Milotic
Beautiful, and legitimately challenging to obtain in game. Put soooo many hours in Sapphire as a kid trying to finally get her. Proceeded to wreak havoc in beauty contests across the region. Was later my first ever perfectly bred shiny in game too!
Ninetales
A slow burn for me, didn’t really bubble to the surface as a top favourite until we got the Alolan form. Deciding to actively collect cards from this evo line made me realise how many I had already sought out over the years. Vulpix really reminds me of my dog too, and is still the only 1st edition base set card I own.
I have quite a few favorites. Umbreon and Espeon are some of my favorites because I first saw them in one of the Japanese Neo files before the set was released in the US. I remember being immediately drawn to how simple yet elegant their designs were. I also loved the mystery behind the ruins in the card art. Exploring the Ruins of Alph was also one of my favorite parts of Gold, Silver, and Crystal. I always wished they had done more with the ruins in the games. I wanted to see more of a connection between umbreon and espeon and the Ruins of Alph. To this day, I’m still struck with wonder and awe when I see these Pokémon.
Also, I always figured that Umbreon and Espeon would be cool pets/companion Pokémon. I was thrilled to see them be your “starters” in Pokémon Colosseum.
I started to like Salamence since I first saw the Ex Dragon #19 card. Gen 3 was kinda new at the time and the 11 year old me thought it was so cool. I’ve always been drawn into dragons and dinosaurs for some reason and have a tendency to like characters and Pokemon with that aesthetic. Also Salamence is kinda cute. It’s a great Pokemon, it can look both cool and cute. And I love the back story of the evolution line of Bagon wanting to fly and falling down from cliffs and stuff haha. It’s nice as in the end he learns how to fly when he finally evolves into Salamence
Rayquaza is a similar story, imo it’s one of the best designed Pokemon overall. And it’s a dragon. And it’s cool looking. I honestly don’t remember when I first saw Rayquaza but I liked it straight away. I think I started to like it even more when playing my friend’s copy of Pokemon Emerald. I loved the game box with emerald bling on it and catching the Rayquaza for my friend was amazing. I really have to thank my friend for letting me complete the game for her and let me use her Nintendo DS, I still really appreciate those memories I had with Pokemon Emerald.
Flygon - yet another dragon with the type of aesthetic that I like plus Flygon is so cute! I will always appreciate Flygon, even thought he is often forgotten and is over shadowed by similar typed Garchomp, I’ll always love Flygon.
Alolan Vulpix / Ninetales, I fell in love with them straight away when I first saw them on Sun & Moon leaks. I already liked regular Vulpix and Ninetales, but the Alolan ones take the design to the next level. Alolan Vulpix is so cute and Alolan Ninetales is so elegant and beautiful.
Lugia has just always been one of my favorites. I remember as a kid loving the Pokémon Movie 2000 and always thought Lugia was so epic when they used aeroblast. Also one of the cards I remember wanting the most as a kid was the Neo Genesis Lugia, it was just so gorgeous. I never had one as a kid, but I own one now!
My favorite non legendary is Haunter. I do love Gengar for sure, but I’ve always thought Haunter was the coolest of that evo line. For some reason I just loved him in the anime as a kid and its stuck with me. So pretty much a ton of nostalgia with the ones I like!
I’ve always liked snakes. They’re cool, versatile, live anywhere on Earth except for the poles, and I was always fascinated by them. As a kid I loved reading and browsing through these animal informational books, and snakes always stood out to me. Even right now I have posters hanging in my room of snakes.
When Pokémon was released, I did like Ekans and Arbok obviously, but at the same time they were a bit lackluster. I did still like them, but Pokémon like Haunter, Alakazam, and Ditto were at the time my favorites (and still are among my favorites today), especially after seeing them in the anime.
A few years later when Seviper was released in the third generation however, I instantly fell in love with its design. It’s just so cool! Even if I wouldn’t have been biased towards snakes, I still think it’s an amazing Pokémon overall. Some Pokémon designs I see I just instantly have a click with. Rayquaza and Yveltal are other examples of such Pokémon.
So why did I decide to collect Pikachu cards when I came back collecting 5.5 years ago? Well, I basically knew there were a lot of them and it would keep me busy for a while. Well, that has certainly been an understatement when we look at how many there are today, lol…
I’ve been collecting stuff since 5 years old (post stamps and peddles at the time), and have collected A LOT of things in my life. So collecting Pikachu was the obvious choice at the time. Only later on (3.5 years ago) I decided to also start collecting my favorite Pokémon Seviper. And I’m very happy to say that my Seviper collection is officially 100% complete in all languages and variations since past Monday, when my last two Indonesian Seviper cards had arrived.
My favorite Pokémon is Charizard. I’m unsure how it started whether it was Firered to my knowledge being my first ever video game, the unlimited Zard I had as a kid that I still have today, the anime, my brother having one in the games or something else entirely. I would imagine it’s a mix of all of those and more. Regardless I have always loved Zard and he has never left the spot of my favorite Pokémon!
