Bellossom

Two red flowers related to rafflesia on its head and a skirt of green and yellow leaves around its waist: the design crosses a tropical parasitic plant with a hula dancer. The second half takes over from the first. It has no feet, supports itself and moves on its leaves, and almost everything said about it has to do with dancing.

The Pokédex entries repeat the same scene from the second generation onwards. It gathers in groups to perform a dance interpreted as a ritual to summon the sun; when the rainy season ends, it comes out into the light and begins. With plenty of light overhead, the leaves around it start to spin. When they brush against one another, the petals make a sound. At night it closes them and goes to sleep.

The detail nobody forgets is the smell. The beauty of its flowers depends on how bad the Gloom it came from smelled: the worse the stench, the greater the beauty.

It is the branch of the line that opens with a Sun Stone instead of a Leaf Stone. While Vileplume keeps the Poison type and goes big, this one stays pure Grass, at 40 centimetres and 5.8 kg, in the Flower Pokémon category.

Almost all of its 490 points go into taking hits: 100 Special Defense, 95 Defense and 75 HP, compared with 90 Special Attack and 80 Attack, which are respectable distribution figures. And then there is its 50 Speed, the number that decides everything else.

Chlorophyll is what gives it a plan. In sun, its Speed doubles, and that 50 becomes a figure it can actually use to move first. On top of that, it learns Quiver Dance at level 1 in Scarlet/Violet, so it raises Special Attack, Special Defense and Speed all at once, making its weakest area less of a problem. Solar Beam loses its charging turn in the sun, Moonlight heals more, and Moonblast (95) covers what a Grass attack cannot hit: Dragon, Dark and Fighting. Giga Drain keeps it from relying on external recovery.

The drawbacks are serious. Pure Grass is one of the worst defensive types there is — Fire, Ice, Flying, Poison and Bug hit it for double damage — and 90 Special Attack does not forgive mistakes even after boosting twice. Without sun it does nothing quickly, and setting up the sun costs a turn from another team member or a Heat Rock. It also competes for that slot with Lilligant, which has the same Ability and the same dance.

Healer, its Hidden Ability, only makes sense in doubles: it occasionally cures its partner's status conditions. With 100 Special Defense and Sleep Powder, it holds up well there as a slow support Pokémon.

It only belongs to the Grass Egg Group, so the list of breeding partners is limited to Grass types and the obligatory Ditto. The gender ratio is 50%, so getting a female is not the bottleneck it is in other evolutionary lines.

Twenty incubation cycles work out to around 5355 steps, a fast egg. What hatches is an Oddish, which means all Egg Moves have to be passed on before touching either of the two evolutions. Of the list, the one worth the effort is Strength Sap: it lowers the opponent's Attack and converts that into its own health, fitting a creature that wants to survive turns. Ingrain, Leech Seed and Synthesis point in the same direction.

There is no level or friendship requirement for the evolution. Oddish evolves into Gloom at level 21, and from there the stone decides: Leaf Stone for Vileplume, Sun Stone for this one. There is no going back.

Its habitat is grassland and its catch rate is 45, the same as that of an evolved starter: it is not caught on the first try. In the wild, it may be holding a Big Root. It grows at a medium-slow rate and awards 3 Special Defense EVs when defeated.