>Nincada, Ninjask, and Shedinja
the whole thing with the cicada life cycle but the shed exoskeleton left behind that people see all the time during summer becomes its own EMPTY SHELL GHOST cicada is maximum thinking
>Slugma and Magcargo
slug made of lava has the lava cool down for it to become a lava SNAIL with a ROCK shell. Shit's straight-up brain juice in a creature design.
>Turtonator
they take a mata mata turtle and make it EVERYTHING that a mata mata turtle ISN'T, but you can still very much recognize that it's a mata mata turtle. That is, quite literally, top-tier artistic design and creativity.
There's a bunch more I can't think of off the top of my head, but I think we can all agree that some Pokemon were thought up on a whole other plane of genius thinking. Hyper-creative Pokemon designs are awesome.
