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The first thing you think about when you hear the word “Pokémon” is probably bright, colorful cartoon characters. A bright yellow Pikachu and a cuddly blue-and-white Snorlax, merrily playing on green grass under a clear blue sky. Even a fire-breathing Charizard is a cheerful orange and would probably give you a hug. So it’s a wonderful peculiarity of the franchise that various games and spin-offs have received some of the creepiest, spookiest horror movie-like trailers and ads we’ve ever seen. Following yesterday’s deeply creepy trailer for Pokémon Legends Z-A, we’ve compiled the most unsettling Pokémon commercials from the last few years.
You don’t really have to scratch very deep into Pokémon lore to find the weirdness. In fact, given it’s a game series about capturing wild animals and forcing them to fight, so you don’t even have to scratch at all. But take a look at any Pokédex and you’ll quickly find descriptions that’d have any child concerned about going to sleep at night, and hell, plenty of the Pokémon themselves are self-contained nightmares. With Ghost Type and Poison Type Pokémon a routine part of the games and anime, there’s always a background element of outright strangeness that underscores so many of these gorgeous games. Which is perhaps what The Pokémon Company is tapping into when it so frequently puts out full-on unsettling, even disturbing promotional material.
A lot of these commercials appeared in 2022, ahead of the launch of Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, but there were super-strange “found footage” creations for Pokémon GO as well. And clearly TPCi is still fond of the idea, given the reprisal of the horror-like approach for its latest commercial for Pokémon Legends: Z-A, which both apes Japanese horror games like Resident Evil and also hides creepy easter eggs for ghostly legends from Pokémon‘s past. We’re really hoping to see a whole bunch more of these in the future, either in the run-up to Z-A‘s October release, or as the new Gen X Pokémon are finally revealed for the next mainline entry.
Entertainment news Celebrity gossip Movie and TV show updates Latest celebrity news Trending entertainment stories Zorua doesn’t care that a guy just died
So we begin in October 2021, and the build up to Pokémon Legends: Arceus, with what I still think is the most effectively disturbing effort yet. Completely out of nowhere, the official Pokémon YouTube channel posted the following:
I just cannot celebrate this extraordinary trailer enough. It would have been so easy to go so much less hard, to offer many more clear shots of the snowy landscape, even give us more than a split-second glimpse of those two Snorunt, and then offer some scratchy images of the mysterious Pokémon in question. But someone was brave enough to say “No.” This is full-on VHS artifacting, barely discernible, and as a result so, so much more creepy. And, well, it sure sounds like the guy gets killed at the end.
The next day, all was revealed. The ever-reliable Professor Oak was able to clear up the footage considerably, producing the following:
And it gets better! This could so easily have been a goof, a reveal that actually it was all fine, just made to look spooky because we couldn’t see. In fact, for a while it looks like that’s what we’re getting, with the jolly Snorunt gallivanting in the snow. Perhaps the scream at the end was just him tripping over or something? But no! After Prof. Oak removed the VHS effects layer in Premiere, this second version is somehow more disturbing than the first. Sure, we get the lovely reveal of the brand new Hisuan Zorua and Zoroark, but then the final punch of…who knows what that was?! A giant, terrifying smoke monster, lost from Lost? And he’s definitely still dead. Which makes the cold, uninterested way the Zorua and Zoroark just turn and walk away all the more disturbing.
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A year later, in August 2022, Pokémon GO is about to add Ultra Beasts to the game for the first time. To accompany these, the official POGO YouTube channel begins uploading TikTok-style 20 second videos that seem part found footage, part fever dream. They’re stunningly well made, and so very effective for—appropriately—showing Pokémon appearing in the real world. The first five were compiled here:
By far the best is the Xurkitree. It’s just so utterly frightening, the way it’s clinging to the outside of the building, the guy’s fear, and the creature’s very obviously harmful intent. But I also absolutely adore the reveal in that final Nihilego clip, when you see it’s not just one inquisitive creature, but some sort of mass invasion. (The Buzzwole one is so poor I kind of hate it for being included.) Then later came so many more, including this terrified panic as a Guzzlord breaks through a portal above a busy Japanese street. And check out the arrival of a massive Celesteela in Australia, causing awe and fear. (And crucially, they’re all better than the weird-ass TikTok ad that was about a guy trying to sleep with a Pheromosa.)
