There’s something about sentient plants that never goes out of style.

I can’t believe I love a simple plant bulb with stumpy legs. There’s so little to Oddish’s design, but it doesn’t bother me in the slightest. It think it’s because those tiny eyes win me over. Imagine bumping your foot on an ordinary vegetable, only to find a poisonous plant monster turning around to glare at you with its beady eyes.

Oddish’s simple composition benefits from its biography. It’s a nocturnal creature, only emerging from the soil when its leaves are bathed in moonlight. During the daytime, it buries its head back underground. For Oddish, having generic-looking leaves makes for perfect camouflage. And since they’re typically found in wide, open patches of grass, this concept fits the character perfectly.

Interestingly, a couple Pokédex entries have exclusive information on Oddish. If yanked from the ground, it screeches bloody murder at the offender. There’s no doubt that Oddish is supposed to be Mandrake! Or, as other people might remember them: those obnoxious plant buggers in the first Harry Potter:

With that in mind, Oddish’s “feet” are actually its roots! It’s adorable that a plant managed to evolve its traditional anatomy into more animalistic traits.

Game Freak loved to throw the Poison typing on a bunch of Pokémon in the first generation. Outside of an explanation I can only guess as, “Because poisonous monsters are cool,” it didn’t always make sense right away. But for Oddish, it may tie into the real-world mandrake root. In ancient times, it was thought to be great for medicinal purposes, but in truth it’s a highly toxic plant. Vomiting, hallucinations, and asphyxia are just a few symptoms caused by ingesting the root. It’s amazing our ancestors still used it anyways.

It would have been cool to see Oddish take a more humanoid approach, considering how mandrake roots vaguely look as such. But I love that it looks more like a harmless radish that you definitely do not want to mess with.

Ah, now there’s a more humanoid appearance! Gloom just grew spindly arms and called it a day, but it works.

To this day, Gloom is the only Pokémon to have nectar that oozes from its mouth like drool. It makes for a striking and memorable feature. Gloom may have gotten its namesake from its sullen expression, but to me it looks like it’s enduring three nights of sleep deprivation.

It’s worth noting that Gloom does still have eyes. They seem to only widen when surprised.

I’m not sure how this thing walks around with them closed most of the time.

With nectar and pistils pungent enough to curl noses, Gloom is without a doubt a rafflesia arnoldii. It’s interesting that the first generation got two Pokémon that represent this one flower (the other being Venusaur)! And even though they both follow the same base concept, they each take their own spins on it!

My biggest critique on Gloom is that I don’t like its flower bud being a bunch of spheres. They look more like coconuts. I wish they were a little more organic like Ivysaur’s bud. Other than that, it looks nice with the rest of Gloom’s design.

Apparently, I have serious issues with geometrically perfect shapes.

Here’s a little random trivia: male and female Gloom have visible differences on their buds. Males have the classic speckled pattern, while females – as of generation IV – have single, large spots.

Only a handful of older Pokémon designs were given subtle dimorphism in Diamond and Pearl. It may be a tiny detail, but I’d love future games to utilize this concept much more frequently.

When exposed to a Leaf Stone, Gloom matures into the full-fledged flower monster it was teasing at.

Not much has changed to Oddish’s body throughout its evolution. Rather, there’s a heavier emphasis on how the flower changes. While I’ve often complained about certain Pokémon for barely changing when they evolve, Vileplume doesn’t bother me.

I suppose that’s because the flower contrasts with its body. Vileplume’s family has one point of interest, but it takes that concept and fleshes it out as much as possible. It’s much more visually striking compared to simply changing the entire character’s body a little bit.

I only have one question on my mind: why, oh why did Vileplume drop the drooling face? Don’t get me wrong, I like seeing the return of those tiny, vacant eyes. But Gloom’s nectar drool was an excellent concept, and it’s a shame that it was dropped upon evolution. I don’t care that Vileplume is designed to look “prettier” than its predecessor. I feel that rafflesia arnoldii are flowers that are half beautiful and half grotesque.

Game Freak shouldn’t have held back on combining those two ideas into Vileplume’s design.

Digressing from my small rant there, I do still like Vileplume. Taking an “uglier” flower and putting a “pretty” spin on it is a solid concept. The flower atop Vileplume’s head does still emit an immeasurably foul odor, so that hasn’t been abandoned. It’s like a “femme fatale” with its beautiful flower hiding a deadlier secret.

I still think Vileplume could have been refined or experimented with just a little more, but I’m happy with the final product.

Generation II rolled around and gave Gloom a branching evolution, separate from Vileplume. If near a Sun Stone, it has a complete identity crisis in the form of Bellossom.

Bellossom is such a “meh” character to me. Nothing in its design looks garish, but nothing particularly stands out, either. Bellossom isn’t the first humanlike plant creature out there, and that might be why it feels so lackluster. So many other designs have more of a punch in comparison.

The only ties this Pokémon has with Vileplume are that its tiny head flowers might be another species of Rafflesia. The Pokédex doesn’t really touch on them, so they could just be average flowers, for all I know.

Instead, the only information on Bellossom is about its ritualistic dancing. But not even that is fleshed out very much. Nothing about its movements or performances. Nothing hinting at its Hawaiian dancer motif. Bellossom just dances… and that’s all the time we have talk about it, apparently.

Bellossom feels like an early-game Grass type that got tacked onto the end of Gloom’s evolutionary tree. Personally, I think it would have done better as a standalone species.