I’m back with a brand new Pokémon act and this time the shackles are coming off. I hope you enjoyed my article on Pokémon Red, Blue and Yellow comics, because this piece is going all out. I’m tackling all of the issues out there from the origins of Pokémon to the very newest iteration of Pokémon Ultra Sun and Pokémon Ultra Moon. Don’t be fooled either. If you think I’m going to repeat jokes, think again. There’s so much more to say. Unsurprising since this series is already over twenty years old. There’s bound to be some skeletons in anyone’s closest after that much time. Plenty to make fun of.

That’s why so many of these comics exist out there. Most of the panels you’re going to read today come from Nerd Rage and VG Cats. Nerd Rage has a pretty diverse roster of covering games, but they always feel so at home when they go after issues in Pokémon. VG Cats, on the other hand, started Super Effective to be an exclusive comic dedicated to the original Pokémon games. It sort of follows a story with Red, Blue, and Green, but it’s also just one issue after another. They’re both fantastic and I hope you like my picks as much as I do. They’re not the only comics in here, but again, the two kings of Pokémon comedy dominate most of this list. And me? Well heck, I’m just along for the ride. They’re good topics to jump off of so let’s get to it!

25 Gender Confusion

Professor Oak is supposed to be the most respected Pokémon scientist in the known universe. That said the mechanics of the game make him out to be a bit, shall we say, naïve. Pokémon began with your trainer always being a guy. You could name him anything you wanted, but it wasn’t until the third generation of Pokémon Ruby and Pokémon Sapphire that you could actually select your gender and it’s been the standard ever since. Retroactively this also meant all the remakes past this also featured this feature including Pokémon FireRed and Pokémon LeafGreen, which were the remakes of the originals. Thus it made Oak sound like quite the fool for asking this question. I know it’s a game mechanic, but it’s still hilarious to point out and done beautifully in this comic.

24 Sleeping On A Theory

Yes, this comic is hilarious, but it’s also a great out for the anime company to fall back on. Why is Ash still ten after the anime has existed for twenty years? Simple. He’s been in a coma this whole time. It all makes sense now. When did this happen? What about the very first episode when Pikachu shocks Ash? Think about it. The anime is too crazy to exist even in a world filled with monsters. It’d explain so much like how Jesse and James can keep coming back episode after episode like some cartoon. Then, of course, there’s the damage everyone suffers from Pokémon attacks and yet they’re fine minutes later. Call it censoring a cartoon so that kids won’t get traumatized, but I’m sticking with my theory.

23 Creepy Tickles

Pokémon Amie was first introduced in Pokémon X and Pokémon Y. Essentially it allowed you to interact with your Pokémon at any time. You could play games with them, feed them, or pet them in order to raise their affection. It became pretty tedious considering how certain Pokémon evolve based on affection, but that’s only if you really cared about collecting every Pokémon. Kind of the point of the game, but whatever. As cute as Pokémon Amie could be there are certain Pokémon I felt uncomfortable touching. Mr. Mime is great example as illustrated above since it is a humanoid-type Pokémon. That’s like giving free jollies to the homeless. Jinx would be another weird one as long as we’re talking about humanoids. Talk about unsettling.

22 Money Money Money

Ok, so I sort of lied. This one is kind of similar in concept to a comic I laughed at before from my previous article. That one was poking holes at the logic of fighting a preschooler along with taking their money. Gaining monetary rewards after a battle is just the thing you do after a battle, or so it would seem. What if, in actuality, your character jabs the winded trainer before running off with their cash? Of course, that may seem silly as you never see that in the games, or anime, but there’s a lot of questions Nintendo and Game Freak censor. Like what people eat as I mentioned before, or the fact that children wander the world endlessly trying to be this chosen one at age ten.

