A thought about the Pokedex...

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Strawberry Delcatty

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Something came to my mind about how the Pokedex list Pokemon species in an AIM conversation...

[21:55] Eternallostgamer: wild monkey? There's a mankey in teh fight?
[21:56] Ida Kathry: No... the's Vigoroth's classification...
[21:56] Eternallostgamer: they're monkies?
[21:56] Eternallostgamer: thought they were... no clue
[21:56] Ida Kathry: http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Vigoroth_(Pokémon)
[21:57] Ida Kathry: I'm just going by sources
[21:57] Eternallostgamer: (looks at sereebi instead)
[21:57] Eternallostgamer: hmm wild monkey
[21:57] Eternallostgamer: so wonder wjhat the slaking is
[21:58] Eternallostgamer: lazy... behomth
[21:58] Eternallostgamer: lazy... behemoth or something could'b fit more*
[21:59] Eternallostgamer: geez this is a weird one sloaoths are sloths in reality and sure I had no clue what Vigo was but Slack was a behmoth
[22:00] Eternallostgamer: none of those forms look like monkies. Game Freak IS on crack
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I DO have to admit of some oddball species that don't match the Pokemon at all (Sandslash is a mouse?).

Does anyone feel that some Pokemon species classifications are... inaccurate?
 
Sure. Most things are a bit inaccurate. But some are quite nice. I like it when they aren't named after the animal but after the concept like delcatty's "Prim" and absol's "Disaster" and stuff. However, some do seem a bit out there. I mean I guess they want to use common words or something like instead of "Mongoose" it becomes "Cat Ferret". Or maybe they just translated it badly. But some are okay. I mean sandslash could be a mouse. I mean you don't have to strain yourself finding what else it may be.
 
Strawberry Delcatty said:
(Sandslash is a mouse?).
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Sandslash is indeed a rodent, it is based on the Hedgehog family.


On the subject of the Pokédex classifacations, I find them to be mostly accurate. The Sloth/Monkey thing could be a simple translation mistake (Assuming the japanese classification is diffrent).
 
Not reallymuch of one, Strawberry. The needles are too big and really it seems a bit long. Just the body structure. I mean I guess the fact that it has those was affected by hedgehog's needles but I wouldn't say it is the hedgehog pokemon. Some are actually quite strange but not all really. I still stand by the fact that the concept classifications are much more interesting. Like azurill's "Polka-Dot Pokemon" is a bit better that like "Tiny Mouse" or something. And really most are as simple as that so there is little worries. However stuff like cradily's "Barnacle Pokemon" while it is seriously based on a sea lily and even lileep's is "Sea Lily Pokemon" so I find it strange to see that. The pokemon didn't change that much when it evolved.
 
Another Fan said:
I still stand by the fact that the concept classifications are much more interesting. Like azurill's "Polka-Dot Pokemon" is a bit better that like "Tiny Mouse" or something.
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I have to admit that I think that's a bit nifty myself. Cubone as the Lonely Pokemon...

Another Fan said:
However stuff like cradily's "Barnacle Pokemon" while it is seriously based on a sea lily and even lileep's is "Sea Lily Pokemon" so I find it strange to see that. The pokemon didn't change that much when it evolved.
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Just looked up a Wikipedia entry on barnacles...
Yeah, I have to agree with you there.
 
Strawberry Delcatty said:
I have to admit that I think that's a bit nifty myself. Cubone as the Lonely Pokemon...


Just looked up a Wikipedia entry on barnacles...
Yeah, I have to agree with you there.
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Yeah. If they added some outer shell then I wouldn't mind but as is isn't enough to change.

Yeah, the cubone's one is a good one as well. I can't believe I forgot that one.
 
I think Slowpoke and Slowbro just dont make sense. The only thing "hermit crabby" about Slowbro is the shell and he's not even in it! It's on his tail for gawd's sake!
In my "Official Guide Book" that I had since I was nine and I'm fifteen, they say stuff like Bulbasaur being a "seed" Pokemon.
 
What is wrong with slowpoke's? You know, it would be awesome if they changed slowbro's to the "Hermit Pokemon".

