2/6/2021 3 Comments Period 1aPeriod 1A (Kokopelli/Celebi to Unknown #304):These first five were probably designed all by the same designer, likely Shigeki Morimoto, but potentially Atsuko Nishida. They show signs of being early and undeveloped, and four of the five are based on generic “Animal+” designs, which hint to an early era of development. ID 300: ??? (Celebi?)The first Pokemon in the Korean Index is a strange one, and one we don’t know much about. Like previously said, this Pokemon is very early, potentially even from the development of Red and Green, though we don’t have any evidence to support that. It’s based upon a figure from Southwestern Native American mythology called Kokopelli, as shown: Depictions of Kokopelli are pretty easy to come across in art and souvenirs you can find in New Mexico, Arizona, and that area of the country generally; as a result, the figure should be vaguely familiar to many people living in the US. He’s generally considered a trickster figure, a god of fertility and agriculture, and he’s usually depicted playing a flute. As you can see here, the sprite for this Pokemon resembles Kokopelli almost exactly, though it only has three strands of hair instead of four, and it has some shifty eyes as well. It also resembles some other Pokemon from the first two generations. It superficially has some of the same design principles as Jynx, in that it has a black face with goofy eyes on it (though Kokopelli doesn’t have the same racist connotations) and I also see some reasons to group it with Unown, given that they both resemble black two dimensional drawings and both seem to be influenced by paintings on a wall. But it’s hard to tell if these are coincidences or something more; certainly, given the eyes, Jynx doesn’t seem to have been created by the same person. The best guess as to what happened to this pokemon was that it was a very early version of Celebi. There’s no proof of this, but as you can see, the proto-Celebi found in the Spaceworld 1999 demo has a lot of similarities to it. Both have the same head shape and the same tufts of hair. While the final Celebi looks nothing like this original version (and may have been influenced a bit by Riifi; see that entry), you can easily see the progression from Kokopelli to the final. There’s a few lingering doubts that lead me to be uncertain about that theory. Most significantly, Kokopelli appears so early in this internal index, sooner than some clearly unfinished Pokemon and Pokemon we know were designed for R/G. It seems odd to be that a Pokemon this early in the list wouldn’t show up in Spaceworld 1997 but would later get re-added to Spaceworld 99 in a substantially different form; by that point, it seems like they would have moved on from this internal list and started creating new pokemon entirely. It’s especially odd since Spaceworld 97 seems to have a mostly complete lineup: almost every pokemon has a complete moveset, nothing is there that lacks some of it’s evolution line, etc. However, it could be the case that after they went back to the drawing board after Spaceworld 97, they started swapping in and out designs until they found a new line-up they liked more. Kokopelli/Celebi could have made its entrance as they rethought the line-up and reached back into their earlier designs, but it’s just as possible that Celebi could have been a new creation when they decided they wanted one more legendary. You can judge how likely you think either possibility is. ID 301: Pre-GurotesuThis one’s an odd one, and there isn’t a whole lot to say about it. It’s very likely that this was the original pre-evolution for Gurotesu. First, it appears right next to Gurotesu in the index, and secondly, as has been pointed out by others, baby eels are often transparent, like this one: For these two reasons, it’s got to have evolved into Gurotesu. However, it probably wasn’t considered for very long, given that Gurotesu has a completely different evolutionary line in Spaceworld 1997. I think it’s pretty likely that there’s an earlier build of Gold that features this, but as they consolidated Pokemon into a more final line-up they merged three different evolutionary lines into the Manbo1-Ikari-Gurotesu line we see in Spaceworld ’97. As they consolidated those lines, this guy lost out. It is worth adding here that there is a possibility this went in the other direction: it could have been the case that the Manbo1-Ikari-Gurotesu line was designed first, and this guy was created post-SW97 to give Gurotesu it's own line, before it was discarded. I don't think this theory is likely for a lot of reasons. First, the Manbo1-Ikari-Gurotesu line doesn't make sense as is and feels much more likely to have been mashed together out of different line than to have naturally been designed that way. Secondly, there's no trace, even slightly, of this guy in any subsequent, post-SW97 files. Thirdly, and most importantly, for it to have happened in this direction would mean my whole conjecture that the Korean Index is chronological must be false, but we have a ton of evidence this isn't the case. I feel like it's important to mention this alternative hypothesis, but I don't buy it. It’s likely this guy was created by