Entertainment news Celebrity gossip Movie and TV show updates Latest celebrity news Trending entertainment stories The cute little doggy that plays with you to death
OK, let’s jump forward just one month to October 2022, with Pokémon in full swing revealing more and more new entries in the Gen IX Pokédex. And once again, we have people screaming and disappearing at the end of the clips. It started with a 15-second video called “Ghost-type Pokémon in Paldea?!”
That bait-and-switch with the glimpse of the Gengar and the purple bush is *chef’s kiss*, made all the better for the delicious grin on the mean ol’ ghosty’s face when he properly freaks her out. Once again, more was revealed a day later. This time our brave filmographer has returned to the scene at night, initially spooked as a delightful Mimikyu darts across the path, before then being an awful lot braver in the face of the cheeky Gengar. But there’s something else she’s interested in: a strange purple light on the ground. Suddenly, the creature leaps out from the earth! And it’s a gorgeous little doggy with a purple candle on its back. Yay! Nothing can go wrong, and surely no one’s going to die this time.
Nope, she’s dead. We know this because it turned out the Greavard, as described in the Pokédex, “gradually drains the life energy of those close to it.” But in case you thought this was malevolent, its Scarlet dex entry reads,
“It is said that a dog Pokémon that died in the wild without ever interacting with a human was reborn as this Pokémon.”
Entertainment news Celebrity gossip Movie and TV show updates Latest celebrity news Trending entertainment stories The jar of matcha that just murders a bunch of children
Another year forward, into August 2023, and there’s a surprise new short film added to the official channel to explain the backstory of Sinistea’s new evolutionary form introduced in Scarlet and Violet‘s DLC, Poltchageist.
We already knew that Sinistea had a fairly messed-up existence. It’s literally “the soul of someone who died alone” trapped in a cup of tea, and it’ll do you no good to drink it. Violet‘s Pokédex explains,
“Sinistea gets into your body when you drink it, and then it steals your vitality from within. It also tastes awful.”
Yum! So what about the evolved form? Well, gather around children.
I adore how tonally all over the place this is. It’s an old man telling a story to a group of very young children, that’s then immediately about a guy dying miserable and alone, before going on to talk about a Pokémon that both fixes cracks and poisons people and drains the life from their bodies as an act of revenge. That’s a messed-up thing to tell a bunch of children! But then, the storyteller’s chipped mug is restored, just like in the story! Ah, you think, he’s playing a fun prank on the children, giving them a little spooky scare. But no. No, it’s not that. Is it that Poltchageist has poisoned them all, and now is going to kill them? They sure don’t look very well. But then our friendly little cartoon killer swings by the camera, gives us a wink, and we circle in on him, Looney Tunes-style. The end! Utterly extraordinary.
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And that brings us up-to-date, and to yesterday’s Legends Z-A trailer. Aping games like Resident Evil, the footage ostensibly created to reveal the existence of a Mega Evolved form of Victreebel contains some splendid scares, including an epic jumpscare from that cutest of beasties, Spinarak.
Given the context of the above examples, it’s definitely a big shame this one ends with a “wakka wakka!” explanation of the situation, denuding it of impact. But that’s not before that splendid little burst of frantic freakery in the middle, and that’s valuable.
However, it all took on an even spookier tone when we noticed the ghost girl staring through the window!
Please, Pokémon, keep this sort of stuff coming. We love it. Hopefully there’s something super-spoopy lined up for this October, given that seems to bring out the best in them.
