, this pokemon rocks back and forth progressively more slowly after every evolution. It's struggling more and more to move as it continues to evolve into increasingly unviable forms. What these sort of weird designs tell me is that, like Klink, these things aren’t supposed to exist. They formed through sheer accident, and are only continuing to exist through sheer dumb luck.
Honestly, I think the theme here is that these Pokemon all look creepy and unnatural because they
are creepy and unnatural. They don't
look like they should exist because, as far as in-game lore goes, they
shouldn't exist. And there are a lot of pokemon in the Pokemon Universe that are like this.
Now, with that in mind, let's bring this back full circle. To the sixteenth post on this thread, on the very first page...:
Let's talk about this.
4) Kyurem-Black and Kyurem-White
I agree. These guys look pretty darn weird. When I first saw them, I did think that they looked generally pretty cool, but I still always felt like something was...off about them. Something...unsettling. And LucarioMaster2 explains exactly why this is. Because of all the
stuff they have on them, just walking around would be next to impossible for either form. I won't keep repeating LucarioMaster2's points, but the idea is that they look like unholy abominations that shouldn't exist.
I'm sure you know where I'm going with this by now.
They
are unholy abominations that shouldn't exist. They were created when some
jerk decided it would be a good idea to stuff a tao dragon back into Kyurem. And at first it looks like it worked too. You can see how Kyurem is trying its best to morph its other half to look like the half Zekrom or Reshiram took up as a result of the fusion. In addition, its base stats go way up, and now they're only twenty points lower than the literal god of all Pokemon. It looks like this thing is gonna potentially be powerful.
Also interesting to note that the Reshiram and Zekrom parts of Kyurem are taking up opposite sides: Reshiram on the left, and Zekrom on the right. This reinforces the idea that yes, these three really were one being once, to the point where if you try to reverse the split, they'll just naturally take up a specific side of Kyurem's body.
But that split happened a long time ago. And while they may have originally been one creature, they are very much their own beings now. It's too late to change the past. All you're gonna get by fusing two individuals together, especially by force, is just this awful looking thing, whose colors and design aspects clash horribly with each other as Kyurem and the tao dragon fight internally for control. They were once one before, but they're not now, and neither of them really want to submit to the other. Not again. Not like this. And almost certainly not
now, when they've tasted the freedom of being on their own.
So even if at first it looked like fusing Kyurem back together would be a good idea, it's clearly been proven not to be. Reinforcing this is just how much weaker competitively either Kyurem form is compared to other pokemon with similarly monstrous stats. It has the raw power to get things done, but due to all the internal clashing and incompatibilities it suffers from, it just
can't use that power well at all.
And the very fact that these forms are so over-designed and look like they wouldn't work or be practical just reinforces all of that.
Okay wow that was a lot longer than I was planning for this to be. I haven't even gotten around to answering the prompt yet. -sigh- next tiiiiiime...
I guess this concludes the "there are actually some brilliantly ugly Pokemon designs out there" segment of my design talk. Next time I'll answer the prompt, and then I'll go on to talk about how visual designs and typings can reinforce or contradict each other. Until then! I'll wait for like a couple posts to go by before continuing, don't wanna double post and all that, yadda yadda yadda. I know what you guys are like ;).