#193, #469: Yanma & Yanmega

I guess the days that Yanma was the rare card in a TCG pack are
long gone. 

Okay, so this is one of those Pokémon whose typing American people are fussing about. Yanmega is clearly based on the dragonfly, so surely it should be a dragon type as well, right? Well, no. It makes perfect sense for Yanmega being a bug/flying type, as it is hardly based on dragons. English is one of only a few languages that adopts the word 'dragon' in the name of the dragonfly, the other one I could find being the Icelandic drekaflugur. The Dutch actually call the dragonfly a libelle, and this is by far the most common name, or variations thereof, I could distinguish, along with variations of the suborder the dragonfly belongs to, anisoptera. There are several other names to be found in other languages as well, but I'm not a polyglot (I only speak Dutch fluently, and I'd dare say I'm pretty good in English, too) so please don't quote me on all of this. All I know is that Yanma, at 3'11" and 83.8 pounds, is a big-ass dragonfly. Yanmega is even worse, sitting at 6'03" and 113.5 pounds, so I wouldn't want to encounter one in the wild. Both are probably based on a large prehistoric species of dragonflies that has long gone extinct, but especially Yanmega is based on this meganeura monyi. The fact that yanma is Japanese for 'large dragonfly' only backs this up.

Pretty nice, this piece of fan art. 

Yanma, who has some aesthetic traits with the red-veined darter, very much behaves like a common dragonfly: it makes sudden stops in midair and hovers in place by just flapping its wings. It can generate shock waves capable of shattering glass by flapping its wings very fast, something I doubt real-life dragonflies can do. Although Yanma doesn't have two arthropod-like eyes, it is capable of turning them 360° without actually having to move them around, very much like real compound eyes. Yanmega - into which Yanma evolves when it is leveled up while knowing Ancient Power, a move that both Pokémon have a quadruple weakness to - is a lot more terrifying. Both Yanma and Yanmega are predators, but Yanmega has immense jaw power, which allows it to bite apart its prey's head (decapitation?) while flying by at high speed, and its six legs can even transport a adult human being in flight. The shock waves it generates by beating its wings are even stronger than Yanma's: they cause internal damage to opponents and dislodge trees when Yanmega takes flight.

TCG art of Yanmega.

It proves to be just as terrifying in competitive play, as its quite capable base stat total of 515 doesn't exactly leave it vulnerable. Okay, it's defenses aren't all that - especially its special defense is awfully mediocre - but with 86 HP and defense it should be able to take a physical hit or two. I am going to dwell on two possible sets for Yanmega, the first being the Tinted Lens set. This set allows you to run Choice Specs, so to make sure Yanmega hits as hard as possible with its excellent 116 special attack: Tinted Lens lets all non-super-effective moves deal normal damage instead, while the Choice Specs increase Yanmega's special attack by 50% at the cost of limiting it to using only one move until switched out, so those are welcome boosts. Its other ability, Speed Boost, increases its speed every turn and works well in combination with a Life Orb and the move Protect, which prevents anything from happening to Yanmega. Although it is hard to use it twice in a row, just click Protect after you switch into Yanmega so that it can gain a free speed increase. Both sets should contain the moves Bug Buzz, Air Slash, and either Giga Drain or Ancient Power, while the Tinted Lens set fares better with something like U-Turn instead of Protect. A Timid nature is preferable in both sets, as it increases Yanmega's speed a little, but a Modest nature to focus on special attack instead isn't bad, either. Just know that a Tinted Lens set won't allow your Yanmega to outspeed many speedy Pokémon, while a few Speed Boost increases will.

Goddamn, that is a big-ass bug!

Yanmega is a weird thing that is suprisingly good in battle, especially when you consider it's an evolution of such a bad Pokémon as Yanma. While I'm not exactly fond of it, you can't say that I hate it, either. Its classification of the 'Ogre Darner Pokémon' looks quite confusing, but it's green and vicious - like ogres usually are - and it's based on the green darner dragonfly (its shiny form even on the less common blue female ones), so I won't question it. I have yet to use it on whatever occasion you can come up with - with other words, I have never used this thing before at all - so for now I'll give it 4 stars. Who knows, perhaps I'll max out its rating once I've gotten a chance to make use of it.

Rating: 4/5