Researchers are unsure whether to classify Bulbasaur as a plant or an animal.
Ash’s Pokédex, Pokémon anime episode 10, “Bulbasaur and the Hidden Village”
I.
“A strange seed was planted on its back at birth,” the very first Red and Blue Pokédex entry informs us. “This plant sprouts and grows with this Pokémon.” Bulbasaur, Pokémon #001, sets the stage for the rest of the pocket monsters through its hybridity. Both plant and animal, Bulbasaur follows in the footsteps of countless hybrid mythical creatures, from the animal-headed gods of ancient Egypt to the Greek centaur and minotaur to the griffins — half-lion and half-eagle — described and illustrated in medieval bestiaries.
Both western and eastern dragons combine parts of different animals. The Han dynasty-era scholar Wang Fu (c.82-167) describes the Chinese dragon as possessing the famous nine resemblances:
His horns resemble those of a stag, his head that of a camel, his eyes those of a demon, his neck that of a snake, his belly that of a clam, his scales those of a carp, his claws those of an eagle, his soles those of a tiger, his ears those of a cow.
Beyond the confines of mythology, artists and writers have mixed and matched parts of different animals for millennia, creating creatures that range from the gargoyles adorning the exteriors of cathedrals to the Mock Turtle in Alice in Wonderland and the bizarre, tragic ‘beast-men’ created by H.G. Wells’ Dr. Moreau. “Since a monster is no more than a combination of parts of real beings,” Borges writes in The Book of Imaginary Beings, “the possibilities of permutation border on the infinite.” But most invented monsters, he argues, are “stillborn” and fail to stir the imagination the way the dragon or an unusual but real animal does. His own book, he writes, proves that “the zoology of dreams is far poorer than the zoology of the Maker.”
My argument is of course that some Pokémon “work” as hybrid creatures in the same way, although perhaps not quite to the same degree, as centaurs or manticores and are thus “necessary monsters,” to use Borges’ memorable description of the dragon. I would put Bulbasaur (and the rest of its family) in that category and, on reflection, credit at least some of its mythopoeic success not just to its hybrid status but to the wealth of folklore evoked by each of its halves.
Bulbasaur’s plant side allows it to follow a long mythological tradition of plant-animal hybrids. Some medieval and early modern Europeans, for instance, apparently believed that cotton came from the wool of ‘vegetable lambs’ that grew on trees. The 11th century Persian scholar and proto-Renaissance man al-Biruni wrote of a tree whose leaves become bees, while the well-traveled 14th century Italian friar Odoric of Pordenone described lambs growing inside melon-like fruits on trees. I will discuss the mandrake or mandragora — mentioned by Shakespeare’s Iago and Juliet, the namesake of Deep Purple’s 1968 song “Mandrake Root” and now best known for its appearance in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets — when I get to Oddish, a Pokémon clearly inspired by it. Similarly, I will cover the Japanese yokai known as the ninmenju or jinmenju, a tree bearing human heads as fruit, in the context of its 20th century descendants Exeggcute and Exeggcutor.
Besides the mandrake, the most popular plant-animal hybrid in western folklore is probably the Green Man, who you may know from The Green Knight (2021). The Green Man, Kathleen Basford writes in her book of the same name, “is probably the most common decorative motif of medieval sculpture.” It, or he, appears in or on many of Europe’s gothic cathedrals, including those at Chartres, Reims, Bamberg, Ripon, Winchester and Ely, and in Italian, German, French, English and Scottish churches. According to Whatpub, there are currently 76 British pubs named after the Green Man, in locations ranging from London and Bristol to country towns with names straight out of a P.G. Wodehouse story: Milwich, Brackley Hatch, Scamblesby, Little Snoring.
Many theories have attempted to explain the Green Man’s origin, with some connecting him to the ancient Egyptian god Osiris, depicted as green-skinned in his role as king of the underworld, or to the green-clad, forest-dwelling Robin Hood. Basford rejects a popular theory which links the Green Man to the Jack in the Green tradition of English May Day celebrations. Instead, she traces the Green Man’s roots — pun intended — back to an imperial Roman motif variously known as the foliate head, leaf mask or male medusa. (As she notes, this vastly predates Jack in the Green, which can only be traced back to the 18th century.) Roman Green Men often appear in contexts related to Bacchus (Dionysus), the god of wine often depicted with grapes and grape leaves in his hair and frequently accompanied by the half-human, half-goat satyrs. The ancient Green Man, in other words, was already a wild man, already associated with untamed nature.
