butt-berry:

Seen lots of people (coughgenwunnerscough) say that they think the newer pokemon ‘feel’ different because of their more cute and rounded eye shapes compared to the originals, so I thought I would actually find out what the difference was between generations. ‘Pointy’ and ‘round’ categories were pretty objective but ‘hybrid’ was a more subjective for some cases.

By percentage Gen1 has the most pointy eyes and second-fewest rounded eyes… so I guess in the strict sense they are right? However Gen2 immediately afterwards has the most rounded eyes and near the greatest disparity between major eye types, and I never hear anyone complain about this generation (I personally barely distinguish gen1 and gen2 from each other), so I’m not sure this justification really stands up. There does not appear to be a clear trend for eyes becoming more round and cute as time goes on - generations 3, 4, and 5 are all essentially the same spread and are similar enough to gen1 that they can be considered unchanged throughout, all being within a 5% range of each other.

However, gen7 has shown a rapid increase in hybrid eye shapes and the lowest number of ‘pointy’ and ‘round’ eyes of any generation. Unlike gen1 where 85% of all pokemon are suggested to be either aggressive or cute by their eye shape, gen7 is more nuanced with far more pokemon falling somewhere in between.