Rabbits are one of those creatures that have had influence in Pokémon design for a hot minute – just check out the ears on Sentret and Azumarill – but it was only a matter of time before we got one very explicitly. He almost feels like he fills the same slot as Bidoof as an early-game Normal-type mammal, but hey – that comes down to how distinct they can make these two feel on evolution.
To that end, I quite like Buneary. He makes for a nice compromise between leaner, faster hares and fluffier cartoony rabbits, using the same kind of spot-patterning that emphasizes Flaafy‘s wool. Granted, it does result in some unfortunate silhouetteing – like how Buneary’s ears in his official art look very much like a cheerleader’s arms with pom-poms attached. But it’s also much more of an interesting shape overall than something like a Ratatta, so I’ll call that a success. Plus, the color balance here is just great – who’s to say that Normal-type browns and off-whites have to be boring?
He does look a bit like he’s wearing a big, poofy diaper, though – that or else some Mickey-Mouse shorts – but we’ll choose to look past that since he’s still functionally a child at this stage.
Oh dearie me.
There’s not really a lot of talking around what Lopunny is supposed to represent, what with the very obvious posing that every bit of official art and most pixel artwork puts him in. And I think it’s worth pausing on the fact that Lopunny is not a sexually-dimorphic species; a male Lopunny will also put on that leaning-forward pose, have fur patterned to decorated knee-high socks, and wear its ears in a fabulous perm.
Pokémon is behind the social curve in many ways, to be sure, but at least they sneak in some gender-affirming work now and again, intentionally or not.
Unfortunately, Lopunny is fast and defensive, which makes for a very odd statistical spread. His main passive abilities aren’t especially useful, either – Klutz is highly situational (not to mention unfortunate lore-wise) and Cute Charm won’t work against a good third of Pokémon in the game by design – but it helps that she has a very wide movepool, including natural access to some powerhouse moves late in the game. This all goes through the roof when she gains access to her Mega form, but assuming you’re playing a game without those, she’s still surprisingly useful throughout the game for what amounts to a common rabbit.
And as far as using those moves goes physically, I really like the idea of Buneary curling up his ears and using them as long punching-arms. Plus, that one ear always curled in? Always ready to wallop ya. Much better than as pom-poms, though that just makes it such a shame that Buneary gives up that unique style to just move around like a human on evolution. You don’t even really see it use the claimed defensive option of putting those massive ears up as shields – though “evolving” from offense to defense in and of itself is fairly abnormal, aside from being arguably problematic on a feminine-coded monster.
You can’t escape the matter of design influence here, really.
I adore Buneary, personally, but Lopunny is hard to place. This is probably the family-friendliest version you’re going to get of a bunny-girl outfit, but I’m still not altogether convinced that this was the way to go with a rabbit-Pokémon evolution. Why not design him as a foot-racer, in a rivalry with a tortoise Pokémon, or a rascally trickster, or even a vegetable thief? There were so many options here that steered well clear of Mr. Hefner, regardless of how many layers of cultural and design abstraction you put between them.
Regardless, we’re going to see more explicit rabbit-like Pokémon later, which makes it hard to claim that Buneary and Lopunny should be an especially necessary part of the roster, especially since they missed the base games of both Sword & Shield and Scarlet & Violet. But they certainly do have a level of popularity, especially with being a recurring cast member in both the anime & manga series, being a starting partner in at least one Mystery Dungeon game, and eventually getting attention through a (thematically-questionable) Mega Evolution. I think it’s safe to think that these two will remain Reserved in the series’ extended rotation for a while.
Dextraneous 