Hey, guys and gals! I got some speculating to be spectated upon! If... if that's not a sentence that will get me an F in English class... Anyway, here's my speculation on some stuff and why.
♦1 STARTERS
I've gone out of my way and analyzed the trends of the starter pokemon to find any way to predict what the next will be. Here's what I got...
Grass-Type Starters
All the grass-types share the same theme of evolution of life over time. We see the first being dicynodonts, specifically Kannemeyeria, which lived about 300 to 200 million years ago. These were synapsids, animals with reptile and mammal features simultaneously. While they lived, sauropods came into existence 210 million years ago, with Apatosaurus specifically being around 152 to 151 million years ago. Later, we had Dilophosaurus walk the earth 193 million years ago, and Protarcheopteryx about 127 million years ago. This takes care of the Venusaur, Meganium, and Sceptile lines. It gets a little more expansive with the next.
Torterra's line is inspired by several creatures, most of them being ancient turtles and ankylosaurs from 210 to 0.01 million years ago. They're also inspired by the legend of the "World Turtle", which is popular in native american and chinese mythology. Serperior is the evolution of lizards into snakes starting with Haasiophis, an early lisard-like snake with hind legs from about 100 to 94 million years ago, as well as French royalty. Chesnaught's line is the RPG tanky paladin class combined with hedgehogs and armadillos, which belongs to the Superorder of Xenarthra, which originated about 59 million years ago. This Superorder was the first of the mammals, or rather modern mammals. This order includes armadillos, anteaters, and sloths. The next is Pholidota from about 56 million years ago, which introduced pangolins. Then Insectivora followed right behind to the very tip of the Latest Cretaceous. This introduced creatures like hedgehogs, moles, and shrews. After this point, mammals split into many branches with the next mammals being rodents, lagomorphs (hares, pikas, rabbits), and then bats and primates. Soon after came carnivores such as cats, dogs, bears, and seals.
I feel that, due to their passing of the cretaceous, we will never get another dinosaur or pterosaur-like grass-type starter. We'll likely get more developing mammals or even early birds such as Gastornis. With this, they could have the starter start as a simple flightless bird and evolve over time to fly, or even evolve into later Terror Birds.
With this being said, my starter prediction for grass is...
Rabbit or Flightless Bird.
Fire-Type Starters
Fire-type starters don't seem to have as much of a linear theme. Well, they did until Gen 4. The only similarity they all have is that they're based on the Chinese Zodiac. The only ones with any time that was linked to anything significant were Charizard, Typhlosion, Infernape, and Emboar. 1989 was the Year of the Dragon and when GameFreak was founded. The Gen 2 pokemon were originally planned for Gen 1, which had cut them all out last minute and released in 1996, Year of the Rat. The Year of the Monkey was 2004-5, which was most likely during Diamond and Pearl's development, as it was announced the year after and released 2007. For Emboar, the Year of the Pig ended the beginning of 1996 and BW were advertised as a new beginning to the series, even constructed like a reboot of sorts.
The only available Zodiac left are the Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Horse, and Goat, but I feel some are more likely than others, so my prediction for Fire is...
Tiger or Goat
Tigers are likely due to their popularity and color scheme, as well as the... "popular" Type/Fighting starter trend matching the Tiger-style martial arts. The Goat is due to lambs being the most cooked meat in the world, and how demons and devils are often seen with goat-like features and flames.
Water-Type Starters
The fire-types didn't have much, but water has significantly less. It's basically a random list of amphibious animals, meaning animals that can work on land or in water. I checked to see if there was any size, habitat, evolutionary, species, or anything trend, but the closest I could find is that they're all amphibious. So... My predictions are...
Salamander, Walrus, or Waterfowl. I'd love a dolphin, but I think it's hardly likely to be a starter, sadly.
♦2 REGION
I had previously believed the region might be Hawaii, California, Italy, or Brazil but I was watching a GameXplain video that convinced me otherwise.
