Friday, October 11, 2024

Character Analysis: Mewtwo

 

Background



A super clone commissioned by Team Rocket leader Giovanni and genetically modified from the fossilized eyelash of the Pokemon Mew. Mewtwo is the most powerful Pokemon in the Kanto region and one of the most powerful Pokemon in the series overall.


His creator was named Dr. Fuji, and initially partnered with Team Rocket to revive his daughter Amber in the form of a clone. In fact Mewtwo telepathically reached out to Amber, along with several other cloned Pokemon, during their gestation. Bonding with them during several adventures on a mental plane.


During the cloning process these clones all died. This traumatized Mewtwo and led to him questioning the meaning of his life. These memories were later removed by Fuji, which resulted in Mewtwo gaining a sense of unexplained loss and resentment.


Upon Mewtwo’s awakening this sense of anger and confusion culminated in him going on a rampage. Destroying the lab that created him, along with all its inhabitants.


Surprisingly, Giovanni was still able to manipulate Mewtwo into working for him. Pretending to give him a place where he could belong within Team Rocket.


This didn’t last, and the dissatisfaction over his lot in life and Giovanni’s manipulations eventually led to Mewtwo rebeling. Considering humanity and the Pokemon that followed them equally worthless and planning to destroy the world, then rebuild it under his control with a new cloned race of Pokemon.


It’s not until Mewtwo sees the series protagonist Ash Ketchum sacrifice himself in an attempt to stop his plans, that he reconsiders his stance on humanity. Choosing the end of his conflict peacefully, as well as realizing it’s what you do with the gift of life that matters more than the circumstances that spawned it.


He later appears in Johto watching over his cloned Pokemon. He helps stave off a recapture attempt by Giovanni and then agrees to let his Pokemon go their own way, believing they should have autonomy over their own choices. He also fully internalizes the worth of his life, despite being a clone.


Mewtwo later appears in Pokemon Journey’s, having taken on a role of protector for abused and mistreated Pokemon.


Opinions on humans

Mewtwo’s view on humans eventually evolves into being “distrustful, but willing to put faith into individuals.” He understands they’re complex as a race.


Homes

Mewtwo in the games initially lives in Cerulean Cave. He’s later shown to inhabit cities, lakes, islands and Pokemon Villages.


Pokedex entries

  • PS: Pokedex “A vicious psychic Pokémon created by genetic engineering. Its cold, glowing eyes strike fear into its enemy.” 

  • R/B: Pokedex file https://youtu.be/J1DAeHgUdcs?t=323

  • Y: Pokedex file https://youtu.be/J1DAeHgUdcs?t=628

  • G: “Because its battle abilities were raised to the ultimate level, it thinks only of defeating its foes”

  • S: “It usually remains motionless to conserve energy, so that it may unleash its full power in battle”

  • Cry: “Said to rest quietly in an undiscovered cave, this Pokémon was created solely for battling”

  • R/S: “Mewtwo is a Pokémon that was created by genetic manipulation. However, even though the scientific power of humans created this Pokémon's body, they failed to endow Mewtwo with a compassionate heart”

  • E: “ A Pokémon that was created by genetic manipulation. However, even though the scientific power of humans made its body, they failed to give it a warm heart. “

  • FR: “A Pokémon whose genetic code was repeatedly recombined for research. It turned vicious as a result.”

  • LG: “It was created by a scientist after years of horrific gene-splicing and DNA-engineering experiments.”

  • D: “A Pokémon created by recombining Mew's genes. It's said to have the most savage heart among Pokémon”

  • Soul/Heart: “Because its battle abilities were raised to the ultimate level, it thinks only of defeating its foes”

  • Soul/Heart: “It usually remains motionless to conserve energy, so that it may unleash its full power in battle”

  • Black/White: “A Pokémon created by recombining Mew's genes. It's said to have the most savage heart among Pokémon”

  • X: “It was created by a scientist after years of horrific gene-splicing and DNA-engineering experiments”

  • Y: “A Pokémon created by recombining Mew's genes. It's said to have the most savage heart among Pokémon”

  • Alpha/Omega: “Mewtwo is a Pokémon that was created by genetic manipulation. However, even though the scientific power of humans created this Pokémon's body, they failed to endow Mewtwo with a compassionate heart.”

  • Let’s : “Its DNA is almost the same as Mew's. However, its size and disposition are vastly different.”

