An Ode to a Jigglypuff

Twenty - five years ago in Red and Blue , newly - minted Boulder - Badge owningPokémon trainerswould find themselves heading toward the first steps of the rest of their life drowning in razz Pokémon . path 3 was filled with them — Pidgeys and Spearows , as far as the tall grass could see — but every once in a while , when the fates willed it , you would find the greatestPokémonof all time .

Bulbapedia , the go - to fandom wiki for ridiculously esotericPokémon fact , tell there ’s a 10 % chance of you run into a Jigglypuff in the grandiloquent grass of Route 3 in Pokémon Red and Pokémon Blue . The same chance was there when instrumentalist could revisit the land of Kanto in the post - game phases of their sequel , Pokémon Gold and Pokémon Silver , and once again in succeeding generation of remakes , FireRed and LeafGreen , and HeartGold and SoulSilver , severally . The very firstPokémon gamesturn 25 years old tomorrow , on what is formally pertain to as “ Pokémon Day . ” In their most late remakes , Let ’s Go Pikachu and Let ’s Go Eevee on the Nintendo Switch , you could n’t discover a Jigglypuff there at all .

It feels like a criminal offence .

Jigglypuff, singing its heart out as all good queens do.

Jigglypuff, singing its heart out as all good queens do.Screenshot: OLM, Inc.

https://gizmodo.com/10-pokemon-shorts-that-prove-trainers-are-overrated-1844013144

Looking back on the experience of my five - class - former ego fall in love with his favorite Pokémon , a 10 % prospect just does n’t sound right . Nostalgically , it feels like Jigglypuff was await for me on Route 3 , always there to be encountered and captured , to be trained and to be loved . That it was the first Pokémon I find , and not that , more realistically , I and my Charmander burned ourselves through a veritable host of Pidgeys to get that fateful encounter .

But that ’s the matter about Pokémon for me and so many players of a variety . Just as there are millions of fan for whom first and foremost it isa masterfully strategiccompetitive RPG , simple to learn but arcane to master in the transmedia franchise ’s frightening competitive scene , there be just as many devotee for whom Pokémon is about making friendswith cute tool . It becomes a kind of magic trick , when you ’re whittling down this adorable looking genderless pink sphere with ears and a tuft of … hair ( ? ) because you want to be its protagonist and not because of its particular attack stat .

Gif: Nintendo

Gif: Nintendo

brush rates mean nothing when you attend back , decade later , and marvel just what it is about a Jigglypuff that wrestle its way into your tenderness and never let go . Maybe it was the alienness that , unlike so many Pokémon you had encountered up to that peak — Brock ’s massive Onyx aside — it did n’t just look like a cartoon reading of an animal you already bang , and that was surprising . perhaps it ’s because it looks like cotton confect with a soul . Maybe it was the first unsubtle mental reminder of my queerness , the boy who liked the pink Pokémon — but a childhood ofSpice Girls albumsprobably already put down that to rest . Whatever it was , from that consequence , Jigglypuff entered my Pokémon team and never left it for the rest of the myriad hours I sunk into Pokémon Blue .

Since those former days , Jigglypuff has become a routine of an unlikely breakout diva , which made those playground disputation over why you were indeed the son who liked the pink Pokémon and not say , Charizard orMewtwo , gentle to forestall . As Pokémon exploded in the late ‘ ninety , my pink puffball compatriot was there for their moment in the spotlight . Jigglypuff develop starring turning in the sketch , entrance hero and villain likewise with their sickly sweet berceuse and then covering their face in marker pen for the audacity of falling asleep to it .

When Pokémon came to be present in the first Super Smash Bros , it was Jigglypuff who stepped up to the plate ( an electric gnawer may have also been there ) . Pokémania truly hit , and as we were drowned in trading visiting card , plush toys , and various other pocket monster ephemera , Jigglypuff was as present as the big league names , the mascots who would go on to be the forever face of the series at prominent : whereverPikachu and Eevee went , Jigglypuff followed .

Screenshot: OLM, Inc.

Screenshot: OLM, Inc.

Even age and year later on , as nostalgia for that first contemporaries of Pokémon designs has endured , Jigglypuff has remained ascensive . For thesummer of Pokémon Go love , Jigglypuff went global once more , literally showing up wherever febrile devotee went . When boast filmDetective Pikachurevealed itself and thrust itsadorably nightmarish aestheticonto the world , Ryan Reynold ’s Pikachu was there , sure . But one of the first other Pokémon we got to see , this monitor to a cinematic interview of what Pokémon was , at its core , was a Jigglypuff in a bar turn towards the camera , its marshmallow body not marshmallow at all , but cut across in brilliant , unsettling hair .

Twenty - five year by and by , I ascertain myself no longer the itchy feet child exploring this foreign land in my Game Boy , butostensibly a grown adultwho still find time to be charge up by TV game for children . And yet through all that change , Jigglypuff endure as its round , squidgy pink ego , not just as part of the Pokémon canyon , but as one of its most iconic creatures . Its unconvincing success made that initial love on Route 3 easy to cultivate , for it to grow into the foreign warmth for fictional characters we ’re all adequate to of falling for . For as long as Pokémon has been there , as long as it has been part of most of my life , Jigglypuff was there too , cast on alongside me — and long may it continue to do so .

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Screenshot: Warner Bros.