Characters / Monster Rancher Species

Covers the various monster breeds in the Monster Rancher games and anime adaptation. Monster Rancher covers game characters, while Monster Rancher Anime covers the anime cast.

Debuted in Monster Rancher

Ape

• Acrofatic
• Disc-One Nuke: Ape in 2 is this between solid base stats, long lifespan, well rounded growth with Intelligence as only weak stats, and notably a high quality basic techs. Ape's Thwack are one of few basic moves with C damage rating while retaining a good hit rate. Unlike in 1 it was alvailable from the start.
• Dumb Muscle
• Fartillery: Much like Hares, they can weaponise flatulence, and happen to do so even more than they do. It's particularly prevalent in the first game's work and training cutscenes, where they propel themselves on water by farting or knock out intruders with a horrendous anal cloud.
• Heal Thyself: They can produce bananas from Hammerspace to recover in battle.
• Hyperactive Metabolism: Tasty Banana will recover a good amount of health if successfully executed.
• Lazy Bum: They have a reputation from being some of the laziest monsters out there.
• Lightning Bruiser: Bulky, but not slow enough to be considered a Mighty Glacier.
• Magically Inept Fighter: Strong, durable, fairly accurate, and average speed. The Ape's only weak points is their extremely low Intelligence. Ironically, Ape's intelligence-based techs are far more extensive than their power techs in most installments.
• Spoiled Brat: On top of their sloth, several kinds of Ape like Bossy are known to be rather self-centered and in the first game you'll need to combine two spoiled monsters when you use the Magic Banana to get an Ape.
• When All You Have Is a Hammer…: Apes only have a few moves on the power side. In 2, they have 3 power moves excluding basic moves; 2 of them are heavy, and all three of them are essentially varying flavors of strong, inaccurate attacks.

Dino

• The Bus Came Back: After 25 long years since their only appearance as a full-blown breed (and nearly twenty altogether), Dinos finally made a return in LINE Monster Rancher.
• Demoted to Extra: After the original game, they were replaced with the Zuum breed. Occasionally in the later games, they show up as a rare Zuum/??? sub-breed, and were common mooks in the anime.
• Jack of All Stats: Decent power and skill but average stats otherwise.
• Playing with Fire: Capable of breathing fire, and Fire Tackle involves spewing a massive fireball before charging through it and into the enemy.
• Starter Mon: One of the monsters available in the market in the first game, and in the later games beginning with 2, the Zuum breed took over their role.

Disk

• Animate Inanimate Object: It's a living Disc Stone, or possibly the lizard-like pattern seen on Disc Stones. While the two can separate, it isn't clear which part is the monster's main body.
• Came Back Wrong: If the villagers in MR 1 are to be believed, then a Disk is what happens when a Disc Stone's unlocking is botched and only the monster's soul is produced.
• Combat Tentacles: They can spawn several sticklike limbs from their top to grab things, usually used for slamming opponents into the ground.
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Nitons replaced them in 2.
• Died Standing Up: A Disk's disc remains stationary when it dies, only collapsing shortly after the lizard falls to the ground.
• Prehensile Tail: One that's strong enough to grab the several foot tall disc that comprises the rest of its body, spin it around with ease and fling it as a weapon.
• Silicon-Based Life

Doodle

• Blessed with Suck: As if it wasn't already bad enough that most of their techniques have subpar accuracy on average, Doodles are prone to developing the Failure trait in MRA2, hindering their Skill greatly. It doesn't help that several of their moves are Suicidal, meaning that they'll take damage if they fail to strike the opponent.
• The Cameo: One ??? Zan breed in 4 called the Fake Graffiti is said to be a Doodle that took on a new form.
• Captain Ersatz: Nearly everything about this breed is copy-pasted from Tecmo's earlier game Ganbare Ginkun. Doodle looks exactly like the protagonist Gin and Sketch is just the antagonist Gatsugatsu.
• Car Fu: Or more accurately, Motorcycle Fu. Chicken and Chicken Roll happen to be a Doodle's strongest attacks in terms of sheer damage.
• Cheated Angle: Some of their sprites ignore the fact that they are supposed to be flat stick figure beings.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Just try to watch how they handle their daily lives in the first game, especially during jobs.
• Combat Stilettos: One of Doodle's attacks is to spawn a giant high heel from thin air to step on opponents.
• Death or Glory Attack: Known for sacrificing accuracy for power, especially in MRA 2 where several moves are given the Suicidal trait and thus cost life regardless of success. But if those attacks hit, especially Chicken or Chicken Roll, they will wipe a significant chunk of the enemy's health off.
• Detachment Combat: Stomp and Slam Stomp involve a Doodle firing its head like a missile.
• Every Car Is a Pinto: Chicken and Chicken Roll tend to end in massive explosions when they hit their targets.
• Fighting Clown: It may look silly, and it may have a movepool derived from a very trippy arcade game from the mid-90s, but that chicken motorcycle is going to hurt if it hits.
• Giant Foot of Stomping: The aforementioned Stiletto/Heel and its upgraded equivalent Big Stiletto.
• Humanoid Abomination: The white lines on a Doodle's body are their only physical parts. To top it off, they are a byproduct of combining a vandalised Monol, many of which are disguised Magics.
• Hyperspace Arsenal
• Jack of All Stats: Their Intelligence is a bit lower than their other stats and won't grow as fast, but generally speaking they're all around the same level at birth.
• Lethal Joke Character: One of the silliest monsters in the series (and in MRA2 the very last breed capable of being unlocked)...that happens to be the size of a Golem, has one of the higher guts regen rates and gifted with an array of weapons that are just as capable of inflicting horrendous damage as those of most other monsters.
• Line Boil: If you look closely, you can see that the geometry of their body is constantly in slight motion and very reminiscent of this effect.
• Living Drawing: Doodles are physical masses of white lines given life through the supernatural nature of the Monol.
• No-Neck Chump
• Paper People: It's possible that their outlines are the only physical part of their bodies.
• Ruined FOREVER: In-universe, a Monol's fans will not take a drastic decrease (about 50 or so) in fame very well in the first game.
• Secret Character: Both in MR and MRA2, but what makes it so special in the latter is the fact that you need to unlock every single other breed in the game prior to starting its sidequest.
• Use Your Head: Doodles can perform a standard headbutt...or fire off their own heads like a missile to smash into an opponent or deliver mail.
• Vandalism Backfire: A living and breathing example.

Dragon

• Blow You Away: Flutter techs are both strong and accurate.
• Breakout Character: Moo was a ??? species of Dragon in 2. After being used as the Big Bad of the anime, he appeared in several other games, including Battle Card Episode II as a secret card and EVO and Lagoon as the final boss.
• Breath Weapon: Fire.
• Bragging Rights Reward: In Advance, while the Dragon species are not necessarily this, the unique Dragon Diva is definitely this since its only acquired after winning the Emperor Cup with it as the Final Boss. On the brightside, it comes with 255 in every stats at birth, and Fairy Know trait but the game have basically ended at this point. Diva is still unlocked through the same means in Advance 2 although with the way its presented this time around, its closer to a True Final Boss. Regardless Advance 2 have a lot of post game content to use Diva on and it was subsequently nerfed.
• Difficult, but Awesome: In any game featuring them, they are usually one of the most difficult breeds to unlock and their poor Guts/Will generation and short lifespans make them suited for advanced players to start out with.
• Genius Bruiser: Very high power and intelligence.
• Mighty Glacier: Can hit hard and breathe scorching flames, but has sub-par speed and one of the worst guts regeneration rates.
• Playing with Fire: As with most dragons in media, these ones have the ability to breathe fire. Some of their other attacks are associated with fire, and Dragons tend to have the fire element in games with an elemental system.
• Olympus Mons: In-universe, they're regarded as one of the strongest and rarest breeds of monsters. In the majority of games they appear in, unlocking Dragons can be a difficult task that usually requires the player to reach a high rank and raising them can be even more of a hassle due to their short lifespans and tendency to ask for big meals.
• Our Dragons Are Different: And that's not even anywhere close to describing the breeds of monsters who are part-Dragon, assuming draconic appearances in a large variety of ways. Dragons' body structures tend to vary from game to game as well, with some games depicting them with more animalistic builds while some depict them as more humanoid. In the first game, the Dragon Tusk needed to be used with a Dino/Naga and a Naga/Dino in order to successfully create and unlock the breed.
• Power Up Letdown: Despite them being extra unlockable content in most games and being regarded in-universe as one of the strongest breeds, in some games, unless you find the right sub-breed, their poor Guts/Will generation and short lifespans can be drawbacks so large that they end up as one of the weakest. In 2, for instance, they’re considered to be about as powerful as a Mocchi in competitive play.

