#359: Absol

With Absol being a clear fan favorite, there's bound to be plenty
of cool fan art to be found on the web.

Has anybody ever had the feeling your intentions were completely misinterpreted? Poor Absol must feel that way all the fucking time. Using the horn on its head, Absol is able to sense even the most subtle changes in the sky and land to predict when a natural disaster will occur, and it will try to warn people of impending danger. However, people often misinterpret his warnings and think Absol is in fact the bringer of doom, which fed a hatred of it. No wonder Absol lives its 100-year life in seclusion in the mountains, far from civilization, and rarely ventures down from its alpine home; I guess it's sick and tired of humanity blaming unfavorable natural occurrences on its species when it's only trying to alert people of earthquakes or tidal waves. The rage among those people must have been big when they found out Absol can actually change into a stronger being, if only temporarily: Absol can Mega-evolve, and the energy that courses through its body from the transition makes it fur bristle and makes Mega Absol look as if it has a pair of wings on its back. This does give it an angelic appearance, but Mega Absol can't actually fly, nor does it get the flying typing on top of its dark typing.

The angelic-looking Mega Absol. The pair of wings is actually its fur; the increased
energy coursing through its body upon Mega-evolving is what makes the fur at the
back of its mane stand on end.

This time I do have to commend Game Freak on their consistency here: in the main series games, Absol can often be found in places where disasters occur or occurred, supporting its description as a doomsayer. Let's ignore the fact that not all of these disasters are natural occurrences, because that is damn near impossible in Pokémon games.

- In Diamond and Pearl, Absol appears on Route 213. This route is close to Lake Valor, which was drained by Team Galactic in order to illegitimately capture Azelf. Also, the route number contains the number 13, which is universally considered to be an unlucky number.

- In Platinum, Absol can be found on Mt. Coronet in places that one can first access when heading to Spear Pillar, before Giratina is summoned by Team Galactic's Cyrus.

- In Black and White, after the player finished the main game, Absol appears at the Giant Chasm - the home of Kyurem and said to be a place where disasters befall Trainers - and Route 13. In the sequels to Black and White, unoriginally named Black 2 and White 2, Giant Chasm is where the 'new' Team Plasma makes their stand.

- In X and Y, Route 8 is Absol's home base. While the route number isn't even close to 13, Absol is found on the higher side of the route, right on the cliffs. You also encounter this Pokémon right before the player character meets Team Flare for the first time.

- In Sun and Moon, Absol is found in Tapu Village, which was destroyed years earlier by Tapu Bulu because it took offense to the grocery store that was built on Route 14. Plus, have you noticed how Tapu Village connects Routes 13, 14 and 15? Nifty.

It isn't found in disaster areas in every game, though. Being an alpine Pokémon by nature, it would have made no frickin' sense for Game Freak to make Seafloor Cavern - an underwater area where, depending on which version you're playing, Groudon and Kyogre are summoned by Team Magma or Team Aqua, respectively - Absol's natural habitat, so in Ruby and Sapphire it is found on Route 120 instead. Hoenn really does have too much water, goddamn. However, it was a missed opportunity not to put Absol on Route 10 in Pokémon X and Y, because this route is actually found beneath Geosenge Town, the town where AZ's ultimate weapon is excavated by Team Flare and intended to be used by Lysandre in order for him to destroy Kalos.

A pair of Absol parents with their shiny child. 

