Top 10 Pokemon With Types That Don't Make Sense

Welcome to WatchMojo and today we’ll be counting down our picks for the top 10 Pokémon with the wrong type.

For this list, we’ll be looking at the Pokémon with typings that don’t seem to match up with their appearances or abilities.

If there’s a Pokémon you think was mistyped and misplaced from our list, set things right in the comments!

Lucario is a straight-up cool Pokémon. It’s a bipedal blue dog that can beat up its foes and fire aura blasts out of its hands like it’s from “Dragon Ball Z!” But as cool as Lucario is, its typing still leaves many scratching their heads. Fighting makes sense, but Steel?! Which part of its body is metal? The spikes on its wrists and chest? To be honest, the whole aura theme it has feels more like a Psychic type. Granted, Fighting/Steel is a great type to be, but we’d still appreciate it more if it made sense for Lucario.

Early game bird Pokémon didn't have much variety at first. But later entries in the game series have featured more exotic breeds and more unique typings. One case of the former is Toucannon, a toucan Pokémon themed after the artillery it shares its name with. Given the explosive theme it has, and its signature move Beak Blast causing burn damage to those who touch it while it’s charging, you’d think Toucannon would be a Fire/Flying type. But it’s just another Normal/Flying type. And sure, the previous generation had a Fire/Flying early bird, but if they weren’t going to make Toucannon the same type, they should have given it a different theme!

These two Pokémon’s typing has confused fans for decades. Vibrava looks like a bug, while its evolution Flygon looks like a cross between a bug and a dragon. However, both of them share the same typing - Ground/Dragon. Now, granted, their types are likely a play on words, considering they may be based on antlions or sand dragons, which are a kind of dragonfly. However, most people, particularly kids, are just going to look at these two and think - “they look like bugs, why aren’t they bugs?” And we can’t disagree.

This evolutionary line is one of the first complete sets of purely Fairy types to be introduced…that aren’t re-typings, at least. However, that proves confusing to anyone that looks at them. Flabébé and Floette are both tiny fairies who are holding on so tightly to flowers that it’s easy to mistake the plants as being parts of their bodies. Florges meanwhile is more human shaped, but with hair made of flowers and “leg-wings” that look like the leaves of a flower. There are Grass types that look less like Grass types than these three! Even if they’d been Grass/Fairy, that would’ve made more sense!

Solrock is part of a duo with Lunatone and the two Pokémon are themed after the sun and the moon. Given that rock is right there in its name, the Rock type makes sense. But its other type, Psychic, is less applicable. Sure, it floats, but so do a lot of other Pokémon that aren’t Psychic types. Since it learns several Fire moves, it's modeled on the sun, and all of its Pokedex entries talk about how it gives off heat or shines like the star it’s named for, a Fire type seems much more appropriate, in our opinion.

Gyarados and its pre-evolution Magikarp are famously based on a legend of a carp that ascends a waterfall and turns into a dragon. There’s one problem many people have with Gyarados though - it’s not a Dragon type. Instead, it’s a Water/Flying type. Sure, it’s an aquatic creature that can fly through the air, but everything else about it, from its appearance, to its origins, to its moves screams “DRAGON!” We know it’s wrong to judge based on appearance, Magikarp certainly helps teach that lesson, but Gyarados needs to be a Dragon type.

The final stage of one of Sun and Moon’s starter Pokémon, Incineroar is based on a wrestler - it even has a fiery championship belt and a signature lariat move. However, those expecting yet another Fire/Fighting type received a clothesline to the throat when we discovered that fiery battler is actually Fire/Dark. The explanation behind its origins is that it's based on the wrestling “heel” archetype, or wrestlers who play a villainous role. But anyone unfamiliar with wrestling terminology is just going to see a wrestling Pokémon that, unlike every other martial arts inspired Pokémon, isn’t the Fighting type.

This legendary Pokémon is master of the seas. It makes its home in the games on an island, it learns Water type moves, and it’s heavily associated with the storms. Its counterpart, Ho-oh, is its fiery opposite. So, what type is it? Not Water, that’s for sure! Instead Lugia is Psychic/Flying. Sure, it learns some Psychic moves too, but none of its Pokédex entries focus on its apparent Psychic powers. Instead, all of its lore is focused on its status as a force of elemental nature. But, back when Lugia came out, Psychic types were everywhere. Speaking of which…

This Mythical Pokémon may be small, but it’s also tremendously powerful. Resembling a cross between a wood sprite and an alien, Celebi is like a guardian spirit of the forest. However, despite its pixie-like appearance, Celebi is not the Fairy type. Instead, it’s Psychic/Grass. And to be fair, it was introduced before Fairy type was even a thing. However, given that so many older Pokémon were retconned in later generations to become the Fairy type, it’s baffling that they somehow skipped over Celebi, since it looks so much like a fairy!

Psyduck has got to have one of the most misleading names for a Pokémon ever! This Water type Pokémon is famous for its psychic abilities. All the lore about it says that it even gets headaches from its powerful psychic powers! Its evolution, Golduck, continues that trend, with the gem on its forehead purported to use psychic energy, and even resembling the third eye. And yet, neither of these Pokémon is the Psychic type! Unless they’re somehow using their minds to change our memories and their own typings, what’s the deal?!