Morimoto, as was Gurotesu, since they share similar eyes and have similar characteristics. This is conjecture, but Morimoto’s designs tend to be more “out there” than other designs like Nishida, and as a result don’t make it to the final product at the same rate. Other than that, it follows the early R/G pattern of being a regular animal with a slight twist: in this case, it’s whatever those fins are on it’s tail. Other than that, it’s a baby eel. It’s easy to see why this design might have been abandoned. ID 302: Gurotesu (Grotess, Grotesque)Gurotesu—which is very clearly a Japanese translation of the English word “grotesque”—is a design that lasted a lot longer than its pre-evolution. We have evidence of it in Spaceworld ’97, unlike the previous Pokemon design, and the fact that it had a pre-evolution and is so early in the list proves that it existed prior to SW ’97. It even still semi-exists in the June ’99 build, even after it’s evolutionary relatives had already been abandoned. It’s not a big surprise to me why this was; it’s a good design. Though it clearly is an “Animal+” design, combining an eel with an angler fish, it has a lot of personality in it’s face and it’s a sleak, memorable design based off an animal that wasn’t yet represented. I can easily imagine that this design had fans who tried to keep it in the games. It probably eventually got cut because they just couldn’t get it to fill a needed role in the games. Gurotesu probably started connected to #301, but when #301 was dropped as a boring design, they eventually connected Gurotesu to a new line, starting with Manboo1, Ikari, and then Gurotesu. The problem was that this evolutionary line doesn’t make a lot of sense. First of all, these three types of sea creatures have nothing in common. I’ve seen explanations that each one lives deeper in the sea than the earlier version but that feels a bit ad hoc, and now that we know these three were originally unrelated, that explanation no longer really persuades me that these three were supposed to go together. Secondly, Ikari (the middle evolution) is clearly part Steel-type, but Manboo1 and Gurotesu aren’t obviously Steel type, which means that overall they’re a bad fit for this evolutionary line. Especially given that the Steel types in the final are clearly signaled as Steel types (Magnemite, Steelix, and Skarmory are all clearly made of metal; Forretress isn't obvious but that seems to be the exception), it seems clear that Game Freak wanted to make the new type distinct, and Manboo1 and Gurotesu are a bad example of what makes the new type distinct. Thirdly, it was clearly difficult to make a moveset that fit all three of these. They learn Scary Face, but it’s hard to imagine Manboo1 making a scary face; they learn Iron Tail, but that’s a move that only makes sense for Ikari, which has a literal Iron Tail. For all these reasons, it seems likely to me that Manboo1 and Ikari were eventually dropped because they just didn’t fit into the game. Gurotesu survived a little bit longer, and as you can see it's sprite was even worked on a bit after Spaceworld '97: It was recolored, the shading was redone, and the back sprite, beyond being cropped to just show the top of its face, also has a shorter underbite than the earlier sprites. However, by July 1999, it's internal data had been deleted, and its sprite was a placeholder for an eventually-rejected Yanma evolution. Gurotesu clearly out survived its evolutionary relatives, but it doesn't seem that it survived long. It's possible that Game Freak considered keeping Gurotesu around as a single evolution. In the end, it makes sense why they didn’t do this: Mantine was another single evolution water Pokemon that had a more distinct and original design, and so when the two come to push and shove, Mantine clearly won out as the better design. By Spaceworld ’99, Gurotesu’s slot was taken by Chinchou. Chinchou was similar to Gurotesu in that it was a dual-type Water Pokemon, and it evolved into an unrelated type of fish, but thematically it fit its secondary type more than Gurotesu ever did and had an evolution that is aesthetically similar to it. In both ways, it fills the hole left by Gurotesu more effectively than Gurotesu did. ...Having said all of that, I can't help but wonder if Gurotesu got a new life in Generation III as Huntail. I'm generally very skeptical of making connections between these rejected pokemon and later generations, but in this case is might be worth doing. Huntail isn't Water/Steel like Gurotesu, but Gurotesu never fit Water/Steel anyway. Furthermore, they have similar movesets: they both learn Scary Face (Gurotesu at level 43, Huntail at level 29), and Hydropump (Gurotesu at level 63, Huntail at level 50), and Gurotesu learns Water Gun and Thrash in similar places to Huntail's Water Pulse and Crunch, Generation III moves with similar effects to the Gurotesu's moves. Plus, of course, look at those faces and their poses: It seems clear to me that Gurotesu's design is much better than Huntail's, but the similarity is unmistakable. Poor Gurotesu may have been too good for this world, but it may have lived on in an uglier body. ID 303: Ikari |
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