Arceus’s Goofiest Archangel: A Mega-Defense of Mega Dragonite

I’m not sure if it needs to be said, but I am somewhat of a huge fan of the Pocket Monster (Pokemon if you’re normal) franchise and have been since its American debut in [checks notes] 1998. Now, I’m not a spend money on the franchises I like kind of person, so outside of the video game entries into the franchise, I have very little to show for all of my fandom. This is to say, what I do possess that reinforces my love of the franchise are things that I carry with me in my dumb little mostly empty head.

Type match ups. Move sets. Favorite Pokemon. I carry these in my little head everywhere I go like some sort of wandering vagabond in a franchise that is, quite frankly, very much involved with merchandise. 

Besides the video game entries, all I have are a love for my favorite little guys. So when there’s news pertaining to my little guys and people who know me and also know who my little guy are, I hear that news multiple times in a given news cycle.

Which is to say, yes, I have seen the announced design of Mega-Dragonite coming to Pokemon Z-A later this fall. Thank you for bringing it to my attention. I have seen it. 

Now, for those unfamiliar, I’ll give you a little brief of what’s going on with the goofy dragon boy, a rundown of a very critical and overblown fan reaction to the news, and ultimately a defense of the design GameFreak, The Pokemon Company, and Creatures, Inc. decided to bestow onto us, the most loyal of Pokemon fans. So let’s wade into the tall, tall grass and encounter some wild Pokemon information! 

Oh, What a Dragonite

Dragonite is the final evolution in the Dratini line who debuted in the very first Pokemon games, Green, Red, and Blue depending on your location back in the late 90’s. It is also my most favoritest Pokemon. Dragon types were very rare overall in these games, as there were only three total: Dratini, Dragonair, and Dragonite. 

There’s been speculation as to why this typing was so rare with several internet users positing that the type was supposed to be a sort of “final boss” type in that it is resistant to the three types of starter pokemon - fire, water, and grass (as well as electric) - and only being weak against ice types and itself, but regardless of the reason for the rarity, once I faced down Lance at the end of the elite four and encountered a Dragonite for the first time, I fell immediately in love. 

In a game where your first partner pokemon ends up looking like some of the baddest boys on the block, here was a goofy looking dragon boy who could end their whole career with a move proving that you didn’t need to have those weird angry angular eyes to be cool. 

Let’s look at a side by side comparison of two dragon-esque Pokemon designs from the original games and you tell me which one you’d want to hang out with more. 

I mean, Charizard is cool. I won’t deny that, but with the eyes of an angry sailor and fangs hanging out its mouth, it looks dangerous. Would it ever love me? Hug me? Or would it just fiercely protect me no matter what, regardless of my feelings?

 In the anime, our introduction to Charizard is an interesting one. We spend episode after episode, an entirety in young childhood time, with young Charmander just to have the resulting Charmeleon and Charizard hardly ever listen to Ash’s commands. 

Meanwhile, our first introduction to Dragonite in the anime is one of mythic proportions. A kaiju sized one walks past a lighthouse and instantly becomes the stuff of legends in our minds. 

I’m biased here, but you get it, right? You get it! 

A Look Eternal 

Since its debut in the first mainline games, Dragonite’s design has remained pretty untouched. Sure, the addition of color in the Gold, Silver, and Crystal games on the Game Boy Color would reveal the true color palette of the line in its trademark blue and then orange (and the additional reveal of its shiny form being inexplicably pink to green), but beyond these touchups, the Dragonite line has been pretty stable.

Why mess with perfection?

Over the years with the introduction of new and different game play mechanics there have been opportunity after opportunity for the designers to revisit the line, give it something new, as had happened with some other original Pokemon through the iterations.

The first chance game with Pokemon X and Y on the 3DS and the introduction of Mega Evolutions. This mechanic will ultimately grant us the new design that has prompted this whole article, but not for a solid decade; you’ll see what I mean. Released in 2013, X and Y’s Mega Evolutions granted a chance for some popular and not-so-popular lines to get neat power up forms, updated designs, altered abilities, and in some case typings to refresh how these Pokemon were utilized in battle and in general thought of by the playbase. 

But the choices of which Pokemon lines to grant a Mega Evolution were somewhat baffling. Charizard, one of the most if not the most popular Pokemon, was given two different Mega Evolutions, as was Mewtwo. Then you have Metagross, Garachomp, and Salamence - Pokemon who have traditionally and vernacularly been referred to as “pseudo-legendary” due to their late game nature of coming into power and due to their overall Base Stat Totals being 600. Dragonite is also one of these pseudo-legendaries, so it stands to reason it would get a Mega Evolution as well, but that wasn’t the case in 2013. 

