The trailer for the new
Pokemon Sun and
Moon dropped today, and with it came the announcement of three new adorable starter pokemon.
There's Litten, naturally everyone's favorite because a) it's a cat,
and b) it provides endless fodder for "It's lit!" jokes. Rowlet, an owl
with the body of a
chicken nugget,
that is either wearing a leaf bow tie or a bra. And last and definitely
least, Popplio, a silly clown-seal that fully deserves all of the hate
it is currently receiving on Twitter, because look at this thing:
Rarely does the internet ever agree on anything, but it's unanimous on this front — Popplio sucks.
Bojack Horseman designer Lisa Hanawalt pretty much correctly identified that Popplio is a Miranda:
Webcomic artist
KC Green nobly tried to keep the peace with a flawless
30 Rock reference:
What's most interesting about all of these responses are the very modern
ways we're all reacting to this classic, beloved game of our
childhoods. Pokemon is celebrating its 20th anniversary
this year, which means that those of us who grew up with the iconic
series are now old enough to be on Twitter to make snarky jokes:
And to reimagine pokemon doing very hashtag 2016 things:
Perhaps the most impressive part about all this is the insane speed at which the Pokemon
fandom has churned out their interpretations. The trailer's been out
for half a day and already we're seeing perfect mash-ups and way too
many variants of extremely buff Pokémon evolution predictions:
Lastly, I present to you the most 2016 thing of all: an entire nation thirsting for a brand. Go Canada!
Can you imagine if the internet had been around at the height of the Pokemon
craze? How many memes might have been birthed? How many Twitter fights
we would have gotten into over which pokemon is best? (It's Psyduck, end
of discussion.) Judging from the internet's explosive reaction today,
it looks like we're making up for lost time.