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Tuesday, October 22, 2013

I'm Sick of Charizard

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Stay pelted by a mountain of Stealth Rocks!

Back in the day, before competitive battling was really a thing, there were only three fully-evolved starters: Venusaur, Charizard, and Blastoise. Blastoise was on the cover of Pokémon Blue, and Charizard was on the cover of Pokémon Red. Poor Venusaur and Pokémon Green were stranded in Japan, unless there was a Japanese kid on your playground (or a bootlegger) who wowed everyone with his weird copy. Rumours flew about the censorship between Japan and America, but that's irrelevant to this article. Besides the games, kids growing up in the 1990s were exposed to the trading card game, where Charizard was the most valued card, and the anime, where Charizard was the most valued member of Ash's team. And it gets worse from there.

It's Charizard that got into Super Smash Bros. Brawl. It's Charizard that features in the new Origins special. It's Charizard that gets TWO Mega Evolutions in Pokémon X/Y when the other Kanto starters only get one.

I never owned one of these. It's a shitty card, too.

It's also Charizard that ruined the Johto League in the anime and indirectly ruined ALL of the Johto seasons by his deus-ex-machina presence that allowed Ash to not train any of his Johto Pokémon. I'd like to note that Ash didn't train Charizard himself, either. As a result, the entirety of Johto was just filler after filler since Ash's team never developed, and Charizard's existence enabled that. Compare to Sinnoh where Ash actually trains his Pokémon and not only do his Pokémon get character development, but HE does too. Charizard proves that Ash has no skill of his own, and it seemed to be that way throughout the entire Original Generation. It was also Charizard that proved to be a complete fraud in the GameFAQs Character Battle IX by losing to Mega Man who was being leeched by Zero.

I don't think I need to get into why Charizard has this appeal. It's the "really cool rebellious dragon" that appeals to the kiddies. I'll admit now that I actually chose Charmander in Blue and again in FireRed. I'm pretty sure Charmander is the only Fire-type starter I've ever picked, which isn't saying that I have something against Fire because of Charizard or anything. What I am saying is that I'm glad competitive battling (and Stealth Rock) is a thing, because people who competitively battle with Charizard end up as losers. Charizard is one of the most used Pokémon in the competitive battling simulator Pokémon Online in the Wifi Ubers ladder, where Pokémon like Arceus and Kyogre reside. Every single one of those Charizard users are stupid kids who don't know what they're doing and think they're awesome with their shiny black Blast Burn Charizard. 
 
Charizard users had to spend time looking at this Charmeleon backsprite. Disgusting.

"Ludwig, do you only hate Charizard because it's really popular?" You may ask. "What's otherwise wrong with Charizard? You're just a hipster."

Yes, I do hate Charizard because it's popular. There is no reason at all that it should hog TWO Mega Evolutions. Heck, I'm mad that only the Kanto starters got any Mega Evolutions out of all the starters. There is nothing meritorious about Charizard that it deserves this kind of recognition. Astute readers may pick up that it appears I'm contradicting one of my earlier articles, which bashed egalitarianism. Think about it this way: Charizard is to Pokémon as Wolverine is to X-Men. Charizard also represents everything (or the majority of things) wrong with the Pokémon franchise today. Genwunner losers who don't care about evolving the franchise with its new character designs and Pokémon. No, we have to have Charizard for 15 years plus. ONLY CHARIZARD. "There are only 151 Pokémon, and Charizard and Mewtwo are the BEST." LOSERS.
IT'S A BIRD! IT'S A PLANE! OH FORGET THAT SHIT IT'S CHARIZAAAARD!

At the end of Sinnoh, when Ash and friends were at Lily of the Valley Island (the site of the Sinnoh League), a flying shadow-y figure was at the end of an episode to be revealed for next episode. People have been CONDITIONED at this point to believe that flying shadow-y figures that come to greet Ash are their beloved, overrated Charizard. So they were pissed off that it's "only Gliscor".

WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?!

I KNOW people who watched the trailer that Charizard would come back to the Unova region on Ash's team multiple times. Just for Charizard. This episode has hundreds of thousands of views just because of Charizard. Compare to the Related Videos by the same guy. That whole EPISODE is a lovefest to Charizard. Ugh.

Mega Charizard X is stupid anyway. Get this trash out of here and let some better Pokémon like Staraptor and Drifblim have the spotlight.


Mustache made of fire?!

Hey, punk. Emboar was here first with a fire BEARD. Who do you think you are Charizard, a PLUMBER?



