Pokémon you didn't expect to like

I never thought I'd like Galvantula, and when I tried my cousin's, I decided to train one myself.

I had the egg in Pokemon White. I was expecting some totally badass pokemon (in other words, I was hoping for Zorua), and it hatched right before the final gym battle. In my head, I was screaming "ZORUA! PLEEEEEAAAASE BE A ZORUA!" Then I saw that I got Larvesta instead. Shocked and dissapointed, I named it WTF. I considered putting her in the box, but since I was technically her mother, I forced myself to raise her. I decided that I might as well give her a better name, so I called her Rin.

Before I knew it, she had become my favorite pokemon in my team.

A prominant Pokemon that I can think of for this thread is Excadrill. At first, I was neutral on it in general, but when I kept losing to it in wi-fi battles, I grew to dislike it. One day, I decided to train my Excadrill to give the species a chance. When I found Excadrill to be useful, I got to like it for its appearance and abilities. In fact, it happens to be one of my favorite ground-types as of now (along with Krookodile and Groudon).

All of my favorite pokemon, I disliked them at first. (Except the 'eons)
Magmar, Jynx, Electabuzz, Croagunk/Toxicroak. Hated.
Magmar for its butthead. Electabuzz for it's unibrow thing. Jynx for her boobs and no-neck. Toxicroak's cry is kinda annoying. (and startled me the first time I heard it. XD)

I got to like Magmar, Electabuzz, and Jynx because I got a Magby, Elekid, and Smoochum from my Pokewalker courses and decided to train them. (Finally.) They overtook my team, and I even ditched my Quilava and a few other favored (at the time) pokes.

Toxicroak, I wanted to make a costume/outfit based on an unusual pokemon, and designed an awesome dress outta Toxicroak. Looked into it, played it, and fell in love. <3

There are a few actually, I just gave them a chance and they proved pretty cool :)

Mr. Mime, Lapras, Primeape, Umbreon, Claydol, Skarmory, Ludicolo, Slaking, Scolipede

There we go ! :D

After I got mad from all the hax in the Battle Subway, I went and trained a Gible to a Garchomp - and LOL, it was awesome. I had never used one before, and it was the first time I ever saw its usefulness.

Dustox

Volbeat

Purrlion/ liepard

Most of the Gen V Pokémon that now occupy my top ten favourite Pokémon list. Dwebble / Crustle, Joltik / Galvantula, Ferroseed / Ferrothorn, Frillish / Jellicent. I didn't expect to like any of them that much, but now I absolutely love them and all four of them are on my current team in White 2 (and I pretty much can't have a team without Crustle and Galvantula any more).

CompoundEyes Galvantula with Thunder / Bug Buzz / Energy Ball / Thunder Wave is always one of the hardest hitters on any team I have.

I actually find myself hoping that X&Y's selection of Bug / Rock / Electric Pokémon isn't too great so I can have Crustle and Galvantula on my team there too. :P

I used to dislike Electivire, but then I saw it in the anime, and now my EV trained one is very fun to use.

I also hated Hydreigon at first since it is uglier than the previous pseudo legendaries, also I'm not particuarly keen on creatures with more than one head. However I realised it had by far the best cry in the game, and Ghetsis' made all of them seem so much more fearsome and awesome.

Durant and Volcarona are some of those from Gen V.

I originally hated Volcarona and thought it was overrated, its OU status seemed stupid to me at the time because of that fatal double Rock weakness. I later tried it out in competitive battles and once it OHKO'ed a fucking Salamence with Bug Buzz after a few Quiver Dances, I knew that I had been partially wrong. I did eventually stop using it because I didn't have time or room for a dedicated spinner though.

I was a Scizor fan when Durant came out so I originally didn't pay it much attention but once I saw that it was in a higher tier than Heatmor, I had a good laugh about it. I then decided to try it out and it exceeded my expectations stunningly, serving as a surprise stop to stuff like Charizard and even Reshiram. It even took out a couple of Heatran with a bit of luck with Stone Edge. I then used it in White 2 and it didn't dissapoint, beating both Ghetsis's and Iris's Hydreigon in one shot.

Outside of Gen V, some new favorites are Electivire and Dragonite. The Shiny Dratini I got from beating the White Treehollow had an Adamant nature and Perfect Attack and Speed IVs and Electivire's coverage has left me very surprised. I'll be using them both for Gen VI.

Fearow, because it looked ugly to me. Now it's one of my favorite bird pokemon. I used to think Gigalith was stupid, but after watching the episode where it had a splinter, I think it's cute now.

Musharna! I thought its evolutionary line was ridiculously creepy but ended up really taking a liking to it for some reason... maybe my friend loving it was one of the causes, I don't know. Now I even have an EV trained one on my team. <3;

Gyarados.
And then, it turned to be my favourite water type.
Also Togetic, Kyogre, Golbat, Sigilyph and probably many others.

I actually have two. Umbreon and Braviary.

Before I was just meh at the eeveelutions, and Jolteon and Espeon were my favorites. Then one fateful night I was training one of my two eevees on Platinum and after the battle it began evolving. Umbreon, I was disappointed to find, had pretty bad attack stats, and for a while it just stayed in my box, until recently, I just found it more appealing and began training it. Weird how that worked out.

As for Braviary, a friend of mine wanted a Zorua, and when I traded him one he gave me a Rufflett. I HATED rufflett before that, but after seeing Braviary in battle I decided it might be worth the effort to try to train one. Now in Black its one of my most powerful. The funny thing is a year before that my brother had traded me a rufflett nicknamed, 'Ruffles', and its still sitting in my box.

Ambipom

When I first saw it, I figured it was just going to be a useless evolution, and be more for comedy than anything else. But I ended up training one, and I have to say I instantly loved it.