I did a little studying as well and found even the fire truck in the concept art matches the ones in Malaysia and the Pokemon Center design matches Singapore architecture. This theory is only slightly pushed by the new Pokemon's likely inspirations. I'll explain later, but for now I have to add that the Strange Souvenir in X and Y reminds me of the Hindu deity Hanuman, who has a temple in Malaysia. Here, look.
However, it could also be a tribal mask like some of the ones I've seen from Malaysia.
♦3 POKEMON
If it isn't already obvious, I'm guessing we'll see some tropical pokemon. I honestly can't find myself expecting many, if any, new Ice-types either, but I do expect an expansive dex. I don't expect the dex to be as large as Kalos', but maybe about 300 pokemon strong, likely more akin to Neo Unova and Expanded Sinnoh. I also expect there to be some pokemon using the day/night feature in some way, possibly just availability like Gen 4, or perhaps using forms for the two times. Anyway, I'm mostly wanting to add this part here to explain what I found about the new pokemon, who I've happily nicknamed Chatweet (think Smugleaf).
Now, Chatweet is obviously a small red bird with a crest and white or pink beak. I was looking up some stuff about cardinals, a red bird with a crest. Turns out, Chatweet may very well take inspiration from several species of this tropical bird! It happens to have a gray or white face and chest, as we can tell from the image. This could be inspired by the Grey-throated chat, a cardinal that is at home in subtropical and tropical dry forests. It may also take inspiration from the Rose-breasted grosbeak, a songbird in the cardinal family with a black body, nearly white beak, red chest, and white underbelly. It also happens to go to tropical america for the winter.
Scratch that, I did some more research and found out it's more likely inspired by the Crimson-crested woodpecker, which can be found in Panama, Argentina, and Trinidad. This is obvious by the shape of the beak, colors, crest, and the zygodactyl feet. Anyway, guess the previous analysis should be tossed and with this being said, I think I'm going to start happily calling it Chirpeck. This part is irrelevant, but I'd like to see its final evolution be named "Infinchree" from infantry, finch, and tree. Hehe.
I cannot find any strong enough Solar or Lunar deities or creatures in southeastern mythology, religion, or folklore that provides enough of a connection for me to guess those, however. But, with everything I said here, I hope you enjoyed my prediction!
♦1 STARTERS
I've gone out of my way and analyzed the trends of the starter pokemon to find any way to predict what the next will be. Here's what I got...
Grass-Type Starters
All the grass-types share the same theme of evolution of life over time. We see the first being dicynodonts, specifically Kannemeyeria, which lived about 300 to 200 million years ago. These were synapsids, animals with reptile and mammal features simultaneously. While they lived, sauropods came into existence 210 million years ago, with Apatosaurus specifically being around 152 to 151 million years ago. Later, we had Dilophosaurus walk the earth 193 million years ago, and Protarcheopteryx about 127 million years ago. This takes care of the Venusaur, Meganium, and Sceptile lines. It gets a little more expansive with the next.
Torterra's line is inspired by several creatures, most of them being ancient turtles and ankylosaurs from 210 to 0.01 million years ago. They're also inspired by the legend of the "World Turtle", which is popular in native american and chinese mythology. Serperior is the evolution of lizards into snakes starting with Haasiophis, an early lisard-like snake with hind legs from about 100 to 94 million years ago, as well as French royalty. Chesnaught's line is the RPG tanky paladin class combined with hedgehogs and armadillos, which belongs to the Superorder of Xenarthra, which originated about 59 million years ago. This Superorder was the first of the mammals, or rather modern mammals. This order includes armadillos, anteaters, and sloths. The next is Pholidota from about 56 million years ago, which introduced pangolins. Then Insectivora followed right behind to the very tip of the Latest Cretaceous. This introduced creatures like hedgehogs, moles, and shrews. After this point, mammals split into many branches with the next mammals being rodents, lagomorphs (hares, pikas, rabbits), and then bats and primates. Soon after came carnivores such as cats, dogs, bears, and seals.
