Mr. Mime

What it does looks like a stage trick, but it isn't. It pretends to lean against a wall that isn't there, and the wall appears. Pokédex entries repeat it with uncomfortable precision — “when the audience believes it, the illusions become real” — and then explain the mechanism: it solidifies the air using emanations that come from the tips of its fingers. The invisible wall exists. Anyone who crosses it gets a nasty knock.

It is 1.30 m tall and weighs 54.5 kg, the measurements of a short adult, and its official category is Barrier Pokémon. Its appearance has little to do with that function: white gloves, magenta cheeks and two blue protrusions on its head that serve as a wig. More harlequin than mime, really.

There is one entry worth reading twice. Anyone who fails to look impressed by the performance gets hit with Double Slap. The artist gets paid upfront and punishes a difficult audience.

It sits in the middle of a line that does not work like the others. It comes from Mime Jr., which only evolves when it levels up while knowing Mimic, and its recorded habitat is urban, something true of very few species. It lives wherever there are people watching.

The 460 points are badly distributed, and it shows immediately. The number that stands out is 120 Special Defense, with 100 Special Attack and 90 Speed beside it, which in Generation I meant being fast and today means being in the pack. The problem is underneath: 40 HP. With that small a reservoir, 120 Special Defense holds up to much less than the number suggests, and physically, with 65 Defense, it falls to almost anything.

Filter reduces damage from super effective moves by 25%, and it is the ability that makes the most sense on such a frail body. Soundproof grants complete immunity to sound-based moves: it wins very specific exchanges and nothing else. Its Hidden Ability, Technician, boosts moves with a power of 60 or less by 1.5×, which in its case barely gives it anything to work with.

Psychic and Fairy attacks cover Fighting, Poison, Dragon and Dark, and share one blind spot, since Steel resists both. Defensively, it has three weaknesses — Poison, Ghost and Steel — an immunity to Dragon and takes quarter damage from Fighting.

Its natural movepool is short. Psychic comes at level 34 and Dazzling Gleam at 46; Calm Mind, at 43, raises both Special Attack and Special Defense at once and is what buys it a couple of turns. Zen Headbutt, at 18, is an 80-power physical move on an Attack stat of 45: it is useless.

Against a Gengar, or against any Steel type, it loses the exchange before it can move. Where it performs is in a normal playthrough halfway through the adventure: Hypnosis at level 6, something asleep on the other side and two free turns to hit.

Human-Like Egg Group and no other, with an even gender split: 50% female, despite the “Mr.” in its name. Its 25 Egg Cycles work out to roughly 6630 steps, one of the longer stretches in the Pokédex.

Its evolution depends not on level but on its moveset. Mime Jr. becomes Mr. Mime when it gains any level while knowing Mimic; if the move is deleted, it stays as it is indefinitely. And only the Galarian form carries on: it evolves into Mr. Rime at level 42, so the complete line depends on where the egg comes from.

Its catch rate, 45, puts it in the difficult bracket, far from the 255 of species that go down to the first ball. In the wild, it may be holding a Leppa Berry.

Defeating it yields 2 effort points in Special Defense, it grows at the Medium Fast rate and starts with 70 base friendship, the standard figure.