Top 10 Pokemon from the Kanto Region

So after watching a few of Tamashii and NintendoFanFTW videos, I felt that the forum was seriously lacking in it's amount of top ten favorite Pokemon. Now I was going to make just one thread that would have been a Top Ten Favorite Pokemon, I decided to make 7 separate threads, one for each region and a final one for the overall Top Ten Favorite Pokemon.

Now then, to help widen/narrow your choices, here are a few rules and/or helpful tips.
-First off since this is obviously the Kanto thread, please do not use Pokemon outside of gen one. Those Pokemon you can choose in the other threads which should be posted not long after this one is.

-Now while you are restricted to the first 151 Pokemon, you are not restricted in reasoning. Whether it's because of their great battling prowess, lore, origins, design, or some other reason, you can list a Pokemon. However, if a Pokemon has a Mega Evolution, that cannot be your main reasoning behind it being on this list. You can mention it as an added bonus, but nothing more. If you like a Pokemon because of an evolution/pre-evolution it gains in a later generation, please don't list it.

-I would highly recommend you keep legendaries off this list. There is a Top Ten Legendaries thread which will come out after the regions. If you cannot keep out legendaries, limit yourself to one, please.

-Also please list your reasoning behind a Pokemon. Just having "I liek Pidgey" is fine and dandy, but the purpose of this thread is to learn more about each other, and maybe start a few discussions on the chatbox depending on decisions. You don't need a huge paragraph, but a sentence or two would be good.

-I would also suggest listing them as 10-1 so that you list ends with your favorite Pokemon from the region.

With that out of the way, I'll start off with my own.

#10. Kabutops
Starting us off is a Pokemon who's grown a bit infamous due to the Twitch Plays Pokemon where it was deemed evil to try and make sense of the nonsense. Now while Pokemon Red and Blue weren't the first games I played, in fact I didn't own them until after beating my Diamond game after Diamond was released, and my experience in Kanto began with the Firered and Leafgreen games, Kabutops proved to be one of my favorite and most used Pokemon. I love fossils, and even though the dream has lost some luster, I still wish to become a paleontologist after graduating college. While most people enjoy Dinosaurs, and I do love them, I love trilobites more. Trilobites are part of Kabuto and Kabutops' orgins, and some descendants still exist today, such as the horseshoe crab. This only made Kabutops that much cooler to me, not to mention the theory that Genesect is a mutated Kabutops.

#9. Butterfree
Though battle wise I don't think Butterfree has much use, it's more of the anime that's made me love this Pokemon. Back when I was little I'd always watch the Pokemon anime with all my other Saturday morning cartoons.  I had no idea there were Pokemon games besides the TCG and thought it was another cool show of a kid I could connect to prancing around on an adventure. Of course we all know what was the first Pokemon Ash caught: Caterpie. For some reason I really liked Caterpie, and slightly hated Misty for hating him. Watching Caterpie grow from a Caterpie to a Butterfree was amazing to me, and introduced me to evolution (in Pokemon terms). Then the episode came where Ash released Butterfree... which introduced me to releasing pokemon. In fact when I had first played my Pokemon Ruby, I released my pokemon instead of keeping them locked away in the box once I had beaten the game. Thankfully I kept my Sceptile, which was my first ever Pokemon in the games. Sadly he didn't make it to X/Y as my little cousin erased my Emerald game when I had transferred him to it, but that's another story.

#8. Charmander/Charmeleon
Don't mistake me. I hate Charizard a lot. Though it's definitely cool looking and can be a pretty serious contender (so long as there're no stealth rocks), I'm not a big fan of it because everybody seems to have a love/hate relationship with it for not being a Fire/Dragon type from the beginning plus the fact that I did not like Ash's Charizard, not even after he started listening to him. Charmander, on the other hand, I love. Again since my first experience in Kanto was in Firered and Leafgreen and at the time Charmander had a bunch of added moves including the deadly Metal Claw, my love came later than sooner when I saw Charmander. Back when I first saw this little fire lizard, I didn't care much. I wasn't a fan of fire back then and I thought Bulbasaur was the better Dinosaur pokemon. It also didn't help when in my first play-through of Firered I was able to beat the crap out of Gary and the first two gyms easily with Bulbasaur and later Ivysaur. However in Leafgreen, being a person who likes doing opposites, I chose Charmander. I don't know if that little bastard just happened to have all perfect IVs or what but he destroyed Gary's Squirtle in just 2 Scratch attacks instead of the usual 6 or 7 it takes. Not to mention he leveled up pretty quickly, learning Metal claw and helping me storm through Brock in a matter of moments. Though we had trouble against Misty due to type weaknesses, he only fainted once in battle throughout the entire game and had probably the most intense victory against the Champion ever. Unlike other Pokemon games where I had let my pokemon evolved, I decided to keep my Charmander a Charmeleon, afraid that it'd start disobeying me like Ash's did when it was a Charizard (go nonsensical thinking of a young boy~). With a type disadvantage and going up against a fully evolved Blastoise with no fallback plan, I was getting insanely frustrated, frantically trying to think of a way to win. I used a Flamethrower and was met with Gary's Blastoise surviving with nearly a quarter or it's health. When I saw the Blastoise use Hydro Pump I knew I was fucked. Then my Charmeleon hung on with just a sliver of health. Deciding using another fire move would be a waste, I used Metal Claw, one of the longest lasting moves of my Charmeleon, and got a crit that took out Blastoise, earning Charmander and Charmeleon a special place in my Kanto Journey.

