it's not a tail. look at the bottom of mawile's anatomy. notice that mawile has a skirt-like thing going on.
so i took that idea and represented a dress in the design.
agreed, it kinda is floating... well, not so much floating, more alike hovering. yannow... like a spirit? think gardevoir... lol
i don't want to say it floats cus then there's the expectation that it has levitate which would make it SOOO broken in the competitive metagame. invulnerable to fighting, neutral to dark/ghost AND has levitate? that's immediate uber tier.
madusol would definitely be a formidable OU even with the ground weak.
oh no i totally agree that it does look awkward, i don't question that. i think it's hard to visualize that sorta thing when working in GBA dimensions and you don't see the actual sketch work/art.