I've covered the visual rhetoric behind the first two "starter" Pokemon of the classic Red, Green, and Blue versions of the classic Gameboy/Gameboy Color game, and their evolutions: Bulbasaur, Ivysaur, Venussaur, Charmander, Charmeleon, and Charizard. Now I finally come to my personal favorite of the three: Squirtle, and its evolutions Wartortle and Blastoise.
#007 Pokemon in the Pokedex is Squirtle, called Zenigame originally in Japanese (Zenigame meaning "Pond Turtle") game. Squirtle is a water-type Pokemon and itself and its evolutions are based off of turtles and tortoises.
Bulbapedia states "Squirtle can spray water from its mouth. At first, it may only be able to spray foam and bubbles, but with time it can learn to spray water jets like Water Gun and Hydro Pump. If it withdraws, it can still spray water out the holes in its shell.
It can also be easily taught Ice-type moves like Ice Beam and Blizzard." While there are no apparent gender differences in this Pokemon, Squirtles do have different colors of shells in later versions of the Gameboy game, such as Black and White.
I have to disagree with this motivational poster. I personally think that bulbasaur would be the easiest pick to start, since it is effective against both Brock's rock/ground and Misty's water pokemon, whereas Charmander would be a more challenging start having weakness against both. Squirtle was more of the middle choice, being super effective against Brock, at par with Misty, and at a disadvantage with Lt. Surge and Erica. But man, when you hit Blaine, what a great choice. ^^
Squirtle is frequently seen in the animated show, more so than its evolutions. Bulbapedia notes "The first real Squirtle appeared in Here Comes the Squirtle Squad. The Squirtle Squad were a gang of rogue Squirtle who were deserted by their Trainers. Ash befriended and captured their leader, while the rest of them became a firefighting group. Squirtle stayed with Ash until The Fire-ring Squad!, when it returned to the Squirtle Squad."
In the firing squad episode, the squirtle wore a pair of sunglasses that later spawned a huge meme-like line of parodies surging through the internet, such as this one, parodying CSI: Miami.
Additionally, since the "Squirtle Squad" are considered a "gang" of Pokemon causing trouble in the town, connections to visual parodies also were released on the Internet, such as this one, a la' BANKSY:
In fact, the three Pokemon featured in this blog have a lot of ties to violence and weaponry, but more of that later. Now back to the animated show references.
"May received her own Squirtle from Professor Oak in The Right Place and the Right Mime. May's Squirtle was very young and timid, until evolving before Staging a Heroes Welcome.
Squirtle was mentioned in the first episode of the anime, Pokémon - I Choose You!, as one of the three starter Pokémon new Trainers in Pallet Town can choose from. Ash dreamed of owning one, and it was his first choice of a starter. However, when he arrived at Oak's lab, he found out it was too late, as another Trainer who started the same day had already taken it. It was shown battling and defeating Samurai's Metapod.
It wasn't until The Ties that Bind that it was revealed that the Trainer who took Squirtle was none other than Gary Oak, Ash's rival. By then, it had already evolved into a Blastoise."
Other instances involved Squirtle. "In Journey to the Starting Line, a set of the three Kanto starter Pokémon in which a boy named Gilbert was supposed to choose from as his starting Pokémon were scared off by Ash's Tauros. Professor Oak, Tracey, Delia, and Gilbert had to split up and find the three missing Pokémon. Squirtle was the second one found. The Tiny Turtle Pokémon was stuck in a tree that was hanging over a cliff. Ash's Bulbasaur managed to catch the Squirtle before it could fall off the cliff.
The main character in Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Team Go-Getters out of the Gate! special is a Squirtle that claims that he used to be human. He joins Team Go-Getters in their rescue work. While he can't use Water Gun, he is happy to use Bubble because it looks pretty." (Bulbapedia)
Squirtle, having obvious visual similarities to a normal turtle, has been involved in several parodies, crossing over into other pop culture series, such as "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles."
Wartortle:
At level 16, Squirtle evolves into Wartortle. Bulbapedia adds "Even though Wartortle's ears are depicted lighter than its face in the official Sugimori stock art and most of its game sprites, the official promotional pictures usually have the ears the same color as its face.
Its design appears to be a stylized sea turtle with features of tortoises.