But what makes Absol so connected to such catastrophes in the first place? I mean, what are its origins? Well, aside from the obvious black cat superstition - Absol does in fact look somewhat feline - there are a whole lot of creatures it may have been based on, whether they be mythical or not. The first are sphinxes, winged monsters with a woman's head and a lion's body, noted for killing anyone being unable to answer its riddle. Whereas sphinxes are often associated with ancient Egypt, they're actually from Greek mythology, and the 'wings' on Mega Absol are actually more reminiscent of Greek portrayals of these creatures, which are more often depicted with wings than not. The Chinese legend of the Baí Zé, generally described as a white beast with extraordinary intelligence, might be another inspiration for Absol's design and flavor. This Baí Zé creature was gifted with the ability to understand human speech, as well as the knowledge on the forms and habits of exactly 11,520 types of supernatural creatures in the world and how to overcome their hauntings and attacks. While the Baí Zé is known as the hakutaku in Japan, a related legend speaks of an almost identical creature called the kutabe, which predicted that a deadly plague would sweep through the Japanese population in the next few years and prescribed that its own image be used as a talisman to ward off the disease. While known as a bovine creature, it is also commonly depicted as a creature with a lion's body, one horn on its head and an extra eye in the center of its forehead. Sounds familiar, doesn't it?

This way - and not entirely coincidentally - Absol's head looks like a tàijítú or yīnyáng symbol, which is usually a representation of how seemingly opposite or contrary forces may actually be complementary, interconnected and interdependent in the natural world, and how they may give rise to each other as they interrelate to one another (e.g. light and dark, fire and water, expansion and contraction, matter and antimatter). This concept would be expanded upon in Gen. V with Reshiram and Zekrom, but at least it makes for some interesting speculations and discussions about Absol's origins, especially since it's a favorite among long-time Pokémon fans. With its ability to sense oncoming natural disasters Absol is, after all, a creature close to nature, and the concept of yin and yang fits its flavor and white-and-blue design perfectly.

Official art of Mega Absol. Drawn by Ken Sugimori,
courtesy of Nintendo and everything. 

One big question remains, though: how well does Absol do in the competitive scene? Uhm... not great. Absol sports some amazing attack, but it is quite frail and not very fast, which they fixed with its Mega. Well, at least the speed part; Mega Absol is as frail as ever, but it got a boost of 40 base points in both its speed and special attack - both ending up at a solid 115 - and an increase in its attack by 20 base points. While at 150 its attack is still superior to any of its other stats, it is able to dish out some special damage as well, and quite frankly it has such a large movepool that you don't even know where to start with this thing. Mega Absol is a pure dark type and has access to some nice utility moves that it receives STAB from, such as Pursuit, Sucker Punch and Knock Off. Type coverage can be found in moves like Zen Headbutt, Ice Beam, Thunderbolt, Flamethrower, Fire Blast, Stone Edge, Rock Slide, X-Scissor, Dark Pulse, Megahorn, Play Rough, Iron Tail and Superpower. If you want to run a physical moveset and boost its attack, Swords Dance is right there for you. This even allows you to run a Jolly nature (lowers special attack, increases speed), although a Naive nature (lowers special defense, increases speed) is required if you want to run a mixed Mega Absol. As far as abilities go, Magic Bounce is a great ability that reflects the effects of all stat-lowering and status condition-inducing status moves - as well as entry hazard moves and moves like Torment and Taunt - back to the user, effectively making it immune to moves like Will-O-Wisp and Thunder Wave. That makes it very hard to weaken it or slow it down, which is exactly what you want.

When it comes to regular Absol's ability before you Mega-evolve it, Justified is the way to go: if you get hit by a dark-type move when you switch Absol in, you might as well get an attack boost from it first, making Mega Absol a little bit more dangerous for your opponent. Super Luck increases the chance of getting a critical hit, while Pressure drains some extra PP from the moves your opponent's Pokémon is attacking Absol with, but both are more viable for the long run and fit more on a regular Absol's Life Orb set or something.

Fan art of Mega Absol being fabulous.

This article is becoming a little bit too long for just a single Pokémon, but I guess I'm willing to spend a lot of my time writing about Absol (seriously though, I've spent at least five hours doing research and thinking about how to formulate my sentences). It's such a fascinating Pokémon for a dark type, which normally tend to be more evil and malicious, and it's definitely one of the most unique Gen. III Pokémon introduced. I never realized how much I actually love Absol, and I certainly did not expect to give it a perfect rating. Yet here I am, gushing about a Pokémon I didn't know I love.

Good job on this one, Game Freak.

Rating: 5/5