Necrozma... and the Possible Meaning of the Ultra Beasts



So, "technically" speaking, we're supposedly done reviewing the Ultra Beasts...but maybe not? I can't say I was all that impressed when I first saw the legendary psychic Pokemon Necrozma, but the deeper you delve into this one, the more interesting it gets. It appears in Sun and Moon only after you've finished capturing (or defeating) all five of your version's available UB's, and its even mistaken for another of them when it first appears. Even its Pokedex entry in Sun begins with "reminiscent of the ultra beasts," and that it's "thought" to have come from another world long, long ago. What could it mean?


Before I run off on this next tangent, let's actually review Necrozma as a Pokemon design. At first, it just looks like some kind of nondescript, crystalline robot with a holographic face, but take a closer look, and you'll spot some majorly peculiar anatomical quirks; namely the fact that its "torso" is actually an inverted, dragon-like head, even referred to as such in this concept art, while its own "head" resembles a lopped-off neck, or apparently a "tail" according to this. You can definitely rearrange Necrozma's pieces into at least part of a more traditional looking, armor plated dragonoid.


In its idle animation, the poor thing even stops periodically to clutch at itself in pain...and wouldn't you, if your body was nothing but the scrambled remains of something else entirely? Something from some other world that tried desperately to reconstruct itself in an alien environment?


And yet, "officially" speaking, Necrozma isn't an Ultra Beast. It doesn't have the "beast boost" ability they all share and it can't be captured with the special "beast balls" - only traditional pokeballs. If it were, at one time, an Ultra Beast, then it has apparently adapted, however imperfectly, to existence as a Pokemon...and it's not the only one.


Cosmog, too, is theorized in-canon to have originally been an Ultra Beast, which would explain why its fully evolved forms are capable of manipulating Ultra Wormholes and seem naturally attracted to them. The design aesthetic of the Cosmog line also gives off a strong Ultra Beast vibe, I'd say, but then again...so do lots of other legendary Pokemon, right? Just look at these things:



If you ask me, the reason the Ultra Beasts turned out so much like any other Pokemon is that they are just like any other Pokemon, which is to say that all Pokemon have some sort of connection to Ultra Space.

Some Pokemon, like Arceus and other "legendaries," likely arrived directly through an Ultra Wormhole eons in the past.

More "earthly" Pokemon, like all those rats, birds and bugs, probably descended from an Ultra Beast ancestor, such as Mew, which in turn may have been a creation of Arceus in the first place.

It's also entirely possible that if "normal" animals ever existed in the Pokemon world, many may have been "mutated" by Ultra Space or hybridized with Ultra Beasts. Perhaps even some of the beasts we've seen - like Buzzwole and Pheromosa - began as more mundane creatures who wandered into Ultra Space and gradually adapted to its alien environment.

If something like this is indeed the case, then the only true distinguishing factor of the Ultra Beasts we encounter in Alola is merely their status as new arrivals in the Pokemon world, not yet fully acclimated to conventional reality. In battling, capturing and documenting these beings, we've simply witnessed in-game, for the first time, where pocket monsters really come from and how new species of them can just basically "show up" one day.

Does my interpretation hold any official water? Will we eventually find out Necrozma's real deal? Will there ever be more Ultra Beasts? Only time will tell!



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