  • Sword/Shield: “Created from the DNA of Mew, this Pokémon is a dangerous combination of overwhelming power and a savage heart”

  • Sword/Shield: “The research efforts of a certain scientist ultimately resulted in this Pokémon. Its powers are dedicated to battling”


Trainers

Mewtwo has had several human trainers in multiple continuities. The most famous being Red from the original games.


Cultural differences in personality

Mewtwo’s personality in the english dub of the anime was modified to be more sinister and “dark overlord-ish”. The original Japanese script places much more emphasis on his lack of understanding of his artificial existence and the need to prove himself as “real”, with his subsequent world destroying threats being somewhat of a cosmic temper tantrum.

Arsenal

Cape

A badass cape.


Held Items

Items and equipment that can be held by Pokemon in game. Generally have various support effects.

  • MD: Havoc Robe: Increases the rate of PP usage(energy for special attacks) in an opponent 


Armor

Protective armor created by Team Rocket. It gives Mewtwo some protection in battle, but also suppresses his powers.


Genetic lab and equipment

A genetic lab created by Mewtwo in the first movie. It has worldwide surveillance equipment and technology that can clone living animals within minutes.


Mewtwo Balls

Special Pokeballs that can capture already captured Pokemon. They're even able to capture Pokemon already stored in Pokeballs.


Psywave Spoon

A giant spoon manifested from psychic energy. It can be used as a melee weapon and is capable of slicing through objects. Mewtwo can manifest several at a time.


Extending abilities

The Psywave Spoon can be extended outward to increase its range.


Projectile

The spoon can be summoned in mid air and flung into opponents as a projectile.

Abilities

Berserk Gene

https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Berserk_Gene 

Mewtwo’s genetic material contains the “Berserk Gene”, a cellular agent that induces rage and confusion while increasing power. This was weaponized into the chemical agent R in Detective Pikachu.


Cellular invasion

Mewtwo cells can overtake and kill other living things if they contaminate them. 


Passive Abilities

Passive abilities are passive skills that are always active on a Pokemon.


Pressure: Raises the amount of PP (Power Points) an opponent must use to perform special attacks. Essentially lowering their stamina.


Steamroll: Ensures that any damage dealing moves are not mitigated or nullified by opponent typing or abilities. 


Life Force: Allows the user to slowly regenerate HP over a battle.


General Psychic powers

Mewtwo has powerful psychic abilities. This can be seen from his energy aura in most continuities.


Flight

Mewtwo can fly with his psychic powers.


Energy manipulation

Mewtwo can use his psychic powers to fire balls of energy, call down destructive beams of light and form generic energy beams.


Physical enhancement

Mewtwo can enhance his physical strength and attacks with psychic energy.


Mind control

Mewtwo can control the minds of other people. Including turning organic beings into virtual puppers with no autonomy.


Mind Reading

Mewtwo can read people's minds, including all their memories. He can also insert memories into others.


Memory erasure

Mewtwo can erase memories from Pokemon or humans.


Telepathy

Mewtwo can speak to others telepathically.


Hypnosis

Mewtwo can use his powers to put others to sleep.


Sensing

Mewtwo can sense others with his psychic powers.


Mirage clones

Mewtwo can make illusion copies of himself that explode into energy on contact.


Weather Manipulation

Mewtwo can use his powers to manipulate the weather, causing massive storms and hurricanes.


Petrification

Mewtwo’s powers can petrify and turn others to stone.


Psychic

https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Psychic_(type) 

The Pokemon version of telekinesis. Allows the user to grab and manipulate objects or opponents with psychic power.


Shadow Ball

https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Shadow_Ball_(move)

A Ghost type move. It's a shadowy energy sphere. It has a chance of lowering an opponent's defense on hit.


Rapid Fire

Mewtwo can rapidly fire many Shadow Balls at once.


Encircling

Mewtwo can enshrine himself with hovering Shadow Balls to keep opponents away.


Enlarging

Mewtwo can increase the size of his Shadow Balls to be the size of buildings.


Psywave

https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Psywave_(move) 

A Psychic move that forms a large energy sphere.


Twister ver

Mewtwo can mold the energy of Psywave into a giant twister that can tear opponents apart and deflect minor projectile attacks.


Psystrike

https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Psystrike_(move) 

Mewtwo’s signature attack. Its default form is a powerful psychic energy sphere.


Laser ver

Mewtwo can also mold the energy of Psystrike to make laser beams. These lasers can alter their trajectory mid-flight.


Energy barrier ver

Mewtwo can use the energy of Psystrike to form a barrier that extends outwards to harm foes.