Gali

• Achievements in Ignorance: Should a Gali screw up the farmwork job in 1, it will transmute the carrots it is attempting to magically dig up into kitchenware.
• A Form You Are Comfortable With: A Gali's cloak and mask are just parts of a puppet - their true form is a draconian spirit. Even then, many Galis are Magics in disguise, although said disguise is mainly for the benefit of the shy Magic.
• Deadly Disc: Galis can use their masks to slash their foes or conjure hurricanes.
• Difficult, but Awesome: While unlocking Gali is usually not a difficult feat to do in most of the games it's featured in, their extensive movepool consisting of technique chains results in the many amount of times required to spam a certain move outside of its basic techniques to unlock a new one. Combined with a very short lifespan, Gali is certainly not a monster for inexperienced players to start out with. Unlocking Gali's true potential might require breeding several generations of it with some of the learnable moves unlocked after combining with a similar monster to lessen its dependency on Errantries.
• Evolving Attack: In 2 Galis Technique chains are some of the most extensive in the game, with all but 4 of its moves being a part of 3 move tech chains and its primary special move being a 2 stage tech chains depending on Nature.
• Gold and White Are Divine: The purebreed Gali and other breeds with the Gali subtype are of a white and yellow color scheme. They're generally seen as heavenly beings, good counterparts to breeds like Jokers.
• Jack of All Stats: In 2, Gali's techniques are extremely well rounded. With one heavy hitting and accurate move for Power and Intelligence each, a basic for Intelligence and Power, and an option on every technique category with a 3 stage tech chains on most of them. A well raised Gali effectively have an option for fighting on either Power or Intelligence side against tanky or speedy monsters with the ability to adjust their technique cost on the fly to match the situation.
• Light Is Good: Has a gold and white color scheme, is good natured, and is implied to be a god incarnate, much like a Xenon. Likewise, its sub-breeds have their dispositions lean toward good. Despite this, they actually do have one evil-natured tech in their arsenal for those looking for a challenge to turn their Galis bad-natured.
• Magic Knight: Notable in that while monsters that have extensive Power and Intelligence techniques are not rare, Galis are one of the few who combine that with a naturally good level of Power and Intelligence stats.
• Our Dragons Are Different: Most Galis are actually ethereal, dragon-like spirits. They tend to conceal themselves within the cloak and mask, usually only materialising when performing attacks. Ironically, it does not have an actual Dragon sub-breed, despite Dragon having its own Gali sub-breed itself.
• Playing with Fire: Capable of spewing out flames from their masks or a manifested limb.
• Shock and Awe: Wielded generally in the context of divine lightning.

Ghost

• Deader than Dead: It's already a dead monster in the first place, but for some odd reason it'll die again when the time comes.
• Death Dealer: To go with its magician motif, it can send cards flying at an opponent.
• Elemental Powers: They aren't utilised in any attacks, but Ghosts have the ability to conjure flames and water with their wands. The only time they're seen doing this is during work, training and travelling to expedition sites in the first game.
• Our Ghosts Are Different: Are they ever. Some Ghosts are the souls of deceased monsters, others aren't; the breed utilises stereotypical stage magician tricks in order to attack, are somewhat akin to balloons in that they can inflate or pop themselves, and their greatest mystery being that they're souls capable of shedding their mortal coils. In the first game, they're described as being undead.
• Put on a Bus: They haven't been seen since 2, likely due to the death mechanic not being in any games after 3 (which already utilised it in a radically different manner to the first two games) with the exception of the DS duology.
• Rubber Man: They're constantly stretching or inflating parts of their bodies.
• Squishy Wizard: While they are known for their good intelligence and very fast guts regen rate in battle, Ghosts tend to lack prowess in life and defense.
• Stage Magician: Most of their attacks are derived from stereotypical magic tricks, with their arsenal being pulled out from their hat - things like cards, doves and a magic wand. Some of their attacks however cross over into Magicians Are Wizards territory, particularly Necromancy.
• Your Head Asplode: Ghosts do this to voice their displeasure.

Golem

• Art Evolution: As the games went on, Golems lost their pharaoh-like features and became more simplistic in design. The rocks that compose their bodies don't even connect most of the time as they once did.
• Critical Hit Class: Golems in 2 had the Brow Hit into Brow Smash move chains that both hit fairly hard with a really high critical hit rate.
• Death or Glory Attack: Diving Press.
• Gentle Giant: Despite their size and imposing appearances, most Golems are placid in nature.
• Golem: ...duh.
• Magically Inept Fighter: Golems' stat-spreads favor their power and defense, and with subpar intelligence they start off as being bad at dealing and taking non-physical attacks. The first game had Golems sport a slightly decent number of Intelligence-based techs, but in 2, they were severely nerfed to have only one Intelligence-based tech in their arsenal, which, while strong enough to be respectable, is considered nothing more than a novelty.
• Mighty Glacier: They have massive amounts of strength and defense at the cost of accuracy and agility, and their guts regeneration rates tend to be awful.
• One-Hit Kill: Essentially specializes in this. Golem's attacks rarely hits, and even its accurate moves usually had low accuracy for their class. On the flip side, almost all of Golem's moves hit ridiculously hard. Golems have far and away the highest amount of raw power of any breed in the series, and their guts cost are criminally cheap relative to how hard it hits. This ended up working out nicely as Golem sub-breeds with higher Guts rate tend to be considered some of the strongest monsters in the games.
• Pulling Themselves Together: Golems have several attacks that involve the rocks that compose their body separating, most prominently Cyclone. They might break apart and reform when they get hit in battle, but they won't when they die.
• Powerful, but Inaccurate: Golem's claim to fame is having obscene damage output at cost of accuracy, which is also reflected in their stats growth.
• Reluctant Warrior: Most Golem breeds tend to be good-natured and are rather averse to participating in battles, thus they receive a penalty to their stat gains after concluding a battle whether victorious or not. A certain few of its other sub-breeds, such as Naga, tend to avert this.
• Series Mascot: One of the six mascots with the franchise.
• Silicon-Based Life: They're all humanoid piles of rocks.
• Tornado Move: Cyclone. Notably Cyclone is classically the Golem's most powerful attack, and in earlier games it was far and away the most powerful attack in the game.

Hare

• Acrofatic Many Hares are a little on the chubby side (careful inspection can reveal how jiggly their torsos are), but they're incredibly agile and can quite literally pack a punch.
• Bare-Fisted Monk: The majority of a Hare's moveset revolves around martial arts.
• Bunnies for Cuteness: Especially in the first several games.
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Sure, quite a few monsters have been completely forgotten by Tecmo nowadays, but nobody really expected them to leave one of the mascots out of MRA.
• Dub Name Change: Known as Hams in the original Japanese.
• Fartillery: Hares can use their flatulence as a technique. It doesn't do much damage, but it can knock off quite a large amount of an opponent's guts.
• Glass Cannon: Hits hard and is quite fast but can't take a hit himself.
• Last Chance Hit Point: Hares usually have the Grit ability, which allows them to survive a fatal blow occasionally.
• Series Mascot: One of the six mascots with the franchise.
• Tuft of Head Fur: Seen on the purebred version and the majority (though not all) of its sub-types.

Henger

• Glass Cannon: Extremely proficient in the offenses, skill and speed, but not so much in terms of life and defence.
• Henshin Hero: Hence the name. In some games, Hengers only exit their UFO form in combat.
• Laser Blade: Their hands are able to project beams of energy that act as swords.
• Meaningful Name: "Henge" means "to change".
• Mechanical Lifeforms: Despite being robotic, they need food and love just like any other monster - this applies to most monster that are part-Henger. They even have souls, visible when they die.
• Olympus Mons: They're considered to be one of the most powerful monsters in the first game, befitting the complex process of unlocking them.
• Rocket Punch: Sometimes with This Is a Drill.

Jell

• Blob Monster: Jells are amorphous, gooey creatures that generally assume a somewhat humanoid appearance. In MR 3, a prequel, their true forms are more like a stereotypical slime creature.
• Gatling Good: Capable of transforming into a gatling gun to attack foes.
• Magic Knight: In 1 and 2 Jell's movepool leans more towards this, with lethal Intelligence techs to attack from the far range, fantastic basic tech and a well rounded set of Power moves to aid it in close range combat.
• Making a Splash: While generally associated with water, they don't generally have a means to weaponise it. The first game does however showcase that they can produce it if desired, and it's safe enough to drink.
• Mighty Glacier: They can soak up hits with their amazing defense and have good intelligence, but are physically weak and sluggish.
• More Dakka: After morphing into a Jellcopter, a Jell will prepare to unload a machine gun into their opponent.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: The Jell's modus operandi.
• You Don't Look Like You: According to the lore, Jell's cute, cuddly 3 form is actually its true self instead of the more familiar humanoid form.

