Want to be a part of our newsletter? You’re welcome to submit content including (but not limited to) questions, fanart, short stories, your cherished memories, photographs of your collection, and anything else you think you want us to see. This week we were contacted by Libris from RatePKMN, a project that is gathering data from fans who judge Pokémon designs based on certain criteria!

An example of a page from RatePKMN where users can rate the design of Pokémon based on different criteria, such as cuteness, realism and complexity

Libris, British Columbia, Canada

Hello Johto Times! I have a project that I thought you'd like to hear about: RatePKMN. I'm both a Pokémon fan and an artist, and in my circles, some of the most common topics of discussion are which Pokémon designs are good and which ones are not, what makes Pokémon feel like Pokémon, and how Pokémon designs have evolved over the years. We can argue personal preferences all day, but I wanted a way to answer these and other questions like them more objectively, and that's where the idea for RatePKMN came from. It is a way to turn Pokémon designs into data so that they can be compared without personal tastes getting in the way.

With the help of my friends and YouTube community, I came up with nine criteria for Pokémon to be rated on—attempting to balance how thorough we can be with how much time people will be willing to spend on ratings—and one community member, Stapo, stepped up to program all the interactive functionality. As of August 19, the website has collected over 64,000 ratings total, contributed by over 2,500 different people. Each Pokémon design has been rated by over 50 different people. These numbers are fantastic! But the 2,500 contributors are, largely, people who follow me on YouTube, which suggests they may have tastes that are broadly similar to mine. If I want the results to reflect the community at large, I need to reach as many people as possible, especially outside my immediate network. More data is always better!

Right now, we have every Pokémon up to Miraidon in the database, but we intend to continue to support the project long term, adding Pokémon as they are released. We expect to add Walking Wake, Iron Leaves and other DLC Pokémon shortly after the release of The Teal Mask. Thank you for checking out RatePKMN!

Hi Libris, and thank you for sharing your project with us! Pokémon has so many cool designs, so it would be very interesting to see which ones are rated highly by fans. Let’s hope you are able to get more information as your project develops. Best of luck!