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Normal-type Reviews: Meowth & Persian

We’re back for the Normal-type reviews, and today we’re going to focus on Meowth and Persian, the first cat Pokémon introduced, and the former is a key figure in the anime! If you are ready with this one, please proceed.

Selected Fan Art (Artist: Cryptid-Creations)

The original cat Pokémon that were introduced in Generation 1 is Meowth and Persian. The ubiquity and general flexibility of cats means that making one for the purpose of battling is not out of the question in a franchise primarily about monsters fighting with one another. Meowth is, in some ways, an iconic Pokémon like Pikachu. It might be that it’s the first cat to exist in Pokémon, or it might be its huge presence in the anime.

Based on its overall design, Meowth is based on the maneki-neko, which translates to “beckoning cat”. Basically, it’s a cat with a raised paw while holding some gold. They’re basically good luck charms to attract good luck and wealth to the owner. This is based upon a tale where a priest’s cat beckons a samurai warrior, saving his life from a fallen tree by lightning strike, in which the priest is rewarded a luxurious life.

This origin doesn’t quite explain Meowth’s nature since it isn’t known to attract good luck, but the gold coin on its forehead, known as the koban, is. You see, it learns a move called Pay Day, which is an attack that summons coins to hurl to the opponent. The player could even collect the money, but since the money produced is little (it depends on the attacker’s level), you need to use the attack frequently to keep them coming.

Perhaps the attracting of shiny objects is why Meowth has an affinity for round or shiny things, or both. When it found something befitting that description, it will play with that thing. Since Meowth have paws, it can’t really pick them up, so it’ll keep trying until it’s tired. It should be noted that the Nugget is a round and shiny object, so that must be why Meowth might have one in FireRed and LeafGreen. It might have gotten them from the streets at night from shops, since those things managed to keep being sold to them. I can see a cycle now: first, a shopkeeper will buy the Nugget you found, and then Meowth finds the Nugget, followed by that Meowth being caught, and soon that Nugget is being sold again.

As with real cats, Meowth is a nocturnal Pokémon, only beginning to make its hunt at night, most likely looking for shiny stuff like coins, even when other Pokémon have them, such as Murkrow. Its eyes will glow at night while it finds shiny things, probably like how real cats have night vision. For the rest of the day, Meowth will be sleeping all day long, like how cats have long sleeping hours.

Meowth is best known in the anime as Team Rocket’s ally. That’s right, I said “ally”. Unlike the other Pokémon, this Meowth is special because he can talk, making him a treasured ally amongst the commonly-seen Team Rocket group consisting of Jessie, James and himself. The fact that Meowth is able to learn to talk and convey his thoughts is proof that the Pokémon in the anime universe have the same understanding as people, only that they cannot normally speak with people unless they learn how to, which in the anime, consists of compromising battling ability (which is why it couldn’t use Pay Day). Even then, this Meowth could battle well if pressured to, usually involving scratching.

The ability to do human things is quite resourceful since he basically acts as a human and Pokémon in one, and he could even act as an interpreter, either voluntarily or involuntarily. This Meowth is the master of deception, as it can disguise as other Pokémon or even in plain disguises and be undetected. In one occurrence, Meowth managed to pretend to switch sides to further Team Rocket’s means in a scheme. Perhaps one running gag about Meowth is to have what is called “boss fantasies”, in which he will imagine the boss Giovanni utilising a Pokémon his team are planning to capture, in order to benefit Giovanni in an idealistic way. This is likely because Meowth wants to be Giovanni’s pet instead of the Persian that is there from the beginning. It is interesting to note that this Persian is a much more competent battler compared to Meowth.

When Meowth evolves into Persian, it becomes wilder, turning from a domestic cat into a wild cat. It even stands on all four legs and has a generally more barbaric behaviour. It is said to look sophisticated with its elegance and have beautiful fur, and have a graceful and elegant walking stance. Those qualities must be why it is highly regarded as a pet, even though its wilder behaviour makes it difficult to properly rear one. One feature that Persian has is the jewel on its forehead. That thing adds to its elegance, which might be inspired by the carbuncle’s forehead jewel.

