Hey Pandas, Post Your Favorite Pokemon

If you’ve ever argued about whether Charizard could beat Greninja, rearranged your whole workday around a Community Day in Pokémon Go, or cried real tears when your starter fainted for the first time… congratulations, you’re among friends. This is exactly the chaotic, cozy energy behind a classic Bored Panda prompt: “Hey Pandas, post your favorite Pokémon.”

On the internet, asking people to pick a single favorite Pokémon is like asking them to pick a favorite child. There are more than 1,000 species now, spread across nine generations of games, anime seasons, trading cards, and spinoffs. That’s a lot of adorable dragons, spooky ghosts, and sentient ice creams to choose from. Still, fans do it every dayand the reasons they give are often as interesting as the Pokémon themselves.

Let’s dive into why certain Pokémon keep topping fan-favorite lists, how your pick secretly says something about your personality, and how a simple Bored Panda-style thread can turn into a surprisingly wholesome corner of the internet.

Why “Favorite Pokémon” Questions Never Get Old

Pokémon might have started as a pair of Game Boy games in the 1990s, but it’s now one of the most successful media franchises on the planet, spanning core RPGs, mobile games, anime, movies, and mountains of merch. As of early 2024, there are over 1,025 officially recognized Pokémon species across nine generations, with new ones arriving in each wave of games and DLC.

With that many choices, everyone’s “favorite” is a little different. For some players, it’s their first partner from Red & Blue or Scarlet & Violet. For others, it’s the Pokémon that carried them through a tough gym battle, pulled off a clutch Dynamax win, or starred in a particularly emotional anime episode.

Ask the community to share their picks and you don’t just get namesyou get stories: late-night grinding sessions before a big tournament, siblings trading link cables across a bedroom floor, or a surprising attachment to a goofy-looking creature that grew into a powerhouse.

Who Tops the “Favorite Pokémon” Charts?

If you collect enough fan polls, certain Pokémon show up again and again. Official and community-driven votes over the past few years highlight a handful of repeat legends:

• Greninja – The cool, ninja-inspired Water-type from Kalos has dominated multiple worldwide polls, scoring the highest number of votes in a global popularity vote organized through the official Pokémon website.
• Charizard – Charizard is the ultimate dragon (yes, we know, only “dragon-like” in the early games). It regularly tops Reddit fan surveys and features heavily in competitive discussions, card releases, and merchandise.
• Lucario – A Steel/Fighting-type with aura-sensing powers, Lucario blends a slick design with a heroic anime presence, which has made it incredibly popular across fan votes and tournaments.
• Pikachu – The franchise mascot. Pikachu might not always win “most powerful,” but it’s arguably the most recognizable Pokémon worldwide and remains a top-20 choice in many official and community polls.
• Eevee (and Eeveelutions) – Cute base form, a whole constellation of evolutions, and endless fan art. From Umbreon to Sylveon, this line constantly ranks high in polls and merch sales.
• Gengar – The mischievous Ghost-type that looks like it’s always up to something. Gengar consistently shows up near the top of “Pokémon of the Year” style rankings.

What’s interesting is that while newer generations add hundreds of fresh faces, the original 151 Pokémon still hold a special place in fans’ hearts. One large Reddit survey found that more than a third of respondents picked their all-time favorite from the first generation alone.

Why These Pokémon Stand Out

So what do these top picks tell us? Popular favorites usually tick at least one of these boxes:

• Iconic design – Charizard and Greninja look like something you’d scribble on a notebook in middle school and proudly show your friends. They’re dynamic, a little edgy, but still approachable.
• Strong spotlight – Pokémon that appear in key anime arcs, movie posters, or big marketing campaigns stick in our brains. Ash’s Greninja or Charizard, for example, became fan legends thanks to dramatic battles and emotional storylines.
• Competitive strength – Some favorites are just really good in battle. Strong stats, flexible movepools, or meta relevance in online formats keep certain Pokémon constantly in the spotlight.
• Emotional attachment – Many fans will happily admit their favorite isn’t “the best” in battleit’s simply the one that was there for them at the right time.