The rise of Christianity gave the Green Man a “new lease on life,” in Basford’s words; like the bear, its Pagan history encouraged a new demonic association. Thus Basford interprets the medieval Green Man not as a symbol of springtime renewal but as an ambiguous, somewhat evil presence that brings the danger and darkness of the forest into church and the ideas of death and decay into parishioner’s minds. “The association between the human and plant elements,” she writes, “is often suggested as an uneasy or actually hostile relationship rather than a balanced symbiosis. Sometimes the leaves appear parasitic, drawing their strength from the wretched heads which bear them.”
II.
Bulbasaur presents a much more positive symbiotic relationship, with the plant giving the animal offensive and defensive powers as well as the ability to live off of photosynthesis instead of searching for food. The Base Set card illustration by Mitsuhiro Arita shows Bulbasaur surrounded by foliage on all sides, almost one with the green world around it.
In addition to being a plant-animal hybrid, Bulbasaur is also a poison-grass hybrid in Pokémon’s elemental system. This typing, coupled with the creature’s vaguely toadlike appearance, could simply reflect the influence of real-world poisonous amphibians, such as the cane toad or South America’s notorious poison dart frog. However, its poisonousness and magical powers also evoke — perhaps unconsciously — the wealth of folklore that accumulated around the common toad (Bufo bufo), especially in medieval and early modern England.
George Orwell, reflecting on English springtime in “Some Thoughts on the Common Toad,” observes that “the toad, unlike the skylark and the primrose, has never had much of a boost from the poets.” A brief look through Shakespeare’s plays bears this out, illustrating multiple facets of what Roud and Simpson call “the toad’s evil reputation” in A Dictionary of English Folklore. First, the common toad is somewhat toxic, especially when swallowed by a pet, and thus became a symbol of all that is repugnant and unwanted. (The Grimm fairytale “The Frog King” centers on the princess breaking her promise to the toad because of her disgust at sharing her room and table with such a slimy creature.) In Richard III, the titular hunch-backed tyrant is called a “poisonous bunch-backed toad” by Queen Margaret and a “foul bunch-backed toad” by Queen Elizabeth, while future queen Anne Neville delivers the following insult: “Never hung poison on a fouler toad. /Out of my sight! Thou dost infect my eyes.”
While we think of black cats as the quintessential witch’s animal, toads were closely associated with witchcraft in English folklore. “Witches were widely believed to use them as familiars and to turn themselves into toads when they wished,” Simpson and Roud write. Thus one of the Weird Sisters in Macbeth has a toad as a familiar (act I scene ii) and toad appears as the first ingredient in the Sisters’ witches’ brew (act IV scene i). In The Tempest (act I scene ii), Caliban draws on his mother’s witchcraft to curse Prospero: “All the charms/ Of Sycorax, toads, beetles, bats, light on you!”
The connection between toads and magic was not limited to England or to continental Europe (in Grimm’s fairytale, remember, a witch’s spell turns the prince into a frog.) In Chinese and Japanese art, for instance, the Daoist immortal Liu Haichan is almost always depicted alongside a magical three-legged toad which, according to some legends, could instantly teleport him anywhere. (Liu Haichan’s Japanese name, Gama Sennin, literally means “toad immortal.”) This toad, associated with the moon, could produce a pearl with the power to bring the dead back to life. It is commonly known as the ‘golden toad’ or ‘money toad’ because its many attempts to escape from its master always end with Liu Haichan luring it back through a tempting display of gold coins; an online shopper can buy one of many plastic money toad ornaments intended to bring prosperity as an alternative to the more familiar Japanese ‘beckoning cat,’ which I will discuss when we get to Meowth.
In Europe, toads were said to possess strange powers apart from witches’ spells, powers that echo the magic pearl of Liu Haichan’s three-legged toad. “Sweet are the uses of adversity,” Duke Senior tells his fellow forest exiles in As You Like It (act II, scene i), “Which like the toad, ugly and venomous/Wears yet a precious jewel in his head.” The duke’s simile comes from an English old folk belief that a precious jewel — with magical powers — could spontaneously grow inside a toad’s head. This jewel, Simpson and Roud write,
could detect and counteract poisons, heal bites and stings, and help women in childbirth… The traditional way to get one was to bury a toad in a pot in an anthill for the ants to eat, till only the bones and the stone were left.
(National Museums Scotland identifies “toadstones” as the fossilized teeth of prehistoric fish.) The rest of the toad was a “valuable commodity” in folk medicine, with the whole toad, specific body parts or powdered toad used to treat illnesses including whooping cough, the plague, and the king’s evil.
