Pokémon has been around for 23 years and has fascinated everyone with its simple yet outrageously fun gameplay. You fight the “pocket monsters” and catch any that you want to keep. If the Pokémon is cute, it’s yours. You want the Onyx because the thought of owning a giant rock snake sounds great to you? Nothing stopping you. Want to catch Klefki because anytime you see a set of floating keys it makes you laugh uncontrollably? Bring on the laughter. However, there are some Pokémon who are certainly stronger than others, and not just in pure combat potential. Mew is definitely one of those Pokémon that comes to mind.

Mew is the 151st Pokémon introduced into the series and has stayed a mysterious figure ever since day one. It’s said to be the ancestor of all Pokémon, meaning that all known Pokémon can find their traces back to Mew. It was thought to be extinct, but it would seem that Mew is in a long game of hide-and-go-seek, due to their playful nature. Which can make catching a Mew that much more challenging.

Along with Mew’s mystery and playfulness also comes their insanely overpowered abilities. This has often lead to many decisions to make Mew incredibly difficult to find in-game, or to leave Mew out altogether to make sure the game stays balanced. From transforming into stronger Pokémon to being able to learn almost practically every single move, this list goes over some of the ways Mew is kinda overpowered.

25 Ability To Transform Into Any Other Pokémon

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Starting this list off strong is that Mew has the ability to transform into any other Pokémon. In Lucario and the Mystery of Mew, we see Mew change multiple times into other Pokémon.

Mew changed into an Aipom and played a bit with Ash's Pikachu. Not only is being able to change into other Pokémon overpowered, it’s almost cheating. You need to cut down that tree? Bam, Mew changes into a Venusaur. Mew can do just about whatever you need them to.

24 Can Turn Invisible

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Mew has the ability to make itself invisible at will, making it very challenging if you’re are fighting it or simply trying to capture Mew. It is said that Mew only shows itself to those who are pure of heart, making many believe that it has gone extinct.

Mew has only ever been seen by a handful of people since it can selectively choose who is able to see it, making it overpowered yet again.

23 Has A Camera Shield

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In the classic Nintendo 64 game Pokémon Snap, Mew can be seen in the Rainbow Cloud level. Only able to be snapped if their psychic shield is down.

The only way to get a picture of Mew is to throw pester balls at them until they leave the shield, then snag a photo.

Meaning that even on film and on video, Mew usually can’t be seen. This seemingly vampiric ability makes it impossible to ever get good visual evidence of the creature.

22 Can Breathe Underwater

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Not only is Mew extremely difficult to find, if they don’t want anything to do with you, they can dive into the water and swim away. I say swim, but I really mean float through the water as if it wasn’t even there to begin with.

Mew just turns itself invisible and either flies away, or swims away from you. Being able to fly through water is an incredible feat to pull off, but it just adds to the list of things that make Mew overpowered.

21 Extremely Versatile

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In the Pokémon games, all of Mew's stats start at 100, making it a total of 600 even-score when you add up all of its stats. On top of that, Mew can be taught any TM, HM, or move by tutoring it. Meaning that nearly every move in the game, Mew can learn.

Being able to learn nearly every single move and have very good base stats, means you can make Mew into whatever you need for your team.

20 Sneaking Its Way Into The Game

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Although Mew is certainly a popular character within in the Pokémon franchise, it was added in at the last minute by Shigeki Morimoto as a prank. Morimoto secretly put Mew in the game as a Pokémon that only Game Freak employees knew about.

This was used as a way to keep interest in the game high, with gamers looking for an invisible character.

Mew, intended not to even be a character, makes it in at the last second and becomes one of the most talked about characters ever.

19 Contains All The DNA

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The reason why Mewtwo was created in the first place was because of Mew. If you look at all the Pokémon in the game's world, they all have a trace back to Mew because of its DNA. This makes Mew the superior Pokémon when compared to Mewtwo.

Because of this, many scientists have debated if Mew was the original creator of Pokémon. It is unclear if Mew created Arceus, or if Arceus created Mew and then others based off of Mew.

18 Can Learn Lots Of Moves

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As stated before, Mew can learn every TM, HM, and be tutored in every move available. This makes it a viable option on nearly every Pokémon team. It can even learn moves that aren’t within its affinity type, including infatuate, even though Mew is a genderless Pokémon.

Mew is the ace up your sleeve when fighting in Pokémon because Mew can be unpredictable with all the moves it can learn, adding to the list of why Mew is overpowered.

17 Genesis Supernova

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Speaking of every move, Mew is the only Pokémon able to perform the Z-move genesis supernova. It deals a massive amount of psychic damage as well as turning the battle terrain into psychic terrain instead. This boosts psychic moves by 50 percent, making Mew deal even more damage because Mew is a psychic Pokémon.

