>>33913363I love Decidueye, but i still think Greninja has it beat in the design department, though by just a bit. It makes sense lorewise because thanks to the popular tale of Jiraiya, frogs are closely associated with ninjas. And Greninja plays with nearly every common ninja trope, with its physiology allowing it, for example, to emulate the puffy, baggy ninja pants look. His elemental prowess echoing that of elemental Ninpo mastery, it's moveset closely reflecting and enhancing ninja tropes too.
Decidueye is in a similar position overall, with lots of nods to its inspiration. I kinda wish he stayed as a Knife Thrower, because otherwise it becomes a kind of "form over function" case, but the bow implementation looks pretty neat, enough for me to forgive it; how drawing its hoodie narrows his field of view to focus better on his surroundings is pretty genius too. Really the biggest draw Greninja has over Decidueye is that it has an equally genius way to balance out his sharp "edgy" design: Using the trademark frog tongue to imitate the ninja scarf. I love it because not only is it something that mostly only frogs could pull off (therefore making the animal choice make much more sense), but it works to balance out the design in many ways, like offering a more interesting color composition, further expanding on the ninja motif and, most importantly, softening the design so it doesn't seem as "edgy" or in your face.
Decidueye is similar, but designwise is a bit too on the nose and direct, with not much to counter balance the sharp design. I'd say they're both great, with Greninja being a 9.6/10 and Decidueye being closer to a 9.3/10. Barring the other tacked-on details in pic related, if Greninja had the same kunai legs as this, then he'd be an easy 10/10.
