Rereading some of the PokeSPE mangas and. Like. I never realized this before but I really appreciate how pokespe gives the protagonists pokemon that… generally aren’t thought of for competitive battling
Like when you look at competitive battling or whatever you always have, like, the powerhouse pokemon—the dragon types and the psuedo-legendaries and Pokemon like gallade and gardevior or talonflame or gyrados or Salazzle or whatever. I myself don’t really use grass or bug tupes because of their many weaknesses and i think a lot of older Pokemon users don’t as well unless they have good stats or a secondary typing, like Guzma’s Golisipod
But that doesn’t happen as much in Pokespe. Red starts off with a poliwhirl, which you don’t really see that often. pokespe barry/pearl has a chatot. A chatot, a pokemon that i think a lot of people brush off, as well as a Tauros and a diglett. Gold has an aipom, a politoed, and a sunkern. Ruby sorta makes sense, considering he’s a contest trainer instead of a proper battler, so it makes sense for him to have a castform or delcatty. Still, pretty rare. Emerald has a Mr. Mime and a sudowudo. I best most people don’t think of these pokemon and competitive in the same sentence
And yellow. Yellow my beloved has a whole team full of Pokemon most people wouldn’t think twice about. Pikachu, sure, that makes sense. Raticate, Butterfree, Duodo. Sure, she isn’t really a battler, but only normal-type gym leaders and NPCs would have a butterfree or duodo or a raticate as pokemon companions and
Idk. I just think it’s nice how the writers give all the pokemon equal representation, even the ones that aren’t geared towards competitive battles
