Pokémon of the year

Ok, I might be a little salty that Blaziken is not above Sceptile in the top 30... just a little bit.

 

As for my thoughts...

Spoiler: Top 10

Gengar was first, and I'll mention Charizard as well because they were the only two Kanto Pokémon on the list, which is a little bit surprising to me. I know Gengar is super popular, but over Pikachu, Eevee, and Mewtwo? Maybe those three mostly have an audience in the more casual fanbase, while both casual and I'll call them "hardcore" fans see the appeal to Gengar. Mewtwo was my personal Kanto vote though, and I've still never heard anyone but myself say anything negative about Eevee in my life. No clue about that.

Next on the list after Gengar were Gardevoir and Rayquaza, Hoenn's two representatives. Gardevoir didn't surprise me, but Rayquaza was pretty cool to see. I knew Rayquaza was typically liked by the fanbase, but not quite to this extent. Apparently in Japan's poll a few years back, Rayquaza placed in the top ten there as well, and on top of that, they had more legendary Pokémon than regular Pokémon. Guess Rayquaza was the only one of those to survive though, and it's also the only legendary Pokémon in this top ten.

Next up was Garchomp which is also unsurprising. A huge amount of the people I've spoken to online have grown up with Diamond, Pearl, or Platinum, and Garchomp was a part of the reason why Cynthia left a lasting impression on the people who played those games. It was also at this point when I knew for a fact that Lucario would be somewhere on the list.

Up next were Sylveon and Umbreon. Umbreon I was expecting, but Sylveon I was not. I've joined quite a few Pokémon websites with a lot of more casual fans that in some cases have only played one or two main series games, and Umbreon is everywhere on those. I haven't seen many people talking about Sylveon though so that one kind of surprised me. I'm personally not a fan of Eevee or its evolutions, but I can't deny that they're super super popular.

Placing third is Mimikyu, and I don't know why it surprised me, but it did. Might have been because I was expecting Pikachu, Eevee, and spoiler in the title to be the last three, but seeing Mimikyu made me very happy. Mimikyu was one of my favorite Pokémon of Gen 7 even before I heard any of the lore aspects about him because it was kinda obvious that it was a Ghost that just wanted to be like Pikachu, and it's seemed pretty popular since.

Placing second is Lucario, no surprise there. Literally called it when I saw Garchomp. There are many reasons why I think Lucario is popular, with Cynthia having one, Korrina giving you a pretty strong one capable of Mega Evolving in a game that was also an entry point into the series for many, Smash being as big as it is even if you don't see many people playing Lucario, and so on. It's a cool Pokémon as well, so I don't mind.

And, finally...Greninja?? Above Lucario, Charizard, and Umbreon? Over any other more recent starters that may have recency bias? I'd expect Greninja to be popular through the anime apperance and Smash, but Jigglypuff was completely absent from this list despite being similar. This was very surprising for me and it made me very happy, Greninja is probably in my Top 30 favorite Pokémon and it's probably my second favorite starter, which says a lot.

Spoiler: Random Thoughts About the Rest

11th was Dragapult, the highest-rated Pokémon from Galar, and Chandelure was the highest-rated Unova Pokémon in around 15 if I recall correctly. Three of the eight most popular Pokémon from their respective regions were Ghost-type. Greninja using Lick does not count. I knew Dragapult would be at least top four from Galar, from a poll between my friends I was able to perfectly predict the top four even if I didn't know the order. Chandelure was surprising to me - I expected Unova's top candidate to be something like Genesect, Hydreigon, or maybe Snivy, but I like Chandelure a good bit so I'm happy with this.

Pikachu was one spot above Eevee which would have been hilarious even if it was the other way around. This is my third time mentioning that I don't like Eevee but that's the reason why I would mess with people about how Let's Go Eevee is the worst game in the series and Let's Go Pikachu is much better, how I would call my friends "normies" for liking Eevee even despite Pikachu being more popular, and things like that. It helps that I genuinely like Pikachu and I would have even if it wasn't the mascot because its design is pretty clever for reasons I won't get into. Now I have more ammo to twist into a funny joke argument! "Even with your normie gimmick Pokémon, Pikachu still reigns supreme."

