This Artist Is Reimagining Pokemon As Humans

Pokemon are already plenty expressive despite being unable to communicate using words other than their own name, but that certainly hasn't stopped people from imagining Pokemon as something more. And no, I'm not talking about your fursona or the talking Piachu voiced by Ryan Reynolds in that detective movie we all love.

What I'm talking about is “moe” anthropomorphism, a Japanese term that describes taking non-human creatures or objects and turning them into people. If you've ever played Mass Effect 3, you've experienced a North American version of this when EDI went from ship AI to an actual human-shaped construct. And now, I'd like to present something very similar, but with almost all 151 original Pokemon.

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Reddit user endifi has been on a quest to draw all original Pokemon as people. She first started at least three years ago with Bulbasaur, which you can see here as a little farmer girl wielding a shovel shaped like Bulbasaur's bulb. The whole thing with moe is to take aspects of the object or creature and incorporate them into their personalities or aesthetic, which endifi is extremely good at.

For example, here's Voltorb, which she posted just five months ago. You'd think it'd be pretty hard to turn what is essentially a red and white sphere into a human being but she cleverly portrayed Voltorb as a girl holding a red parasol close to her head while making her bottom half curved white. A somewhat angry expression and a medical mask complete the look.

Her latest, Electabuzz, takes on a unique samurai persona that seems to be largely based on the tufts of fur that come up from the top of Electabuzz's head, very similar to the crests found on a samurai's kabuto helmet.

Although endifi is mostly posted Kanto's Pokemon, she hasn't entirely ignored the latest generation of 'Mons. Here's Tinkatink, Tinkatuff, and Tinkaton from Scarlet & Violet imagined as a particularly violent trio.

And in other Pokemon news, a newly discovered species of cockroach has been named after Pheromosa, the Bug-type Pokemon from Sun & Moon. The researchers said they chose Phermosa because they were big Pokemon fans and because the discovered cockroach has similar features, such as long slender legs, very long antennae, and wings that look like a hood.

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