Unown

Unown (アンノーン, Annōn, /ʌnˈnoʊn, ˈʌnoʊn/) is a species of Pokémon in Nintendo and Game Freak's Pokémon franchise. Created by Ken Sugimori, Unown first appeared in the video games Pokémon Gold and Silver and most of its subsequent sequels. It has also appeared in various merchandise, spin-off titles, and animated and printed adaptations of the franchise. Unown are hieroglyph-like, thin, black ancient Pokémon usually found on walls. There are 28 forms of Unown: one for each of the 26 letters in the Latin alphabet, a question mark, and an exclamation mark. Unown is a Psychic-type Pokémon, and is not able to evolve.

It was conceived as an alien-like creature, but while designing it, the designers noticed its resemblance to letters in the Latin alphabet, and shifted course. It has received generally negative reception, criticized for being weak, useless, and lacking appeal, with writer Kat Bailey criticizing its gimmick as "silly." It was used as part of a research paper, where they used Unown in order to teach classification and phylogeny to students.