Yea I’ve noticed that there are too many bipedal pokemon - I don’t have any data at hand but my feeling is that there’s an increase in bipedalism - not just that, but humanoid bipedalism - that makes lots of designs jarring. A tyranitar/Golduck style mon makes sense because they still feel animalistic, but in your picture - pokemon posing in human-like gestures - it’s just really jarring and too close to home. They need to feel *different* from us.
It’s just all leading to generation X, end game, where we find out Ash and Misty were Pokemon all along, sent back from the future after full bipedal evolution.
I would like the Pokemon center to introduce a lottery system for some of the hot releases on their website. At least then I would have a shot at getting the newly released product.
The design for Johto mons is interesting, the only uniformly thematic gen imo (which is neither a good or bad thing to me, just another taste). No hard lines anywhere, everything is soft, round, curved, squishy and neotenized. Even the hardcore mons like Heracross, Entei, Raikou, Feraligatr, Skarmory etc. Ironically, Tyranitar has only gotten rounder with age.
One design I love that Pokemon do now that they didn’t do before: Ghost type pokemon possessing things instead of actually “being” the whole thing. It began with Rotom, then Aegislash, Palossand, Dhelmise etc. I love it, like a subtype of Ghost Pokemon.
I get their use - people want a guaranteed condition evaluated by a 3rd party, or people want valuable cards preserved, or are trying to flip - but it when it comes to getting everything under the sun slabbed, trying to get a 9 over an 8.5, the obsession over getting a imperceptibly higher grade - who cares? If it’s a cool card, it’s a cool card, and I (personally) do fine without some stranger telling me how good condition my card is, or someone else’s card is. I only buy raw cards, and I ask sellers to send good photos before buying. Save a ton of money and store them in a my binder or case/toploader myself - don’t need a slab to preserve my stuff.
And then there are people getting autographs graded? Oreos graded? Good lord, no thanks.
I’m probably just a curmudgeon but I’m gonna repeat the cliche that Pokemon felt a lot more fun as a kid when we didn’t care about the monetary value of everything and had fun literally putting Charizards in our pockets and washing machines. Now it’s just $$$ but I guess it was inevitable - there’s always been a market for rare collectibles and always will be. (Yes, I realize there have always been flippers and scalpers but it never felt like what’s happening now.)
Oh also I don’t even like the look of slabs. I don’t like labels of any kind; to me these things are toys meant to be played with, not works of art to be hung in museums.
Yeah, I’m with you on the nostalgia of Pokemon, and actually playing with the cards as toys. I also get that a big part of the hobby now is enjoying the art and collectible aspects of cards (I know loads of folks to frame their slabs and have them on display), and feel myself slowly slipping down that slippery slope myself. To each their own I suppose!
Do you still play the TCG, or are you more of a collector?
I also used to think that when I first got back into the hobby last year. Didn’t see the appeal (visually), felt like it was something that was purely for people with huge wallets to buy and sell, etc. But over time they slowly grew on me as I watched grade reveal returns on Youtube, and when I actually owned my first one it just totally changed my mind. Cards look great in the slabs, looks great propped up on little display stands, it’s nice to have that grade showing off how nice your card is, it’s protected, etc.
I do agree that “junk slabs” and the like are kind of dumb. Grading anything and everything just to try and flip or whatever (obviously that doesn’t apply if you’re grading because you genuinely like the card/Pokemon/trainer/whatever, but a random GX of a mid-low popularity Pokemon just to try and flip because it’s “ultra rare” is dumb imo)
But to each their own of course. Took me many months for my mindset on them to change and I still see why people may not like them. At this point I’ve changed from exclusively collecting singles/cards in binders to exclusively collecting graded cards (and singles that I plan to grade).
Yea I can’t criticize anyone who enjoys graded cards - this is mostly just a personal peeve. I don’t play, just a collector who mostly looks for cool stuff/cards throughout the years that catch my eye, like Arita-illustrated items/cards and a bunch of Japanese e-series holos that I picked up last winter. I don’t like most cards that are too modern, but there are some cool developments like full art cards and newer artists like Sowsow. Also a big fan of the newest Eevee Hero alt art Eeveelution cards. I think they’re a welcome stylistic change from the nonstop noisy CGI illustrations that have been going on for a while now.
Yea it’s mostly a personal opinion. I also don’t like most modern product so I’m probably just running off cranky nostalgia. I can’t trash people who like slabs because it’s not exactly ruining the hobby in any way - if people enjoy it, go for it!