Bulbasaur, half-grass and half-poison, learns Poison Powder at level 20 and can learn Toxic, the game’s most damaging poison-type move. Like the folkloric toad, once a common ingredient in potions, it can heal as well as hurt, replenishing its own hit points with Leech Seed and Synthesis. Is Bulbasaur’s “strange seed” some distant, probably unconscious echo of the toadstone or of Liu Haichan’s toad’s pearl? It does have a variety of magical powers: whipping enemies with vines, shooting seeds at them, taking in sunlight and then firing the powerful Solar Beam. It grows alongside the creature, just like the toadstone.
III.
Bulbasaur’s biggest starring role of course comes as a selectable starter Pokémon in Red and Blue and their Game Boy Advance remakes Pokémon FireRed and Pokémon LeafGreen. The game manual recommends Bulbasaur to new players, as its favorable type matchup against the first two gym leaders Brock and Misty gives it an early-game advantage.
Ash catches a Bulbasaur in the anime’s tenth episode, “Bulbasaur and the Hidden Village,” and uses it as one of his main Pokémon without ever evolving it. (It actually refuses to evolve in episode 51, “Bulbasaur’s Mysterious Garden.”) Bulbasaur plays a clear herald of adventure role in Hidenori Kusaka and Mato’s Pokémon Adventures manga, an adaptation of the games rather than the anime. In the second chapter, Ash analogue Red meets Professor Oak and accidentally frees all of Oak’s Pokémon from their Pokéballs. They track down all of the creatures except for Oak’s Bulbasaur, which runs into the seemingly abandoned Viridian City Gym. Refusing to return to Oak it instead forms an instant bond with Red, who leads it to victory in battle against a wild Machoke. Oak immediately senses Red’s potential as a Pokémon trainer and gives him both the Bulbasaur and a Pokédex, sending him out on his journey.
25 years after the release of Red and Blue, Bulbasaur’s monstrous necessity is best illustrated by its many design descendants across Pokémon’s various generations. Starter Pokémon in particular have followed in Bulbasaur’s footsteps since the series’ second generation, where players can choose to start with Chikorita, a baby dinosaur with flower buds around its neck and a leaf growing out of the top of its head; like Venusaur, its final evolution Meganium combines an animal with a flower in full bloom. Similarly, players of the fourth generation games (Diamond, Pearl and Platinum) can choose the grass-type Turtwig, which eventually evolves into Torterra, a giant turtle with a tree growing out of its back. The most recent games (Sword and Shield) feature the half-plant, half-ape starter Grookey, whose final evolution Rillaboom is a gorilla with a small jungle of foliage growing out of its head, neck and back. These variations on Bulbasaur and its family — I could list many more — demonstrate the enduring appeal of its plant-animal hybridity, which has brought us both into the folkloric past and forward into the unending proliferation of Pokémon.
Bibliography
Arnold, Martin. The Dragon: Fear and Power. University of Chicago Press, 2018.
Baird, Merrily. Symbols of Japan: Thematic Motifs in Art and Design. Rizzoli, 2001.
Basford, Kathleen. The Green Man. 1978. D.S. Brewer, 1998.
Borges, Jorge Luis. The Book of Imaginary Beings. Translated by Norman Thomas di Giovanni. 1974. Vintage, 2002.
Campbell, Joseph. The Hero with a Thousand Faces. 1949. Princeton University Press, 1973.
Cho, Insoo. Images of Liu Haichan: The Formation and Transformation of a Daoist Immortal’s Iconography. PhD Dissertation. University of Kansas, 2002.
Eberhard, Wolfram. The Local Cultures of South and East China. E.J. Brill, 1969.
Kusaka, Hidenori, and Mato. Pokémon Adventures 1. Chuang Yi, 2000.
Okada, Barbra Teri. Netuske Masterpieces from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Abrams, 1982.
Orwell, George. Essays. Penguin Classics, 2000.
Simpson, Jacqueline, and Steve Roud. A Dictionary of English Folklore. Oxford University Press, 2000.
Tao, Wang. “Human, Animal and Hybrid: Some Observations on Early Chinese Art.” Masterpieces from Ancient China: Fortieth Anniversary Exhibition of Ten Bronzes from Shang to Han to Celebrate the Millenium. Eskenazi, 2000.
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In the vain of ‘vegetable lambs’ I wanted to mention the barnacle geese, having misremembered them being born out of acorns. Still a curious myth!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnacle_goose_myth
I've only recently come to learn about Roman-Chinese trade connections, which I suppose was also the vector of the frog-and-jewel mytheme. So close, no matter how far!
I can't help but mention that I feel that Bulbasaur was not so much an inspiration for the later generation starter Pokémon, but simply that the triangular circle of advantaged/disadvantaged types was preserved. There are some Pokémon that are strictly vegetal, but these are not as cute and therefore not as potentially adequate as starter Pokémon.
I wonder if you make anything out of the particular choice of starter types, namely fire, water, grass?