Magic

• Bare-Fisted Monk: If they aren't using their make-believe weapons, Magics have a range of hand-to-hand techniques available.
• Bowdlerise: In the original game their skin tone was dark brown and had oversized feet and hands. In the anniversary rerelease they were recolored to vivid violet, presumably to attempt to erase any slavery implications.
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Magics probably have the worst case of this of any of the original species bar Disks, only being raisable in the first game and making few appearances in the anime.
• Dub Name Change: Originally called Majin.
• Expy: They look suspiciously like Piccolo Jr. and King Piccolo from Dragon Ball, albeit with no antennae and brown (later purple) skin. Their 2D sprite forms look like Saibamen and replacements in Monster Rancher 2 resembles Buu.
• Hu Mons: These guys look even more human than Pixies, the only telltale sign being the pointed ears.
  • Subverted by its official art however which depicts it as a goblinoid as seen in the official trailer of the original game's port for Nintendo Switch
• Jack of All Stats: They have even and decent statgrowth in each of their six stats.
• Shrinking Violet: Magics tend to disguise themselves as Monols or Galis due to their shyness around humans.
• Your Mime Makes It Real: Many of the Magic's attacks involve miming weapons into existence, even uzis for example.

Mew (Nya)

• Art Evolution: Mews became more artificial-looking as the series went on, such as their eyes becoming buttons and their fabric beginning to lose resemblance to cat fur and receiving a more patterned look.
• Absurdly Sharp Claws: They are cats, after all. Twiddling and its variants in particular have a high Sharpness, meaning they'll cause critical hits more often than not.
• Cute Kitten
• Dub Name Change: Originally named 'Nya', same as in Japan; this didn't kick in until 2.
• Eye Beams
• Living Toys: In the Mew's case, a living cat plush. As the series went on, their plushiness did as well.
• Magic Music: Mews are known for their love of singing, and many of their attacks involve it in some way. However, they're better at reducing guts than causing much damage.
• Pokémon Speak: Since the Japanese equivalent of "meow" is "nya", and Mews are called Nya over there...
• Ridiculously Cute Critter
• Shock and Awe: Somehow, these guys are incredibly potent with electrokinesis - in terms of brute force Zap and Maximal Zap are their strongest techniques.
• Spectacular Spinning: The Twiddling techniques, in which a Mew generously deals out a tornado of sharp claws.

Monol

• A Form You Are Comfortable With: Or a form the Monol's comfortable with - some Monols are actually Magics in disguise. Every now and then, usually during battle, you'll get to see a Monol reveal its face or produce some limbs to attack.
• Brown Note: Screech and Sound Wave.
• Combat Tentacles
• Difficult, but Awesome: While they are usually unlocked from the start depending on which game they're featured in, their very short lifespans, bad temperaments, extensive move pool, and the many amount of times required to spam their unlockable moves in order to unlock their related ones make them unsuitable for beginners to start out with. Like Gali, Monol requires several bred generations of it to reach its full potential as a truly capable monster to field in battle.
• Dub Name Change: Monolith was shortened to Monol when the series went international.
• Energy Weapon: The moves Beam and Ray have Monol project energy beams from its center, and its more advanced versions can duplicate two to three copies of itself for increased damage.
• Literally Shattered Lives: Apart from constantly breaking and reforming in battle due to getting attacked, Monols will break apart when they die.
• Loony Fan: Holly suspects that one of these might be the culprit behind a Monol's defacing and subsequent evolution into a Scribble.
• Me's a Crowd: For the advanced equivalents of their attacks, they will usually make copies of themselves to execute them.
• Shout-Out: They're based on the monoliths in 2001: A Space Odyssey.
• Squashed Flat: The move Flattening and its advanced forms have Monol propel itself against its opponent and squash them into a brief, paper-thin state if the attack succeeds.
• Starter Mon: They are available from the start of the game depending on which game they're featured in. Subverted, however, in that their raising patterns can put off beginning players unless they utilize the right methods to train them (in other words, they are Difficult, but Awesome to raise).
• Stone Wall: Figuratively and literally. Defense is its best stat but is as fast as you'd expect a wall to be. In fact, the purebred Monol starts off with the worst speed stats in 2, at a measly 20+.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: Many of their techniques involve forming weapons such as spikes or tentacles. Their faces are usually hidden in their bodies and are usually only revealed when they wish to express emotion or eat. The first game also shows that they have the ability to form text on their bodies in order to serve as a telegram.

Naga

• Beware My Stinger Tail: The attacks that make use of a Naga's stinger tend to be the most painful of its repetoire.
• Blood Knight: The lore claims that Nagas are some of the most violent monsters. This is reflected by their natural affinity of participating in battles, giving them higher stats growth after entering a tournament, regardless of the outcome.
• Boring, but Practical: Naga in 2 is this. Nagas moves are relatively small, with none of them having higher than B force rating. Most of Naga's power comes from the combination of its cheap technique costs with great guts to power ratio, fast animation time, and fast guts rate. Its consideried one of the strongest breed in competitive play, utterly dominating tournaments without Metalner in sight.
• Dumb Muscle: Typically this, but it can be subverted by turning it into a Genius Bruiser if mixed with an intelligent monster like Gali or Suezo.
• Life Drain: Life Steal is tied with four other moves as being a Naga's strongest attack, but it works off their miserable Int, costs a hefty amount of guts and has a terrible hit rate.
• Magically Inept Fighter: Brilliant power and decent life and defense, but known for having some of the worst intelligence gains of all monsters.
• Reptiles Are Abhorrent: Nagas tend to start off with bad personalities, on top of their vicious reputations in battle.
• Rubber Man: Their arms have a large degree of elasticity, best seen when performing work in the first game.
• Snake People: Much like the creature they're named after, Nagas have a humanoid upper body but the lower body of a snake. In this series, Nagas are depicted as having somewhat reptilian facial features as well.
• This Is a Drill: Drill Attack features a Naga utilising their stingers in such a way.

Pixie

• Absurdly Sharp Claws: Their Scratch move in 1 made use of their claws.
• Barrier Warrior: Not utilised as a technique, but Pixies will form an orb of energy to protect themselves, Holly and Karnab from the elements on the way to an expedition site. The part-Monol Silhouette is also perpetually surrounded by a crystal-shaped barrier in the first game.
• Blatant Lies: The Pixie's card entry states that it is powerless in defiance to its popularity.
• Cute Monster Girl: Take away the horns and wings, and most Pixies would be almost indistinguishable from young human women save some unique hair colors.
• Dressed Like a Dominatrix: 2 had a special Pixie named Poison who dressed in black latex and high boots, had opera gloves, and wore a choker. The anime removed the more overt dominatrix themes but still kept her basic look.
• Energy Weapon: The Ray and Megaray techniques consist of lasers fired from Pixies' hands.
• The Fair Folk: Most Pixies are described as mischievous, spoiled, and fickle.
• Fragile Speedster: High Intelligence, Skill and Speed, a marvelous guts regeneration rate, but lacking in the Health and Defense departments. It also has one of the lowest lifespans amongst monsters.
• Heal Thyself: Life Steal and Refreshment. While Life Steal is an Evil technique and true to its name saps some life from the opponent, Refreshment is a Good technique and restores more health than Life Steal, but doesn't cause damage, costs more guts and has a higher chance of failing.
• An Ice Person: EVO gives them icicle-themed magic.
• Kick Chick: Some Pixies skew towards POW moves, with their final kicking move, Heel Raid, being quite strong.
• One-Gender Race: Pixies are female-only, although the Farn species from the third game appears masculine, but it's possible they're still female.
• Pink Means Feminine: Most Pixies and Pixie sub-types follow a red and pink color scheme.
• Playing with Fire: Pixies have got a couple of moves involving spewing flames, but Gigaflame is an Evil technique and Flame Breath is notorious for being difficult to learn if the Pixie in question isn't a Daina.
• Psychic Powers: The extents of which vary from game to game, and more often than not just manifest as energy manipulation. In the first game, they're capable of some degree of telekinesis as shown when working on a farm.
• Series Mascot: It's one of the six mascots of the franchise, but doesn't usually get as much spotlight as the others.
• Shock and Awe: Several of their attacks involve lightning, and in games with elements Pixies are usually associated with electricity almost as much as they are with fire.
• Spoiled Brat: Their in-game memos frequently mention their selfish reputations.
• Star Power: 3, 4, and DS have them use magical fairy dust and starlight to attack, leaving out the fire and lightning moves.
• Stuff Blowing Up: The Pixie's strongest techniques, Bang and Big Bang. They form a pink orb of explosive energy in their hands, and given their high Sharpness, it can easily become a One-Hit KO.
• The One Guy: Assuming they're not just Bifauxnen, Farn appears to be the only male pixie species.
• Winged Humanoid: Unlike what their name suggests, Pixies rarely have insectoid wings like most depictions of the fey. In most cases they have demonic wings or feathered ones.

