We’re back for the Normal-type reviews, and today we’re going to focus on Meloetta, a legendary Pokémon who can change its form through singing a special song! If you are ready with this one, please proceed.
Selected Fan Art (Artist: Jiayi)
Even though you currently see two different looks of Meloetta, they are actually one of the same, meaning those are two different Formes. They are the Aria Forme and the Pirouette Forme. The former is the green one and the latter is the red one. Even what they specialise in is different, for Aria is mainly the singer and the Pirouette is the dancer. Meloetta is one of the four Event Legendaries in Generation 5 (the others are Victini, Keldeo and Genesect), so it is a Legendary you cannot normally obtain.
Meloetta is most definitely inspired by muses. The general look of a muse is similar to a goddess, which essentially translates to a beautiful and shapely woman. Even though Meloetta is assigned as genderless, it resembles too much like a woman to be considered a man. Muses are goddesses in any many of fields like arts, science and literature so they’re basically sources of knowledge, and their purpose is to inspire artists to create a work of art, whether it’s a poet, an artist or a thinker. This lines up with what Meloetta does, based on the PokéDex, which is to inspire Pokémon world’s artists to compose famous songs based on the tunes that Meloetta plays. As an Legendary, its presence cannot be seen, but felt.
There are different types of muses, so Meloetta might not be inspired by one specific muse. Some of the muses directly tied to music include Aoede (song), Eutrepe (music), Polyhymnia (religious music) and Terpsichore (dance). I imagine the muses look quite similar with different instruments, so it doesn’t matter which muse Meloetta is designed to take its appearance after, because it already looks humanoid. To tie into its talent in music, it has music-related symbols, such as arms that look like quarter notes, its headpiece looks similar to a treble clef and its hair is shaped like a staff (the five parallel lines found on a musical sheet).
Because of Meloetta’s melodious talent, it could use its melodies to make the Pokémon that hear them sad or happy. With its special vocalisation method, it could control the feelings of those who hear it. On one hand, it could be used to sing something inspiring, but on the hand, it could also sing a hurtful song that will surely be useful in battle. It could use a range of voice-related moves that is based on its singing talent, including Perish Song, Hyper Voice and Round. One song-related move it couldn’t normally learn is Relic Song, which happens to be exclusive to Meloetta. This Special Attack is special in that it doesn’t just deal damage, but also has a chance to put the target to Sleep. This move has a secondary function, which is to switch Meloetta’s Forme, changing from Aria (the default) to Pirouette once used, and back again when used again.
When Meloetta switches to Pirouette Forme, not only does its looks change, its fighting style changed as well. Interestingly, the colour of its waistband and staff hair changed, along with the hairstyle. It could still sing well, but it now specialises in dancing, as the “Pirouette” name suggests. In case you are not familiar, a pirouette is when one whirls their body by standing on the tip on one foot, which is what Meloetta’s Pirouette form is posed to do. The specialty also changes Meloetta’s type to part-Fighting and its stats around, which changes Meloetta’s battling style greatly.
In its Aria Forme, Meloetta’s Special Attack and Special Defence are its highest stats, making it primarily a Special tank. Fortunately for Meloetta, its Special attacks do not just consist of its STABs, but also some useful ones like Shadow Ball, Focus Blast and Thunderbolt. In its Pirouette Forme, Meloetta’s Attack and Speed are its highest stats instead, which makes Meloetta a Physical sweeper. Compared to its Special attacks, the amount of Physical attacks it learns covers more types, but it couldn’t boost Attack, which doesn’t matter because with its stats, it could do a lot of damage quickly. The changing of Formes allows Meloetta to change its weaknesses and resistances, which could be useful to threaten different opponents.
Meloetta’s initial Speed is not high enough to makes it a prime Special attack compared to certain other Pokémon, but it is a prime pick for Monotype for both Normal and Psychic for different reasons. For a Normal team, its high Special stats make it one of the few Special Normal-types, as well as having a Fighting neutrality to somewhat cover the Fighting weakness through offence and defence. For a Psychic team, its Ghost immunity is helpful and its ability to change to a Fighting-type gives it a fighting chance against Dark-types. Therefore, Meloetta is definitely useful with its Forme changes and high Special stats, but it’s in Monotype where its talents can really shine.
The ability for Meloetta to change its Forme opens up all sorts of ideas on what Meloetta could change to, presumably when it sings different songs. They tend to have different dress styles, hairstyles, as well as hair and eye colour, not to mention different types. The type of fan Formes it gets tend to be music-related, given Meloetta’s talents. Some examples include an Opera Forme, Radiance Forme and a Danson Forme. It would be interesting if a later Generation introduces a new Meloetta Forme with a different type.
As with any Legendary Pokémon, Meloetta made a major appearance in the anime. Unlike other Event Legendaries, it does not have a movie starring it, but it did star in a Pikachu short before the Keldeo movie. It also appeared in a number of episodes in the anime where it accompanied Ash and friends (and Dawn joined then at for a while too). The way Meloetta’s exposure is planned is rather strange, mainly because it is very different, and quite a number of fans found it unsatisfactory. My hypothesis is that Meloetta was supposed to be the star in a Pokémon film after Keldeo, but the need to release Generation 6 sooner meant that changes needed to be made, resulting in one less movie and the leftover plot moving into the episodic anime, while Meloetta’s movie appearance becomes confined to a Pikachu short.
Even with its lacking anime appearances, this Pokémon is quite unique in its design that is beautiful and lends itself to inspiring fan art to be creative on how Meloetta’s abilities could be expanded, so it is a muse in not only the Pokémon world, but also for the fans.
+ Graceful musical abilities
+ Different Formes provide unique battle style
+ Fan Formes are inspired
– Anime appearances seem rushed
Meloetta-Aria’s TCG Card
As a Full Art card, one could get a better view of Meloetta. Though there is the conventional “half art” version of Meloetta, this version is much better presented, as with most Full Art cards. The exposure of musical notes is quite essential to show that Meloetta’s singing is what makes Meloetta deadly, yet at the same time, Meloetta’s cute face makes this all unsuspecting.
Meloetta-Pirouette’s TCG Card
In its Pirouette guise, Meloetta manages to not only be graceful in its dance steps, but it does it in a deadly manner with the same intensity as it dances. Amusingly, its dance generates whirlwinds, which is something the real Meloetta wasn’t able to do, but then again, it might just be improvising its dancing talent.
Relic Song
Like almost any legendary Pokémon, Meloetta has a signature move, which in its case, is Relic Song. It cannot learn this move naturally, since you need Meloetta to be tutored this attack if it were to learn it. It’s a signature move because only Meloetta can learn it this way.
The basic effect with Relic Song is that it is a sound attack that has a chance to make the opponent sleep. However, the main effect is that it allows Meloetta to switch between Aria Forme and Pirouette Forme. Since the Pirouette Forme can only be obtained this way, Meloetta essentially only have three attacks if that is the main Forme to use. The Pirouette Forme is a more powerful attacker, so even with three attacks, the Pirouette Forme would pull its weight.
Overall, Meloetta’s move is useful not as an attack, but as a means to change to a more powerful Forme.
That’s all for today’s article. I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I have writing it.
Next Article: Meowth & Persian