Regeneration

Mewtwo has natural regenerative abilities. In the original radio play he outright dies and his body's healing factor reanimates him. It’s later explained that Mew himself has eternal life and that Mewtwo’s creators emulated that when they created him. He can even survive impalement.


Recover

A move in Pokemon. Heals damage at a more extreme rate.


Healing others

Mewtwo can use his powers to heal others.


Status effects recover

Mewtwo is more resistant to status effects than normal Pokemon and will recover from them quickly. He’s also immune to transmutation/petrification.


Soul manipulation

Mewtwo has the ability to directly interact with and manipulate souls. He does this primarily in Detective Pikachu where he fuses the soul of Harry with his Pikachu to save his life. In the movie adaption it’s stated Mewtwo can only fuse humans and Pokemon, if the Pokemon voluntarily allows it or if the Pokemon is in a mindless/crazed state. Mewtwo can also undo the effect at will.


Teleportation

https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Teleport_(move) 

Mewtwo can teleport himself, others or large objects.


Distance/Range

Targets teleported don’t need to be within eyesight. Mewtwo can also teleport things as large as an island lake.


Dimensional rift creation

Mewtwo can create rifts in space, allowing him to access various pocket dimensions.


Dimension Creation

Mewtwo can also conjure entire pocket dimensions when amplified by enough power.



General Psychic moves

Confusion

Wraps opponents in a psychic aura that flings or flips them. Can cause confusion.


Future Sight: Allows the user to look into the future with a form of precognition and then send a psychic blast attack through a wormhole to strike at an opportune moment in said future.


Psycho Cut

Psychic blade projectiles.


Pysburn

A series of powerful psychic energy beams that rains on opponents.


General offensive moves

Aura Sphere

Uses Aura, aka life energy, to form an explosive sphere of energy. It always hits the opponent when used.


Swift

Creates multiple star-like projectiles. They home in on opponents and never miss.


Submission

A move where the user grabs the opponent and throws them.


Hidden Power

An energy explosion that has random typing. 


Hyper Beam

A powerful normal elemental energy beam attack. Similar to a Kameha in Dragon Ball.


Focus Blast

A fighting type energy attack. The move is charged as an energy shere and thrown. Can lower an opponent's defense on hit.


Drain Punch

A punch that drains energy from an opponent. The HP regen on the user is half the damage dealt.


Fire Punch 

A fire powered punch. Can inflict burn.


Ice Punch

An ice powered punch. Can potentially freeze opponents.


Thunder Punch

An electrical punch. Can paralyze opponents


Elemental moves

Mewtwo has general powers over fire, ice and electricity. He can add those elements into any of his physical attacks.


Blizzard

Creates a torrent of ice that can potentially freeze the target. 


Thunderbolt

Summons a bolt of lighting to strike opponents. Can paralyze the target.


Thunder

Summons a bolt of lighting to strike opponents. Can paralyze the target.


Flamethrower

Summons flames to burn opponents. Can cause the burn status.


Earthquake

Creates a powerful rift in the ground that damages opponents.


Ice Beam

Fires a beam of ice energy that can freeze opponents solid.


Stone Edge

An attack that lifts and flings large projectiles of stone at an opponent.


Support moves

Barrier

Creates a barrier that raises defense and can block attacks.


Counter

Creates a barrier that reflects any physical attack or energy attack back at the sender with double the power.


Rest

Causes the user to sleep and regain HP.


Mist

Creates a mist that prevents any stat reducing moves from taking effect.


Disable

A move that allows Mewtwo to disable a move of an opponent. The effects are caused by some sort of energy wave fire from the eyes. Mewtwo also has multiple moves in the TCG with similar effects.


Protect

Psychic barrier that blocks all damage, debuff, support, etc skills when used. Can fail if used many times in a row.


Power Swap

Switches any offensive status buffs applied between two users.


Guard Swap 

Switches any defensive status buffs applied between two users.


Safeguard

A protective field that protects the user from status effects.


Amnesia

A move that clears the user's head and increases attack power.


Nowhere to Hide 

Raises evasion and critical rate.

  • MDX: Nowhere to Hide!: Raises the user's evasiveness by one stat rank. Raises the user's critical-hit rate by two stat ranks.


Miracle Eye

Removes resistance to psychic type moves. In Pokken it increases the effectiveness of certain attack moves.



Trading Card Exclusive moves

Reflective Barrier

A barrier that reflects attacks and deals equal damage of attack back to the opponent, even if the attack received knocks Mewtwo out.


