>>28737731I was definitely one of the few who was shocked by how he looked at first, but at the same time, he's a well-rounded design
To me, his design is just versatile in the sense that several fans have drawn him in many different ways, threatening, cute, silly looking, what not. And he's designed in a way that even the most crudely drawn fan art of him makes him sort of stand out and somehow not look bad.
I mean, yeah, it's just a sea lion when you look at it, a "it just gets bigger" evolution. But it's also a male sea lion design that just has these themes of clown, jester and strongman all over him, but somehow managed to blend in all those with a simple design that isn't clogged with superficial details that would make it less of a sea lion. Popplio already had his frill and this evo manages to change the frill in a surprising way rather than repeating the same detail. The other thing he has that might stand out is his red sea sponge mane, how his hands evolved and his appendage in his head (to make it resemble a jester hat). Besides that, the rest is just color patterns.
