Nova Daily - 15 November 2025: Eevee

Hi!

In the very first episode of Pokémon, "Pokémon, I Choose You!" we see that Ash arrives late to Professor Oak's lab and almost misses out on his chance to kickstart his journey. He meets Gary Oak, his childhood friend turned rival and Professor Oak's grandson (and my beloved g-pawn). Gary rubs it in that he has a Pokémon while Ash doesn't.

We never learn for certain which Pokémon Gary got from his uncle, but we can make an educated guess. The anime is based on the videogames Red and Blue, but Yellow has a lot of hints to the anime series. In Yellow, you start with a Pikachu that refuses to go inside its Poké Ball, you come across the three starters from the other game in turn, and you're regularly taunted by two Rocket Grunts (Jessie and James) who want to battle you all the time.

After the events in the Orange Island (the second series of the anime), Ash and Gary meet again at Porfessor Oak's lab and have a 1v1 battle in which Ash uses his Pikachu while Gary summons another pre-evolved Pokémon species. Given that this Pokémon is the same as the one that your rival starts with in Yellow, we can reasonably conclude that this is the Pokémon that Gary received from Professor Oak at the start of the journey.

Eevee

Eevee is a Normal-type creature that looks like a bunny with a fur coat. This fluffy Pokémon is so cute that it rivals that of your kittens.

Eevee's species description on PokémonDB is "the evolution Pokémon" (which, for the record, is very different from the scientific theory of evolution). Its gimmick is that it doesn't have a set path in life. Whereas the evolution of several Pokémon is predetermined (Pidgey-Pidgeotto-Pidgeot, or Caterpie-Metapod-Butterfree), Eevee is an open palette. It will evolve under specific conditions that the trainer can provide for.

The first three Eeveelutions (as they're colloquially known) were introduced in Gen-I. These evolutions are a Water type (Vaporeon), an Electric type (Jolteon), and a Fire type (Flareon). When the trainer administers a Water, Fire, or Thunder Stone to the fluffy bunny-hare, it will turn into the corresponding type, which is a process that cannot be reversed. Episode 40, "The Battling Eevee Brothers," is fully dedicated to Eevee, its three evolutions, and the choice that an Eevee trainer faces.

As the videogame and anime series progressed into Gen-II, new Pokémon were introduced. This included the addition of two new Pokémon types (Steel and Dark) as well as two new Eevee evolutions. These are the psychic Espeon and the dark Umbreon, whose names are again a reference to their types: esprit is French for spirit, and umbra is Latin for shadow.

Evolving Eevee into one of these cuties goes through a different route. Yellow came with a new feature: Happiness (or Friendship), which is an in-game mechanic that tracks how well you treat your Pikachu. In Gen-II, the Friendship mechanic was expanded to include all Pokémon, and it affects a fair few things in the games, like attacking power of the moves Return and Frustration, and in a few cases evolution. Golbat could now evolve into a Crobat based on high friendship, and the same happened for the two new Eevee evolutions. Obtaining Espeon or Umbreon from Eevee would require a high level of Friendship, and the time would specifically have to be Day or Night respectively.

Over the course of future generations of Pokémon, three new Eeveelutions have been introduced: two in Gen-IV and one in VI. The Grass-Pokémon Leafeon and the Ice-type Glaceon require Eevee to level up in a specific location, and Gen-VI's Sylveon once again requires high Friendship, but with the extra condition that Eevee know a Fairy-type move when it levels up.

Today, Eevee can evolve into one of eight different evolutions. All of these Eeveelutions end in -eon, which is a funny detail. The reason for this is that at first Eevee was supposed to be named Eon, which would then serve as a suffix to the type that it evolved into. Nintendo decided to change the name into Eevee for several reasons. Whereas "Eevee" is a completely unique name, "Eon" is a word in English that has different meanings and degrees of precise definition depending on the context, but winds up meaning "a very long time" in every case. This has a connection with the theory of evolution: the evolution of a species also takes a very long time and many generations of offspring. They kept that reference to evolution in the form of "Eevee" (a connection that's hard to miss).

I can live with the fact that they haven't created an Eeveelution with each and every one of the different Pokémon types. Eevee is generally a fast and agile four-legged mammal. I'm open to having my mind changed on the matter, but to me it wouldn't immediately make sense to turn Eevee into a Bug, Dragon, Rock, Steel, Poison, Flying, or Fighting type. Maybe Ground and Ghost could be fun. And if they get going with the newly introduced Stellar type, and they'd turn it into a Cosmeon or something alike, I'd like to suggest something to assist its evolution: a Nova Stone.

Game analysis

I felt like a train wreck today. But this is the moment that working anyway counts the most, so I did something anyway.

Here's one of the games that I pointed out yesterday. My homework on this game is half done by this point.