Despite years of releases, Pokémon has still not made its first shinies available within the franchise's video games. The anime introduced shinies early on and its first few were some of the most memorable in the series. However, fans have never been able to catch or own these iterations in their collections to incorporate onto teams.
Pokémon began as a video game, but quickly expanded into a manga and anime series lasting twenty-six years (and still going strong). The anime debuted in 1997, one year after the games. By the second generation of games, developers had incorporated Shiny Pokémon - species with an alternate color - with the introduction of the red Gyarados in Pokémon Silver and Pokémon Gold in 1999 (Japan release, US release: 2000). However, a few other species preceded this inclusion within the first two seasons of the anime, including two popular iterations.
Within the twenty-first episode of the series (released in Japan in1997 and in the US in 1999), titled "Bye-Bye Butterfree", the first shiny Pokémon appears; the pink Butterfree. This very emotional episode sees Ash's Butterfree leave him to pair up with a female Butterfree during the species' mating season. The two fly off into the sunset after Ash's Butterfree saves its peers from Team Rocket, proving its worth as a partner to its alternate-colored prospective mate. This version of Butterfree has never appeared in any of the games, with the primary official shiny having green eyes and pink-tinted wings. The anime iteration has a pink body with all other colors being the same in its appearance and is arguably much more stunning.
Pink Butterfree and Crystal Onix are the Shiny Varieties Pokémon Fans Deserve
The Orange Islands also featured shiny Pokémon, with the eighty-third episode ("Poké Ball Peril") having Professor Ivy mention that some appearances would be different throughout the region. This then led to brief glimpses of the Pokémon Vileplume with alternate petal coloration and Butterfree with spots on their wings. Yet one of the most iconic shiny Pokémon within this second season was the Crystal Onix, which appeared in Episode 87, aptly titled, "The Crystal Onix". This episode aired in Japan in March 1999, while Pokémon Gold released in November 1999. Despite how stunning its visual design was and how distinct it appeared from every other Onix in the series up to this point, it never appeared within a game. Presently, shiny Onix are a yellow-green tone - a far cry from how beautiful the Crystal Onix is.
While Onix's exclusion from the franchise's games could be a result of the lack of the Orange Islands within the games, Pokémon's shinies are in the anime, and the emotional impact Butterfree has in particular, it's strange to not have included it as a nod to the franchise's history and anime after all these years. Adding the pink Butterfree - and even the Crystal Onix - into a future game would be a great nod to long-term fans of Pokémon who know the franchise's broader history of shiny varieties.
