10 Least Imaginative Pokémon From Generation I
4. Ekans
It's the word "snake" backwards... that's it. That's all there is to say about Ekans. Next page.
...alright, fine, I'll say more about Ekans:
Ekans doesn't have much that differentiates it from a regular rattlesnake. It's completely fine to base Pokémon on animals, as long as they have characteristics and traits that make them unique from those animals. Take, for example, Beedrill. Beedrill is very clearly a bee, but it has spear-like arms and red eyes that say, "hey, I may be a bee, but I mean business".
But Ekans? Ekans is just a snake.
While its evolution, Arbok, is just a big cobra that spells "Kobra" backwards, it has this menacing purple color and this large, face-like pattern in the scales of its hood. Arbok looks like a genuine "Pocket Monster," while Ekans looks like a regular old garter snake that you found while gardening.