#7. Marowak
I don't like many Ground types, and I doubt any of my other lists will have a Ground type on it. Plus my liking for Marowak is actually not based on it's typing at all. It's not even based on the Pokemon games, anime, magma, or TCG. It's based on what I believe is a glitch in Pixelmon. You see, the Pixelmon mod, which is a mod for Minecraft, adds in Pokemon and several of the mechanics of Pokemon. The only difference other than stuff they haven't added is that it's glitchy as hell. One such glitch is the Marowak False Swiper glitch. False Swipe is a move that lowers the opponent's health to 1 but never actually makes the Pokemon faint. Normally a recoil or status affect would kill it off if you didn't with another move. This is true for all other False Swipers: Levanny, Scyther, etc. However, the odd thing about Marowak is that when it uses False Swipe, the opponent can't faint from at least recoil. It might not faint from status affects but I'm not sure. Bluekat has used this so much and it annoys me to hell and back, but it's such a useful glitch I can't help but like it. Not to mention Marowak does have a cool design. It might deserve a lower spot on the list for such a crappy reason, but I had a gap between Charmeleon and Spearow and thought Marowak deserved some justice.

#6. Spearow
Before all the other Normal/Flying or Flying/Normal types popped up, I met Spearow. Though Pidgey definitely has the cooler evolutions of the Kanto birds, I like Spearow. Like Charmeleon, Spearow was a Pokemon I decided not to evolve during my journey, instead keeping her as a Spearow throughout the games. I always imagined her perched on my shoulder as I traveled around and only recently has Fletchinder taken that spot.

#5. Kingler
Yet another Pokemon I grew to love because of the anime. I'm actually not a big water type fan. I can't swim well and always felt that water types were a bit to common, though there are a few I do love. It feels like nowadays the Pokemon Company will slap on Water to a Pokemon's typage for little reason. I was actually pleasantly surprised when Stunfisk was an Electric/Ground instead of Ground/Water, but let's move on to why I like Kingler. As you all know, I'm a fan of guns. I'm a fan of food. I especially love crab. Though it may be strange, after seeing Kingler shoot water our of it's huge claw, the first thought that always comes to mind is, "That Kingler must have some juicy crab meat..." and I'm already at some seafood place to sate my hunger. So way to go Kingler, you ended up on my list for your tastiness.

#4. Sandslash
This is another recent favorite, and strangely another Ground type despite my disliking of the type in general. Stranger still enough my liking for it came from Pixelmon. In the early days of developing the Pixelmon Server, I happened to catch a shiny Sandshrew from the newly built safari zone. Being the first shiny I've caught in Pixelmon ever, I was pretty happy. Everybody else seemed happy about it too except for another Developer known as Techno. I had already known he was a big fan of Sandslash, and the pokemon being his favorite shiny out of the first gen. The opportunity was too good and I, using my access to creative mode back then, leveled the Sandshrew all the way to a level 100 shiny Sandslash in front of Techno in a matter of seconds. It wasn't a good battle anyways, having bad IVs and nature from my knowledge, so I didn't truly care about moves. Techno, though wasn't happy at me showing off the shiny Sandslash and killed me. I didn't take it badly, knowing I probably deserved it from teasing him so much, so I went ahead and traded him the shiny Sandlash. Eventually I grew to like Sandslash's shiny and spent a good month obtaining one in my Y game.

#3. Dragonair
Dragonair I like for three reasons. One, it's the best of the Dratini line, in my opinion. Two, it drops diamonds in Pixelmon. And three, well, let's just let my cleared browser history speak for that. When not thinking with my groin, I like Dragonair for it's cool sleek design with the jewels and horn on it's body. To me it's pretty much a grown up Dratini, and Dragonite can go suck it.

