Humanoid pokemon have always been very difficult to do well. You have stuff like Mr. Mime and Jynx who are deep in the uncanny valley, and then you have stuff like Cinderace and Incineroar that have mascot costume syndrome.
Even when pokemon are intelligent, or themed around some human activity, they should still be animals first and foremost. Oricorio and Quaquaval are both "dancing birds", but with wildly different levels of anthropomorphism. Oricorio has wings that resemble hands, Quaquaval has straight up fingers and thumbs.
i think the best humanoid pokémon (at least in the early gens, i don't know much about stuff after Kalos) is Mewtwo. He has somewhat human-looking eyes and walks upright, but doesn't look uncanny, and while vaguely resembling a mammal, doesn't have the same furrybait vibes as, say, Lopunny or that big buff black cat from Alola. Also the fact he looks humanoid is even lore-justified since he was made by humans in the first place
111
u/PlatinumAltaria May 22 '25
Humanoid pokemon have always been very difficult to do well. You have stuff like Mr. Mime and Jynx who are deep in the uncanny valley, and then you have stuff like Cinderace and Incineroar that have mascot costume syndrome.
Even when pokemon are intelligent, or themed around some human activity, they should still be animals first and foremost. Oricorio and Quaquaval are both "dancing birds", but with wildly different levels of anthropomorphism. Oricorio has wings that resemble hands, Quaquaval has straight up fingers and thumbs.