Ludwig has been playing the Pokémon games ever since the first generation, and he never thought Charizard was the best Pokémon ever. When asked back then, he chose Dodrio as his favourite. While Ludwig has been banned from TPCi's official forum, you can find him under the name Prince LudwigVKoopa on the Pokémon Online battling simulator in the titular server.


Ludwig's hatred for Charizard comes back in a big way: A Splatfest pitting Pokémon Red versus Pokémon Blue.
Charizard continues to pop up, as seen in movies like I Choose You.
Charizard gets a super-exclusive and special form in Pokémon Sword and Pokémon Shield.

14 comments :

  1. Blaziken has a mega evo

    ReplyDelete
  2. Now Sceptile and Swampert have Mega evolve forms

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. ...Oh, right.

      Yes, yes they do.
      Hoenn has it right. I guess. Even if they look weird.
      You won't see Blaziken get another.

      Delete
  3. "Every single one of those Charizard users are stupid kids who don't know what they're doing and think they're awesome with their shiny black Blast Burn Charizard." But not all Charizard users have shiny ones with Blast Burn.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. And now every single one of the Charizard users on Smash 4 online are stupid kids who don't know what they're doing and think they're awesome with their Ridley-coloured or wotever Flare Blitz Charizard.

      THERE IS A PATTERN HERE.

      Yeah, I guess NOW the Charizard users all mega evolve into Mega Charizard X to get that black dragon look.

      Delete
  4. Thank you so much for this journal.
    While I don't mind Charizard, I find his fan base to be one of the most Hellish and overopinionated I have ever encountered. In fact I have been verbally harassed by Charizard fanbrats (genwunners ones especially) because I stated that Emboar is one of my favourite starters, I'm a fan of fairy types (yeah, cuz only Dwagonz can be the ultimate cuz they're so mysterious and rare!111 Forget balance I wanna feel ULTIMATZE!111) and happen to like Vanilluxe and Kelfki (bawwww cuz pokemon are only ment to be animals not objects with eyes!111)

    In fact what you stated about Charizard being a deu ex machia and his presence being fanservice in Unova is so true.
    Also: when you know that Mewtwo and Charizard get 2 mega evos while many others get one, there was some serious butt kissing to the genwunners at work. Not to mention the fact that you could get your Kanto starter very shortly after you get your Kalos starter in X and Y (SERIOUSLY, I only thought you could get your foreign starter POST GAME?)

    Btw: I didn't choose x for mega Charizard, I chose X cuz of Xerneas.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You're welcome!
      Yeah, I totally agree with basically... everything you just commented.

      I've shown some Genwunners this article/gave my thoughts to them in general and they basically aren't polite people, basically.

      The fact you got the Kanto starter early on in Kalos made me think that GameFreak wasn't confident with their Kalos-specific designs, for whatever reason.

      Delete
  5. Whoops, I use Charizard as an alternate character in SSB4 so randoms on For Glory do not get too used to my Duck Hunt. The reason is I used to use Pokemon Trainer a lot in Brawl and got used to Charizard's moveset. However Ivysaur was my favorite of the three. If I ever get you in randoms again or if we are in a friend room I'll be sure to not use Charizard unless I forget.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Well we're totally not going to ever see each other in randoms, that's f'sure.

      We'd have to organise beforehand doing teams in friend rooms, though.

      You can totally use Charizard! 'cause I'd win and feel better about demolishing Charizard. :) He's like, Bowser's natural rival anyway.

      Delete
    2. I've seen people I befriended in randoms again. They get the heart symbol near their Mii to show that friend requests have been exchanged or accepted. I always have a "HI THERE" for when that happens.

      Delete
    3. Yeah, I've seen the heart symbol appear in randoms... but only after we've both sent friend requests to one another from the show-the-results screen profiles.

      I've changed my name to ones asking for a friend request before, but those are rarely honoured. :(

      Never happened when I was just doing randoms and a friend joins. This isn't Splatoon, after all.

      Delete
  6. Charizard is definitely one of the favorites. I always wished that they’d bring back Ash’s squirtle. Especially since he has those really cool shades. It’s always neat to revisit old episodes and remember all those details you completely forgot. I doubt any of the kids today would think DANGEROUS GANG MEMBER when they see squirtle, but I do.

    I think it’s safe to say you still hodl these options and probably aren’t thrilled that charizard was prioritized with the alohan(galoran?) forms too. Some things never change I suppose.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I think Charizard being the star of the whole Galarian region is embarrassing.

      Delete

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