# 741 - Oricorio
Electric/Flying (Pom-Pom Style)
Psychic/Flying (P'au Style)
Fire/Flying (Baile Style)
Ghost/Flying (Sensu Style)
If you're looking for a Flying-type Pokemon and find Pikipek too boring, why not go with Oricorio? First found at Melemele Meadow in its Electric/Flying Pom-Pom Style, the other three islands each have their own version of Oricorio that can be caught in the wild---the Psychic/Flying P'au Style on Route 6 on Akala Island, the Fire/Flying Baile Style at Ula'Ula Meadow, and the Psychic/Flying Sensu Style at Poni Meadow, though I recall that cannot be ventured to until you clear the Elite Four.
But if you want to use a "fun Pokemon", you can switch Oricorio's form at each island you visit to change it up as you journey as opposed to catching a different one each time. This is accomplished by feeding it colored nectar, the corresponding nectar located in the same area as Oricorio can be caught except for the Pink Nectar which is found at the nearby Royal Avenue, and only during the day. Similarly the Purple Nectar at the Poni Meadow can only be found at night. There are two nectars you can find in each area per day, though you'll only need one of course if you merely want to see each form once.
Apart from the Type difference, which we'll explore more once we touch upon each individual form, each of the four forms are basically the same. They're fairly solid Pokemon, with all of their stats at least 70---their Special Attack is a workable 98 and, amazingly, they're like twice as fast as all the Pokemon we've pretty much covered with 93. That's pretty solid, and they can definitely stay on your team throughout the adventure without dragging you down. The only issue is while they have good Special, they only have like one attack for the longest time that can make use of that---Air Cutter. That's it until the late 30s, and even when factoring in TMs you don't have a lot of options. I mean, in terms of Special moves, there's just Round and Hidden Power. Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon adds Icy Wind too through the Mantine Surf, but while you have a lot of neat support moves in terms of attack Oricorio is gonna be pretty one-note for the longest time.
And that brings us to Revelation Dance, which apart from getting lucky with Hidden Power is the only way for Oricorio to take advantage of non-Flying STAB. It's not learned until Level 40, and other than that Oricorio doesn't learn a single damaging move of any of its primary Types. Revelation Dance is a pretty great move when you do learn it thankfully, which changes to match the primary Type of the Pokemon using it---this is the only time the order of Types actually matters as far as I'm aware. Oricorio is the only Pokemon who can learn it, so barring any trickery it'll either be Electric, Psychic, Fire, or Ghost. It'd be neat if it added an additional effect based on the Type, like a chance of paralysis for Pom-Pom and burn for Baile, but all it really exists for is to actually give these Pokemon a STAB attack other than Flying. Kind of unfortunate until you reach this point, offensively the Type Oricorio changes to is ultimately meaningless.
All the Oricorio also share a unique Ability in the form of Dancer. When another Pokemon uses a dance-based move, Oricorio will use that move as well (provided the original move was successful), and then will use the move you originally selected for it to use---though you can't have Dancer copy a dance-based move that another Pokemon copied with Dancer, if you have two Oricorio out who use Revelation Dance, they'll each use the move twice. Oricorio can learn Feather Dance, Revelation Dance, Swords Dance, and Teeter Dance on its own, while it can copy Fiery Dance, Dragon Dance, Lunar Dance, Petal Dance, and Quiver Dance from other Pokemon. It's worth noting that each Oricorio Style still counts as the same Pokemon, so in official matches you can't use two of them together to spam Dancer.
Competitively, Oricorio doesn't seem to see much use in any of its forms, especially in Singles. It definitely can pull off some interesting combinations in Double Battles with Dancer and the users of the various dances it lacks access to, but it seems it's just not that strong overall for folks to really put a lot of time in experimenting with these combinations based on the lack of much talk about their usage in Doubles. Or maybe people just don't want to use a Pokemon that makes them role-play as Tierno, who nobody likes. Okay, he's popular in Japan, but you can't convince me that's not an ironic meme that ran astray.
In Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, there's a sidequest involving an Actress named Meredith who will battle you with Oricorio on each island near where the nectar can be found, using the island's respective form. Upon beating her all four times, you'll be rewarded with the Swords Dance TM for your Oricorio to make use of.
So while each Oricorio has its own theming going on, the one thing they share in common is that they're all based on the Hawaiian honeycreeper. These Hawaiian native birds come in a variety of species and each have unique beak shapes adapted to drawing out nectar from different flowers, which the Pokemon version of course uses as form changes. The most well-known species appears to be the red 'I'iwi, which Baile Style resembles due to the red-and-black plumage. Despite the fact it's found on the third island in Sun and Moon, it seems to be treated as the default Oricorio by Serebii, Bulbapedia, and Smogon, and comes first in the in-game data as well, so this may be the reason why. I don't think the other forms are necessarily based on any one variety, and Baile's resemblence to the 'I'iwi may be a complete coincidence.