Plant

• Breath Weapon: Can spew clouds of toxin pollen that are really good at reducing an enemy's guts and generally have high accuracy.
• Bullet Seed
• Green Thumb: Plants usually produce forms of floral life in order to attack.
• Heal Thyself: Several of the Plant breed's techniques allow them to recover health or steal it from an enemy.
• Long-Lived: Plants are tied with Katos and Mocks for having the second-highest lifespans in the series.
• Mighty Glacier/Stone Wall: Huge Life pool, and despite low physical strength can still do some damage in coordination of its presentable intelligence, Cherry Tapping and a surprisingly fast guts regeneration rate.
• Multiple Head Case: While they only have one mouth on their abdomens, the original depictions of Plants have their triad of flowers act as heads and imitating facial expressions much like eyes do at time. Nowadays, it's just one cartoonish flower with massive petals in contrast to the more intricate design of the older flowers.
• Planimal
• World's Strongest Man/World's Best Warrior: The card entry of Queen Plant in Monster Rancher 2 touted it as the strongest monster in FIMBA. This is a reference to Queen Plant's status as a Game-Breaker in the first game making it a notable example of a retroactive example of a lore developed from a Gameplay and Story Integration. Ironically it suffers a heavy Nerf in 2.

Suezo

• Difficult, but Awesome: Amongst the Market starting monster in 2 Suezo are this. Suezos are naturally slow and frail, having the stats growth of a specialist instead of being well rounded, and have a naturally bad nature. On the flipside Suezos are strong in Intelligence and Skill, lining up perfectly with the Meditate Hard Drill allowing it to quickly grows its offensive stats and unlike most breed that performs well in the intelligence side, Suezo started with Spit, a fantastic Basic tech that does damage based on the Intelligence stats. With the right combination, Suezos are commonly considered one of the easiest breed to start with.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: Baby Suezos in the first game had fins that shrunk as they grew older.
• Eye Beams
• Eyes Are Unbreakable: Given that they're basically a giant eyeball on a single leg, they'd be in real trouble if this wasn't in effect.
• Kiss of Death
• Multipurpose Tongue
• Oculothorax: Just an eye on a tail.
• The Prankster: Suezos are infamous for being prank-loving hellions early on in their lives.
• Parody Sue: Sueki Suezo, obtained by using the MR disc in MR2. Said to be an artificial monster, it has 999 Life and Defense, over 300 in every other stat sans Speed which is a measly 1, and has a lifespan of a single week. Its sole purposes are to partake in a tournament for quick cash, especially one of the free-for-all tournaments; or just to use as a lab rat for getting a Ghost, Mock or Wracky. You could even kill two birds with one stone by waiting for the tournament to roll around after the other requirements for the latter two monsters have been met. They can't be fed items either, so peaches can't be used to make them live longer.
• Prehensile Tail: It's safe to say that their tails act more like limbs than they do actual tails given how often they use them to hold things.
• Psychic Powers: The Suezo's specialty - most of their Intelligence-based techniques involve some form of psionics and they are very skilled with telekinesis.
• Psychic Teleportation: Suezos have the ability to teleport as one of their attacks and have Psychic Powers.
• Rubber Man: Their tongues are long and stretchy like a frog's and are quite good at grasping objects or people.
• Series Mascot: The first of many.
• Starter Mon: The best example the series has to offer, practically being available in the market or encyclopedia in every game. They are however only available during the spring in 2.
• Super Spit: They can hock huge globs of spit at enemies, which focus more on reducing guts rather than causing damage.
• Tail Slap: Tail Assault delivers one in the form of a roundhouse.

Tiger

• An Ice Person: Ice Bomb and Blizzard. They're also heavily associated with frigid regions and tend to have the ice element when present in games with an elemental system.
• Breath Weapon: See above.
• Call a Smeerp a "Rabbit": The Tiger isn't a tiger - it's a wolf. And even then, it's not even a normal wolf — it has blue fur, a fluffy mane, and horns. Cue much confusion for the players. For the record, the name is a translation error. The original name sounded a great deal like "tiger" and so it stuck. If translated right, the name (Taiga) would even reference his ice abilities.
• Critical Hit Class: In 2 and most games after 2 Tiger's most well known feature are their critical hit rate. In particular Ice Bomb and Blizzard are some of the most efficient sharp based moves in the game.
• Dub Name Change: One of the most prolific examples in the series. Originally, they were named Rygars in reference to one of Tecmo's older games, but for some ungodly reason were renamed Tigers when the game released overseas.
• Glass Cannon: Tigers tend to hit hard and fast, adept in both power and intelligence. However, they are rather fragile as their life and defense stats aren't high, and they can easily go down in a few hits or so, let alone taking one hit from a sufficiently powerful attack.
• Mighty Roar: Their Roar attack tends to wipe out quite a chunk of the opponent's guts, along with being pretty painful.
• Noble Wolf
• Precious Puppies: In-universe, they're one of the more popular breeds of monsters. The Tiger/Hare mix Rover/Hare Hound is described as being soothingly adorable and is known for invoking I'm Taking Her Home with Me!.
• Series Mascot: One of the six mascots with the franchise.
• Shock and Awe: Tigers can shoot lightning from their horns, and somehow, so can the breeds that haven't got any.
• Starter Mon: Available from the market in the first game. However, in the second game, they are only available from obtaining them as Disc Stones in the local Shrine.

Worm

• Beware My Stinger Tail: Much like their legs, Worms can extend their stingers, the only different being that the latter body part makes an effective weapon.
• Big Creepy-Crawlies
• Evolution Powerup: Worms are notable for being the only monster in the series that has the potential to evolve into another, Monols and Scribbles aside. It usually occurs around the end of June. The Worm needs to be four years old, and a high loyalty is required, amongst several other factors such as minimal fatigue and stress, a balanced nuturing method and not being any higher than B-Rank. It should cocoon and emerge as a random monster with a Worm sub-breed, or if it's been fed several dozen Cup Jellies, into a Beaclon.
• Mighty Glacier: Massive Life pool and their fangs hurt, but they are slow.
• Put on a Bus: Despite their popularity, Worms have only been featured in one game post-MR2, and that was in the now defunct Online/Lagoon.

Debuted in Monster Rancher 2

Arrowhead

• Beware My Stinger Tail: Arrowheads have various techs involving their stings. Some sub-breeds like Joker-subbed and Durahan-subbed Arrowheads can use their tails as scythes or swords respectively.
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: As with many of the breeds introduced in MR2, they did not appear in future installments other than the Advance games.
• Death from Above: Arrowheads can shoot stingers from their tails that grow into meteors which cause massive damage.
• Giant Enemy Crab
• Mighty Glacier: Arrowheads are great in the power and defense departments.
• Starter Mon: One of the several monsters available at the market, and in its case it's one of the seasonal ones.

Bajarl

• A Wizard Did It: During your final ranch upgrade in MR2, Colt will begin to wonder how the local carpenter manages to do his job so quickly and discovers that his Bajarl has a major part in it.
• Bare-Fisted Monk: Bajarl's techs involve various punches and combos.
• "Begone" Bribe: Once his secret is discovered, Binto will give you a Bajarl jar in exchange for keeping quiet and leaving ASAP. It can be used in combining to create a Bajarl.
• Our Genies Are Different: They resemble cartoonish looking genies living from pots instead of the typical Genie in a Bottle from other works.
• Pint-Sized Powerhouse: Bajarls are tied with Wrackies for being some of the smallest monsters in the game (although this is only true when outside of battle). However, they are one of the most powerful monsters when trained properly thanks to their varied move pool.
• Sizeshifter: Bajarls have a tendency to remain at their natural small size outside of battle, only assuming a more muscular form once they are drawn into action.

Baku

• Big Friendly Dog: Big, fluffy, gentle, and their attacks include things like licking, barking, and falling asleep.
• Blow You Away: Gust Breath is basically this.
• Canis Major: Bakus have some canid traits in their body shape, and are one of the largest monsters in the series along with Golems.
• Gentle Giant: In spite of being one of the largest monsters in the series, they're still just as affectionate as puppies. Even the genetics of naturally-abhorrent breeds such as Jokers can't do much to corrupt their temperaments.
• Heal Thyself: Nap is a tech that allows Baku to rest temporarily in battle and recover lost hit points after getting hit.
• Mighty Glacier: As can be expected from their appearances, speed is not their strong suit.