Instead, we got Mega Beedrill and Mega Sableye, niche Pokemon with very little popularity in the major professional formats. The original Kanto starters each got at least one Mega and later on, with the remake of Ruby and Sapphire, so did the starters of the Hoenn region. 

Pictured: Death Incarnate

But left behind was our boy Dragonite. 

A second chance came six years later with the advent of Gigantimax Pokemon introduced in Pokemon Sword and Shield in 2019. All Pokemon are able to Dynamax, bringing over a design choice made in the previous games to enable all Pokemon to be special and not just a scant few, but then oddly, only a few Pokemon change forms when they Dynamax. If this is confusing or hard to understand, it’s not necessary to understand for the point and history we’re covering. The short of it is, while Butterfree and Kingler got special forms for this mechanic, Dragonite was again left off the special boys and girls list. 

(Charizard got a special form, though, so I guess I’m salty about that). 

And so the design of one Dragonite has been relatively unchanged since its introduction barring small design tweaks and some design choices that come with translating from 2-D animated sprites to 3-D models. Dragonite has always and will always be this goofy little guy.

Z-A: All Backwards???

Yeah, I couldn’t think of anything clever for this heading, sorry. Anyway, enter Pokemon Legends: Z-A, an upcoming title for the Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2 systems that has us revisiting the Kalos region, the home of Pokemon X and Y. With a revisit to a region comes the speculation that we’ll also be revisiting the mechanics of the games set in that region and lo and behold, it’s confirmed Mega Evolutions are coming back into the fold. 

I’ll skip the time period in which we didn’t know if new Mega Evolutions would be introduced or not, because this past Tuesday on July 22nd, 2025, a new trailer for Pokemon Z-A dropped as part of Pokemon Presents that included the introduction of a brand new Mega Pokemon: Mega Dragonite.

Here he is. 

He’s perfect.

Finally, after over a decade of waiting, the Pokemon Company has remembered that Dragonite exists and is deserving of their and our attention. 

And fans were…underwhelmed? Distraught? Displeased. None-too-happy. 

You see, for a lot of people in the fandom of Pokemon, coming up with designs is something of a fun pastime. There are countless artists designing up concepts for new Pokemon, redesigning old Pokemon, or giving alternate forms to their favorites and with how long it’s been since Dragonite got any love, there are hundreds of fan drawn examples of what a Mega Dragonite could look like. With all of the time and plenty of people working on bringing our goofy boy back into the fold with a new form, it is safe to say that maybe, just maybe some people built up their expectations a little too much. 

Here’s numerous examples of people being less than happy with the design of Mega Dragonite. 

A Link to An Article at TheGamer

A Link to an Article at The Express Tribune

And here’s just a few examples of what people dreamt up for what could have been Mega Dragonite’s design. 

There’s way, way more of these.

There’s clearly a disparity between how the creators of Pokemon and the fans of Pokemon view the original dragon.

Goofy is Good, Actually 

The thing about the design of Mega Dragonite for me as a Dragonite fan is that it totally fits my perception of what Dragonite is - a goofy little dragon with immense power. So the big wings on its head that are reminiscent of Dragonair fit right in with how I perceive Dragonite to be. They’re oversized and plain silly, but that’s not going to stop it from wiping the floor with your Pokemon because it’s still just as powerful as before.

If anything, there should be more wings. They should have gone biblically accurate angel with it, like this design from reddit user ApricotArticuno. 

Look, when you’re right, you’re right.

My point here is, just because something like a new design for a Pokemon doesn’t meet the expectations that you’ve built up in your head, it doesn’t mean the design is bad. The design is totally in line for the vision and execution that the Pokemon Company has been using for years. Dragonite as a goofy little guy with explosive power. Dragonite as an affable mail carrier and nothing more. 

In a game where lead game designer Ken Sugimori chose to give so many of the powerful, more titular final evolutions those angular, angry looking monster eyes, he chose to give Dragonite the soft, round eyes of a friend. And so it follows that the Mega Evolution that Dragonite gets decades later, the first redesign it has ever gotten, falls in line with that thinking. Dragonite with big ole floppy wing ears is friendly. Kind. And powerful enough to level a city. 

So while perhaps the design could have been cooler or more edgy or epic or over-designed or what have you, the design we got is pretty spot on with the depiction of Dragonite over the years. And I for one am happy to see the original vision of Ken Sugimori not succumb to the modern think that something needs to look cool to be cool. I’ll be Mega Evolving a Dragonite when Z-A comes out this fall for sure. 

I just hope that Z-A has abilities, unlike its spiritual predecessor Legends: Arceus. But that’s a discussion for another time. For now, any time you see someone complain about something that doesn’t meet their expectation, ask yourself if the execution is in line with a grand overall vision. If it it’s not, only then can you riot.