Cyndaquil was my first ever pokemon. I knew nothing of evolving and what my cyndaquil was growing into, so I was amazed every time it evolved. Latias was due to the pokemon heroes movie. Salamence was just cool. and I could never get my Eevee to evolve into anything but an umbreon, so I decided that that pokemon had chosen me and I never evolved an eevee into anything else
It’s time for me to dive into this for real now.
Bulbasaur is the number 1, the best of the best, the Saur above all, Pokémon. Everybody that claims otherwise doesn’t know anything about Pokémon. Bublasaur is the only starter you can beat the all Gym Leader with, something Squirtle and lolmander cannot do. That is why he’s number one, now and 25 years ago.
I love Bulbasaur, especially Ash’ Bulbasaur, because of his attitude. Ivysaur is always a bomb and Venusaur is just the Saur of all Saurs. I don’t like the Mega or Gigantimax versions because it’s boring design. The other thing that Bulbasaur got going for him is that he looks so much like a French Bulldog, my number one favourite dog breed. Grass and Poison are my favourite types. Green/Teal/Turquoise are my favourite colours. I am a total genwunner and nothing compares to the original 151… except for… Trubbish!
Obviously there are a few other Pokémons I like, but it always gets back to Bulbasaur. I start every game with it, I favour Bulbasaur in every team even if there are better (and there are) Grass types around. I started Pokémon Red and Blue with Bulbasaur, I dumped Pikachu and everything as soon as I could for Bulbasaur in Yellow. I picked Chikorita in Pokémon Gold because there was no Bulbasaur and than hacked it into it, I replaced Turtwig for Bulbasaur on first moment possible. Bulbasaur number one. Obviously I started Pokémon Go with a Bulbasaur and at this moment I have almost 1000km walked with the little Saur as my Buddy.
When I first got into the hobby, about a year ago, I wanted to try and collect one of every English and Japanese Ninetales card. My thinking was that, since Ninetales has been around since the beginning and seems to still be getting prints it would be a collection I could continue to add to once I had “caught up”. Since then I’ve gone on to abandon this goal, as I’ve shifted my focus more towards Japanese promos, and Japanese cards in general. But I still have a soft spot for Ninetales, and have put together a page in my binder with all of my favourite prints.
But Ninetales isn’t necessarily my favourite Pokemon. I got into the franchise with Sapphire, in Gen 3. I love most of the Pokemon, with Torchic, Milotic and Gardevoir being the top 3. Growing up, Pokemon was my first real experience with a video game and the memory of picking my first starter and going on an adventure brings back so many fond memories. I got lucky and caught Ralts right after Wally, and somehow fished in the right spot to catch a Feebas all the way on Route 119 (which was insanely difficult, and totally random). Getting them to evolve, defeating the Elite Four and then becoming champion gave me such a feeling of accomplishment. The post-game stuff was good fun (especially the Regi stuff) and by the end of my time with Sapphire, I had logged over 750 hours. It was the beginning of a life long obession with the franchise, and with my OG team (that consisted of Blaziken, Milotic, Gardevoir, Skarmory and Ninetales).
My favorite pokemon is Charmander. Why? 1. So dang cute. 2. It was my first starter pokemon. 3. I always loved charizard. 4. I have a giant 1.5 ft tall plushie of it. 5. I don’t really know… It just is. My other favorite pokemon are lugia/azumarill and many gen 3 pokemon like mudkip. Those are my favorites because they have been special at different points in my life, but for as long as I can remember, charmander has always taken the #1 spot.
Typhlosion, Umbreon, Salamence. I used Typhlosion and Typhlosion in the Pokemon Gameboy games, they both look awesome aswell XD Umbreon was my first Japanese and first Neo Pokemon card, I traded for it in school because it looks really nice and different. I still own the same card to this day.
As a kid, Silver Version had the most impact on me. That was the game that I put my very soul into. Everything about it was perfect in my eyes.
I think ultimately, what started the love for Larvitar, was he is a Pokémon that was only obtainable at the VERY END of the game on Victory Road. So the journey to get him, was quite the investment.
So to get the awesome evo Tyranitar, you had to put in some decent gameplay post Elite Four to level up!
Lastly, there’s just something about having Tyranitar on your team in the final battle against Red that just feels oh so right
Mew- So cool to daydream of a Pokemon that just enjoyed its life. Had power nearly matching Mewtwo, but didn’t have any real need for it. That peaceful vibe + brutal power = Kid Love!
Lugia- The three legendary birds were shown as such a gnarly threat to everyone in the second movie. When Lugia took them all on at once, literally blew me away. I loved that one Pokemon went after all the bad ones without any back up… then when the card came out they did an amazing job showing how badass he was! ALL three elements in the background was too cool. Mewtwo/Mew cards were very lackluster for a long time!
Mewtwo- Pure Power! The dude looks like Frieza (I was obsessed with DBZ) and I loved how similar they were. As a kid, it was nice that Mewtwo wasn’t actually evil and was just a beast at the end of the first movie.
).