Before we begin, I’d like to thank Keba Si Rota and SmallxLady for their comments regarding this feature series of mine. For me as a writer, a lot of times the only thing worse than getting a bad review on something I’ve written is getting no reviews at all. Sometimes when I write something and it doesn’t get any sort of response, I often feel like I ended up doing all that work for nothing. So I’m happy to know that there are a few people here on TheO who read these posts of mine. Anyway, on with this week’s post!
This is Mega Factor!
For this week’s edition of Mega Factor, I’m going to be covering a Pokemon that’s a very old favorite of mine from Generation 2. Presenting the electric sheep Pokemon known as Ampharos.
I’d usually have an Ampharos on my team whenever I played the original Gold and Silver games. It’s first stage evolution, Mareep was easily available near the start of the games after beating the first gym, and even though Ampharos’s speed stat was never that great it’s other stats were pretty dang good. Plus the whole concept behind the Ampharos evolution line is just kind of cool. There’s just something about an electric sheep that’s both kind of funny and awesome at the same time. One of the major traits about Ampharos is that the light from its tail can be used in lighthouses to safely guide ships into port. The most famous example of this is the Ampharos of the Olivine City Lighthouse, which the gym leader Jasmine ends up taking care of when the poor thing comes down with something. It’s amazing that lighthouse didn’t at least had a backup Ampharos on hand in case something like that happened, considering the danger that an inactive lighthouse would pose.
Normal Evolution: The interesting thing about these sheep Pokemon is that they basically sheer themselves as they evolve, though it’s actually more accurate to say that Ampharos goes bald. At level fifteen, the charming electric sheep that its Mareep evolves into Flaaffy. Upon evolution, its skin turns from blue to pink and it gains the ability to walk on its hind legs, but it also loses the wool covering its body. This is apparently the result of the electricity that Flaaffy’s body produces becoming so strong that it becomes impossible for its woolen coat to regrow. At level thirty, Flaaffy evolves into Ampharos, at which point its skin turns yellow and its body loses what’s left of its wool, yet it still remains pretty dang cute.
Mega Evolution: After going though Mega Evolution, Ampharos becomes blessed with a head of long luxurious white hair, along with a tail covering in long billowing white fur. What’s even more surprising though is that after Mega Evolving, Ampharos becomes an Electric/Dragon-Type. A sheep that turns into a dragon… how awesome is that? It’s a shame that Ampharos can’t learn that many Dragon-Type moves, though maybe that’ll change when Sun and Moon come out. There’s actually a surprising explanation behind the concept of Ampharos’s type change, but I’ll get into that here in a bit. In addition to losing its baldness and becoming a dragon, Ampharos’s Mega Evolution also gives a major boost to its special attack stat. Ampharos’s speed stat also takes a major drop, but its speed was never that good to begin with. Another feature of Ampharos’s Mega Evolution is that its ability changes to Mold Breaker, which prevents the opponent’s abilities from messing with its attacks in battle.
Wordplay: One might think that perhaps Ampharos’s change into a dragon after Mega Evolving has roots in some sort of folktale from Japanese mythology, but the origin of this concept is actually much simpler. I should warn everyone that I got this bit of info comes from serebii.net, so I’m not sure how accurate it is. Anyway, the original Japanese name for Ampharos is Denryuu. The word, Denryuu means “electric current”, but it can also mean “electric dragon”. I’m assuming that this different meaning depends on what kanji is used to spell the word. In any case, it seems there’s no deep symbolism behind the concept of Ampharos’s Mega Evolution being a dragon. It’s just a simple yet clever case of Japanese wordplay.
That pretty much covers it for this week’s edition of Mega Factor. For next week, I’ll be covering one favorite Pokemon from the Generation 3 games. So until next time, stay tuned.
