#122+ #439: Mr Mime and yet another baby, Mime Jr.

Yep, we have yet another late addition baby Pokemon that is overwhelmingly annoying, along with nightmare fuel...

Mime Jnr. sucks: it's like Chiaotzu in appearance (a little), fits with that bit in DBZA and has probably never beaten anyone on screen. You do actually get decent special stats of 70 special attack and 90 special defence, but 20 HP kinda crushes the possibility of special walling anything, and 60 speed is insufficient for anything, really. 45 defence means you won't take any physical hits, and 25 physical attack is poor, but doesn't really make any difference... As far as typing goes, well it isn't too bad as psychic/fairy, and the abilities are a little interesting. Soundproof negates the effect of sound based moves such as sing, supersonic, snore, boomburst whatever... Filter reduces the incoming super effective damage by 25% (so 2x damage becomes 1.5x, 4x becomes 3x) so this can prevent massive damage, but you'll still probably die, and the hidden ability technician adds a 50% boost to moves with power 60 or less, which is petty awesome (moves affected by this will receive a *).

If only it got self-destruct!

So you start with tickle (drops both of the foe's physical stats by a stage) and barrier (raises the user's defence by two stages) along with confusion* (base 50 psychic special move that can cause confusion in the foe). Copycat causes the user to use the last move used by the target, and meditate boosts your attack by a stage (which could be useful for a baton pass team). Double slap* hits 2 to 5 times as base 15 physical normal, and mimic (which is needed to be in the moveset to evolve into Mr. Mime) copies the last move used into its space. Encore forces the foe to repeat the last move used and has been massively downgraded, formerly lasting up to 7 turns it now lasts a fixed 3. Light screen boosts the special defence of the team for a few turns, whilst reflect does the same with the physical side of things.

Psybeam just misses out on technician by virtue of base 65 psychic special damage, and substitute creates a substitute to take the next hit or so for you at the expense of some of your HP (which allows for more comfortable baton passing or focus punching, along with just dodging some heavy damage or stat/status affliction). Recycle allows you to recover a previously used berry, trick allows you to swap items with the foe, and psychic is something we all really should know by now (base 90 psychic special). Role play allows you to lose your ability and take that of the target, whilst baton pass allows you to switch out, passing on stat boosts, aqua rings, leech seed income and substitutes (for example) to the Pokemon that comes in (entire teams are built around this premise, allowing significant stat boosts to be passed to a sweeper or to a stored power user). The final level move is safeguard, which prevents status afflictions to the team.

In addition to the old standards from TMs, you also get psyshock, thunder/bolt, solar beam, psychic, shadow ball, brick break, thunder wave, thief*, round*, charge beam*, infestation*, trick room, dream eater and grass knot. Hidden power gets technician boost*. Breeding can get you fake out*, confuse ray, future sight, hypnosis, icy wind*, healing wish, nasty plot, wake up slap and some other interesting options. The tutor gives you loads, arguably the most interesting of which (that you can't get from elsewhere) are covet, drain punch, focus punch (sadly all physical), snatch, uproar, snore and shockwave.

If you leveled up with mimic, you can now get Mr. Mime and several sleepless nights from its 3D animation. Along with this new-found bed wetting and insomnia, you get boosts to all stats: 40HP, 45 attack, 65 defence, 100 special attack, 110 special defence and 90 speed, so not dreadful. The type and abilities remain constant.

"Give me your soul, children!"

You get some new moves available from the get-go. Misty terrain is basically a fairy counterpart to grassy terrain, and reduces the impact of dragon moves (which Mr. Mime is immune to). Magical leaf* is a decent grass special move at base 60, quick guard protects against priority moves, wide guard protects against moves that can hit the whole team, power swap switches any stat changes to both attacks with the changes applied to the foe, whilst guard swap does the same with your defences, and then we just get the same level set as before. Hyper beam, giga impact, focus blast, energy ball and payback (possible *) are added to the TM list with aerial ace*, power up punch* and dazzling gleam. The tutor adds in the elemental punches, iron defence, foul play, and zen headbutt, as well as skill swap.

All in all, the stats and abilities are there to be of some use, but I personally hate this Pokemon: it's creepy, it's annoying and I just don't get it. It can be used as a baton pass chain member, it can be used as a weak special sweeper, but the moveset is pretty odd, the design is awful, the stats are awkward and yeah, I just feel no attachment to it.

(All artwork presented by Ken Sugimori, taken from the Bulbapedia image archives)