I’ve always liked Wailmer. Wailord is alright, I suppose. I had a monstrous one on my team back when I first played Pokemon Ruby in 2003 - writing that sentence caused me to crumble into dust as if I’d been Thanos-snapped. But yeah, Wailmer is the real GOAT of Pokemon whales. It’s an endlessly smiling ball of blubbery joy, and I love it dearly.
The most recent New Pokemon Snap trailer gave us an in-depth look at loads of different aspects of the upcoming Pokemon photography game. Outside of this piece, I’ve also written about how New Pokemon Snap chose its limited roster perfectly and shared my intense horror towards how grossly gigantic Meganium is. TheGamer’s own Stacey Henley has been hard at work covering Snap, too - if you’re reading this, you should absolutely check out her excellent interview with two nature photographers about how well Snap tackles its subject matter.
What I’m here to talk about today, however, is different. All I want to do with this article is make you love Wailmer if you don’t already, which will allow you to repeatedly watch the clip of it squealing in excitement from the Snap trailer and feel the same pure happiness I am feeling right now. I’ve watched this snippet about ten times today and I’m in fantastic humor now - especially when you consider that I wrote a little rageblog about how stupid Professor Mirror’s name is less than two hours ago.
Simply put, Wailmer is the Pokemon embodiment of sheer, unbridled happiness. Its baleen plates - yes, they’re not teeth - align into an infectiously joyous smile. “Turn that frown upside down” simply doesn’t apply here, because even a sad Wailmer will look as if it’s having a whale (eh? eh?) of a time. That probably sounds like one of those super deep “real eyes realize real lies” lines, but it’s just a plain fact. Wailmer is unable to look upset.
Then you’ve got its little fins. Wailmer is a 130kg ball of glee with impractically small fins that are suspended in such a way that it looks like it’s dancing. It’s got a childlike kind of innocence about it, a sort of “get a sugar rush and flail around for ten minutes before crashing” vibe - except it never crashes. It’s on a permanent sugar rush except the sugar is salt, which the sea - where Wailmer hangs out most of the time - happens to be full of.
I mentioned earlier that Wailmer is brilliant in the recent New Pokemon Snap trailer. It only has a few seconds of screen time, but that alone is enough to prove my point. The vast majority of Pokemon are polarizing - Charizard is millions of people’s favourite, but there are loads of other fans who are sick of everything being all Charizard all the time. Reuniclus is almost a top ten ‘mon for me - despite the fact that most people forget it exists - and Vaporeon is my favourite Eeveelution. We all have our personal preferences.
It’s impossible to dislike Wailmer, though, and if you tell me you reckon it’s a rubbishI’m Still Not Over What Game Of Thrones Did To Euron
Pokemon, I’ll tell you I reckon you’re lying to me. I mean, I haven’t even mentioned the best bit about this wonderful whale yet. Wailmer stores water in its body, right, which it can eject either via its blowhole or nostrils - cool, but it gets better. When it retains water instead of shooting it at people who are annoying it, Wailmer can literally turn into a bouncy ball. There may be loads of weird Pokemon lore, but this is a bona fide diamond in the rough. If this fact makes it into New Pokemon Snap, it will be the best Pokemon game of all time. Emerald? Platinum? Crystal? No bouncing Wailmers. 0/10 from me, sorry.
Wailmer also eats Wishiwashi, which I reckon is a rubbish Pokemon. I’m glad this ridiculous fish is at least being put to use by helping everybody’s favourite whale grow big and strong so it can become a magnificent Wailord when it’s older. On the contrary, Dhelmise and Sharpedo eat Wailmer before it’s big enough to fight back, so I hate them now. I don’t care how cool the Sharpedo are in the ocean surrounding the Isle of Armor - if you eat my beloved whaley boi, I’m going to sic my strongest ‘mons on you with no mercy.
So there you have it. A nice and short piece on why Wailmer is brilliant. Watch the clip in the New Pokemon Snap trailer and then watch it ten more times consecutively. Take a break for a bit, then come back and edit it into a ten-hour loop. Put it on YouTube so me and everyone else can watch it, too. That way we can all spend our waking hours doing the best thing there is to do: watching Wailmer have a laugh like the magnificent blubbery ball of it is.