I feel that, due to their passing of the cretaceous, we will never get another dinosaur or pterosaur-like grass-type starter. We'll likely get more developing mammals or even early birds such as Gastornis. With this, they could have the starter start as a simple flightless bird and evolve over time to fly, or even evolve into later Terror Birds.
With this being said, my starter prediction for grass is...
Rabbit or Flightless Bird.
Fire-Type Starters
Fire-type starters don't seem to have as much of a linear theme. Well, they did until Gen 4. The only similarity they all have is that they're based on the Chinese Zodiac. The only ones with any time that was linked to anything significant were Charizard, Typhlosion, Infernape, and Emboar. 1989 was the Year of the Dragon and when GameFreak was founded. The Gen 2 pokemon were originally planned for Gen 1, which had cut them all out last minute and released in 1996, Year of the Rat. The Year of the Monkey was 2004-5, which was most likely during Diamond and Pearl's development, as it was announced the year after and released 2007. For Emboar, the Year of the Pig ended the beginning of 1996 and BW were advertised as a new beginning to the series, even constructed like a reboot of sorts.
The only available Zodiac left are the Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Horse, and Goat, but I feel some are more likely than others, so my prediction for Fire is...
Tiger or Goat
Tigers are likely due to their popularity and color scheme, as well as the... "popular" Type/Fighting starter trend matching the Tiger-style martial arts. The Goat is due to lambs being the most cooked meat in the world, and how demons and devils are often seen with goat-like features and flames.
Water-Type Starters
The fire-types didn't have much, but water has significantly less. It's basically a random list of amphibious animals, meaning animals that can work on land or in water. I checked to see if there was any size, habitat, evolutionary, species, or anything trend, but the closest I could find is that they're all amphibious. So... My predictions are...
Salamander, Walrus, or Waterfowl. I'd love a dolphin, but I think it's hardly likely to be a starter, sadly.
♦2 REGION
I had previously believed the region might be Hawaii, California, Italy, or Brazil but I was watching a GameXplain video that convinced me otherwise.
However, it could also be a tribal mask like some of the ones I've seen from Malaysia.
♦3 POKEMON
If it isn't already obvious, I'm guessing we'll see some tropical pokemon. I honestly can't find myself expecting many, if any, new Ice-types either, but I do expect an expansive dex. I don't expect the dex to be as large as Kalos', but maybe about 300 pokemon strong, likely more akin to Neo Unova and Expanded Sinnoh. I also expect there to be some pokemon using the day/night feature in some way, possibly just availability like Gen 4, or perhaps using forms for the two times. Anyway, I'm mostly wanting to add this part here to explain what I found about the new pokemon, who I've happily nicknamed Chatweet (think Smugleaf).
Now, Chatweet is obviously a small red bird with a crest and white or pink beak. I was looking up some stuff about cardinals, a red bird with a crest. Turns out, Chatweet may very well take inspiration from several species of this tropical bird! It happens to have a gray or white face and chest, as we can tell from the image. This could be inspired by the Grey-throated chat, a cardinal that is at home in subtropical and tropical dry forests. It may also take inspiration from the Rose-breasted grosbeak, a songbird in the cardinal family with a black body, nearly white beak, red chest, and white underbelly. It also happens to go to tropical america for the winter.
Scratch that, I did some more research and found out it's more likely inspired by the Crimson-crested woodpecker, which can be found in Panama, Argentina, and Trinidad. This is obvious by the shape of the beak, colors, crest, and the zygodactyl feet. Anyway, guess the previous analysis should be tossed and with this being said, I think I'm going to start happily calling it Chirpeck. This part is irrelevant, but I'd like to see its final evolution be named "Infinchree" from infantry, finch, and tree. Hehe.
I cannot find any strong enough Solar or Lunar deities or creatures in southeastern mythology, religion, or folklore that provides enough of a connection for me to guess those, however. But, with everything I said here, I hope you enjoyed my prediction!
