In which we take a Pokemon-filled trip into shallow but pleasant waters.
I was excited to see this Re-ment set from the moment its preorder was announced; after all, I haven’t been shy about how much I love water features in figures and some of the Pokemon featured here in general. And it turns out to be pretty nice, too — cool enough it has a place of honor (with one exception) on a shelf in my bedroom. The name of the set is Poketto Monsutaa Atsumete Hirogaru! Pokemon World Kirameki no Umi, translating to something like Pocket Monsters Collect Them and Spread Them Out! Pokemon World Sparkling Sea. I think we’ll just call it Re-ment Pokemon World Sparkling Sea for short.
Our first set in the lineup is the obligatory-but-never-unwelcome Pikachu with Ashimari/Popplio. I have…er…mixed feelings on Ashimari. Suiren adores hers, which is definitely a point in the Pokémon’s favor, but I’m neither a fan of their design nor of snot bubbles, which make up a lot of Ashimari’s techniques. The figure itself is just fine, though.
(I don’t know much about their name in either language. I’m sure the Japanese name is related to あしか ashika, sea lion, and Bulbapedia has all sorts of information on the English name I had no idea about, so scroll down to the bottom of their entry and check it out!)
I feel much more excited about the second set, which features the Eevee evolution called Vaporeon in English and Showers in Japanese (and yet another case where I’m leaning slightly toward the English name — though it’s hard to say how I’d feel about the name Showers if I were Japanese looking at English words as a second language…). It’s a little difficult to get Showers’s tail to balance just so when you’re setting these figures up, but once you figure out just to hold the tail when you’re moving things, you’ll be fine. I really like this one!
A huge part of the reason for me preordering this set in the first place — after I got over my bitterness for it not featuring Wooper; I mean really, what were they thinking? — was the inclusion of Yadon/Slowpoke, just chilling in the water on top of a rock and feeling a bit snackish. Underneath him is a Pokemon whose name I had to look up in both English (Pyukumuku) and Japanese (Namakobushi). I’m sure the Japanese name is related to 海鼠 namako, sea cucumber, and Bulbapedia speculates that it also incorporates 拳 kobushi (fist), as well as that its design might be based on a sea slug, which is pretty awesome. Oh, and that its English name is just made up of a lot of gross stuff.
I think this is my very favorite figure out of all of them, but with the presence of Yadon, there’s probably no one who’s very surprised by that.
If the previous set is my favorite here, then the next, with Zenigame/Squirtle, is in the top three. Is it possible I haven’t written about Zenigame enough to talk about their name? I had learned a while back that the zeni in Zenigame is a reference to their shell looking like an old coin (I’ve run across a couple of anime characters over time referring to money as zeni, including in DBZ where it’s the actual currency, but also just gangstery money-hungry types — it makes particular sense in the context of Zenigame’s troubled background). I’m extremely fond of the name Squirtle with the fondness I hold for all the Kanto starters, too, though, so it’s hard to say which one I like better.
I almost forgot to include that this set also features Hitodeman/Staryu. Their Japanese name is definitely a reference to ひとで hitode (starfish), a word I believe is also the root of one of my Team Rocket favorites, Hidoide/Mareanie. Sometimes Japanese media will use –man at the end of a name, like Superman, so that could be the case here as well. I might like the English name better, since the star is straightforward and the yu is a nice counterpart to the me in Starmie (that’s the name in both languages, so the English really does have the edge).
Wedging itself in my preferences between Yadon at the top and Zenigame below, next we’ve got Marill and Corsola/Sunnygo. My memories of Marill are oddly specific and nostalgic, actually; every time I see this Pokemon, I think of a trip I took to San Francisco right when the Gen II games were out in Japan but not yet in the States, ogling the merchandise with the newly-introduced Pokemon and utterly unable to read any of their names. Memory is strange…
Marill’s name is pretty much the same in English and Japanese, and while Corsola/Sunnygo sound different, they seem to be based around the same concepts. In English we combine the cor from coral with sola from solar, whereas in Japanese the name combines sunny with さんご sango (coral). I never paid much attention to this Pokemon before — I was surprised it was Gen II — until relatively recently, when it got a Galar Ghost regional variant.
Here we reach the last set, featuring a Pokemon I’m just not all that fond of; it’s Seel/Pawou. There’s something about their face I’ve just always been kind of enh about, and so when I set things up from this collection for display and didn’t have enough room for one of them, this was an easy cut.
I don’t even have anything illuminating to say about the name for this one. Seel is, of course, just a mispelling of seal, and I have no clue whatsoever what the Japanese name means, unless it’s kind of a seal’s bark, as Bulbapedia suggests.
Anyway, here the figures are all lined up:
I wasn’t quite as pleased with this set overall as I was hoping, but I can’t say exactly why — maybe it’s as small as wishing that the figures had a clear blue “back” so it looked more like water all around, or something? Regardless, the character selection and nice design keeps me from getting too disappointed, and it does look nice all displayed. It’s still recommended and available at amiami for about $36.50, which seems like a pretty good price, all considered, for such a cute collection of water Pokemon friends.
hello somebunny 