What Your Favorite Pokémon Might Say About You

One fun part of a “Hey Pandas, what’s your favorite Pokémon?” thread is reading the mini personality quizzes disguised as comments. While this is all in good fun, there are definitely patterns:

If You Love Pikachu or Eevee

You’re probably the emotional heart of your friend group. You like mascots, comfort characters, and Pokémon that give off “I would absolutely buy a plush of this” energy. You may not care if your team is perfectly optimizedif it’s cute and loyal, it’s in.

If You Pick Charizard, Lucario, or Greninja

You gravitate toward stylish powerhouses. You like the idea of a partner that looks cool and hits like a truck. You may also enjoy competitive battles or at least watching high-level matches, even if your own team is a little more chaotic.

If Your Favorite is Something Weird (Like Chandelure or Snom)

Congratulations, you’re the hipster of the Poké-world. You read the full Pokédex entries, fall in love with oddball designs, and probably enjoy telling people why your spooky chandelier or tiny ice bug is secretly brilliant. Fan surveys show that offbeat Pokémon like Chandelure or Snom still carve out dedicated fanbases even when they’re far from mainstream.

If You Swear by Your First Starter

Whether it’s Bulbasaur, Cyndaquil, Torchic, or Sprigatito, if your favorite is your very first starter, you’re fueled by nostalgia. You connect Pokémon to specific life stagesafter-school gaming sessions, sleepovers, road trips with a DS in handand that bond never really fades.

How a Bored Panda Thread Becomes a Pokémon Party

Bored Panda’s “Hey Pandas” format is famously simple: someone throws out a prompt, the community responds, and the comments turn into a scrollable wall of stories, photos, and gentle chaos. A Pokémon-themed prompt slots perfectly into that structure.

Picture the comment section:

• One person posts a photo of their battered Game Boy Color and declares unwavering loyalty to their level 100 Blastoise.
• Another shares a screenshot of their meticulously bred shiny Gardevoir with a caption about finally hatching it after thousands of eggs.
• Someone else submits fan art of their custom teammaybe a pastel-pink squad of Sylveon, Mimikyu, and Alcremiebecause aesthetics matter.

Even users who don’t know the difference between a Z-Move and a Tera Type can scroll through and enjoy the art, nostalgia, and pure enthusiasm. That’s the charm of combining a massive global franchise with a casual storytelling platform.

Great Conversation Starters for a “Favorite Pokémon” Thread

If you’re crafting your own “Hey Pandas, post your favorite Pokémon” postor just leaving a really good commenttry going beyond one-word answers. A few prompts to spark better stories:

• “Which Pokémon carried you through your hardest battle?” – Maybe it was a Garchomp that survived on 1 HP during the Champion fight or a clutch Gengar that landed Hypnosis at the last second.
• “Do you have a favorite shiny?” – Shiny hunting has become a whole subculture, and everyone remembers that first unexpected sparkle.
• “What’s the most ‘you’ Pokémon personality-wise?” – Are you calm like Lapras, chaotic like Jigglypuff with a marker, or quietly feral like Absol?
• “What’s your favorite Pokémon memory with friends or family?” – Trading with siblings, battling at school, playing Pokémon Go in the parkthese are the details that make comments feel human and memorable.

Pokémon, Fandom, and the Comfort of Shared Obsessions

Pokémon’s long-term popularity isn’t just about game mechanics or the latest release date. It’s about creating tiny anchors in people’s lives. For some, it’s the comfort of returning to a familiar world with each new generation. For others, it’s the thrill of learning competitive strategies, collecting rare cards, or finally catching that elusive legendary.

Online fan spacesfrom Reddit polls to Bored Panda threadskeep that sense of community alive between game launches. People compare favorite teams, rank designs, argue (kindly) about tier lists, and show off art projects like drawing every Pokémon as a human or reimagining them in new styles.

In other words, a simple “post your favorite Pokémon” prompt is less about picking the “best” monster and more about sharing who you are and what you love.