A few of my personal favorites made their Top 30 lists. In their respective regions- Weavile got 22nd, Sableye got 27th, Jirachi got 8th, Sceptile was a given but it got 4th, Reuniclus got 16th, Whimsicott shockingly got 12th, Staraptor got 16th, Hatterene got 13th, the list goes on... Four of my top five favorites of all time made it, with the only one being missing being my absolute favorite (being Tentacruel).

The only starter families that don't get any representation in the higher spots of their regions are Tepig, Chespin, and Grookey. Tepig isn't overly surprising since it seems to be the most hated starter by a mile, and Grookey I didn't really know about because I haven't seen much talk with any of the Galar starters. Chespin's kind of interesting to talk about though because Fennekin's family wasn't even particularly popular either, possibly because their fanbase seems split on which of the three members of the family is best, but it makes this starter trio look unusually polarized, even more so than something like Gen 1.

The memelords have gotten some of the lower spots on the Top 30s of their regions, even if not many. I can't see why people would vote for Bidoof to this extent other than the fact that it's bad is funny, which I don't really see why so many people find funny but to each their own. I can only imagine that Cosmog is on the list for the "get in the bag Nebby" meme that I think actually might be pretty popular still with the more casual fans. But the one to get the most votes of the three I've seen is Dracovish, which admittedly might not entirely be because of the memes around it. It's obviously a good Pokémon, but on top of that it's pretty unique and fun to use.

The last thing I'd like to mention is pretty minor. Although most mythicals or legendaries are represented somewhere on this list, there's a big lack of Ultra Beasts on Alola's end, which is something that sparked some discussion on a Discord server I'm in. Buzzwole is the only exception to this, and understandably so: it's one of few Pokémon with noticeable personalities and it has a pretty fun one at that. We were stuck on whether or not the Ultra Beasts are still controversial and not popular among the more casual fans or if the fanbase just doesn't have a defined favorite, I'm leaning towards the former; it doesn't seem too difficult for a Pokémon to reach Top 30 in their region, and I imagine at least one or two would have popped up there if not for this. It could be a bit of both, though.

That's about it. I'd like to mention that I use the word "casual" a bit throughout this to describe some fans, and I don't mean this in a negative way; I'm not trying to tell people how often people should play a game or how many games someone should play to call themselves a true fan or any other stupid gatekeeping like that. I just use the term because "casual" and "hardcore" fans tend to have really different opinions on something where it's impossible to find someone with the same opinions as you and I need some way to separate the two to explain some of the things I'm seeing.

 

we didn't get Magikarp on this I'm so disappointed in everyone

Magikarp disappointment aside, none of the Pokémon I voted for got on, but considering they were things like Swablu and Pidgey I can understand why.
I'm surprised Greninja made the top, but I'm pretty happy as someone who joined the fandom at Gen 6. With Smash, it's easy to see why.
I'm surprised Charizard isn't higher. Maybe Gen 8 killed that excitement? Same with Pikachu and Eevee.
Umbreon and Sylveon are the two most popular Eeveelutions. Would make sense.
I'm just a little bit salty that only Bidoof of our squad made it into top 30...

 

I thought for sure that Charizard would be the most popular starter pokémon. I like Charizard, as a pokémon, but I don't like how overused and overrated it is. Still, I was surprised and actually a little disappointed that Greninja beat Charizard out. I mean, Greninja's cool, but the number one most popular pokémon? I don't really get it.

And while I liked the majority of the pokémon on the top 30 list, most of my absolute favorites weren't on there, not even my favorite starter, Infernape

 

I was not super surprised by any on the list, though I was a little surprised about Mimikyu. What did surprise me, and was also a little sad to me, is that you could vote once in each of the different categories each day. Which means that gen 5 and gen 8 weren't well liked enough for people to take that extra bit of time to vote for them, unless the votes were just that spread out across the whole generation.