The Oricorio are colored corresponding to the color their native island is named after in Hawaiian---yellow (Melemele), pink (Akala), red (Ula'Ula), and purple (Poni). They match the colors of the Tapu as well, and when they were first revealed it was speculated that their Types also corresponded due to Pom-Pom sharing the same Type as Tapu Koko, who was the only Tapu we knew at the time, though apart from P'au sharing its Type with Tapu Lele this doesn't hold true with Baile and Sensu whose counterparts are Grass and Fairy.
Pom-Pom Style
Electric/Flying
The first Style encountered, Pom-Pom is bright, cheerful, and based on a cheerleader---I guess that's a kind of dance? It can create static electricity by rubbing its pom-poms together, which is cool---I'd say it's my third favorite of the designs, nothing too special about it but nothing offensive. I don't really have a lot to say about the individual forms honestly.
It's considered one of the better Styles competitively, due to Electric not giving it any additional weaknesses (and Flying removing the weakness to Ground), and STAB Electric is nice. By the way, Smogon abbreviates them based on Type, so this would be "Oricorio-E".
It has the biggest role in the show due to being owned by Lillie's butler, Hobbes. It's shown to be a fairly capable Pokemon able to take down Ash's Rowlet and put up a pretty good fight with Pikachu, though it hasn't been seen much outside of those two fights. It'd be neat to see it change forms each time it appeared, but I guess as Hobbes pretty much stays at Lillie's house all the time he doesn't have a chance to get out and change it up.
P'au Style
Psychic/Flying
The second Style encountered, and the most fitting since it's based on a hula dancer. Even though we already had a hula-inspired Pokemon in Bellossom, who wasn't good enough for Sun and Moon. Its name is the Hawaiian word for skirt, and it's said to honor Tapu Lele specifically through its dance which fits as hula dances are traditionally spiritual affairs. While it's the only Style to have an official connection to its respective Tapu mentioned, I kind of figure all the Styles probably have some sort of spiritual connection with the Tapu. I think this form looks pretty lame to be honest, something about the headdress and skirt just bother me.
Oricorio-P (for Psychic) is about middle-of-the road competitively, as its Type adds some extra common weaknesses and for a Psychic-type its Special Attack isn't all that since Psychic-type Pokemon typically have Special Attack that surpasses 100.
In the show P'au is owned by Ms. Anela, a fruit vendor who reappears throughout the show and is a literal saint. I won't hear otherwise, she's pretty much the nicest person in the entire franchise. She's also a traditional hula dancer alongside her P'au Style Oricorio, teaching Mallow's Steene the dance as well as putting on a performance for the Pokemon School. I'm not going to lie, she's kind of hot when she's all dressed up---Anela that is, not Oricorio.
Baile Style
Fire/Flying
The third Style encountered, though seemingly the "default" Style in the eyes of many---probably because it looks pretty rad, especially that sweet Shiny variant. Baile's just the Spanish word for dance, by the way, with it based on a Flamenco dancer. The word "flamenco" has various argued origins, though it's though to have possibly derived from the Spanish word for flame, "flama", and given that it's a quick-paced and hot-blooded style that makes perfect sense. It also makes sense that Baile is a Fire-type, able to create powerful flames through its dance.
Unfortunately it's considered the worst of the bunch competitively, as Oricorio-F (for Fire) ultimately fails considering like every other Fire/Flying Pokemon it has to contend with Steal Rock.
It also has appeared the least in the show, its only "starring role" having it immediately transforming into the Pom-Pom Style while drinking Yellow Nectar. Hopefully it gets a bigger focus in a future episode, perhaps in the Alola League?
Sensu Style
Ghost/Flying
The final Style encountered, in the post-game. Do you like Kanto? Because this Pokemon is all about repping that Kanto, as it draws from traditional Japanese dances as evidenced by its Japanese-style fans, known as "sensu". It seems to be specifically referencing various Japanese-style dances, such as the Bon Odori, in that it draws upon the power of the spirits. Like, seriously, it can straight up summon the dead and use their malice to curse its opponent. Actually all of the Oricorio are kind of jerks in this way as all of them are said to use their dancing to distract their opponent and then attack them when their guard is down, which so isn't cool. But you know what's cool? Sensu Style Oricorio, it comes behind Balie Style in terms of, well, style.
As Smogon knows it as, Oricorio-G is considered a pretty good Style alongside Oricorio-E due to Flying and Ghost being a great STAB combination. Though it has two weaknesses added due to Ghost including Dark-type which means it's susceptible to the common disruptive moves Pursuit and Knock Off, it also has three immunities in total. None of the Oricorio are all that great competitively as mentioned before, but if you want to use one in singles Pom-Pom and Sensu are the recommended ones as they have the best utility on their own without relying on a Doubles partner to pull off funky Dance combinations with.
In the anime, a bunch of them were captured (as in captured with a bag which is "wrong"---though logically it's not that different from a PokeBall) by Team Skull grunts looking to use them in their "Team Skull Paradise", though Ash stepped in and saved the day earning the respect of Poni Island's soon-to-be Kahuna Hapu who previously considered Ash nothing more than a common thief due to a misunderstanding.