#007-#009 - The Squirtle Line
Squirtle! Our last starter before we foray out into the real world, it's a lovable, round turtle (although it's really more of a tortoise) with a cute design nicely devoid of harsh angles compared to the other two. Everything on this kid seems to be made up of ovals and circles.
Like its peers, it's a very simple design overall. A bipedal fantasy turtle with a cute wave motif in its bludgeony tail. It's fittingly a nice aqua-blue, although it's less monochrome than the other starters by virtue of its large shell, which helps break it up visually.
Kid Squirtle then evolves into teen Wartortle, which may be one of my favorite mid-evolutions overall! It changes up just enough to feel different from Squirtle without losing its charm, with a new deeper blue coloration, a more tanky shell, claws, a toothy beak actually matching its inspiration this time, and most noticably, a large crested wave-tail.
Wartortle gets 0 complaints from me as it's a simultaneously elegant and cool design, especially with its weird wing-ear thing, but the direction changes a bit when teen Wartortle evolves into...
Blastoise! It seems to have taken the shell part of Squirtle more than the mythological aspect, as it's now properly tanky and heavy, with thick legs and arms, a deep blue hide, and an armored shell. Blastoise also has those weird mammal-ears on what's supposed to be a reptile, so I still don't exactly know what's going on with that, but it's fine for what it's supposed to represent.
Anyway, Squirtle gets fairly good milage in the Kanto region. It and the rest of its line are unburdened by any pesky dual-types that may hinder/help it, so you just get it straight and get an advantage to the first gym (Rock), an advantage using Normal-type moves for the second (Water), disadvantages for the next two (Electric, Grass), before getting neutral footing for the next (Poison). Pretty fair all around, and hefty enough to sustain some damage.
While Blastoise is a pretty adrupt turn into left field, Squirtle and Wartortle pretty clearly seem to be based on the myth of the minogame, a turtle which lives an astonishingly long life and gains a tail made of seaweed, explaining the wave patterns on Squirtle's tail and the apparent "furriness" of Wartortle's, which is said to accumulate algae over their 10,000 year lifespan, which checks out pretty nearly.
Blastoise though? It randomly reduces the tail into a realistically stubby one and gets... cannons? It’s an odd choice, but the three share a more coherent build than the Charmander line for example. Still though, I would've loved to seen a minogame inspired final evolution for the two to continue where they left off. Beggers can't be choosers, though...
As one of the original Kanto Starters, the Squirtle line gets plenty of spotlight in media and marketing. This can be seen in episode 12 of Indigo League, where the lovably silly Squirtle Squad makes their first introduction and immediately become icons. Blastoise is already pretty good for checking the boxes of a recognizable, menacing monster when Charizard isn't taking the spotlight.
Squirtle and Wartortle are great and cute designs with a nice mythological aspect, but Blastoise drops the ball a bit. However, one bad apple doesn't spoil the whole bunch, and it's not even like Blastoise is a "bad" apple. It's just a good apple in the wrong harvest. Overall, they're pretty good designs, and great introductions to the Water-type!