Beaclon/Beaklon

• Big Creepy-Crawlies
• Evolution Powerup: They were originally introduced as one for the Worm breed. While Beaclons can be unlocked from disc stones in MR2, in order to become eligble to raise them you'll need to evolve one from a Worm.
• Inconsistent Spelling: In the Japanese version it is called Beaklon, while the North American version calls it Beaclon.
• Japanese Beetle Brothers: Based on the Rhinoceros beetle.
• Mighty Glacier
• Spotlight-Stealing Squad: Tecmo just about forgot about Worms after these guys were introduced.

Centaur

• Genius Bruiser: Centaur's moveset and statistical growth largely turns it into a frighteningly accurate physical attacker, but its best stats after Skill is Intelligence.
• Glass Cannon: One of the closest direct example to this trope in the series. Centaurs have average life, average power, high intelligence, and very high skill but it was lacking at both defense and, ironically speed. Centaurs are capable of hitting hard, but it's likely fairly fragile and not the best at dodging.
• Mighty Glacier: Closer to this with the Swim Bug, as it now have average defense backed up by their stellar offensive stats.

Color Pandora

• Big Creepy-Crawlies
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: After their introduction, Color Pandoras were redesigned so that each of the three units have their own nose color.
• Inconsistent Spelling: Localisations after 2 tend to transliterate the kana of their name, with Koropendora being the most common.
• Single-Minded Twins: One Color Pandora entity consists of the three units.
• Wonder Twin Powers: Their unique Unity attribute raises your arena speed to A and lowers your guts regen, but was supposed to raise the regen.
• The Worm That Walks: Downplayed, as only three Color Pandora make up a single entity.

Ducken

• Action Bomb: Explosion allows them to turn their torsos into bombs, and they're also capable of spitting out missiles or dropping their lower bodies like bombs.
• "Blind Idiot" Translation: Mistakenly called Dakkung in some games.
• Cast from Hit Points: Regardless of whether or not it hits, Explosion is going to cost a lot of a Ducken's health.
• Competition Coupon Madness: You need to get five specially-marked Cup Jelly lids in order to get the DIY doll needed to create a Ducken. However, you also need the Strong Glue found in Torles to create one capable of being used as a combination seasoning, which is only available after you make your first doll.
• Detachment Combat: They make good use of their segmented bodies.
• Fragile Speedster: In 2 they are naturally this, albeit only partially. Really high speed, frighteningly accurate, average Life, Power, and Intelligence, and very low defense. Since Intelligence and Power contributes towards damage reduction, it is partially a Jack of All Stats.
• Lethal Joke Character: Ducken looks like a string connected toy duck that easilly falls apart, is acquired from a monthly food contest and just generally look ridiculous. Gameplay wise, though they are some of the strongest breed in the game, excelling in Skill and Speed, while also maintaining good offense and acceptable durability thanks to their Life stats. Ducken also features one of the fastest Guts regeneration rates in the game and it's capable of sniping you with pinpoint laser beams, blowing you up with variety of missiles, or just explode in your face for massive damage.
• Lightning Bruiser: With Swim Bug in 2 they fully become this trope, with extremely high speed and accuracy while staying average on everything else.
• Living Toys: A living, wooden duck doll. They look a little bit more lifelike in the anime, though.
• Luck-Based Mission: Getting Ducken in 2 is essentially a long string of luck
• Video Game Cruelty Potential: Enforced - you can't allow your monster to play with the Ducken doll if you want to use it to create the eponymous monster.

Durahan

• Animated Armor: They are ethereal spirits taking the form of animated medieval armored knights.
• Cool Sword: It comes with one and all of its sub-breeds have wildly different variations of it.
• Inconsistent Spelling: The name Durahan resulted from an incorrect transliteration of Dullahan into Japanese, and then back into English.
• Magic Knight: Literally, as despite its name being based on the Irish Dullahan, it takes on the form of an animated armored knight and utilizes both physical and magical attacks at its opponents.
• Mighty Glacier: Great defense and power gains, with the latter stat receiving a bonus boost in one of the training exercises in 2. Pathetic speed is its only real weakness.
• Non-Indicative Name: They might be named after the mythical headless horsemen, but are more or less just spirits wearing full-body human armor.
• Shield Bash: Some of its moves involve bashing its opponents with its shield.
• Shock and Awe: Some of Durahans' techs involve electrically-charged swords.
• Strong and Skilled: Unlike most Mighty Glaciers, Durahan has decent stat gains in Skill. A few of its sub-breeds subvert this, however, turning them into Unskilled, but Strong instead.

Gaboo

• Acrofatic: This breed of mud blob monster just so happens to pack a pair of muscular arms in its sludge pile of a body and the reflexes to make good use out of them.
• Bare-Fisted Monk
• Bicep-Polishing Gesture: Very prone to pulling these, even in the most inappropriate of times.
• Blob Monster: Like Jells, they're a breed of amorphous monsters. However, they tend to be opaque and made of a clay or mud-like substance.
• Demoted to Extra: They wreen't able to be raised between their debut game and LINE Monster Rancher. In MR4, one Gaboo is seen in the story as a boss.
• Face of a Thug: In spite of their gruff faces and affinity for posing, Gaboos are actually quite mild-mannered.
• Lightning Bruiser: Massive Life (sort of balanced by low defense), Power, and Speed make them a nightmare to fight. They have low Skill but will still find a way to hit you. The swim bug allows them to receive obscene boosts to defense, making them even harder to defeat.
• Shrinking Violet: Well-known for their bombastic poses and extroverted aura, but in reality they're quite shy monsters.
• Top-Heavy Guy: Not that they even have legs. A Gaboo will occasionally take a stride around the ranch on their arms.

Hopper

• Bratty Half-Pint: Many Hoppers are noted to be hyperactive and/or major pranksters.
• Fragile Speedster: A Hopper's only good stat at first is its speed. With some training, they'll be able to get their power up almost as easily. Their guts regeneration rate in battle is also very fast, up to par with that of Pixie.
• Lean and Mean: While a certain few of its sub-breeds subvert the 'Mean' part, Hopper is depicted as having a skinny frame and prefers being skinny. In fact, it is a bad idea to make a Hopper gain weight and become obese as this can prove to be detrimental to its Speed stats.
• Lethal Joke Character: Sure, it's fragile as all hell, but a B-Rank Hopper is needed if you want to unlock Niton, Undine and Zilla and the series' Magikarp Power mechanics that even they can prove to be powerhouses when trained correctly.
• Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs: Many of a Hopper's techniques involve rapidly flinging punches and kicks.
• Ridiculously Cute Critter: Hoppers resemble lemurs mixed in with several other mammals.
• Weak, but Skilled: Hopper itself isn't naturally gifted with strength and several of its techniques don't pack as much power when compared to other monsters such as Golem, but it makes up for its deficiencies by being very accurate in its attacks; all thanks to its naturally high Skill parameter.

Jill

• An Ice Person: Since Jills are yetis and associated with snow and northern regions, ice techs are to be expected.
• Bare-Fisted Monk: The techniques that don't rely on cryokinesis usually involve hand-to-hand combat.
• Bigfoot, Sasquatch, and Yeti
• Death from Above: Ice Meteor.
• Genius Bruiser: Jills have high power and intelligence.

Joker

• Always Chaotic Evil: Every Joker breed or sub-breed mentions how evil and destructive it is, and all of its attacks are death-themed.
• Being Good Sucks: You can get a Joker's nature to improve, but in MR2 this comes at the cost of it losing the ability to learn new techniques as long as it remains at or above neutral.
• Blood Knight: Generally regarded as one of, if not the cruel and violent monsters.
• Boring, but Practical: Jokers only have one move each on each category, and doesn't even have a single withering move, but all of its individual moves serves a nice purpose: good damage, acceptable hit rate, and it more than compensates its lack of withering move by having a sizable guts down effect on all of its move allowing Jokers to keep attacking.
  • One of the most powerful competitive build in 2DX is a Joker with only its Basic moves. Death Punch and Death Smash are cheap and efficient for its cost, hits hard enough to contend with errantry acquired moves, with Death Smash being one of few C Rated basic moves in the game, and have really high withering while being relatively accurate for a tech with negative accuracy modifier.
• Dark Is Evil: Has a dark color scheme and is outright wicked (they won't learn anything if their nature's any more benevolent than "Worst".)
• Evil Counterpart: To the Gali.
• Giggling Villain: Most of the noises they make tend to contain laughs.
• The Grim Reaper
• Irony: Jokers have an affinity with death in almost every aspect... including being a member of the lowest lifespan rung.
• Loophole Abuse: Joker in 2 only have a grand total of 4 moves with one being a special type and as noted, it can't learn them with better nature, and normally it can't easilly work around it with combine as combine move inheritance is based on the parent's learnt move. This can be worked around through doing a combine with a parent with different main breed to the result. While move inheritance on same breed to the result is based on the parent's learnt move, different main breed is instead based on the move classification that the parent have learned. By creating a main parent with heavy, sharp, and hit move its possible to creat a newborn Joker that comes with all of its non special moves learned straight off the bat, bypassing any sort of nature requirement in the process. This would also comes with a bonus of much higher starting stats since combined monsters stats results are heavilly influenced by their success rate and different main breed combine generally have abysmal rates.
• Magic Knight: Death Final may be its strongest attack, and it may have a lot of physical moves, but Jokers tend to rise in Intelligence very easily compared to their other stats.
• Monster Clown: The first few games in the series showed their masks as having clown makeup-like markings on them. Regardless, in all of their appearances across the games and the anime these guys are generally depicted as being bloodthirsty, psychopathic and evil.
• Obviously Evil
• Secret Art: The Real ability is exclusive to monsters who are at least a Joker in one way or another. It functions as a Death or Glory Attack since it activates after they manage to cause heavy damage to an opponent, boosting their guts recovery rate, speed and strength, but once it wears off, the inverse occurs for the rest of the battle.
• Sinister Scythe: And it's massive.

