>>35380704The beak-like structure in Tentacruel is clearly based on some kind of Cephalopod's, though. The anatomy of the animal is very Cephalopod-like too.
Mew is clearly a feline, but it also has pretty alien proportions. I would challenge you to find another cartoon cat just like it. Zeraora could probably be the "Beast Mode" of some Shonen anime character.
Snorlax is a pretty ambiguous mammal. In some positions, I think the first impression people who have never played the games or watched the anime could get is a "fat cat". Kinda like Pete from Mickey cartoons.
Magmar, Rhydon, and Kangaskhan all clearly have Dinosaur elements thrown into the design to make them look more monstrous. If you remove Kangaskhan's pouch and baby and show the image to your grampa, he will probably tell you it is a Dinosaur.
Not even sure why you and that guy say that Lickitung is a chameleon. Lots of Lizards have huge tongues and Lickitung shares no other traits with a chameleon. The basis of the design was clearly "Licking monster".
You are right on the others, though.
Also, there are reasons why the designs have changed away from the Chimeras in gens I and II:
The original games were made mostly for Japan and by people who grew up on Kaiju movies. Thus, quite a lot of Pokemon had Kaiju references in their designs. Kaiju often look like Lizards and dated versions of Theropods. Modern games are made for an international audience, so Kaiju references are less common.
The chances of success of the franchise were undetermined back in the 90s, so the monster designers still had a whole world to explore, and mixing and matching animals would if anything allow them to include more animals in the limited space of the game. Making an Otter/Hermit Crab Pokemon made more sense when you knew that true Otter and Hermit Crab pokemon wouldn't be around. With 807 Pokemon around, Chimeras are slightly less distinctive than "Cartoon Animals".