Um... Clair, bulbasaur's classification is the "Seed Pokemon", it isn't a mistake in the book.
 
Sandslash is a pangolin.
Pangolin.jpg


I guess they try to make the classifications not so complicated for the kiddies, but they used words even more complicated than that to make up the names of pokemon. Oh well, names and flavor text are two different concepts.

Cyndaquil is the Fire Mouse pokemon, but it is based on the echidna, and as far as I know, mice and echidnas aren't even closely related.

Edit: Ok, without the flames, it kinda resembles a shrew, but that's the most I'll give them.
 
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I'm sure it's just a combination of making the names easy for children to understand, and then a fair bit of it is probably translation error. This error percentage is probably low, but I'm sure it's still there.

Also, it might be creative differences. The translators may look at a Pokémon and its classification and say that the Japanese made an error in judgement because they may be unfamiliar with something, so they change it to what they think would suit it best.
 
Interesting point. We should have a look at the Japanese classifications.
 
Well, the spray is not really poisonous. I always thought it Sandslash's Poison Sting was more to represent the myth that the spiny mammels/rodents could fling thier quills.
 
Porcupines have the ability to shoot their stings at predetors. The stings are somewhat poisonous if I can recall correctly, so maybe that's why they went with Poison Sting as a move for Sandslash.
 
*cough* Armadillo*cough*

Some of the classifications are way off, some are quite good. I think it's often a factor of when they were made. It took a long time for any real "world concepts" to settle in. (Ghost of Maiden's Peak...there's a real mongoose there, rather than something mongoose-like. And fish in the St. Anne sequence) so it makes sense to classify a pokemon by another standard (meowth as scratch cat, where, assumedly, there is no such thing as a cat...) perhaps the game translators (or designers) were not thinking along the lines of creating genus', but rather, paralells.
 
Does a pokemon have to accurately reflect a real world creature or object? The debate is still in the air over what some pokemon are. I just thought that the pangolin more closely resembled Sandslash's spiny scales. I have seen Sandshrew as well often described as a pangolin, when I thought it was just a generic armadillo. There is certainly no armadillo that I've ever seen that looks like Sandshrew, but then I found this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pink_Fairy_Armadillo True, a lot of pokemon are described as having behavior like that of their real life counterparts, but there has certainly been no sloth as big as Vigoroth around since before the Ice Age. It could be a great ape, as its classification suggests, but I've certainly never seen any monkey with claws. Why, even Tentacool has only two tentacles. I don't think any jelly exists that has only two tentacles. We could go on all day, but the fact of the matter is that they are caricatures of real animals, or even hybrids. A lot of pokemon are even based on mythological creatures that are even more open to interpretation. The nature of the dex classifications have never been entirely clear to me. Along this logic, I guess a pokemon could be whatever you want it to be. I give kudos to the design team for emulating so many different and often rarely seen animals. They must have a pretty good animal expert with them. Maybe even several of them.
 
I always took the classifications as a kind of scientific error/interpretation. Pokemon can be classified by their representative real life species, by a specific characteristic, or even some habits. I see it as a reflection of the real world way we go about naming our animals, where they belong to a family, an order, a kingdom, and so on, and how the simplest parts of an animal give it the defining name.

EDIT: And just to go along with that, I took a note from my fun facts spread:

What color is a Purple Finch?

Dusky rose red. The scientific name Carpoedacus purpureus means "purple fruit eater" despite the fact that the purple finch eats mostly seeds. Some have described the color as a dark crimson red overlaying an off-gray.

So this finch is named for fruit that it does not even apparently eat. So that's why I consider most Classifications just harmless interpretations.
 
Although slightly off-topic from the current line of conversation, I'm rather curious as to how exactly the Pokedex determines what Pokemon is placed before it. In the anime, at least, it can recognize a Pokemon at a significant distance. It's illogical and technologically difficult to believe it has a camera hooked up to a recognition program that will factor in lighting, movement, positioning, and/or cosmetic changes/damage.

Also by reasoning of distance, any kind of DNA sampling is completely ruled out, without even considering pollutants in the air, wind blowing another Pokemon or human's DNA, etc into the collector.

So...how does it do it?
 
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