Kato

• Absurdly Sharp Claws: Many Kato techniques involve hacking away with their retractable claws.
• The Alcoholic: Or the oilholic, depending on your region. Nonetheless, every other technique in the breed's movepool involved weaponised drinking.
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Katos haven't been seen since 2.
• Fire-Breathing Diner: Oil Fire and Oil Flame both involve a Kato taking a nice swig of whatever flammable liquid is in that bottle and spewing out a massive fireball.
• Long-Lived: You'd think a monster that thrives on detrimental substances would have the lifespan of a Dragon, but somehow, Katos are tied with Mocks and Plants for the second highest lifespans in the game.
• No Body Left Behind: A dying Kato jumps into the air and disappears, with a puddle of oil/booze dropping along with a bottle.
• Secret A.I. Moves: As a result of the international versions being censored, Oil Fire and Oil Flame. You can't learn it, but enemy Katos can.
• Smoking Is Cool: Naturally, this was censored for the international releases as well.
• Wolverine Claws: A Kato's claws aren't normally visible, but they can be extended when attacking is necessary.

Metalner

• Apology Gift: A history book Pabs shows Colt claims that the crystal that they leave behind on their third visit is an apology gift for wrecking the ground where their UFO lands. However, it can't be used as a secret seasoning - in order to unlock Metalners you'll need to take the crystal to the shrine in town. The Metalner that visits you explains that this crystal is a tool designed to allow their artificial Disc Stones to be unlocked.
• But Now I Must Go: Metalners are one of two monsters who fly off into the horizon when they reach the end of their lifespan. It would be nice if they didn't ruin the moment with their haste and silly dance beforehand.
• Came from the Sky
• Clone Degeneration: The Metalner that visits the ranch is able to telepathically communicate with humans, but its clones don't have that ability to do so after obtaining them from the Shrine. This can be Handwaved as an excuse to why their Intelligence stats are terrible and have only one Intelligence-based tech in battle.
• Difficult, but Awesome: Metalners are the best monsters competitively in 2, but raising one is not easy, as they have bad stat gains outside of Skill and Defense, an average lifespan, and start with very low stats. However, they have the absolute fastest Guts regeneration in the entire game and great techs, meaning if trained well they can defeat almost any other monster.
• Hypocrite: The visiting Metalner claims that humans were less intelligent than they thought, to Colt's chagrin. Keep in mind that this is coming from a monster with one of the worst Intelligence stats in the series.
• Magically Inept Fighter: Almost all of Metalner's techs are Power-based and their gains in Intelligence are terrible, unless you mix them with a Suezo or Pixie breed or obtain its unique variant, Chinois, in which their Intelligence gains get bumped up to decent levels at the consequential expense of their Defense gains being reduced to average levels (although its Suezo cross-breed still has above average Defense gains). It is somewhat subverted that all of its techs have some varying amounts of withering damage to drain the opponent's guts in battle. Its lone Intelligence tech, Metalner Ray, however, is a rather potent tech that deals some nasty withering damage to its opponent. Unfortunately, it is counter-balanced by the fact that you must train your Metalner to achieve up to 350 points in Intelligence and have it go bad/worst natured to unlock it, a feat that is strenuous to undergo with a purebred Metalner.
• Mechanical Lifeforms: Their appearance resembles whimsical-looking toy robots with Kachina-style faces and extendable appendages.
• Opening a Can of Clones: The Metalner that visits the ranch explains that a thousand years prior to the game, their race made clones of themselves and sealed them in Disc Stones, which they then left on our world.
• Psychic Powers: The Metalner that visits the ranch in its third visit projects a psychic aura to communicate with humans, which is funny because the breed itself has one of the worst Intelligence stat gains in the game. Their psychokinetic powers are not featured in battle, however. It could be justified, as their clones were born without the ability to project such powers, hence their low Intelligence stat gains and their near-lack of Intelligence based techs.
• Rule of Three: The Metalners will visit three times before leaving a crystal behind as repentance for wrecking the field in your ranch.
• Shout-Out: Their name is probably a mistranslation of Metaluna.
• Stone Wall: Though not too inept offensively as well as possessing massive gains in skill, a purebred Metalner has great gains in defense. Its sub-breeds, however, trade its defense for marginally more intelligence while keeping its high skill parameter, subverting this trope instead.
• Sizeshifter: They can extend and retract their appendages both in and out of battles.
• Twinkle in the Sky: Although they won't do this as they fly off into the wild blue yonder at the 'end' of their life like Phoenixes do, the UFO that they visit in will.
• Weak, but Skilled: Though it is not too deficient in power, most of Metalner's techniques aren't particularly strong compared to other monsters but, like Hopper, it makes up for it by being highly accurate with its attacks when they connect.

Mocchi

• Anthropomorphic Food: In a way. They resemble a combonation of a duck and a piece of sakuramochi. They can even tuck their head and limbs into their body, which helps with many of their attacks.
• Cherry Blossoms: Several of their attacks such as Petal Swirl involve cherry blossom petals, and they're based on sakuramochi.
• Energy Weapon: Mocchi Ray, Mocchi Beam and Mocchi Cannon. These techinques take the form of vivid pink Breath Weapon{s}, with the stronger variants causing the attacking Mocchi to gain a Balloon Belly as it charges.
• Gonk: Mocchis themselves tend to be adorable, but the same can't be said for many other monsters who are part-Mocchi.
• Heal Thyself: Petal Vortex, while its evil equivalent Petal Storm is a Life Drain.
• Hyper-Destructive Bouncing Ball: Mocchis can use their sticky skin to curl up into a ball. This is weaponised through the Press and Roll techniques.
• Incorruptible Pure Pureness: Mocchis are just ''that' sweet and friendly - even Hell Pierrots are stated to be unable to become complete fiends in spite of the Joker heritage.
• Jack of All Stats: A purebreed Mocchi tends to have equal stats all around when born, and without the influence of another breed in their biology they'll continue to grow just as equally. Their guts regen rate in battle is also above average, making them a good choice for beginners.
• Lightning Bruiser: Statistically Mocchi in 2 is naturally this. Being strong in 3 separate stats and not weak in any area, Mocchis have the highest raw stats growth in the game tied with Dragons. Tournament Mocchi enemies in the game tend to have the highest stats total of their respective ranks.
• No-Neck Chump
• Petal Power: Many of their techniques are accompanied by or utilise cherry blossom petals.
• Series Mascot: One of the six in the series, and the most prevalent out of them. Ironically enough, they're the only one out of the lot not to be introduced in the first game.
• Skill Gate Characters: In their introduction in 2. Mocchis had average lifespan and obscene stats growth. Being average at everything, and good at Skill (the most important stats in the game affecting attacks accuracy), speed, and defense which means they are fairly resilient to boot. The Mocchi/Dragon combination in particular had the best stats growth total in the entire game, being good at strength, intelligence, skill, and defense while being average in everything else making it easy to turn it into a tanky offensive monster that is still fairly fast. They are also an always available Market monster. This is offset by their horrendous technique pool giving them mediocre performance in battle. All in all Mocchis are some of the most beginner friendly breed in the game, perfectly capable of using their obscene stats to make finishing the main game a breeze, but they are largely considered really bad for competitive fights and once players figured out how to properly raise a monster, there are vastly better choices of breed in the game.
• Starter Mon: One of the three primary monsters available in the market or encyclopedia ever since their introduction, much like Zuums.
• Sticky Situation: Similar to their namesake, Mocchis have rather sticky skin. Sometimes they'll find enjoyment in tucking their head and arms into their body and blindly running around the ranch.
• Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs: Thrusts.
• Ridiculously Cute Critter: An adorable pink, sticky duck creature that makes noises akin to babies, and is noted to be beloved by many in-universe for their appearances and friendliness.