#2. Jolteon
I love electric types. I love Eeveelutions. Jolteon is the combination of those two things. With the added bonus of Jolteon being flyable on the Pixelmon Server, I only love it more. 'Nuff said.

#1. Alakazam
When I first played Firered, Psychic types weren't OP like they were in the original Red and Blue. Despite this, I still liked Psychic types. Now I didn't truly like Abra at first, with how it only knew teleport and all, but when my friend traded me his Kadabra for my Graveler and I saw that thing evolving, I was dumbfounded. Then I used Kadabra in battle, and it was a badass. I one-shot nearly everything, and it wasn't over-leveled in the slightest. Though it did end up disobeying me later when it become a bit too over-leveled before I had all 8 badges, it was still a hard hitter and rarely actually disobeyed me, despite once going to sleep during my battle with Giovanni. However it did end up taking too many hard hits from Agatha and wasn't able to survive against Gary's Blastoise, but it was able to get Blastoise to low enough health for my Charmeleon to do the rest.

And that's my Top Ten Kanto Pokemon List, list your own below.

Ooh, this is something to think about. I made a list similar to this in another location before. I love trying to narrow down my list of favorites...no matter how hard it is. This one was particularly difficult due to the nostalgia factor that this game has for me. xD

First and foremost, here's some honorable mentions:

• Meowth - I always liked Meowth as a Pokémon. I thought that they were cute and had a neat design to them~ Plus, Pay Day.
  
• Golduck - One mythological creature that I always loved was the Kappa. So a kappa Pokémon? I was always loving Golduck. It's just a shame that he's not all that strong and has suffered a terrible movepool for years. xD (If only he was part-Psychic...)
  
• Arcanine - Fire? Another mythical creature of Japanese origin? yes plz
  
• Machamp - For some reason, a really buff, four-armed Pokémon was always fascinating and cool to me. xD
  
• Farfetch'd - Dat leek swordsmaster
  
• Marowak - A Pokémon with a bone for a weapon? Sweet~ Also, pretty cool design
  
• Lickitung - Dat tongue and I always liked its design
  
• Rhydon - A monster of brute power with a pretty awesome design
  
• Kabutops - My favorite Fossil Pokémon until Rampardos happened~
  

And now, my actual list:

10: Hitmonlee - I always loved the two original Hitmon Pokémon. They were always the perfect Fighting-type Pokémon. They weren't focused on their muscles but their skill in battle, just like the legends for whom they are named. This was a very difficult decision to make between the two, but I decided to go with this one because the idea of kicking without using many punching attacks was very cool to me, both as a child and today. Plus, he doesn't straight-up resemble a human fighter that uses its legs...unlike the very Boxer-like Hitmonchan. This was always the Pokémon I went to back in the day because I thought he looked cooler, I liked the kicking concept over the punching concept, and at the time...Hitmonchan's attacks were kind of terrible comparatively.

9: Hypno - Hypno was always a fascinating Pokémon in my opinion. He was a very unique idea for a fighter. He wasn't simply using psychic powers like Abra's line and he simply using power like other Pokémon. He seemed like the quintessential Hypnosis Pokémon.... And while other Pokémon could use the move, nobody else is so specialized with it as he is. When I first used this Pokémon, I never once thought him to be all that creepy or anything of the sort. I just thought he was very unique and very fun and cool. I always made sure I caught a Drowzee whenever I played a Kanto-based game. Back then, Psychic Pokémon were so overpowered and he was my favorite one of the bunch.

8: Ditto - I don't really have a lot to say about this one. I just absolutely loved this thing and its concept from day one. I always love copycat fighters...that is, fighters that can use an opponent's strengths against them by using it themselves. Mirror Matches were always fun to me in every game I have ever played. And that was the concept behind Ditto. How could I not love it? Plus...it's just so adorable, even when it's not metamorphosed.

7: Flareon - I could never leave an Eevolution Pokémon off of this list. However, there was only one of them that I really loved enough to put on the list. And that would be Flareon. I was always a Fire-type user growing up, and that has remained with me today. The Fire-type is easily my favorite Pokémon type...so Flareon naturally attracted me a lot more. I always thought that Flareon looked the coolest for starters. It wasn't overly complicated like I thought Jolteon looked, but there was still that sense of awesomeness that I never picked up from Vaporeon or Eevee. I was so disappointed that it took Flareon as long as it did to get a strong physical Fire-type attack as he was always my favorite. He may not be the best for battle today, but he will always be the coolest.

