Anime-Bento-Column (or the ABC’s) is a monthly article by Sara Elkhatib and Jojo Mpora. They cover different aspects of their favorite medium: Anime.
Although as children we didn’t have bills to pay or papers to file, we still had life altering decisions to make, and they all involved Pokémon training. Your first day as a Pokémon trainer, you must face the ultimate question, which Pokémon starter should you choose? There are many reasons to choose a starter, looks being the most common, but we’d like to take a closer look at what separates Water, Grass, and Fire types.
First up, the Water-type Pokémon. Water Pokémon super-effect fire, ground, and rock while only being weak to electric and grass. However, Water Pokémon have the ability to learn ice type moves, which give them a step up against grass, making electric types their only full-on threat. Water-type Pokémon typically have strong stats all around, with the exception of speed. So basically, just going off of stats and their type advantage alone they are a pretty amazing type. Aside from their specs, Water-type Pokémon are also just very practical when navigating the Pokémon world. First, they are at a great advantage when wondering caves, easily washing out all the ground and rock types. Second, they can learn some of the most important HMs such as surf, waterfall, dive, and whirlpool. While I would not suggest loading your starter up with HMs because they have so many other amazing move to learn, these HMs prove very useful both when traveling and in battle.
Next is grass! You may be thinking of lush green fields and meadows of beautiful flowers, but just remember: a rose has thorns. Grass-types super-effect water, ground, and Rock-type Pokémon while they are weak to fire, ice, poison, flying, and bug. Although that sounds like a lot, many Grass Pokémon have a secondary type of poison or bug, making their only true enemies fire, ice, and flying. It takes some skill to master Grass-type Pokémon, but if you can develop the correct tactic, they become very challenging opponents. They offer a variety of status-based attacks such as poisoning, sleeping, and paralyzing. You could even just slowly steal the life from an opposing Pokémon with leach seed, while you sit back and drink some tea. The fact that they have so many status-effecting moves makes them very useful when catching other Pokémon. You can just put them to sleep, poison them, use leach seed, or a combination of those, instead of hoping you don’t hit too hard or too little (then accidentally killing this Pokémon you’ve been trying to find for 30 minutes).
Finally, there is Fire! Fire-type Pokémon will super-effect grass, ice, bug, and steel, while being weak to water, ground, and rock. Some Fire-types can learn certain electric type moves, substantially lowering its weakness to water; however, this isn’t common and for the most part there’s no way around fire’s weaknesses. Fire-types are heavy hitters. They are not intended to last through lengthy fights, but rather to come in quick and hit hard, wiping out the opponent in no time. They predominantly rely on direct attack but every Fire-type can learn different moves that will burn the opponent, leaving a lasting impression even if your Fire-type faints. One of the main advantages to choosing a Fire-type Pokémon as a starter is the fact that you will easily blow through the first part of any game (as you walk straight into a grassy area or a forest). The majority of your battles, in general, will take way less time. Chances are you’ll be a wonder every time.
The best trainers will have a wide variety of types within their team. However, a good starter Pokémon is important to begin any journey. They will help you before you have anyone else, and most of the time, your acquired team will be based around your choice for a starter. A well-balanced Water-type, a tactful Grass-type, or a powerful Fire-type – which will you chose?
All images used belong to Nintendo.
A special thank you to http://quirkilicious.deviantart.com for the Cover Photo.
Hush Comics 
Nice write-up on starters! It’s always so hard to choose, but I tend to lean towards Water types. Squirtle was my first-ever Pokemon!