From the days of Pokémon Red & Blue, up until the recent releases of Pokémon Sword & Shield, the franchise has continued to build strong emotional bonds with its fans over the last two-plus decades. It is a series that has some of the most dedicated fans who have grown to feel emotionally attached to these creatures they catch and evolve. Pokémon truly is a special franchise, with a host of monsters as emotional as the trainers who catch them. Let’s now take a look at the 10 most emotionally driven pokémon in the entire series and rank them.
10 Charizard
When trainers reach the age of 10 in the Kanto region and being their journey, they get a chance to pick one of three starter pokémon. Many of them are warned that Charmander represents the toughest road ahead because it’s the most hard-headed and difficult to train. Some may see this as a red flag, whereas others may see it as a true challenge worth overcoming. Charizard is the final evolution of Charmander, and it will only listen to someone it respects. It’s not afraid to throw a tantrum and create a little emotional chaos.
9 Mimikyu
Mimikyu is a creature that’s so self-conscious and aware of what the world around it would think about its natural form and has focused all of its energy into a disguise. The only people who have ever seen what it looks like died from shock or were attacked by the Mimikyu they were observing. This small little ghost-type creature is so worried and focused on being accepted it understood how beloved Pikachu is and wanted to mimic it as best as it could. Mimikyu may not be driven by healthy emotions, but at least it’s self-aware which is pretty impressive for a pokémon.
8 Lucario
Lucario is very much the pokémon that’s closest to the feeling of empathy. It can sense the auras of other living things and feel their emotions. Lucario can access this from over a half a mile away from its target.
Being able to sense the emotions of another living thing not only gives it a tactical advantage in battle, but it also gives Lucario a better chance of connecting with its trainer. It can also understand human speech which means it can communicate on both a linguistic and emotional level that very few other pokémon can.
7 Pikachu
This is more so talking about Ash’s Pikachu specifically and not the entire species of pokémon, but it qualifies. Pikachu starts the anime series as a hard-headed and difficult to get along with sidekick, and throughout the Kanto region journey, it builds an unrivaled bond with its trainer Ash Ketchum. Pikachu is very expressive and will often wear its heart on its sleeve, which in turn lets Ash know something isn’t right. The thing that separates Ash’s Pikachu from others of the same species is its emotional intelligence.
6 Mesprit
Mesprit is a legendary pokémon, who like most legendary creatures in the world of Pokémon, has a special connection to a part of the human experience. It is known as the “Being of Emotion” and is credited with teaching humans how to feel sorrow, joy, and pain. In addition to these specific feelings, it is considered to be tied to the birth of emotions in general. They say you can’t appreciate the good times without trudging through the bad ones, and it seems Mesprit understood that by giving humans the full range of the emotional spectrum to experience.
5 Jigglypuff
Jigglypuff’s relationship with its emotions is pretty humorous when you look at the entire picture. It’s a pokémon known for having a beautiful singing voice that’s so melodic it puts listeners to sleep. Since Jigglypuff aren’t the most intelligent creatures, they take the sleeping as disrespect.
They think people are falling asleep out of boredom, but in reality, the creature just soothes people into a sense of relaxation. Instead of handling the situation maturely, Jigglypuff often resorts to grabbing a permanent marker and drawing on the face of their slumbering audience.
4 Hatenna
Hatenna is a new psychic-type pokémon introduced in the 8th generation of games, Pokémon Sword & Shield. It’s the base form in a three pokémon evolutionary line that ends with Hattrene. The hat-shaped protrusion on its head gives it the ability to sense other living creatures’ emotions. It’s attracted to trainers who can maintain calm dispositions as it is labeled as the Calm Pokémon. Not only does it prefer calm environments, if it senses to strong of emotion it will remove itself from the situation as fast as physically possible.
3 Primeape
Primeape is a pokémon whose reputation is solely based on its emotional output. They are known for being very serious and proud creatures who hold a grudge. Their anger fuels them and is the base for what seems to be their never-ending supply of energy. If you happened to catch the episode of the anime that featured this pokémon, it’d be clear how emotionally driven they were. It may not necessarily be a healthy type of drive, but their anger does boost them nonetheless. At the end of the day Primeape probably just wants to be love and appreciated.
2 Kirlia
If you’re labeled as the Emotion Pokémon, then it seems you may have the strongest connection to emotions. Kirlia is labeled as such and can read the emotions of its trainer. This can come in handy during battles as it can sense how its trainer is feeling with its performance.
Kirlia also wears its heart on its sleeve since a trainer can immediately know if their Kirlia is in a good mood. This is because Kirlia only dances when it’s happy. Now if only humans had clear and obvious indicators regarding their current emotional state.
1 Mewtwo
When it comes to the idea of which pokémon is the most emotionally driven, you’d have to consider which one of these fantastical creatures interprets and feels emotions closest to the way a human does. That means that Mewtwo is clear and away the perfect pokémon to top this list. In addition to being hyper-intelligent and capable of telepathic maneuvers, it happens to have a strong case of post-traumatic stress related to the experiments it was subjected to in scientific labs. One viewing of Pokémon: The First Movie will let you understand just how connected Mewtwo is to its emotions.
NEXT: Pokémon: Every Generation’s Pokémon Champion, Ranked