6: Raticate - I have always...ALWAYS loved Raticate's design. It was very basic yet it always looked so cool to me. Plus, it was a powerhouse in the early parts of the games, learning Hyper Fang at an early level. It lost its luster as the game went on, but I always wanted to keep one on my team like I originally did. On top of this, Rattata was the very first Pokémon I ever saw and the very first Pokémon that I ever caught. Plus...it just looks like a menace. I gotta love its tenacity~

5: Nidoking - This was the boss monster Pokémon that I had always been looking for when I was younger. He looked amazing...and still does. He looks like he's just ready to tear anything up that's in his path. He was simply one of the most powerful Pokémon...or at least, he looked the part. He was one of those Pokémon that you definitely did not want to mess with if you didn't want to get yourself wrecked. Plus, back in the day, it was the early "Ursaring" of the anime. That go-to raging Pokémon that nobody could ever fight off~ This was one powerhouse Pokémon that I always loved...and I loved its design. Plus, with Moon Stones as difficult to find as they were on your first playthrough, he was always the one of two Pokémon I was ever really excited to evolve with a stone...and this one even more so since you couldn't buy the necessary stone, making it seem like a much more valuable investment.

4: Raichu - Pikachu's evolution is one Pokémon that I have always adored. Pikachu was always adorable...but Raichu always looked the part of "the badass." I always preferred Raichu's design over Pikachu's for starters. Further, Lieutenant Surge's Raichu in the anime really heightened my love for the Pokémon for me. He was the first Pokémon to ever really beat the s**t out of Ash's Pikachu without having the type advantage. This led up to perhaps one of my favorite Pokémon moments in the history of the show...the first time Pikachu refused to evolve to get stronger. Although this soon became so overdone to the point where I still wish for the day that he finally evolves (even though it'll never happen), it made for a really fantastic Gym Battle episode. And it's one that I will never forget. On top of this, Raichu can actually take a hit without being a guaranteed OHKO. Raichu's added bulkiness beats out Glass Cannon Pikachu any day of the week in my opinion. Plus...he just looks cooler~

3: Dragonite - THE Dragon Pokémon. The original Dragon Pokémon. Before the type became so redundant and common, Dragonite was part of such a special evolution line. It was the only Dragon-type line in the entire first generation...and it had legends spoken about it. It was adorable, but it could be fierce and awesome when it needed to be. Dratini and Dragonair were nice...but they weren't really dragons in my opinion. They lost some serious points in my book because they were 2/3 of Gen I's Dragon-type Pokémon...and they didn't resemble a dragon at all to my younger self. No wings, no limbs or claws...nothing. Dragonite was always my favorite as a result of this. It's extremely powerful and was once one of the most overpowered Pokémon one could possibly use for generations to come. It was powerful, it was so bulky that it could take non-Ice hits amazingly well...and it was the only gen I dragon-type that was actually a dragon...thus the only dragon to really look like it deserves the typing. To me, it was always the only real Dragon-type.

2: Scyther - This was the only Bug-type Pokémon for YEARS to ever really impress me. When Gen II introduced Scizor, I loved it even more...but Scyther has always worked well as a standalone Pokémon. It had a lot of harsh weaknesses, but it was the coolest Bug-type to me. It was fearsome, it was a swordsmon, it was the original ninja Pokémon.... Everything about it just screamed "amazing" and "badass" to my child self. The rarity, with it only being available for capture in the Safari Zone, made it even more appealing. And even to this day, Scyther is a force to be reckoned with even before it evolves, as long as you know what you're doing. The only downside to him was that he could not learn Fly. Even though it makes sense that a mantis wouldn't be able to fly in that sense of the word, it was such a disappointment to me as a kid that I could not teach such a powerful move to my Bug/Flying-type of choice. And it was compounded even more due to one very annoying fact with my number one pick....

