Poliwrath is a blue, bipedal Pokémon with muscular arms. It has bulbous eyes that protrude from the top of its head. Its belly is covered by a white and black swirl. There appear to be white gloves on its hands, and it has rounded, digit-less feet. It has powerful muscles in its arms and legs that never tire. When it swims, it uses all the muscles in its body, and is able to swim vast distances with minimal breathing. It is even capable of briefly running on the water's surface. Poliwrath, despite being an excellent swimmer, usually lives on dry land near the water's edge.
In the anime
Major appearances
Poliwrath in the anime
Poliwrath's first non-cameo appearance was in Charizard Chills. An expert Trainer named Tad had one and it defeated Ash's Charizard easily when Ash challenged him. Charizard managed to defeat the Poliwrath in a rematch.
In Outrageous Fortunes, Misty challenged another Trainer named Delaney whose main Pokémon was Poliwrath. After seeing it in action, Team Rocket tricked Delaney into giving his Poliwrath to them.
A Poliwrath was one of the Pokémon competing in the Pokémon Sumo Wrestling in Ring Masters.
A Poliwrath was one of the inhabitants of an oasis just for Pokémon in Got Miltank?.
In Pop Goes The Sneasel, a fainted Poliwrath appeared with its Trainer. It was knocked up off-screen after training near the place where the Sacred Fire of Ho-Oh was kept.
Poliwrath's highly developed, brawny muscles never grow fatigued, however much it exercises. It is so tirelessly strong, this Pokémon can swim back and forth across the Pacific Ocean without effort.
Its highly developed muscles never grow fatigued, however much it exercises. This Pokémon can swim back and forth across the Pacific Ocean without effort.
Poliwrath, alongside Smeargle and Articuno, is one of the few Pokémon that can learn an accuracy-focusing move and a OHKO move, learning Fissure by TM27 in Generation I and Mind Reader at level 51 in Generation II. It no longer has the ability to learn both moves, however.
In Generation II and Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver a man in Celadon City has a Poliwrath and says he hopes it will evolve into a frog Pokémon one day. Although the Pokémon he was thinking of is most likely Politoed, it is too late, as it is Poliwhirl that evolves into Politoed when holding a King's Rock, not Poliwrath.
An early design of Poliwrath revealed on Game Freak's official Japanese website circa 1997 depicts it wearing a crown, similar to the King's Rock which is necessary to evolve Poliwhirl into Politoed.
Poliwrath is based on a glass frog. The spiral pattern on its belly is supposed to represent how the organs of these frogs and other tadpoles can sometimes be seen through their transparent skin. It may also be based on amphibian neoteny, as it stays in tadpole form and does not metamorphose into a frog.
Name origin
Poliwrath is a combination of polliwog and wrath (anger).
Nyorobon is a combination of ニョロニョロ nyoronyoro (the sound of slithering) and an alternate reading of 洪 kō (deluge or flood) is hon (relative to bon).
In other languages
Language
Title
Meaning
Japanese
ニョロボン Nyorobon
From ニョロニョロ nyoronyoro and 洪 kō which can also be read as hon or bon