As if the world of Pokémon wasn’t mysterious enough in the original Red, Blue, and Yellow releases (and Green, if you’re from Japan), the developers decided to sneak in one more Pokémon at the last minute, and one that was so absolutely secret that not even Nintendo was aware of it. That Pokémon was, of course, Mew, and although it was mentioned within in-game texts in regards to Mewtwo and its origin, Mew itself was about as untouchable a secret as a secret could be back then. Incapable of being caught my normal means, this Pokémon would actually need to be given to you at official, Nintendo-sponsored Pokémon events.
Of course, you could always cheat to get the elusive critter, but where’s the fun in that? Mew remains a beloved fixture of the Pokémon franchise, even to this day, despite how many years it has been since the series debuted. It’s the most iconic of Game Freak’s hidden, Event-specific Pokémon for a number of reasons, but today we’re going to discuss the general oddities regarding this Pokémon’s body, and the abilities that come from it.
While it looks benign on the surface, there are many secrets and curiosities bubbling within, and with our list of Pokémon: 25 Weird Things About Mew’s Anatomy, we’re going to tackle its most interesting and intriguing aspects of all. We’ll be dealing with general facts about its weight and size along with its overall design. We’ll also be digging into its crazy moves and the abilities that can’t be defined through normal Pokémon standards. Best of all, though, we’ll even dissect Mew’s place in some wild theories!
It Has The DNA Of Every Pokémon Within It
Before Pokémon lore got a little too out of hand with mystical (or perhaps mythical) creatures creating Pokémon, humanity, and their world, the original games kept things simple and unabashedly mysterious. The vague nature of the “Pokémon World” sucked many into its clutches, and Mew was a powerful element of its allure.
Mew is seemingly the origin of all Pokémon, as its body contains the DNA of every last Pocket Monster. Why that DNA took the form of a cutesy, pink thing, we’ll never know, but it’s still crazy to think about.
It’s Small
Mew is only a foot and four inches tall. This is… insanely tiny for a god-like being that apparently contains the DNA of every last Pokémon.
Its appearances in various forms of media somewhat fluctuate from the 0.4 m it’s supposed to be, often increasing or decreasing that value, but Mew has at least always been portrayed as small (and cute, but that’s beside the point.) Despite its small, sweatshirt-pocket-sized stature, Mew is still an incredibly powerful Pokémon, able to go head-to-head with its misguided clone, Mewtwo.
It’s Light… Kind Of
Not only is Mew super small at just a single foot and four inches, it’s also as light as it appears, weighing in at nearly nine pounds, off by a few ounces. Considering Mew’s meager size, it’s minimal weight seems appropriate, but it’s seemingly heavier than one might imagine, depending on who you ask.
While a single pound could be a bag of coffee beans, the nearly-nine pounds of Mew are better off compared to a bowling ball or sack of potatoes. In short, despite Mew’s small size and lithe appearance, it’s a pretty dense creature, which is certainly odd.
It’s Genderless
Mew’s height and weight are curious in their own rights, but like most other Legendary Pokémon, it’s also genderless, making it seemingly one of a kind. Like the rest of the Legendary Pokémon pantheon, Mew can’t breed with others, so it’s not unique in that regard, but the whole genderless things brings up the question of how it even exists in the first place.
Does it have parents? Did it just appear through natural evolution? It’s also apparently capable of giving birth, too, so… yeah, what’s going on here?
No Climate Seems Too Harsh For It
In the few times we’ve seen Mew in the games, films, comics or anime, it’s been in a wide variety of locations with drastically different climates. It seems to have an affinity for frigid mountain ranges (an affinity shared by Mewtwo,) but it’s tiny, fine-haired body doesn’t seem like it could survive those kind of temperatures for long… and yet it does.
It’s also been seen hanging out (and even sleeping) quite casually underwater, and arguably in space (depending on your interpretation of Pokémon Snap) meaning that pressure and/or breathing aren’t things that matter to it.
It Can Fly
Obvious to anyone who has seen Pokémon: The First Movie or even the opening to the Pokémon anime, Mew is capable of flight. Mew is certainly small enough to achieve flight if it were a bird, and it’s weight is less than that of a bald eagle, but it has no wings.
The absence of obvious flight appendages on its body causes us to presume that it’s using its psychic powers for flight. We know that Mewtwo can do the same, and we’ve seen Psychic Pokémon like Abra or Alakazam use their powers to hover, but it’s still impressive.
Viscosity Has No Effect On Its Travel
We mentioned earlier that Mew has been spotted in the depths of water, the vacuum of space and a variety of other locations. We also discussed that its ability to fly (or perhaps move quickly at all) is linked to its psychic abilities.
What we didn’t mention, however, is that fluid or other forces seem to have no effect on its ability to travel. Whether it’s the streamlined design of its body or simply the mastery of psych flight, the ability to defy physics is exceptional.
It Has Cat Characteristics
When you think of a legendary, perhaps even mythical, Pokémon that contains the DNA of every pocket monster in existence, what image comes to mind? If you said cat, you’re lying. But you’d also be right.
Mew’s appearance has a collection of aspects and attributes that appear very similar to the feline friends of our world. Why this is, we dare not make a guess. The most interesting part about the cat look is that it was actually a RE-design for the creature, and its eerie original look is something we’ll be discussing a little later on…
It Can Turn Invisible At Will
Mew doesn’t appear to have a built-in Romulan cloaking device, James Potter’s Invisibility Cloak or even chameleon-like skin, but it’s still able to turn itself entirely invisible at will. A surprising feat for a furry, cat-like creature, Mew’s ability to turn invisible is certainly uncanny.
