The Pokemon franchise has racked up a ton of monsters by now; the number has gone from the original 150 to pushing 900. Still, many people who play the games regularly know most or all of the Pokemon well, given how often they encounter them in battle or in the wild. While some people have trouble keeping up with the high numbers, there are certain truly unique Pokemon that stand out, whether that’s due to their place in the meta, their intriguing lore, or their visual designs.
Some of the monsters in the Pokemon games and anime are less useful for defeating gym leaders or entering contests, but are very striking to look at. Some Pokemon have more abstract designs that aren’t immediately able to be pinned down on a specific source of inspiration, while other Pokemon are the opposite. It’s hard to look at Butterfree and not see a butterfly. Given the vast amount of known Pokemon species across the regions, there have been multiple spins on the same concept, like the aforementioned butterfly.
One source of inspiration that serves for some very recognizable monsters (even if they’re not great assets on a Pokemon team) are everyday objects. It’s worth taking a look at some of these Pokemon that are based on inanimate objects, rather than living plants or real-life animals, if only to see how creative the designers can get.
This Steel/Fairy type was introduced in Pokemon X and Y, and is very clearly inspired by a key ring. Although the official art shows it holding four different keys on its ring, it’s actually the ring itself, not the keys. Its face does have a rudimentary appendage that looks like a key, but looking at its Pokedex entries makes it clear that Klefki just likes keys, and will even go so far as to steal them from people. Because the history of humans and Pokemon are so intertwined in the PokemonKlefki collected world, it’s not clear if some other kind of object before humans invented keys, whether it came about in response to keys’ invention, or whether it didn’t exist before at all.
This Ghost-type Pokemon’s entire evolutionary line is inspired by various light sources, which is reflected in their secondary Fire type. Litwick looks like a candle, Lampent looks like a gas lamp, and Chandelure itself is a black and purple chandelier. The entire line keeps the Ghost-type theme apparent by using cool purples and blues for most of their color palettes, accented by striking yellow and dark gray/black. None of these Pokemon would look out of place in a Gothic castle, and when they’re introduced in Pokemon Black and White, Litwick can be caught in the Celestial Tower burial ground. Litwick’s Pokedex entry says that it uses its flame to pretend to guide people and then leech their energy. This makes it easy for it and its evolutions to blend into graveyards and places of remembrance disguised as lights for the mourning.
Chingling is one of the Pokemon from the Sinnoh region, although it also appears natively in Kanto, Johto, and Kalos. It’s inspired by a bell with a short rope ending in tassels, like one that someone would hold to ring the instrument. Its evolution, Chimecho, keeps with the ringing theme by embodying a singular wind chime, specifically a fūrin wind chime from Japan. Both Pokemon make use of sound-based moves like Heal Bell and Echoed Voice. Some North American and European players may not be immediately clear on what Chimecho is meant to represent; many Americans are more used to wind chimes made of slats of wood or metal clattering together. Many Pokemon draw specifically from Japanese culture, including Chimecho.
These Ghost/Ground type Pokemon were introduced in the Alola region of Pokemon Sun and Moon, which is fitting given that region’s beachy island theme. Sandygast and Palossand are both meant to be sandcastles, although the evolved Pokemon looks more completed and high quality. Sandygast’s Pokedex entry even says that it’s born directly from the sand, which is an interesting addition to the Pokemon lore. While many object-based Pokemon are attempting to imitate objects rather than actually being made out of them, Sandygast and Palossand are literally animate creatures born from sand and emotional grudges. Palossand takes the legend a bit further, as its Pokedex entries claim it can possess people to fuel its curses, and that it drains people’s energy and buries their bones beneath itself.
This evolutionary line is an increasingly bigger amalgamation of gears, and apparently spins around to create the energy to live. The gears themselves are individual Pokemon that are predestined to link and form a singular Klink, which then accrues more metal to evolve. The lore doesn’t delve into whether these Pokemon were inspired by human’s gears or the other way around.
Both Pokemon are inspired by bags of trash, and were two of the many introduced Pokemon in Gen 5. Trubbish’s Pokedex entry directly relates its birth to the human impact on the environment, which is a very topical move for Pokemon to make with its lore. The pre-evolution was formed out of the chemical reaction between garbage bags and industrial waste, and it goes out of its way to seek more trash from litterers to add to its body. Garbodor is an even larger clump of trash, and by consuming waste, it can create the poison that allows it to fight and gives it its typing.
Object-based Pokemon clearly have a wide range of abilities, aesthetics, and origin stories. Many Pokemon either imitated or inspired objects, and it’s impossible to tell lore-wise why some Pokemon appear like items, like with Klinklang’s evolutionary line. Garbador and Palossand and their pre-evolutions have particularly haunting stories, as they wouldn’t have existed without human intervention on the environment. These Pokemon can arguably be used for good, though, such as in the case of progressing through a main title’s storyline and defeating an evil team that wants to to exploit Pokemon. Whatever their origin or place in the lore, object-inspired Pokemon are often striking and visually memorable.
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