This was something that was suggested to me back when I did my Top Ten Pokemon of each [of the first six] generation[s].

(I like brackets)

I was makin decisions on which Pokemon I loved from those Gens; why not go through and find the ones I had no particular affection for? There are so many Pokemon to LOVE; aren’t there an equal amount to hate?

Well, no. Not quite.

That’s why this is a Bottom FIVE, and those were Top TENs. I don’t want to dislike Pokemon; I WANT to love them. They are fun and adorable and imaginative! I have played an asinine number of hours across all of the games in my life because I like these things, not because I despise them!

So this feels a bit negative for my tastes. There are more good ones that bad! There has to be.

But still… it’s an easy enough call. There are Pokemon that are fun to use in playthroughs. There are Pokemon that are aesthetically inspired. There are Pokemon that are competitive dynamos. There are Pokemon with fun, fulfilling lure.

And then… there are some without almost any of that.

So starting today, we are going to look at the bottom of the PokeBarrel, starting with Kanto and the monsters that debuted in Red/Blue/Yellow!

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5. Zubat

I really didn’t want to do this. I actually kind of like this guy. Crobat is GREAT, after all. But Generation one has precious few really bad Pokemon. The top 4 was easy, but finding that last entry was really splitting hairs.

But yeah, if you ever went spelunking to get from one route to another–which you HAD to do multiple times–you no doubt ran into hundreds of these things. Fast, omnipresent, and able to confuse your Pokemon, Zubat were frustrating as heck to run into when you just wanted to advance the damn game!

They’ve become a meme in the way they are frustratingly unavoidable, so yeah, sorry. I still kind of like you guys, but… you make the cut.

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4. Graveler

RIGHT AWAY Pokemon let you know the entire franchise was going to be a money grab. There were several Pokemon that, right out the door, required you to have access to another Gameboy and a different version of the game just to fully evolve them. Graveler, Kadabra, Haunter, and Machoke were all stuck in a secondary form unless you had help.

But while I’ll forgive the others–Kadabra was still powerful, Haunter looks god damn awesome, and Machoke has a world title, so that’s nice–Graveler just stunk if you couldn’t evolve him to Golem.

He was supposed to be defensive, but he had TWO types he was 4x weak against (grass and water). He looks like an idiot; seriously the artistic design here was “non-descript, lumpy rock”. And if you REALLY wanted a Rock/Ground type, you could get a badass Rhydon.

What a stupid Pokemon!

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3. Dugtrio

It’s… it’s three Digletts.

Three Digletts just hanging out together.

That’s not what evolution is. My wife and I did not evolve into a new being when we got married. These Diglett did not “evolve” to become a Dugtrio.

I mean… Magneton makes some sense. They are magnets! Of course they would attract and get stuck to one another. But this… this is nonsense.

Props for being fairly useful as far as glass cannons go. It IS fast and powerful, but gets OHK’ed by almost anything that isn’t an electric attack.

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2. Seaking

It’s an ugly fish with a horn and… fangs? I’ve literally never noticed Seaking has fangs before. Does Seaking learn Bite or anything? Why would it have fangs?

A lot of the lazier complaints about modern Pokemon is “They are just a dog/bird/cat/whatever”. People complain there’s nothing fanciful about them; they are just an anime-ized real creature.

But here’s Seaking.

From Generation One.

Just a fish.

With a horn.

{Oh, and fangs)

I mean, in addition to all that, it’s shit. It’s just shit. Who used Seaking over literally any other fully evolved water type in the game? Idiots who couldn’t find a Golduck or Starmie or Gyarados or Poliwrath or Blastoise or Dewgong, that’s who.

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1. Jynx

You know it’s not good when a Pokemon needed to be redesigned after its release because WHOOPS GameFreak made a racism!

But that’s where we are with Jynx, a Pokemon who originally had BLACK skin to go with those eyes and lips, and yeah… pretty easy to see why THAT was a problem, right?

Even having changed her to purple, I mean… it’s still not great, right? But I guess “awful caricature” is no longer the FIRST thing you think of.

So good for Jynx?

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Yeah, that makes sense. When I thought of who could make the list of worst Kanto originals, my brain went “Well, Jynx, obviously. And… hmmmm”. And the list required a good bit of research from them. It was a one horse race for the “crown” here.

Not that I’m a Genwunner by any means, but I think this list might get easier as I go. But Generation 2 is similar in that the Worst of the worst is an easy call; I just wonder what else will make the list.

Until then, give me your picks for the worst Generation One Pokemon. Let me know who YOU hated!

Until next time… take care!