It could be argued that the “invisibility” is linked to its psychic powers, perhaps blocking its image from the minds of those around it, but then again, who’s to say? It could very well just be a by-product of it having an entire library of Pokémon DNA within its body.
It Can Generate Thunder
Mew might look like a cute and friendly little critter, but be careful; this faux-cat can bite… specifically a bite filled with a devastating electrical charge. On the surface, this doesn’t seem that weird.
Pikachu is small and cute but can shock people with electricity, right? True, but his power comes from little power packs in his cheeks. Mew, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to have anything like that on his body, but it’s still able to calling down Thunder with the best of them.
Mew Can Spew Fire
Mew doesn’t draw the line at making sparks fly. In fact, Mew also has a firebug streak, as it’s more than capable of conjuring scalding Fire Blasts or ensnaring Flamethrowers. With Pokémon like Charizard or Magmar, it’s clear that these are fiery beasts that can harness their natural abilities to ignite their foes, but Mew?
This cotton candy look-a-like nary has a scorched hair on its body, yet it’s still demonstrably capable of belching out a horrifyingly potent flame attack. The fun doesn’t end there, though…
Mew Cover Itself In Iron
Not content with fire and lightning, Mew can, on occasion, simply encase its body or metal and let the blunt force trauma do its dirty work. We’ve seen Pikachu’s Iron Tail in action throughout the franchise, but Mew can make its own tail just as deadly.
Heck, Mew can pull off a powerful Steel Wing attack if necessary… and it doesn’t even have wings. How does one fight against a wingless opponent that somehow encases its non-existent wings in steel? One doesn’t. One gives up.
Mew Can Harness Solar Polar
The iconic Solar Beam, used by the Bulbasaur line and other Grass-types, involves absorbing the energy of the sun into their plant-based bodies and then unleashing it in a powerful beam of light.
Mew, on the other hand, doesn’t bother with having a giant seed on its back or literally being made of grass… it just straight up absorbs sunlight and shoots the beam out anyway, regardless of clearly being a mammal-like creature.
How it’s capable of doing this is anyone’s guess, but we’d assume it can alter its cells to act like leaves, but that’s just us.
Mew Can Weaponize Water
Blastoise is able to shoot powerful streams of water from the built-in cannons on its back. Of course, attacks with self-generated water blasts are common in the Pokémon kingdom, with Totodile and Goldeen being prime examples. But what about a thing that looks like a house cat? Does it look capable of projecting destructive Hydro Pumps from (presumably) its mouth?
Of course not, but unsurprisingly, it totally does. Where Mew gets the vast amounts of water needed for the plethora of water attacks it’s capable of is mystifying at best.
Mew Can Concoct Lethal Poisons
It makes sense to be poisoned by a move like Poison Sting after being bitten or stung by a Bug-type Pokémon. What doesn’t make sense is being badly poisoned by a Pokémon that looks about as poisonous as a cloud in the sky.
Once again, Mew defies all norms and is somehow able to generate vast quantities of poison deep within its body, all with varying degrees of potency and/or lethality. So now you can be paralyzed, burned and poisoned by a giggling cat-like deity. Sweet.
Mew Can Trigger Earthquakes
When Dugtrio causes an Earthquake, we assume it goes under the ground and causes the tremors through physical disruptions. When a Pokémon like Graveler or Golem causes an Earthquake, we tend to imagine it stems from them slamming their immensely dense bodies onto the ground.
But how does the one foot tall, ten pound Mew cause Earthquakes? Somehow or another, Mew must use its brain to generate the shifting of tectonic plates, because we have a hard time believing that its frail-looking arms and legs could be the culprits.
Mew Can Conjure Ice
Mew’s got fire, thunder, water, metal, poison and earthquakes and even solar power under its belt, no matter how unassuming its basic-looking body may appear, but it’s also capable of launching Ice Beams to defeat its foes.
Ice Beam, Articuno’s most iconic attack (and one of the best reasons to treat the Legendary Bird as a tank during Pokémon battles) is easily replicated by Mew through unknown means.
We know Mew enjoys cold mountain tops (along with other extreme environments), so perhaps that’s where it learned how to weaponize the freezing air and coalesce it into a beam.
Mew Knows Pretty Much Every Other Pokémon Move
With its huge collection of elemental attacks and no signs of how, what, where or why regarding how it’s able to conjure them, it should come as no surprise to anyone that Mew is has an unrivaled arsenal of Pokémon moves.
What might come as a surprise, though, is how it’s generally capable of using every Pokémon move in existence. Probably due to all the Pokémon DNA inside its body, Mew is capable of learning nearly every Pokémon move, no matter how outlandish.
Mew is Metronome, but a Metronome that you can control.
It’s Extremely Intelligent
With such potent psychic powers, no one would be shocked to know that Mew is an exceptionally intelligent Pokémon.
While the actual gauge of Pokémon intelligence is a foggy matter (with statements like Alakazam’s brain being as strong as super computer) Mew is seemingly capable of high-level thinking, often on-par or even beyond the scope of the human mind.
This brings up the question of whether Pokémon really are creatures, or if they’re much closer to human beings than they’re given credit, which is a morally troubling thought.
It Has A Superiority Complex
In perhaps the greatest comparison to humankind, the incredibly intelligent Mew is also… shall we say… extremely vain. Vanity and hubris are two of humanities worst qualities, so it’s borderline surprising to know that this innocent-looking Pokémon harbors feelings of superiority against some of its peers.
In the Japanese version of Mewtwo Strikes Back, Mew’s personality is vastly different than what we got in the West. Instead of peace, it hopes to wipe out Mewtwo and his clone army, deeming them as “inferior.”
That’s… pretty intense, honestly.
