Charizard Pokémon

Charizard is a dual fire/flying type Pokemon. It is one of the most popular Pokemon in the entire series, right next to Pikachu. Appearing in both the games as well as having a major role in the Original Series of the anime in the form of Ash’s Charizard and having a number of other anime appearances after the Original Series, Charizard isn’t just popular with fans. The Pokemon Company loves Charizard too and gives it plenty of attention in both the games and shows and even manga.

About Charizard

Charizard’s Base Stats

Appearance of Charizard

Charizard is a dragon-like Pokemon with a long neck, strong jaw, stumpy horns, fangs, and large wings. Its arms are more reminiscent of the arms of a T-rex but its tail goes back to the dragon inspiration, being incredibly long and ending in a tip that has a flame burning upon it. Charizard is almost entirely a red-orange color but its stomach and tail underside are more yellow. The inside of its wings is a dark cyan color.

Behavior of Charizard

Charizard is a very volatile and angry Pokemon. They tend to always have an angry look on their faces and will easily become irritated at anything. When enraged, the flame on Charizard’s tail flares up and gets hotter. And speaking of hot, the fire it spews from its maw is hot enough to turn rock into magma.

In the anime, Ash’s Charizard show’s a lot of the Pokemon’s characterization. It’s irritable, bratty, and picky. While Ash’s Charmander was relatively friendly, when it evolved into Charizard, Ash found that it wouldn’t listen to him anymore. It continued to ignore Ash and be generally aloof and irritable until Ash earned its respect and from then on, Ash’s Charizard was far more friendly and easy to work with.

Strengths and Weaknesses

Charizard is a powerful Pokemon, not just in its stats but also it's typing. Its flying type combats one of the fire type’s main weaknesses, the ground type. Charizard is completely immune to ground-type attacks. It is also resistant against a large swathe of types. It takes only 50% damage from fighting, steel, fire, and fairy type moves and it takes 25% damage from bug and grass type moves.

It still has weaknesses though, with water and electric type moves dealing 200% damage and rock type moves to deal a devastating 400% damage. With fire and flying type moves being weak against hardy rock types, using a bulky rock type is an excellent way to counter Charizard.

Charizard's Evolution

Mega Charizard X

In games with Mega Evolution, a Charizard holding a Charizardite X can Mega Evolve into Mega Charizard X. Mega Charizard X is a dual fire/dragon type Pokemon that resembles Charizard’s shiny form. It's a dark grey color with hints of a lighter blue as well as bright blue flames on its tail and coming from its mouth. Mega Charizard X also has a few spikes on its shoulders and a more spiked design for its wings. And, like all Mega Evolutions, Mega Charizard X has boosted stats, with an emphasis on Attack, Defense, and Special Attack.

Mega Charizard Y

In games with Mega Evolution, a Charizard holding a Charizardite Y can Mega Evolve into Mega Charizard Y. Mega Charizard Y is a dual fire/flying type Pokemon that looks very similar to Charizards normal form. Mega Charizard Y has a lot more spiked shapes in its design, with its horns turned into a three spike crown shape, as well as more spiked wings. As for arms, Mega Charizard Y’s arms seem to lean into dragon design more, looking like smaller wings with no hands but a single spike on the end, closer to the classic design of a drake’s wings rather than a stereotypical dragon. Like all Mega Evolutions, Mega Charizard Y has boosted stats, with a heavy emphasis on boosting Special Attack.

Shiny Charizard

Shiny Charizard is, like Charizard being a popular Pokemon, an incredibly popular shiny form. Shiny Charizard takes Charizard’s base colors and changes them to dark greys and reds. Shiny Charizard’s wings are a deep dark red and the rest of its body is a sleek dark grey, but the fire on its tail remains the same color unlike the color scheme for Mega Charizard X. With any shiny, Shiny Charizard is incredibly rare, being a one in over 8000 chance of appearing. And outside the games, it even has a special Shiny Charizard card valued between 200 to over 1000 dollars!

Ash’s Charizard

Ash’s Charizard is probably the most popular appearance of this Pokemon. Appearing first as a Charmander caught by Ash and then evolving later on in the show, Ash’s Charizard had a distinct personality that caught the attention of many viewers. Ash’s Charizard was very independent and incredibly aloof, not even listening to Ash’s commands until the episode ‘Charizard Chills.’ After that point, Ash’s Charizard became much friendlier with Ash having earned its respect and they became an inseparable powerhouse team for the rest of the Original Series. Ash’s Charizard even rivaled Ash’s Pikachu in popularity.

Possible Movesets for Charizard

Defensive Charizard: This Charizard set is focused on being a specially defensive tank. Able to take hits even from super-effective moves. This moveset is focused more on setup with Dragon Dance to use powerful moves and stalling and support with Will-O-Wisp.

Offensive Charizard: This Charizard set is entirely focused on dealing with damage. Every move is offensive and each one is a different type to ensure a spread of moves to counter single and dual type opponents. This can be paired with another Pokemon that can cause a Sunny Day to deal out devastating one-hit-KOs.

How to Catch Charizard in Pokemon Go

Charizard can appear in the wild in Pokemon Go but is incredibly rare and it's unlikely that most players will find it this way. The best way to get a Charizard in Pokemon Go is to evolve a Charmeleon. It requires 100 Charmander Candy to evolve a Charmeleon into Charizard so catching lots of Charmander as well as having a Charmander or Charmeleon as your buddy to get extra candy is very recommended. Once you collect the 100 candy you can evolve the Charmeleon into Charizard with no other requirements.

Trivia

Charizard is known as the Flame Pokemon, which is the same category as Flareon, Moltres, and Infernape.

Charizard is one of only two Pokemon to have two Mega Evolution forms, alongside Mewtwo.

Until Generation 6, Charizard had almost the exact same cry as Ryhorn. This is a leftover from Generation 1 where many Pokemon shared cries due to hardware limitations.

A species of stem-nesting bees was named after Charizard, being called ‘Chilicola Charizard.’

FAQs

Q. What is Charizard’s Hidden Ability?

Charizard’s Hidden Ability is Solar Power, an ability that boosts a Pokemon’s Special Attack by 50% when in harsh sunlight. However, when out of the sunlight, the Pokemon loses 12.5% of its health every turn.

Q. Why did Ash’s Charizard disobey?

Ash’s Charizard ignored many of Ash’s commands, instead preferring to sleep battles away. However after Ash saved Charizard from being frozen, the Pokemon ‘warmed up’ to him and became much more loyal.

Q. What is Charizard’s Strongest Move?

Charizard can learn three moves with a massive power of 150. Blast Burn, Hyper Beam, and Giga Impact.

Conclusion

Charizard is a complex and beloved Pokemon that gets lots of attention from both the fans and the Pokemon Company themselves. And with such a long history and complex personality, Charizard was destined to capture the hearts of all of us. And on top of that, it's still a competitive powerhouse, being an excellent choice for high power teams.