#102 - Exeggcute
Grass/Psychic
Oh boy, here's a Pokemon I kind of dreaded talking about because I don't know where to start with two of the oddest Pokemon in Generation I. Exeggcute is a Grass-type Pokemon who looks like an egg, but is actually a seed, and also for some reason is part-Psychic for no real reason other than they needed a way to explain how six disjointed creatures can operate as one being, and I guess they desperately needed another Psychic-type Pokemon? Grass/Psychic ties with Grass/Ice and Grass/Dark for having the most weaknesses, but it actually isn't that bad of a Type despite this, because it does have a resistance to Ground, Fighting, Water, and Electric-type attacks, which are all quite common offensive Types from my understanding. In the main game, though, most people probably didn't realize Exeggcute's true potential, probably because it only appeared in the Safari Zone. In fact till XY, Exeggute was always a pretty rare Pokemon one might skip over---in Kanto and Sinnoh he only appears in the "Safari Zones", and in Johto he only appeared in the Headbutt trees, which many players probably didn't really bother with unless they were specifically looking for a certain Pokemon. I don't think I've ever touched this line, and sometimes I even forget about them.
You gotta wonder whose idea it was to combine an egg with a seed like this? Exeggcute might be one of the few Pokemon who might make more sense to Westerners than the original Japanese audience, as we have a plant that's known as an "eggplant", and many kids, myself included, probably thought that was the pun Game Freak was going for. I sort of doubt it, though, since the eggplant is usually called "nasubi" in Japan (such as Nintendo's Eggplant Wizard and Eggplant Man, known as Nasubi Tsukai and Nasubi Kamen respectively originally), which doesn't imply any connection to eggs, and Exeggcute really doesn't resemble the plant whatsoever. The Japanese words for seed and egg are tane and tama, so they're kind of close, and you could say a seed and an egg both represent the beginning of life, but ultimately I think someone at Game Freak just decided to make a seed Pokemon that kind of looked like an egg, maybe after ingesting some sort of mind-altering substance. One possible explanation is that Exeggcute actually isn't a plant-based Grass Pokemon, but rather a fungi-based Grass Pokemon inspired by an obscure fungi known as the "bird nest fungi", which resembles a bird's nest full of eggs, but nothing about Exeggcute suggests it's meant to be a fungus, so once more I think this simply a coincidence.
Exeggcute consists of six "Pokemon", each which appear to have their own individuality and personality, who are bound together both physically and mentally through a psychic connection. Yeah, this was pretty weird in Generation I, but only got weirder in Generation II where the Exeggcute were shown hatching out of the same egg, which is actually somewhat of a conundrum in and of itself. Exeggcute is another Pokemon who is saved from being a dumb design thanks to having a great personality, with each of the heads wearing an amusing expression---I especially like the dumb looking one who is always slightly unaligned with the rest of the bunch, and the cracked one who can be seen in the back-sprite of Generation V looking pissed that it's left out of the fun. I mean, Exeggcute isn't one of my favorite Pokemon, but imagine how dull it'd be if all the faces had the same "cutesy" expression? Game Freak doesn't always come up with the best ideas, but I feel a lot of times they salvage them by giving the Pokemon great expressions to make you forget their shortcomings. Or, on the other hand, a boring, uninteresting expression can sabotage even the best looking Pokemon.
Originally, all the Exeggcute eggs had cracks on them, with one being cracked all the way showing the yolk within, but in recent years beginning with Fire Red and Leaf Green, the middle Exeggcute lost his crack and now appears to be flawless---I guess they did this so one could tell which Exeggcute was meant to be the leader? Eggs cracking is usually a bad thing, but for Exeggcute it means they're actually close to evolving! In the games, of course all of the Exeggcute evolve simultaneously, as they usually do in all the other mediums, but I imagine what Game Freak was going for when it came to the lore was that each individual Exeggcute evolved on their own, and only stuck together as children for protection. While the yellow stuff coming out of the broken Exeggcute looks like yolk, I imagine it's actually meant to be the yellow head or body of Exeggcute's evolved form beginning to sprout and break through the shell of the seed. It's a pretty interesting Pokemon when you look past the weirdness, don't you think?
