Parasect? It's my all time favorite pokemon!
Parasect!!!!
Parasect is a Bug/Grass-type pokemon whose primary draw is its underlying concept: it’s a cicada nymph that’s been subjected to a near-complete hostile takeover by a Cordyceps fungus, with Parasect functionally being a zombie piloted by mushroom. As a Paras, the fungus’s presence was benign, simply manifesting as two small mushrooms on its back, but evolution resulted in the fungus’s expansion to become the dominant organism of the two.
The real-life Cordyceps fungus’s ability to hijack insects’ behaviour wasn’t always as widely known in pop culture as it is now, but the success of The Last of Us has since cemented the concept in the public consciousness with its own twist on the idea of a zombie virus, a mutated Cordyceps fungus that infects humans being its core premise. Parasect obviously predated that by quite a bit, with the concept once so unknown that people would assume Parasect to be a crab of all things, though its actual basis is fortunately now much more recognised.
Parasect’s fungal abilities are most represented by the attack Spore, which puts opponents to sleep with 100% accuracy. In Japan the attack is known as Mushroom Spore, and it’s learned exclusively by mushroom pokemon like Parasect along with the Shroomish, Foongus, and Morelull lines. That the spores of a parasitic mushroom would cause other things to fall asleep is interesting, and is a pretty unsettling thing for a brain parasite to do! Like it’s TRYING to take over your brain and it can’t so your brain just shuts down in response.
As a design, Parasect is excellent. Its blank white eyes communicate the fact that Parasect’s insect half is literally near-dead according to the dex, and the way the mushroom often looms over the face in some portrayals (its GSC sprites in particular) makes an excellently creepy visage – an aesthetic I wish it utilised more frequently. I also kinda wish the mushroom colour went better with the body colour, but given it’s literally a different organism it almost makes sense they wouldn’t aesthetically go great together. It’s actually quite inconsistent, the mushroom sometimes being portrayed as bright red and sometimes as a soft, pinkish burgundy (which I prefer). Regardless, the warm colour scheme does feel wonderfully autumnal overall, in this card art especially. It’s also got a dopey smile that’s sometimes visible, which is kinda cutely silly for a zombie but clashes with the more grisly creepiness Parasect implies.
Parasect’s got a yellow shiny with an orange mushroom, which keeps the autumn vibes whilst still being clearly distinct from the base colours. I’m not sure which I prefer, but it’s a respectable shiny.
Parasect is a marvellous pokemon, one of my favourite Kanto pokes, favourite Grass-types, and favourite Bug-types. It’s definitely held up mainly by its incredibly strong concept and basis, though; were it simply a bug with a mushroom on its back, I feel I wouldn’t like it anywhere near as much as I do, and outside of certain portrayals like the aforementioned GSC sprites, its aesthetic is actually often on the weaker side when you don’t have strong lighting emphasising the spoop factor.
Overhead lighting only pls/10