Mock

• Back from the Dead: Regardless of whether or not it's the reincarnation of the monster that died to trigger its unlocking, your first Mock is highly implied to have been born from a tree that grows and dies in a decade-long sidequest.
• But Thou Must!: In a similar situation to Wrackies, when you obtain your first Mock, you don't have a choice as to whether or not to keep it, or what to name it. Colt gives it the name Gonzales.
• Green Thumb: A twisted version as they are reincarnations of dead trees and attack with nature-based moves.
• Long-Lived: Mocks have some of the best lifespans in the series.
• Put on a Bus: Like many of the species that debuted in 2, they haven't been raisable since.
• Squishy Wizard: Their moveset is heavily based on Intelligence and they have a decent number of withering techs that drain the opponent's guts in battle. Unfortunately, they have very few Power techs and their power, life, and defense gains are below par.
• When Trees Attack: Their moveset is typically based on mutated forms of nature.

Niton

• Combat Tentacles: It uses its tentacles to strike at its opponents.
• Flying Seafood Special: It is based on the real life extinct species of Ammonoids, though in-game, it is somehow capable of floating in the air.
• Old Save Bonus: The only way to get the hidden Niton breeds is to transfer a Disk via slating at the shrine. Good luck getting one of them if you live in the PAL region.
• Shock and Awe: For a sea-based creature, it can dish out some painful electric attacks like Shock.
• Sonic Stunner: The Sound Wave techs project a sonic wave of varying intensity that drains the opponent's guts in addition to dealing damage.
• Stone Wall: Nitons have high defense, while their other stats aren't great.

Phoenix

• Break the Cutie: Colt will not react well to a Phoenix's departure, especially because she knows that they're flying off to die alone.
• But Now I Must Go: Phoenixes fly off into the horizon when the end of their life approaches, and it's pretty obvious that they're struggling to do so beforehand.
• Dying Alone: And completely on their own volition.
• Light Is Good: They are inherently good natured and so are rather easy to raise even for beginning players. They do have one bad/evil-natured tech in their repertoire, though, and it usually isn't worth the effort to turn them bad-natured to learn it.
• Olympus Mons: Sure, the game works on Magikarp Power, but it's still seen like this in-universe. Ironically, it's one of the easiest monsters to unlock in 2.
• Playing with Fire: Most of a Phoenix's attacks revolve around flames and lava. Their plumage is usually depicted as constantly being alight with faint flames as well.
• Resurrective Immortality: It is believed in-universe that akin with the actual phoenix mythos these monsters will be reborn shortly after dying, but how exactly they do so is left undescribed.

Undine

• An Ice Person: Ice Arrow involves them forming a bow and arrow out of ice, while Ice Coffin encases the opponent in a painfully-strong cage of ice.
• Difficult, but Awesome: Undine has a vast arsenal of powerful techs (with most of her moves being Intelligence based), a good guts regeneration rate, and can be one of the best monsters if raised properly, but she starts off with frighteningly low stat numbers, and her lifespan is relatively low compared to other monsters.
• Glass Cannon: Most of Undine's moves, especially her Intelligence-based ones, are powerful enough to bamboozle most opponents in a few hits or so, but she is rather fragile as her life, power, and defense stats aren't high.
• Heal Thyself: The tech Vitalization allows Undine to heal herself in battle, thwarting efforts to defeat her in a match.
• Making a Splash: As befitting of a creature made from water, her attacks are water-based. She also combines this with An Ice Person by adding ice-based techs in her repertoire.
• Our Mermaids Are Different: Undines assume the shape of a traditional western mermaid with the human body and fishlike tail. Additionally, one of the unknown crossbreeds of Undine is called a Mermaid.
• Our Sirens Are Different: Her appearance is based on one, but the Undine/Joker crossbreed makes her even more spot-on with her looks and, appropriately, her sub-breed is even called a Siren.
• Retcon: Undines were reclassed as the Pixie/Lesione mix in MR4.
• Squishy Wizard: All of her powerful techs are Intelligence-based and are her main focus in raising her to be a proper battling monster. On the other hand, her Power-based techs are rather weak and do Scratch Damage to opponents unless you're dedicated enough to raise her Power stats to a respectable level, which isn't recommended as Power is her weakest link and the gains for it are terribly low.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: Not quite to the extent of Jells, however. An Undine can briefly liquefy themselves or change the tip of their tails into a puddle so they can stand.

Wracky

• Action Bomb: Their heads are capable of exploding.
• Ax-Crazy: One of the most violent and sociopathic monsters that is on par with Joker. This is reflected in their disposition in which they start out very bad-natured.
• Badass in a Nice Suit: Upon with bestowing their godly lifespans upon them, most crossbreeds with a Wracky subtype will also gain formal clothing.
• But Thou Must!: Upon being unlocked, Colt will name the Wracky found in the barn Charles without your say in the matter and not allow you the opportunity to surrender it to iMA beforehand.
• Creepy Doll: Colt tries to ditch the Wracky doll you receive in the mail, to little success.
• Evil Redhead: Wrackies are regarded as one of the most sociopathic monsters in the series, born from the grudges of slain monsters.
• Living Toys: Wrackies have the appearance of small wooden dolls and their cards depict them as coming in packaging like action figures. In fact, they are the smallest breed of monster of them all.
• Loony Fan: The only guess as to why a so-called fan would send you a haunted doll as a legitimate gift.
• Long-Lived: Has the longest lifespan in 2.
• Magikarp Power: Even for most monsters, a Wracky's stats are absolutely godawful at birth. However, this may be to make up for the fact that it has the longest lifespan of any monster, capping off at around 13 years.
• Playing with Fire: And those techs hurt.
• Pint-Sized Powerhouse: Despite being one of, if not, the smallest monsters in the game, Wrackies have a very numerous and powerful set of techs for their size, and they boast one of the fastest guts regeneration rates in the game, on par with that of Ducken and Hopper.
• Shout-Out: These guys appear to be based on Chucky from Child's Play. Even better, after your monster dies when you have the doll, the first Wracky you get when it comes to life is named "Charles" by Colt.
• Uncanny Valley: They're seen as such in-universe. Most breeds of Wrackies are known to be highly aggressive and resemble wooden dolls. Colt immediately wants to discard a Wracky doll given to the player as a gift due to how disturbing it looks and proceeds to become even more distressed when it comes back.
• Your Head Asplode: Wrackies can use their heads as makeshift bombs.

Zilla

• The Bus Came Back: Like many breeds introduced in 2, Zillas all but disappeared from the series following their debut. Unlike many of them, they eventually came back in LINE Monster Rancher.
• Death or Glory Attack: Body Press and Wave Riding.
• Kaiju: As their name implies, these guys are based on Godzilla. Gojira is also a portmanteau of the Japanese spelling of gorilla and the word for whale, which may be the inspiration behind the breed's design.
• Making a Splash: Can spew bubbles and cause tidal waves.
• Mighty Glacier: Massive amounts of Power, good Life gains, and average Defense. Poor in Intelligence, Skill (though they gain a small bonus in the Torble Sea errantry, which somewhat alleviates this drawback), and Speed. Their guts regen rate in battle is slow as molasses, making them vulnerable to any opponent with faster guts regen rates and withering techs. Also, if some of their hard-hitting techs miss, they take a very long time to regain their bearings, which can be detrimental to them when facing smarter or fast-paced opponents.
• One-Hit Kill: Surprisingly, Zilla doesn't have as much of these when compared to Golem despite the former being even bigger and taller than its stoneman counterpart, but it still has a few moves that can KO opponents in a single hit, such as Body Press and Earthquake.
• Powerful, but Inaccurate: Like Golem, Zilla has a good number of extremely powerful attacks but they're offset by being badly inaccurate, meaning they rarely connect unless its Skill stats are high enough to counter their disadvantage.

Zuum

• Breath Weapon: Fire.
• Dub Name Change: Originally called Roadrunners.
• Jack of All Stats: A purebreed Zuum starts off with well balanced stats, only skimping a bit in Intelligence gains. Its moveset is also highly balanced with a good number of both Power and Intelligence techs that do equally powerful damage based on how much Power and Intelligence stat numbers it gains after training. Further helping matters is that its guts regen rate is of average speed, making it a truly well balanced monster to raise.
• Lightning Bruiser: Their statspreads tend to favor their speed compared to those of most Dinos.
• Playing with Fire: Zuums' Int techs mostly involve fire.
• Starter Mon: Together with Suezos and Mocchis, they form the triad of monsters available from the market or encyclopedia from the get go in most games.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Zuums practically replaced Dinos ever since they debuted. They make the same sounds and MR4 even lists Dino as being a rare sub-breed of Zuum.