This move can only be used by Mew, making it one of those reasons as to why Mew is overpowered, turning an already strong character into an overpowered one.

16 Willing To Save The World

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In the movie Lucario and the Mystery of Mew, Mew decides it will sacrifice itself in order to save the Tree of Beginnings, only to have Lucario step in at the final moment and sacrifice itself instead.

Mew is a selfless creature who only wants to help to better the world.

Mew has only ever wanted to help those in the world, not destroy it; it certainly doesn’t want to create clones of Pokémon and take over that way. Looking at you, Mewtwo.

15 Teleports Out Of Trouble

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Along with Mew's other insanely good movement abilities, it can also teleport. Add that to the list of overpowered things Mew can do. If it ever gets tired of whatever is going on, it can just up and vanish.

Mew really could beat any other Pokémon because of all the countless abilities it has. Not to mention it can use any weakness against your Pokémon because it does know every move that Pokémon know. Be glad that Mew is kind of a kid with god-like abilities, or else it would destroy everything.

14 The Original Is The Best

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Mew is the original of all Pokémon, all DNA can be traced back to Mew, and Mew can transform into any Pokémon. Basically, we wouldn't have other Pokémon if it weren’t for Mew, including Mewtwo. It’s not clear how other Pokémon came about from Mew, but we are thankful nonetheless.

Not to say that other Pokémon are copycat, except Mewtwo, but they all share something in common with Mew. Meaning that they all took something from the best.

13 Can Fly

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The list of movement abilities Mew has keeps on growing. We have swimming, teleporting, and now flying. Mew has it all when you need to get going somewhere. Need to get somewhere quickly? Bam, Mew can fly you over there no problem at all.

It seems that Mew has all of these amazing abilities and uses them really just for play, which is adorable for starters. Mew can get anywhere it needs to get to with no trouble at all, no wonder why other people are so jealous of Mew.

12 Nicer Than Mewtwo

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Now you may be asking yourself, why is this in here? Well, Mew being nicer than Mewtwo is a great quality to have. Would you rather have a Pokémon who is willing to turn people to stone just because they don’t agree with them, or wants to play with a spinning top because it’s fun?

Mew is the epitome of naivety, and that’s great. We have this cute playful fairy, instead of a horrible dangerous fairy.

11 Playful

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You ever wanted to play with toys and also go flying over the ocean? Mew would be happy to do that for you. Being an extremely playful Pokémon just adds to how overpowered Mew really is. Instead of using its powers for dark purposes, Mew would much rather be flying over mountain tops playing tag with people.

Toying with your enemies, for one, would make them lose their edge for sure.

That would make anyone frustrated with how little Mew has an interest in fighting.

10 Genetically Stronger

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Don’t take this the wrong way, Mew isn’t superior because of its DNA, or its genes. All other Pokémon derive something from Mew, meaning that even the strongest Pokémon have something in common with Mew. So that means Mew has a certain advantage to every Pokémon in some way or another.

Mew has that prime piece of creativity that every Pokémon has something modeled after. This is the kind of thing that makes Mew insanely overpowered, but then again we all already knew that.

9 Transform Into The Stronger Pokémon

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With Mew being able to transform, it has the ability to transform into other stronger Pokémon. Whether that is with pure strength or if Mew's opponent has a certain affinity weakness that can be exploited by the player.

Mew is one of the few Pokémon able to do this. The only others are Ditto, and to a rare extent Smeargle, using its sketch move. But why transform into a stronger Pokémon when you can just teleport out of there? OP if you ask me.

8 Hard To Catch

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Considered to be the hardest Pokémon to catch in almost all of the series, with catch rates as low as five point nine percent. Mew has also been known to be impossible to catch in other games such as the Pokémon Mystery Dungeon series, where it is also incredibly difficult to befriend.

Along with it be difficult to catch, you might struggle to even find Mew in the first place. In Red and Blue, the player either had to use a Gameshark or glitch the game in order to even capture Mew.

7 Others Copy It

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Mew is a trendsetter, being the first Pokémon with 600 stats, and starting the mythical Pokémon list. Mew is the rarest of all Pokémon, which others have tried to achieve but have since failed.

What’s nice about Mew is that it started a lot of things for the Pokémon series. It helped start the search for the rarest Pokémon in the games as well as making people search for hours for all the hidden details tucked away in games.

6 Has Good Judgment

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Within the game's lore, it is said that Mew only appears in front of those with a pure heart. Being able to tell who is a good person versus a bad person is a very overpowered trait.

Mew can look at you and then decide whether or not you are a good person.

With being able to judge who is good and who isn’t, Mew can decide who is really worth it in the end. It's a very useful skill for it to have.