A brief meditation on the most lazily named Pokémon.
The colder it gets, the better it feels. It joyfully swims around oceans so cold that they are filled with floating ice.
The pokedex Violet Version
But did you know that when it snows, my eyes become large and the light that you shine can't be seen
Seal, Kiss from a Rose
Welcome to Beyond Bulbasaur. I'm Kendall Halman. A few weeks ago, I did an episode on Ekans, and a commentor suggested it was the most lazily named Pokemon. I of course pointed out that Seel was more lazily named. But Seel is fine. It evolves into Dewgong, who kicks off the Elite four and is probably the pokemon that's fainted more of my pokemon than any other during that early phase of banging my head against the elite four. Of course once you get a pokemon with a decent electric or grass type move, it's not so tough. Apparently as a Water/Ice type, Dewgong is also weak to fighting and rock type moves. It's also only resistant to Water and Ice, so if you've got a Pokemon that just packs a punch that isn't super effective that can do the trick as well.
In the anime, it's a go to background pokemon with a whopping 27 appearances. I had thought that Misty had a seel on her team, but actually while Seel did appear in the Cerulean City gym episode, Misty never had one of her own.
I don't know that I've ever used a Seel in my playthroughs though. There are just so many mid-tier water types in Gen I, and if I'm only using one water type on my team, a large percentage of the time it's going to be either Blastoise or Gyarados. Blastoise because he's a starter and Gyarados because he's a favorite. I also really like Tentacruel. Not to mention, it's not obtainable to catch in the main games for gens 3, 6, 7, 8, or 9. In Gen IV, it's in Diamond but not Pearl and in Gen V, like all previous generation pokemon, it's only available in the post game. I'm sure there are many pokemon with similar availability, but it still speaks to why I've never trained a Seel in all of these years. Maybe on my next Gen I playthrough I'll make it a point to catch a Seel
Until next time, remember that you are the very best like no one ever was.
