Many Pokémon fans fell in love with Hoenn’s kick chicken, but apparently, that was never the intention of the franchise.
A recently translated introduction from Pokémon artist Ken Sugimori, who designed the Hoenn starter kit, revealed that the now iconic Blaziken is intended to disappoint fans. Sugimori said that his intention was for the final evolution of the fire initiator to be “violent and hard to see”, in stark contrast to its endearing first form, Torchic. Instead of enjoying the beginner’s growth from a chibi chicken to a rooster in a roost, Sugimori’s intention is to make trainers feel frustrated and lost when witnessing a cute Pokémon. like that turned into something scary like that. However, the joke seems to be on Sugimori, as Blaziken became popular enough to achieve an even more intense super evolution in the Hoenn Pokémon sequel Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire that left very few people, if any Pokémon enthusiasts are disappointed.
Blaziken, Combusken (the medium evolved form of Blaziken), and Torchic appear simultaneously in the 2002 Nintendo game Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire, and the sixth season of the anime, Pokémon: Advanced. The starter kit is used by protagonists such as May and Harrison, as well as Rafe in the 2004 film Pokémon: Destiny Deoxys. Both the Gen 3 game and anime are popular enough to warrant a return trip to the Hoenn Region for Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, but despite its positive reception, it doesn’t have the same bonding power as other generations. . Recently, only Gardevoir made the list of the 10 most searched for Pokémon in the United States, with Gen 1 dominating the list and eclipsing the franchise’s other older Pokémon.
Pokémon is still going strong more than two decades later, with the new Pokémon Horizons anime coming out earlier this year. This is the first series to not feature the iconic main character Ash Ketchum, instead featuring a young coach named Riko. Some fans believe that Riko is Ash Ketchum’s daughter, but a recent episode of the series disproved this theory, making the new series different from its predecessors. Horizons comes with the Pokémon game Scarlet and Violet, the first game in the franchise to implement an open world. Its fire initiator, the small alligator Fuecoco, takes another evolution from cute to terrifying as it evolves into the fire-type Skeledirge.
Pokémon Horizons is currently only available in Japan, but the final episodes of Ash Ketchum as the protagonist of Pokémon Ultimate Journeys: The Series are available to stream on Netflix.
Source: Comicbook.com