Wartortle's name is a combination of war or warrior, tortoise, and turtle. The kame in Kameil comes from the Japanese word for tortoise/turtle, 亀, and may be a combination of 亀 and テール kame and "tail." It is also a corruption of 噛める kameru, to be able to bite."
Wartortle continues more violent metaphors associated with Squirtle, perhaps because of the "War" prefix in its name. In either case, references such as these (a parody of Captain America) further the suggestive nomenclature:
Other cultural references give Wartortle a "macho" persona or connect the prefix with other references having the same, such as Wario from the Mario Bros. series.
However, while having such as a macho, military association with its name, Wartortle has surprisingly been depicted as feminine by many fanartists. While Squirtle searches showed more connections to pop culture memes, a Google image search for Wartortle for this blog included several images of the Pokemon given a human form.
The reason for this, while not explicit, could be the from the translation of Wartortle's name. In Chinese, Wartortle's translated name is "probably the similar to the Mandarin name. The second character (美) means beauty." (Bulbapedia). The curvy, curly attributes of Wartortle could also add to the feminine appearance and interpretation of the Pokemon when given human features.
While not appearing often in the animated show, its final evolution appears more frequently and without as much feminine personification.
Blastoise:
At Level 36, Wartortle evolves into Blastoise, the cover character on the Pokemon Blue game and personally one of my favorite Pokemon.
"Its design appears to be a mix of a sea turtle and a tortoise, further mixed with aspects of a tank. Blastoise's cannons may have been derived from the functioning tubes found in mussels and some other shellfish, thus its species name.
Blastoise's name is a combination of blast, referring to its cannons, and tortoise. Kamex comes from the Japanese word for tortoise/turtle, 亀 kame, and possibly マックス makkusu, or max, as in maximum. Blastoise's name may also come from the word Blastoid, which are an extinct type of stemmed echinoderm with small hickory nut shaped fossils."
I don't know why, but this meme pretty much struck home for me. I loved getting to Blastoise. Probably because he had great attack and defense stats, and learned great movies like Ice Beam and Hydropump. But Blastoise just reeked of power in the game. I remember wanting the Pokemon card of Blastoise so bad, and finally getting it after trading with a friend for a Raichu card of mine.
While Squirtle was sometimes given a feminine humanoid persona, and Wartortle certainly had its fair share of feminine interpretations, as seen above, Blastoise is almost always given a masculine persona, and more importantly, a typical animal depiction that avoids personification almost entirely, as shown in the images below:
I personally never considered how masculine Blastoise was examined as, but the visual interpretations are hard to miss.
Interesting Trivia about Blastoise (Provided by Bulbapedia):
"Blastoise, like Ho-Oh (as of the release of Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver), Dialga, and Palkia, shares the first letter of its name with the game it is the mascot of: Blue.
Blastoise shares the same species name with Kabuto and Kabutops. They are all known as the Shellfish Pokémon.
Blastoise has the highest base Special Defense of all fully evolved starter Pokémon.
In Pokémon Stadium 2, there is a trainer in the eighth battle of Poké Cup Ultra Ball R-2 who has a Blastoise with both Haze and Mirror Coat. However, it is impossible to breed both of these moves on the same Blastoise until Generation III.
Blastoise is the only fully evolved form of a Kanto starter that does not have a secondary type.
Blastoise is the only fully evolved Kanto starter not immune to Toxic Spikes. Venusaur is half Poison-type and Charizard is a half Flying-type."
What I find most interesting about the Squirtle, Wartortle, and Blastoise Pokemon are their ties to weaponry and destruction, especially when compared to their starter counterparts Bulbasaur and Charmander.
Squirtle, Wartortle, and Blastoise are the only of the three starters and their evolutions that have weaponry/machinery attached to them and are associated with acts of crime. This has been transferred outside the anime/game/manga itself as well. In the popular online series "There Will Be Brawl" (a parody of the movie title "There Will Be Blood" and the game Pokemon Brawl), Squirtle is first shown locked away in a jail cell while the other two starters are with their Pokemon trainer. Clearly there is some sense of rebellion, action, and certainly power attached to the Pokemon and its evolutions.
Well, that's all for now! I encourage you to please feel free to help me with the blog! If you have a Pokemon you'd like to visually analyze and write about, please, feel free to email me your blog entry! And I'll gladly put it up here! My email is herefordart5888@hotmail.com.
Until next time, keep playing!