1: Charizard - Charizard. The Dragon-type Pokémon that was never Dragon-type. This was clearly a Pokémon that was denied the typing it deserved because it would have made him so broken and overpowered that it would only serve to blow the other two starters out of the water. Charizard has always been one of my favorite Pokémon of all time. He's EXACTLY what I think about when I think of a Fire Dragon. He's got a fierce look to him, he's big and powerful, similar to Nidoking (in fact, I always imagined a Nidoking vs. Charizard battle to be one of the most intense battles that ever happened in my brain), and he could do so much. The reason Scyther not learning Fly was disappointing to me was because Charizard was unable to learn Fly as well for Red and Blue versions...meaning if I wanted to have a Flier, I would need to have three Flying-types, which was (needless to say) terribly unbalanced for my team. But even without this, Wing Attack was a strong enough move back in the day to get the job done. This plus Fire Spin, Fire Blast/Flamethrower and either Swords Dance or Slash made for one powerhouse that was not going to be beaten very easily. Rock-types were an issue, but if they couldn't move due to Fire Spin, they weren't beating him anytime soon. Until the inclusion of Stealth Rock in Gen IV, he was always a powerhouse and considered to be one of the strongest Pokémon that Pokémon had ever released, while not being too completely overpowered a la Mewtwo. It was, after all, immune to the biggest fire-type threat of all: Earthquake.

In the anime, Ash's Charizard was also one of the most fascinating Pokémon to me because of how much characterization and development the Pokémon went through up through the Indigo and Orange Leagues. He was the first Pokémon in Ash's team that actually changed...and it reflected the games so perfectly on top of serving for a good subplot. All in all, Charizard is and always has been such an awesome Pokémon...and I will never abandon him. No matter how much people say he's been in decline.

Plus, finally...after all these years...he got Mega Charizard X...a Dragon-typing. Now I have more of a reason than ever before to use him.

And that would be my Top 10 Kanto Pokémon~ =} I had a lot of fun writing this up...and I look forward to your next threads~ As you can probably tell, I put design and concept as my top priority above everything else. xD

First of all, awesome thread and idea. Here's my favorite:

#10. Pidgey
Everytime I play Pokemon Firered or Leafgreen, I must have one of these. Not because I love it or anything, but I need it to become stronger as a trainer. After all, there are only like 2-3 Pokemon available to catch at the beginning which include Rattata (I'm a bad Rattata trainer) and Metapod, which make Pidgey the strongest Pokemon to catch at the beginning. Then there's that forest full of bug Pokemon making it easier for it to level up, not to mention it's leveling up rate. It keeps growing stronger and stronger so it grows on me. I don't like it at first but it's now one of my top ten favorite.

#9. Charmander
This is pretty obvious because everyone loves Charmander. Even though I really hate the Pokemon anime with Ash in it (one of the worst series I've seen, Pocket Monster: The Origins >>>>> Pokemon) I liked that part where Ash met Charmander and it instantly became my favorite.

#8. Scyther
I never thought I would ever like a bug Pokemon but damn Scyther is just badass. Maybe it's because of those blade arms of his or something else, I don't even know and I don't care because this Pokemon is badass.

#7. Lapras
Again, I love this Pokemon because of the design. Something about Lapras just feel right. Not to mention I generally like Water Pokemon and Lapras is one of the best in Kanto region.

#6. Hitmonchan
Now I know that he's pretty weak but I like using him. Having thunder punch, fire punch and one other punch I can't remember help a lot. I really like Pokemon that can use different element and Hitmonchan is one of those Pokemon. Not to mention, the design is also good.

#5. Bulbasaur
It's the Pocket Monster Special/Pokemon: The Origins (however you want to call it) effect. I hated Bulbasaur at first but that idea of mine changed after I read that manga, it made Bulbasaur a whole lot cooler. Now that I start looking at Bulbasaur at a new light, he's really awesome. That design is good, the moves are great and so much more.

#4. Ditto
Like Digizel, I love the concept of this Pokemon. Being able to change into another Pokemon is just awesome for me and whenever I get to that route where we can catch Ditto, I'd walk around that grass until I see it no matte how long it takes even though I'm an impatient guy.

#3. Snorlax
Snorlax is just awesome. The design is really great and I love using it. Being able to sleep and restore health with that ridiculous defense and HP is so fun to play. His offensive moves are also really good. He's really badass in the manga/anime too, and no not the Ash one - eww I almost puke just thinking about that anime - I mean he stopped a freaking train going at full speed. So epic.

#2. Eevee
Dang everything about this pokemon is just epic. I really loved it as a kid, the design is just adorable. I love the fact that it can change into five different Pokemon which is just awesome. Not to mention that all of the evolutions are epic. I loved it so much that as a kid I had it in my party and never use it in battle so it wouldn't faint, I shit you not.

#1. Blastoise
Well I could have said Squirtle but Blastoise is the reason why I love Squirtle in the first place. Blastoise is just epic. The design is perfect, the skillset is perfect, everything is perfect! I loved using it as well. I also like how in the anime (again not 'that' anime) the author made it like some sort of flying Pokemon with it's water canon, that is just sick.