How many years has it been since Pokemon fans began to decry Game Freak's slavish devotion to Gen 1? At least a dozen, by my reckoning. The Kanto callout has been happening since before Pokemon X and Y gave ten representatives of Red and Blue's Pokedex their own Mega Evolutions, including two versions to choose between for Charizard and Mewtwo, back in 2013. But it really kicked into high gear around that time, and games like 2018's the Let's Go duology hardly helped The Pokemon Company beat the allegations.
All this to say, this is hardly a new critique. Yet, there are always fresh angles to be found in this brand of back-and-forth, and something interesting has been happening in the days since the reveal of Mega Victreebel in Pokemon Legends: Z-A. Fans are returning to a less-tapped well in the realm of Kanto-pandering discourse, by viewing the previously-unsung pitcher plant's bizarre glow-up not necessarily as more of the same, but as an example of Kantonian reverence done right.
The latest battle is being waged on (where else) Reddit, where a pretty cool thread from the prophetically-named plsdonthatemebut has explained what they...