Despite being named after a Persian cat, Persian looks unlike one, but looks more like a wild cat such as the puma or cougar. Becoming bigger, leaner and sharper must be why it becomes more ferocious, arrogant and generally meaner, especially when it approaches its prey. Indeed, the leaner body allows Persian to move stealthily and attack swiftly. Its whiskers are, as with any animal with them, used to detect the presence of anything nearby. Somehow, when Persian is grabbed by its whiskers, it becomes more docile. So far, that’s the best known way to tame a Persian.

Unlike other cat Pokémon where they generally have the same kind of feel between evolutions, Meowth and Persian looks too different to consider them the same level of design, but it does makes sense in the context of evolution, where a tame animal evolves into a wilder, battle-ready version. It isn’t how a lot of cat Pokémon evolves, but it’s done with reasonable intentions.

True to the PokéDex entries, Speed is the Pokémon’s major advantage in battling, as even Meowth is quite fast for a base Pokémon. To aid in making certain attacks powerful, Technician is present to do that. This will especially make Fake Out quite powerful, as with a few other moves like Feint Attack, Bite and Aerial Ace. Since its offensive stats are close to each other, it’s not a bad idea to use a Special set using Nasty Plot, utilising less powerful coverage moves like Round, Water Pulse, Icy Wind and Shock Wave.

Meowth is one of the most memorable Pokémon that people really like, because it resembles a cat and behaves like one. Persian, on the other hand, does not behave like domestic cats, which makes it not as likeable. Overall, the Pokémon are finely designed, but the colouring is bland.

Meowth’s TCG Card

Although this is one of the earliest cards in the TCG, it really depicts Meowth nicely. Because of Meowth’s origins, it is always depicted as sitting up, so on the rare times it is standing on all fours, it looks more like an actual cat, and therefore it’s cute. It might be very different from the personality of the more famous Team Rocket’s Meowth, so it provides a new perspective on what Meowth is like. In terms of the card’s art, I thought it’s a nice touch to see red and green being prominent (besides Meowth’s yellow), due to the first Pokémon games called Red and Green.

Persian’s TCG Card

The first thing you will notice about this Persian card is that Persian is considered a Dark-type. Although this is the case, its actual qualities are still Normal-type. Team Rocket is known to introduce the element of darkness into its Pokémon, even back when their first TCG set was introduced. This element returns in a later set (where this card is derived from), this time with actual Dark-types instead of being Dark in name only. As for the card itself, it shows how scary Persian is in the dark, where it stares menacingly with its sharp teeth and whiskers. Adding to this, the jewel on its forehead could very well be viewed as a third eye.

Pay Day

As the Japanese name of this move suggests (“Coin for a Cat”), it is inspired by the symbol of a cat beckoning for wealth. Because Meowth was designed around this symbol, this move appropriately represents Meowth (not so much for Persian).

In Generation 1, Pay Day was one of the very few ways to earn constant cash (the Elite Four is the other). Fortunately, it was a TM, so it could be used on a certain group of Pokémon. However, when Generation 3 made things incompatible with earlier Generations, then Pay Day becomes an exclusive attack found only on Meowth (and Persian for a time), and up until now, learners were scarce (only Purrloin get this as an Egg Move).

The amount of money you gain in a battle will depend on various factors. The first factor is the Level of the user. The higher the level, the higher the multiplier is. The other thing is how often this move is used. If this move is used twice, then you get twice the amount of money, no matter how much damage you do to the opponent. Finally, if a special effect that doubles money is in play, then that amount doubles, which could be through the Amulet Coin, Happy Hour and a trainer-related power.

Overall, this is a good move for those in need for cash, since there is no end to which the user could generate money. In a way, the user of this move is akin to a golden goose.

That’s all for today’s article. I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I have writing it.