Pokémon Opinion on the Unova Elemental Monkeys?

[junebuggy.99]

I watch quite a few poketubers and most of them have well stated their hatred of the three elemental monkeys from Unova. Michael from MandJTV ranked Simisear as his least favorite fire type and Simipour as least favorite water type, and Simisage was a runner-up to Quilladin. Just as well, back in 2016 pretty much all of Japan declared it's hatred of Simisear and gave it the honor of being the most disliked Pokemon ever (at that point in time).

I don't get the hate though. I actually like them a decent amount?? like I don't love them but I also think they get a ton of unnecessary hate. they're not ugly at all (I actually think Simipour is really cute) and they're certainly not the worst pokemon ever (*stares at Crabominable and Palpitoad*).

what do you guys think?

 

[Midoriya]

I don’t think they’re the worst because there’s other Pokemon that are far more deserving of that title, but I certainly don’t like them. They just feel bland and boring to me, and I never really used them all that much.

 

[SmoochsPLH]

i love the elemental monkeys!! they're some of my favorite pokemon!!!

 

[Eevees]

I love them! I adore the Simipour pokemon so cute.

 

[Tiffkaboo]

At first, I was not a fan of them. But over the years, I've grown to actually like them. They aren't as terrible as people say they are, in my opinion. I haven't used them much, but now I want to play through Unova again just to get to use them.

Pansage is my favorite out of the three...His head reminds me of broccoli and I always want to give him that nickname.

 

[~Kilza~]

I don't particularly care for them. Their designs are meh, and there's a lot better options to use in battle than them, so I'd rather forget about them existing.

 

[fairysyndrome]

oh yeah, i remember chuggaaconroy talking about how hated the elemental monkeys are in his playthrough of B/W. iirc he even named the pansear he got "721" to commemorate

honestly, i think they're cute. i don't care as much for the evolved forms, but i like the looks of the base forms a lot and i think the see / hear / speak no evil theme is clever. i used simisear my first ever B/W run back in 2011 too, and it handled itself pretty well enough until i swapped out to chandelure at the end

 

[AlyssaAC]

I don’t mind them at all! I remember playing black and white a long time ago and first seeing them and I actually like them and their evolved forms. It doesn’t bother me. Plus, I never knew people hated them. I wonder why...

 

[Halloqueen]

I like the elemental monkeys but I'm not particularly fond of them for the most part, there are lots of other Pokémon I'm more interested in. I don't really hate or strongly dislike any Pokémon, it's more of a scale of favorite Pokémon to least favorite Pokémon and where on the spectrum they fall. I'd probably say the elemental monkeys are more in the middle, maybe lower middle.

My favorite among the elemental monkeys is Simisage, partially because Grass is my favorite type in general and partially because I simply find Simisage's design the most appealing with the big "hairstyle" and sort of aggressive look. It kind of lost some character with the switch from sprites to 3D models since it no longer does its characteristic thumbs up, but hey.

Went for "They're alright" on the poll.

 

[N e s s]

Their only real use is for the first gym in BW, after that the evolutions (except Pansage) are kinda ugly

 

[Che5hire Cat]

Personally I find them kinda boring in comparison to other Pokemon and design-wise not so appealing tbh.

 

[JemAC]

I don't hate them, there are a lot of Pokemon that I think are worse, but I do often forget about them and as I find their design quite plain I hardly ever use them.

When I recently played Pokemon X though I did pick them all up very early in the game and quite liked having them on my team but it did end up been only for a short time until I replaced them with Pokemon I preferred and that would perform better in battle.

 

[Miss Misty]

Honestly they're pretty boring. I think people tend to overstate their hate for the monkeys because of the memes and because B/W kinda forces you to use them due to having the most horrendous early-route diversity in the series prior to the first gym. Literally before the gym, the only Pokemon you can have are your stater, Patrat, Lillipup, Purrloin, and the monkey. People don't like being railroaded into having only one option to use for a gym. Later, they lose their luster when, even by the restrictive, Unova-only standards of B/W, there are far better options for those elemental types (not even including the starters). Like I don't think the designs are terrible, people just don't like what the monkeys represented in the series when they were introduced.

 

[LuchaSloth]

I find them pretty enjoyable. Not sure I want to commit to calling them "great"...but I also like them better than just "alright". Somewhere in the middle is where I stand. Fun concept. Execution could be better. I think the secondary evolution should have been done by leveling up, and there should be a third stage that uses the stones.

 

[Corrie]

Eh. I don't hate them but I don't like them either. I do hate the fact that you need to waste evolution stones to evolve them.

 

[Acruoxil]

theyre very ok ok! i dont hate them but i dont like them either. its kinda cool they gave us one of the monkeys in the beginning of the game tho.

 

[.: Meri :.]

They're not favorites of mine, but I do actually like them—all the base forms are pretty cute, and of the evolved forms, the only one I'm not too fond of is Simipour. I think Simisage and Simisear's designs are fairly cool too.

 

[sleepydreepy]

Personally I hate them because their second evolutions are so ugly- I am not a fan of monkeys or humanoid creatures. However I was really surprised that everyone else hated them as well, since I thought this was just a me thing lol. To give you more perspective on my weird tastes I think Palpitoad and Crabominable are cool and even cute, so like I said, I was surprised the majority of people agreed with me about not liking the elemental monkeys.

 

[Croconaw]

I actually like them. I know people tend to not like the newer generations, but the monkeys are cool. The water type one was my personal favorite.

 

[LittleMissPanda]

Pansage and Pansear are the cutest, especially Pansage as the grass type is one of my favorite types. I really, really dislike Panpour and its evolution. I just don't like how their color scheme is suddenly swapped (the bottom half of Pansage and Pansear and their respective evolutions is green/red, but for the water monkeys they are tan. it's pretty unappealing)

In battle, the monkeys are all right. they tend to get outclassed against higher tier mons/late game battles, and they are practically useless in the meta. though obviously if I'm just doing a casual run, I'd pick Pansage on my team. If I can choose better grass mons, such as Tropius imo, I'll go with that instead.

Honestly, yeah the monkeys are pretty forgettable, but they got that charm of being based on the see/speak/hear no evil belief, so I think it was clever.