radiant

now keep in mind we are ONLY talking about design here. lore is not coming into play whatsoever. if you want to explain to me why xyz pokemon is actually the most/least/best whatevertype pokemon because it's based on this or that: i don't care. that's not why we're here. we're judging books by their covers today

Normal Type

Most - Herdier: This is just a regular ass dog, which may be considered one of the normalest things on the planet. It doesn't get much more normal than this, folks.

Least - Arceus: If i saw this thing it would be one of the least normal days of my life.

Best - Skitty: This is just a perfect design, there isn't anything bad you could possibly say about it and if you tried I'd hit you. Look at that face. ^_^

Worst - Castform (Normal): It looks like either a pair of balls or caspar with a fat rack and in either cae it's just kind of unappealing to look at.

Grass Type

Most - Shaymin (Land Forme): Although 'grass' a type represents all plant life, I am choosing to interpret it literally here. Shaymin is the grassiest of all grass pokemon, and although this is not part of the criteria, it is also very cute so lets all take a moment to appreciate that

Least - Kartana: this is an origami swordsman bug thing which to me isn't really Grass at all. I do love the design but it's not very grassy. yeah paper comes from plants but gun to my head i would have not guessed grass type for this pokemon in top 3, maybe not even top 5.

Best - Wo-Chien: I just think this guy represents a ton of pokemon design philosophy at its best. It has a very strong sense of color, good use of shape, is just a tiny bit strange, and most importantly is a kind of Creature i would like to hang out with

Worst - Calyrex: The more realistically proportioned hare head with the strange body does NOT work for me. I'm not mad about the massive berry on top at all but why the perfectly round torso? Why the stubby little arms? Why the noodle legs with the thigh high boots? I think you could fix this one pretty easily ultimately but it really needs fixin

Water Type

Most - Wailord: Although there is no actual water in wailord's design, the mere presence of a whale implies the necessity for an amount of water that is almost as catastrophically overwhelming in its absence as its presence.

Least - Palkia: Other than looking like an anthropomorphized speedboat palkia is not particularly aquatic in its nature

Best - Lapras: There's a lot of great water pokemon designs but i think lapras is firing on all cylinders. Really a classic pokemon design.

Worst - Quaquaval: There are a lot of pokemon that are uncomfortably anthropomorphic and there have been since gen 1. It's not something I'm against in concept at all and it's produced some of my favorite pokemon designs of all time. But unfortunately when it flops it flops hard. Seriously, what are these proportions? Perfectly fine idea for a pokemon just executed with shocking inelegance.

Fire Type

Most - Gigantamax Cinderace: This is simply the most amount of fire you're getting in a fire pokemon. Biggest bang for your buck

Least - Blacephalon: Another ultra beast design that is, as a design, excellent, but i would not be able to guess the typing on the first try if you put a gun to my head

Best - Chandelure: What if a haunted chandelier was your friend. Enough said. This thing just rules

Worst - Cinderace: Everything I said about quaquaval is equally true here.

Fighting Type

Most - Machamp: He's a wrestler with four arms this is as fighting as fighting gets

Least - Meditite: This is a small child in an open, peaceful stance. I sense no violence here. If he were to fight, he would have been provoked.

Best - Mienshao: effortlessly elegant design that conveys the aesthetics of martial arts with the simplified animal anatomy and strong shape language that represents pokemon at it's best

Worst - Gurdurr: This entire line is profoundly uncomfortable to me but the prominent near-bursting veins and inexplicable hourglass figure are at their worst here.

Flying Type

Most - Altaria: This is a bird made out of clouds, which is the most flyingest a thing could be.

Least - Shaymin (Sky Forme): This dude doesnt look like its feet are getting off the ground anytime soon if i'm being quite honest

Best - Sigilyph: Great example of what flying type can look out when you branch away form birds. The stranger and less organic feeling pokemon are collectively some of my favorite and i think sigilyph is one of the more effective ones.

Worst - Enamorus: 😬

Electric Type

Most - Xurkitree: The Exposed Copper Wiring Pokemon. Great stuff. Also a banger design on top of being the most.

Least - Alolan Geodude: I understand the eyebrows and hair are supposed to be gatherings of lead sand but its still not giving electrivity. it just looks like a rock, one of the least electric things on the planet

Best - Rotom (All Forms): I wanted to put every rotom here but there was no way to arrange that easily. Just picture all the other rotoms here too. Rotom is awesome it's normal design is just cute and fun and then all of the other appliances are just a great concept.

Worst - Elektrike: Not unforgivably bad or anything but just kind of a design that doesn't convey a lot of information or have any appeal to it. Completely forgettable.

Poison Type

Most - Galarian Weezing: This guy is the most poisonous possible poison you could have. This guys hobby is global warming. This guy is dumping carcinogens into the river. And not just incidentally. He's ideologically motivated AND gets pleasure from it.

Least - Oddish: Not only do I not believe eating an oddish would poison me, i think oddish is healthy. I think it's good for you.

Best - Ivysaur: It's impossible to truly extract the nostalgia from my feelings towards the gen 1 pokemon designs but I think we can all agree. Ivysaur looks great

Worst - Eternatus: Does not even look like it belongs in the same franchise as anything else on this list so far. And on top of that, it looks stupid. 0/10. I do like the version of it that's an evil hand though.

