>>50308096>How did Bulbasaur, Charmander and Squirtle do it?I remember once Masuda saying that he views Bulbasaur as the most 'Pokemon-like Pokemon', because it's such a wonderous design that it doesn't look like any
one, specific thing. It just looks like a strange monster - a Bulbasaur.
I think this, to an extent, kind of applies to all of them. The Kanto Trio were not designed with a status quo in mind. They were created with the simplest, and best, core idea of all: fantastical versions of common every-day pets (a frog, lizard, and turtle) that would be easily and immediately endearing to a child. And they were designed in such a way that you'd grow to care for them while they were cute friendly pets, so that when they eventually evolved into massive, tough-looking monsters, you would still be attached to them and love them rather than find them unapproachable. The idea alone though isn't what made them successful; the execution of their designs was without flaw. They have proportions that mix realistic and cartoony aspects in a perfect blend, and they borrow traits from numerous animals and ideas, not merely just "frog+(thing)" or "lizard+(thing)". All three of them take a predominant animal base (the pet), mixed in 2-3 other creatures, and then blended it with a myth to create a unique monstrous animal. The most successful of these at pulling it off is inarguably Bulbasaur (people still argue to this day over what it's supposed to be), but the other two also did it quite well.
Modern Starters have dropped the core idea of "everyday pets becoming fantastical creatures": many of them aren't based on common pets anymore, and almost all of them evolve into characters instead of animals, with pre-set personalities and anthropomorphic designs evoking human culture or ideas. Gens 2 and 3 are the closest the Gen 1's simple idea, but Gen 2 dropped the blend aspect to instead create 'animal+(x)' and Gen 3 arguably showed the first signs of humanism over animalism.