Debuted in Monster Rancher 3

Gitan

• Can't Get in Trouble for Nuthin': Gitans struggle to pull off bad deeds, with most of their efforts ending up being seen as helpful.
• Face of a Thug: Zigzagged - some Gitan breeds are friendly and affectionate, while others are desperately trying to be seen as a serious threat, and most of the ones that are genuinely kindhearted are distrusted.
• Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain
• Ridiculously Cute Critter: Many Gitans loathe their status as this in-universe and are desperate to defy it.

Lesione

• Friendly, Playful Dolphin: Although they don't look like dolphins, their behavior, voice, and attacks are clearly modeled after this trope.
• Jack of All Stats: Like Mocchi and Zuum, its stats are almost perfectly even.
• Stock Ness Monster

Mogi

• Drill Mole: It has some canine features mixed in, though.
• This Is a Drill: It has a giant drill on its head, often using it as a weapon.

Momo

• Does This Remind You of Anything?: There is a reason as to why these tanuki monsters are always holding a giant nut.
• Eyes Always Shut
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: For the Kato breed. Unsuprisingly, they disappeared nearly as quickly.

Ogyo

• Flying Seafood Special

Octopee

• Missing Secret: Thanks to a glitch in the MRA2 passcode system, Octochrome is unobtainable.
• Ridiculously Cute Critter: Octopee's long ears kind of make it look like a dog, and their large eyes contribute to their adorable looks.

Pancho

• Ridiculously Cute Critter: They're a breed of small fairy-like things that live in objects like pumpkins.

Psiroller/Rhinoroller

• Glass Cannon: High power and speed gains, TERRIBLE intelligence and defense gains.
• Spell My Name With An S: Psiroller was a mistransliteration of Sairoller, with whoever translating it forgetting to take into account the Japanese word for rhinoceros.
• Top-Heavy Guy: Massive forelegs for pushing the wheels they wield, but absolutely tiny feet.

Raiden

• Bare-Fisted Monk
• Bird People
• One-Gender Race: Save a couple of female-only crossbreeds, Raidens are strictly male.

Suzurin

• Death or Glory Attack: Suzurins favor risky attack moves with low hit rates, but one hit is all they need.
• Incorruptible Pure Pureness: Its Joker sub-breed is one of the very few that isn't evil or vicious.
• Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: As a species they tend to have high DEF, and when blocking attacks they tuck their bodies under their hat as a shield.
• Magic Knight: Suzurins have several POW moves, but their strongest attacks are INT.
• Too Long; Didn't Dub: The Suzurin species' name is a Japanese pun that doesn't particularly translate well into English, so it stays despite not meaning anything in particular in English. The Suzurin is a monster made out of bells, which also happen to make it look like it's wearing a robe. Its overall outfit resembles a Japanese feudal suzeran lord. That's the first part. The second part is that "suzu" is Japanese for "bell," while "rin" is the onomotopoeia for a bell ringing.

Zan

• Dark Is Evil: Most Zans are evil in nature, and have dark colorations.

Debuted in Monster Rancher Advance

Antlan

• Highly-Visible Ninja: Most Antlans are brightly colored and have very eye-catching mandibles.
• Incorruptible Pure Pureness: Its Joker sub-breed is one of the very few that isn't evil or vicious, and it feels bad for looking scary.
• Japanese Beetle Brothers: Modeled after the stag beetle, with a Tokusatsu theme.
• Kid-Appeal Character: An amalgamation of many common tropes in Japanese children's media, in a Kid Hero sized body. This is even acknowledged in universe in the fourth game's encyclopedia.
• Ninja: Most of their attacks are clearly ninja-inspired. One of the subspecies in Advance is even named "ninja".
• Permanently Missable Content: 4's disc acts as a Pandora Disc, one that produces different kinds of monsters depending on the progress made in the game, and as such some of the rare Antlans it produces will no longer be available after a certain point.
• Scarf of Asskicking: The Antlan Rangers in 4 have them.
• Shout-Out: Very heavily inspired by tokusatsu series like Super Sentai and Franchise/Kamen Rider, and especially prevalent in their rare breeds.

Debuted in Monster Rancher Advance 2

Garu

• Big Ol' Eyebrows
• Character Select Forcing: In 4, Phayne always starts with a Saucer Stone that unlocks into a purebred Garu. While you can retire and replace them with another monster, the tutorial for explorations was designed with one of Garu's abilities in mind, meaning the player could wind up stuck if they don't have a monster with that ability on hand.
• Chekhov's Gunman: A D-Rank Garu is needed to get the chalk in MRA2 to become the Odd Chalk that can be used to create and unlock Doodle via combining... by allowing it to draw on the Monol statue on an expedition.
• Keet: Garus are known for being quite energetic and acrobatic.
• Mascot: For MR 4, where it acts as the Starter Mon.
• Panthera Awesome
• Rewarding Vandalism: Taking a D-Rank Garu to the Monol statue while you have chalk will tempt it to deface the statue and turn the chalk into Doodle's combination seasoning.
• Shout-Out: A number of rare Garus in 4 are Pipo Apes.

Debuted in Monster Rancher 4

Garp

A wise turtle-like monster with an elephant trunk. It first appeared as a statue in 2 before becoming a boss monster in 4.

• Cultural Translation: In Japan, Garp was named Genbu and had a black shell. Overseas, Garp has a spiky green shell.

Madillo

• Mighty Glacier

Ripper

• Absurdly Sharp Claws
• An Ice Person
• Kamaitachi
• Lightning Bruiser
• Mythology Gag: The purebreed Ripper has Moo's color scheme.
• Razor Wind: Apart from being able to pull this off, these guys are based off the kamaitachi, or sickle-weasel in Japanese mythology.

Debuted in Monster Rancher EVO

Mao Mao

A giant bird-like monster you fight as a boss. It formed the basis for the Shigue species in Online.

• Cultural Translation: In Japan, Mao Mao looked like a giant chicken. Overseas, Mao Mao was given a tropical bird design, like a parrot.

Maya

• Panthera Awesome

Piroro

• An Ice Person: They can spawn and throw massive chunks of ice.
• Character Select Forcing: As with Garu in 4, a purebred Piroro is automatically foisted onto players as their first monster in EVO.
• Dance Battler
• Glowing Eyes
• Magical Clown
• Mascot: For EVO, where it debuted.

Debuted in Monster Rancher DS

Abyss

• Evil Counterpart: To Xenons.

Falco

• Gentle Giant

Xenon

• Gold and White Are Divine
• Light 'em Up: The Radius line of techniques has them fire green light at their opponents.
• Light Is Good
• Olympus Mons: They are described as being one of the strongest monsters in existence, supposedly having the power of a god.

Debuted in Monster Rancher Online/Lagoon

• Put on a Bus: None of these guys have been seen since Lagoon shut down.

Antero

• Meaningful Name: Their name is short for 'antelope', which they greatly resemble.
• Shock and Awe: They use thunder techniques.

Globsto

Kikimo

• Asian Fox Spirit: Their design is based off of the mythological kitsune.

Korunu

• Mighty Glacier
• Mix-and-Match Critter: They have the body of an ape but the head and mane of a bison.

Mamou

• War Elephants: It's a giant woolly mammoth.

Mosutoro

• War Elephants: It's a giant mammoth covered in bony plates.

Salamander

• Non-Indicative Name: Despite its name, it appears to be a small hamster covered in white fur.
• Playing with Fire: Salamanders can use fire techniques.

Shignil

• Expy: Of the Dragon and Zuum species.

Shigue

• Early-Bird Cameo: Puns aside, a boss monster that was the basis for the design of the Shigue species appears in Monster Rancher EVO.

Anyamu

• Expy: Of the Mew/Nya species.

Penta

• Expy: Basically, a Penta is what a Mocchi would be like if you removed the sakuramochi motif and based it on a penguin.
• Mythology Gag: These guys are based on the Mocchi/Tiger mix, which was originally called Fake Penguin.

Thine

• Expy: Of the Zan species.

Tianren

• Expy: Of the Undine and Gali species.

Zecca

• Expy: Of the Arrowhead species.

Debuted in My Monster Rancher

Beata

• Bare-Fisted Monk: All puns aside, Beatas are almost as reliant on martial arts as Hares are.
• Expy: Of the Mew/Nya species, who often have bear-related subtypes.
• Shock and Awe

Chuparo

• Ridiculously Cute Critter: It's an adorable baby chick.

Lamour

• Anthropomorphic Food: Like Mocchi's deal with avians and sakuramochi, Lamour's design comes from a mix of a sheep and strawberry shortcake.
• Ridiculously Cute Critter: Lamours' dessertlike appearances and calming auras render them quite popular in-universe.

Debuted in LINE Monster Rancher

Kawazumo

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