Psy-Erase

An ability that erases basic Pokemon and evolution cards.


Reflect Shield

A psychic shield that blocks all damage.


Darkness Switch/Damage Change

An ability that switches the damage taken by the user with the damage taken on an opponent.


Psy Barrier

A barrier that nullifies damage not done by an evolved Pokemon.


Super Psy Bolt

An ability that discards all energy from the opponent.


Energy Absorption

Mewtwo can seemingly absorb energy from his environment


Misc Moves

Mewtwo is technically a Pokemon trainer himself and has shown ingenuity with machines. Because of that I will note any interesting TMs, under the assumption he technically has the intelligence to use them.


Misc game moves


Misc Level up Moves:

  • Psych Up: Copies the stat buffs of an opponent.

  • Me First: Copies the move of an opponent with a 50% power increase. The move must be a damaging move. Non-damaging moves will fail to be copied. Does not apply to Z-Moves.

  • Life Dew: Creates water that heals the user and allies.

  • Laser Focus:  A supportive move that makes the next attack a critical hit.


Notable TMS

  • Chilling Water: A water splash attack that lowers the attack power of opponents.

  • Endure: Allows the user to survive any attack with 1 hp.

  • Brick Break: A chop attack that destroys barriers. 

  • Imprison: Surrounds opponent in aura that prevents them from using moves the user also knows.

  • Skill Swap: Swaps “passive Pokemon abilities” with the opponent. May fail with certain abilities.

  • Substitute: Essentially Substitution Jutsu. 

  • Trick Room: Creates a small dimensional space where the faster opponent is slower than the user. Has a definitive range and can be broken with enough force.

  • Gravity: Intensifies gravity, nullifying most forms of flight and levitation.

  • Psychic Noise: Creates powerful sound waves that prevents an opponent from healing with moves, abilities or items.


Z-Moves

Special amplified attacks that use “Z-Power”. These have not been demonstrated to be capable of being performed without a human trainer. Mewtwo’s most likely Z-Move would be Shattered Psyche. Which grabs the opponent with psychic power and flings them into multiple barriers in rapid succession.

Transformations

Mega Evolution

https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Mega_Evolution

A temporary transformation. In the games it’s caused by exposure to a mega stone, an irradiated evolution stone thought to have originated either from space or the firing of a powerful energy weapon. In the games a Pokemon requires a trainer to activate the transformation with a “Key Stone”.  In the anime Mewtwo was shown to be able to Mega evolve on his own, without requiring the aid of a trainer. He also has two Mega Evolutions. Mega Mewtwo Y and Mega Mewtwo X. Mewtwo is explicitly capable of utilizing both in a single battle.


Mega Mewtwo Y

A transformation that makes Mewtwo smaller, while increasing his psychic power and speed. It has a new ability “insomnia”, which prevents the user from falling to sleep.


Mega Mewtwo X

A transformation that makes Mewtwo more bulky and increases his physical strength. Has the ability “Steadfast”, which increases speed when an opponent flinches. Has a powerful punch attack called Psy Disaster in Poken

  • Let’s: “Psychic power has augmented its muscles. It has a grip strength of one ton and can sprint a hundred meters in two seconds flat!”

  • X/Y: Steadfast X: Raises speed when opponent flinches

  • PAd Ch 591 Mewtwo uses Mega Stones. Mewtwo becomes Mega X https://www.gardenhomefuture.com/statuses/1616940.html


Shadow Mewtwo

https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Shadow_Mewtwo 

A shadowy form caused by the Shadow Synergy stone in Pokken. Has increased attack power and a special death ball-ish attack called Dark Nova.


Dynamax

https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Dynamax 

The ability to grow super large by feeding off energy from “power spots”. Typically in-game activation requires a trainer, but some Wild Pokemon can Dynamax on their own in certain locations during Max Raid Battles. Including Mewtwo.

Feats

Strength


Speed


Endurance

Scaling

Statements


Misc Trainers


Misc Legendaries



Deoxys


Sanalago

  • MDX: Mewtwo helps fight Sunalago. Mewtwo helps fight a Pauli who has kept up with various lead trainers and Team Leaders, along with legendaries https://youtu.be/uLZQee2gyrA?t=662 


Zygarde


Creation Trio

Experience

Movie 1 Mewtwo


Training


Movie 16 Mewtwo


Pokemon Adventures


Main Games


Spin-offs


Misc Animation
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