Exeggcute's "focus episode", if you could call it that, was "March of the Exeggutor Squad". This episode really didn't have much to do with them though, not focusing on any of their unique elements, and was a pretty uninteresting filler episode except for Charmander evolving at the end. For years, I forgot when Charmander evolved, and I eventually figured out why---this was one of the last episodes to air in American before the move to KidsWB, and because of that it tended to be skipped over in re-runs I recall, and also because it straight up sucks. Don't get me wrong, I think it's fair to say Kanto is the best season of the show for various reasons, although I do like some of the elements later seasons added especially Diamond and Pearl, and there have certainly been worse episodes during the show's long, long, long run, but this episode is pure shit. It's also pretty much the only time Exeggcute ever got any focus outside of appearing in the Pikachu Short alongside the Lugia Movie, which is very unfortunate because it's a Pokemon with a lot of story potential.
#103 - Exeggutor
Grass/Psychic
First off---remember that challenge to name all 151 Pokemon? You probably wasted a lot of time trying to remember how to spell Exeggutor, right? I'm right, aren't I? No one can remember how to spell this without looking it up. Anyway, Exeggutor is the evolution of Exeggcute via the Leaf Stone, and is a bit less odd---but not by much. Fun fact, he's apparently the favorite Pokemon of the CEO of The Pokemon Company, Tsunekazu Ishihara, due to being used during the development of Red and Green to help test the battle system. I imagine Exeggutor was good for this task due to having a Type Combination that gave him a relationship with almost every Type except Normal, Rock, and Dragon. Anyway, Exeggutor was once a very high-ranking Pokemon, like most Psychic-types during Generation I, but he's sort of fallen in recent years thanks to the proliferation of powerful Bug and Dark-type moves, among other reasons. Finding out Exeggutor was such a high-ranking Pokemon surprised me, because I don't remember anyone I know ever using him whatsoever in any capacity. Weird to discover he was relatively popular, although I do like his design somewhat.
They've never really explained the exact life-cycle of Exeggcute and Exeggutor (god I hate typing these names), but here's the way I see it: one of the individual Exeggcute eggs cracks, and grows into an Exeggutor with three heads that serve as "seed pods". The heads have their own personality and will, but work together to control the body and ensure their survival. As they continue to mature, eventually the heads fall off one by one, hitting the ground and cracking open---within them is a new Exeggcute egg, a seed, who quickly finds other Exeggcute to bond with until it evolves. Thus, every one Exeggcute results in three more Exeggcute eventually, thus ensuring the continuation of the species. I guess the Exeggutor body, after all the heads fall off, probably just stops moving, perhaps "planting" itself into the ground and becoming a regular palm tree, or simply rots away and distributes nutrients back into the earth. Of course, all of this is glossed over in the games and you just evolve 'em with a Leaf Stone and breed them like any other Pokemon, but this is how I perceive the lore of the species.
Exeggutor resembles a minor Yokai known as the Jinmenju, "human-faced tree", which is as the name suggests a bizarre tree that grows laughing human heads who constantly fall off due to their own laughter. In fact "human-face" trees seems to be a popular element in a variety of mythology for some reason, perhaps due to the very human need to see ourselves in everyday objects to somehow feel like we matter despite being just another species that will one day die off. I also imagine that Exeggutor is also referencing the holes seen on dehusked coconuts that resemble a human face, but taking that idea literally. It's known as the "Walking Tropical Rainforest", and is said to originate from a tropical region, explaining why they're so rare in Kanto---it seems they'd be quite fitting as natural Pokemon in Hoenn, the hottest and most tropical region introduced so far, but they actually don't appear in Hoenn which seems like a missed opportunity.
Let's just forget about "March of the Exeggutor Squad", and mention this fun-fact that Bulbapedia mentions: Exeggutor have some bizarre evolutionary ability in the television show. In their debut episode (which shall not be named), they evolve without actually interacting with the Leaf Stone, and later cause Charmander to evolve. And then in the Kanto League, guess who Krabby's first opponent is that causes him to evolve into Kingler? That's right, it's Exeggutor! Whoa! This is another Pokemon whose weirdness the show's never really focused on, and most of its appearances don't really take advantage of its uniquer abilities, normally it just sort of pops up in a pretty chill way.
Haven't really paid much attention since the original days, but only because there's never been a good virtual version to keep my interest + relatively low cost.