Psychic Type

Most - Mega Alakazam: This dude looks like he should be airbrushed on a black velvet tapestry. I can't imagine anything more psychic than that.

Least - Exeggcute: Picking a least psychic pokemon was a hard one, because although we have some specific idea of what a psychic is, it's hard to say what one isn't. Ultimately, I don't think a handful of cracked eggs feels very psychic to me. I'm not sure what they feel like to me to be honest.

Best - Deoxys: Take a note, people, this is how you design a pokemon that's 'cool'

Worst - Necrozma: Take a note, people, this is not how you design a pokemon that's 'cool'

Ground Type

Most - Dugtrio: Dugtrios presence in the area is synonymous with the ground. It is not the ground itself but it is of the ground. It will never leave the ground. We will never know dugtrio in its entirety, we will only see as much of it as the ground lets us.

Least - Whiscash: That's a fish, it shouldn't be on the ground.

Best - Trapinch and Claydol: I really really wanted to avoid ties here but please indulge me just this one. These are two creatures that are perfectly made but each in its own distinct way.

Worst - Zygarde (Complete Forme): Overdesigned as fuckkkkkk

Ice Type

Most - Avalugg: This guy's ice.

Least AND Worst - Jynx: Not only is Jynx not particularly icy, changing the skintone was really not enough to redeem this design.

Best - Glaceon: There aren't any bad eveelutions. That said, glaceon isn't my favorite. However in the contect of ice pokemon I think it does a great job of using shape language and colors that feel icy without needing to actually resort to just chucking ice onto it. A lot of ice pokemon are either a little bit too on the nose or just outside of my taste bracket

Bug Type

Most - Caterpie: Very bug.

Least - Pineco: this is a pinecone with eyes, which is different from a bug.

Best - Leavanny: Look at that winning smile :)

Worst - Buzzwole: TOO SWOLE!!!!

Rock Type

Most - Onix: You may think it would have been geodude, who is just a rock with arms, but onix is actually just a rock with a face which is then attached to SEVERAL MORE ROCKS. That's as rock as it gets.

Least - Sudowoodo: You can't pull the wool over my eyes. That's a tree.

Best - Lunatone: What if the moon was kind of creepy and also your pet.

Worst - Terrakion: Think this motherfcukers just ugly

Dragon Type

Most - Mega Charizard X: We all know Charizard is a dragon but that's only sometimes true. When it's true, it's very true.

Least - Tatsugiri (All Forms): Why is a piece of sushi a dragon. I do support it don't get me wrong. But I'm not exactly following the throughline

Best - Rayquaza: I think sometimes the legendary pokemon end up in the Too Much category but I think rayquaza pushes riiight up against that edge without going over it.

Worst - Dracovish: Shitting on the mix and match fossilized pokemon feels kind of like low hanging fruit. I honestly think they're kind of fun in concept. But this just looks stupid

Ghost Type

Most - Haunter: Self explanatory

Least - Decidueye: A very fun design but it feels like its got much too life in it to be ghostly.

Best - Polteageist: I'm insanely biased because I love ghosts and have a teapot collection so when i saw they put a ghost in a teapot i was overjoyed and it became my favorite pokemon as a whole instantly.

Worst - Gholdengo: Looks like the mascot for a string cheese brand

Dark Type

Most - Guzzlord: Dark type in japanese is Evil type which certainly has different connotations. In either case, I think whatever it means for a pokemon to be dark or evil is embodied here.

Least - Scraggy: I don't think this guy is dark or sinister at all.

Best - Mega Absol: I'm just so charmed by mega absol because it is indistinguishable from the kind of thing a teen with a deviantart would have drawn. It's like an edgy emo fairy white haired anime boy angel sparkledog. But despite that it still has a lot of aesthetic integrity and manages to only be a bit over the top in a way i think it's suited for.

Worst - Mega Sharpedo: This cluttered design pretty much undoes anything that's successful about sharpedo's standard form

Steel Type

Most - Melmetal: the unrelenting metalness of this guy is not even tanted by any even vaguelt biological components

Least - Wormadam (Trash Cloak): Not a single visibly metallic part on this pokemon

Best - Magearna: A clockwork magical girl... what a great design.

Worst - Varoom: Something about this guy looks agonized to be alive. And I feel that agony too. It looks like a motorcycle that was in the process of being transmogrified into a creature but the process was incorrectly terminated halfway through and now it lives a cursed and painful existence.

Fairy Type

Most - Mega Diancie: this thing could give me a quest to save the world and i would listen to it

Least - Galarian Weezing: I also wanted to do no duplicates but once again I will ask you for my forgiveness. Clearly this thing is the least fairy fairy. Not only is it unfairy, I think it tortures fairies. I think it's the villain in a movie where a bunch of children have to rescue a gang of captured fairies who are being used to power a Pollution Factory. I think this things grinds fairies up into dust and uses them to line the rim of its cocktail glass.

Best - Klefki: Klefki is soooo fun. I feel like if klefki was a ghost pokemon it wouldn't hit the same way because the idea of a haunted keyring is fun, sure, but it's notwhere near as good as a Whimsical Enchanted Keyring.

Worst - Zacian: this thing could give me a quest to save the world and im not sure i would listen to it. man the legendary dogs are just kind of a mess aesthetically