"Sandy Shocks is based on Japanese mythology"

I love Sandy Shocks. Is giving Magneton ferrofluid "hair" to resemble a caveman that walks around on two giant horseshoe magnets completely absurd? Yes, it is, but that's what makes it great, and taking into account how Magnemite is shown to have existed during the Kalos war, 3,000 years before X and Y, it's a surprisingly believable ancestor - the implication is that its legs atrophied as it began to rely on levitating, and that the iron filings it attracts slowly became part of its genetic makeup, replacing its Ground type with Steel. Today, I came to a realization that makes it even better, and it mainly hinges on the two in-game sources of information about this Pokémon:Violet Pokédex: It slightly resembles a Magneton that lived for 10,000 years and was featured in an article in a paranormal magazine.Occulture Magazine: Sandy Shocks: A Magneton with a 10-Thousand-Year Lifespan?! Some scientists claim that this mysterious being is a Magneton that has lived for 10 thousand years. It has been sighted numerous times in Paldea’s more arid regions, but there are no reports of it ever having been caught. It’s said that Sandy Shocks is an aggressive sort and that some people who’ve seen it have been attacked as well. It takes its name from a beast with a matching description in the era-defining Scarlet Book.The part I'm focusing on is "Magneton that lived for 10 thousand years." That backstory is dubious at best, but let's humor the magazine's writers and assume it's true, or at least try to see how they came to that conclusion.Many, many Pokémon are based on yōkai, a broad term encompassing a huge variety of supernatural entities and phenomena in Japanese mythology and folklore. One type of yōkai are the oni, which originally referred to ghosts or souls of the dead, but gradually changed to include a whole range of different creatures, the most generic kind being an ogre/demon-like humanoid. Oni are a common source of inspiration among yōkai-based Pokémon, including the Electabuzz line, Glalie, Araquanid (its Japanese name is Onishizukumo, the protrusions on its head resemble horns, and its shiny gives it a "red oni, blue oni" dynamic), Scovillain, Ogerpon and, yes, Sandy Shocks.While Sandy Shocks' wild, spiky "hair" is obviously supposed to evoke a caveman, it also brings to mind an oni, especially the middle Magnemite's hair looking very similar to that of the more cartoonish depictions of oni.Besides gray and black, the most prominent colors in Sandy Shocks' design are red, blue and yellow, which are basically THE oni colors (red or blue for their skin, yellow for their clothes).Each Sandy Shock/Magnemite has one eye, and guess how many eyes the first written example of an oni had? Yes, the first story to portray oni as their own creatures rather than mere souls of the dead was about an oni with just a single eye.So, what does this have to do with Sandy Shocks supposedly coming to be after 10,000 years? Well, that part is based on how some animals are said to become yōkai upon reaching a certain age. Cats that live long enough become nekomata, bears become onikuma, turban snails become sazae-oni after exactly 30 years, and so on. Notice how those last two both have "oni" in their names?That's right, the idea behind Sandy Shocks isn't just a caveman themed around the technology of today, but also a Magneton-turned-yōkai after too many years spent in this world, abruptly transformed into a scarier, more aggressive "oni" version of itself like a cat's tail splitting in two to signify its conversion into a nekomata, a bear suddenly growing larger and walking on two legs upon becoming an onikuma, or a turban snail developing magical powers as it transitions into a sazae-oni on its 30th birthday....or at least that's my understanding of the conspiracy theory in the Pokédex and Occulture Magazine. I'm still inclined to believe that these Pokémon aren't actually from the past or future, but rather people's imaginations or an alternate universe/timeline. via /r/pokemon https://ift.tt/RPaEFkt