500 Extra Words of Pokémon Love: Real-Life Favorite Pokémon Stories

To really lean into the spirit of “Hey Pandas,” let’s end with a batch of experience-style mini-stories and scenarios inspired by the way fans actually talk about their favorites online.

The Charizard Kid Who Never Switched Teams

There’s always that one trainer who picked Charmander on their very first run through Pokémon Red or a virtual console re-release and never looked back. They still remember the panic of trying to beat Brock with a tiny fire lizard, the pride when Charmeleon finally evolved into Charizard, and the thrill of teaching it Fly so they could crisscross the map in style.

Years later, that same player loads up a new game and immediately starts hunting for a Charizard-compatible team. Maybe they track down a Charmander in a special event, or transfer over their old partner using Pokémon Home. It doesn’t matter how many new starters appearsprigatito, Fuecoco, or whoever comes nextnothing replaces their original fiery dragon-shaped comfort character.

The Greninja Fan Who Fell in Love via the Anime

Another fan might not have cared much about Froakie at first. Then they watched the Kalos season of the anime and met Ash-Greninja. Suddenly, this laid-back, frog-like ninja with a scarf-tongue became the coolest thing they’d ever seen. The synchronized battle scenes, the emotional training arcs, and the feeling that trainer and Pokémon were fully in sync made an impression that never faded.

When that fan finally played the games, they soft-reset their starter choice until they got a Froakie with just the right nature. They planned an entire team around Greninja’s strengths and spent hours learning how to use it in battlepartly for strategy, partly to live out the anime fantasy of a perfect trainer-partner bond.

The Eevee Collector With a Color-Coded PC Box

Some players don’t have one favoritethey have eight. For the Eevee devotee, it’s impossible to choose between Vaporeon, Jolteon, Flareon, Espeon, Umbreon, Leafeon, Glaceon, and Sylveon. Their PC boxes are a museum of carefully evolved, nicknamed Eeveelutions, each with matching held items, ribbons, or themed movesets.

Ask them which is their favorite and the answer changes daily. On Monday it’s Umbreon, because moody goth energy. On Friday it’s Sylveon, because pastel chaos and fairy-type power. What really matters isn’t picking oneit’s the joy of having a whole little Eevee-verse living rent-free in their save files.

The “Oddball” Trainer Who Chooses Vibes Over Meta

Then there’s the trainer who builds teams based entirely on vibes. They fall in love with Chandelure after reading its haunting Pokédex entry, adopt Snom because it looks like a tiny anxious ice bug, and insist that Ludicolo is objectively the life of any party. Competitive viability is optional; maximum personality is mandatory.

When a prompt like “Hey Pandas, post your favorite Pokémon” appears, this trainer doesn’t just drop a name. They type out three paragraphs about how their Chandelure carried them through an Elite Four run while “spiritually DJing” the whole battle. Their comment might not be the most upvoted, but it’s usually the most memorable.

The Family That Plays Together

One of the sweetest patterns you see in fan threads is how Pokémon crosses generations. Parents who grew up with the original games now play newer titles with their kids. Maybe mom’s favorite is Bulbasaur because it was her first starter, while her child is obsessed with Fuecoco from Scarlet & Violet. They trade, battle, and compare teams, turning what started as a solo Game Boy hobby into a shared family ritual.

When they jump into a Bored Panda-style thread, you’ll often see photos of matching plushies, side-by-side Nintendo Switches, or a living room carpet covered in trading cards. Their favorite Pokémon aren’t just charactersthey’re little anchors for family memories.

So… Hey Pandas, What’s Your Favorite Pokémon?

At the end of the day, there’s no wrong answer. Your favorite can be the coolest, the cutest, the weirdest, the strongestor just the one that made you smile at the right moment. That’s the magic of a good “Hey Pandas” prompt: it gives everyone permission to nerd out together.

So if you were dropping into a real Bored Panda comment section right now, what would you post? A picture of your carefully EV-trained Lucario? A doodle of your dream team? A nostalgic story about the time your level 12 Pidgey somehow defeated a legendary? Whatever it is, your favorite Pokémon is more than just pixels. It’s a tiny piece of your storyand that’s exactly what makes these threads worth scrolling.