Wobbuffet

The okiagari-koboshi is a Japanese paper-mâché doll with a weighted base: you push it, it wobbles, and it rights itself. That is where this 1.3-meter, 28.5-kilogram blue lump comes from, with its half-closed eyes and arms always raised. The other design reference is a punching bag, which also responds when hit.

Pokédex entries insist on two things. The first is its black tail: it keeps it hidden at all costs, which is why it lives quietly in the dark, since it hates light and shaking. If it is attacked there, it stops holding back and tries to take the opponent down with Destiny Bond. The second is that it never strikes first; when it takes an attack, it swells up so the counterattack hits harder.

One entry breaks from the usual tone. When two or more cross paths, they start competing in endurance, and the contest can degenerate into a test of who can go the longest without eating — the Pokédex itself warns Trainers to keep an eye on it.

Its official category is the Patient Pokémon. It is the adult form of Wynaut, and the line ends there: two stages, no alternate forms.

A total of 405 points distributed in the most lopsided way possible. 190 HP, and then nothing: Attack, Special Attack and Speed are all stuck at 33, while both defenses sit at 58. With that much life to work with, 58 goes a lot further than it looks on paper.

There is not a single move in its movepool that deals damage by itself. Counter returns twice the physical damage it has just taken, Mirror Coat does the same with special damage, and that is its entire offensive arsenal. Shadow Tag is what turns that skeleton into a problem: the opponent cannot switch and is left trapped in front of a wall that is only waiting to be hit. Encore closes the trap from the other side, forcing the opponent to repeat its last move and taking away the chance to guess which of the two mirrors is needed. Its 33 Speed, which would be a death sentence on any other Pokémon, is part of the plan here: to return a hit, it has to take it first.

It worked so well that it was banished to Ubers in the third and fourth generations. What holds it back are the types that slip through its net: Dark-types are immune to Mirror Coat, Ghost-types are immune to Counter and, since the sixth generation, they cannot be trapped either. Against an opponent that does not attack — one that spends its time boosting its stats or setting hazards — it has absolutely nothing to do.

Amorphous Egg Group, alongside ghosts and assorted slimes, with an even 50% gender split. Females are easy to tell apart: they have a red mark around the mouth that looks like lipstick. The 20 incubation cycles come to roughly 5355 steps, among the longer hauls.

There is a detail that surprises anyone trying it for the first time. Breeding two specimens does not produce a Wynaut: it produces another Wobbuffet. To get the baby stage, you have to leave the female at the Day Care with Lax Incense equipped, an item that is hidden in Route 225 in Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, behind a tree that has to be cut down. Wynaut then evolves upon reaching level 15, with no item, time of day or friendship involved.

It learns no Egg Moves, so breeding is only useful for refining its nature and individual values. Its habitat is caves, and its catch rate of 45 puts it in the awkward bracket: with 190 HP to get through, weakening it before throwing a Poké Ball takes more work than it usually seems it should. It grows at a medium pace and yields 2 HP EVs.