21 Made For Each Other

This next comic fits in perfectly well with the other. It features Alakazam, the evolved form of Kadabra. Now I know it doesn’t make sense when Pokémon evolve into another form with human instruments. Abra goes into Kadabra with one spoon and Kadabra into Alakazam with two. Why do they need spoons anyway? Well here’s your answer. It was all a large ploy to finally have Alakazam duke it out with the awfully designed Vanilluxe. It’s literally just a pile of unsettling, unappealing ice cream with two heads, or more like two mounds that form heads. Hey Nintendo, Game Freak. I know you’ve been doing this for a while, but seriously. Come up with better Pokémon!

20 Trim That Bush

Pokémon can be encountered in the wild a variety of ways, but the most common method is through tall grass. Even though Pokémon still clings to random encounters twenty years later when the rest of the RPG genre has abandoned it, they soften the blow with tall grass. That is to say, you will not encounter monsters on a normal road. I guess I’m still okay with that especially since repel potions exist, but it is still strange. I mean why not just trim the trails? I’m sure the world of Pokémon has some equivalent to a cleaning department in order to upkeep nature, right? Isn’t it kind of dangerous to keep tall grass around for non-Pokémon trainers? Do you want kids attacked? For the safety of all of mankind trim that bush!

19 Early Adoption Blues

The Game Boy Advance boasted SNES plus powered graphics, which was amazing at the time. The only problem was that you literally could not see the screen even with the brightest lights above you. I had to play that thing like it was attached to my face like a pair of glasses. That’s barely an exaggeration too. Third party companies made a mint off of light peripherals for the thing and even though they all sucked we bought into them because the games were just that good. We suffered for Nintendo’s gems. Eventually, Nintendo fixed the issue by releasing the superior Game Boy Advance SP with a led backlit screen. You think that was the end of supporting non-lit screens? Nope. The original DS also had no lights until the remodeled DS Lite edition. WTF Nintendo.

18 Needless Gestures

Have you ever done a random gesture hoping it’d somehow make you better at a game? I did it all the time as a kid like when I would flip my controller while trying to make a hard jump as if that would work. In that same vein of useless motions there are also some urban legends when it comes to button prompts in games. As the comic suggests, holding down the A and or B button on your Game Boy hoping it would lock a Pokémon in the Pokéball. Sorry, that didn’t work then and it doesn’t work now. So why do I still do it? I was playing Pokémon Ultra Sun recently and I caught myself doing it, but I still held on. Some things are just built into our lizard brains and will never leave.

17 Pokémon In Real Life

Here’s something I think about on a regular basis. Do normal animals exist in the Pokémon universe? If they don’t then what do people eat? Pokémon? I know some like Farfetch’d are known as delicacies, but that seems so wrong. I know for sure they aren’t vegetarians the way Ash and his gang eat on the anime. I’ve seen meat on that show! So does hamburger come from Tauros and Miltank? It oddly keeps me up at night. On a similar note what if Pokémon were real? Could I just capture my cat in a Pokéball and call it a day? I never did this growing up since my family didn’t keep pets, but I bet other kids tried throwing Pokéballs at animals in the hopes it’d somehow work.

16 So Cute, Bye Bye

The Day Care Center first appeared in Pokémon Gold and Pokémon Silver. If you leave Pokémon with them they’ll gain experience depending on the number of footsteps you take. If you leave two Pokémon behind of the opposite gender, sometimes they’ll make an egg. In order to create something more powerful, you need a good strategy. For example, if you want to create the ultimate Squirtle with amazing stats and a great move set then pairing a female Blastoise with a male Blastoise may be a great idea. This is what those obsessive trainers do with EVs as I mentioned earlier. What if that Squirtle isn’t as powerful as you want? What happens to the baby then? Well, here’s your answer. They just drown it out back for you.

15 I Want Candy

Rare Candy has existed since the very original games. Giving it to your critters will level them up by one, which is a great way to boost your team. It’s not the perfect method though. Simply leveling them up with Rare Candy will negate their battle experience so their stat increases won’t be as significant as if you leveled them up normally. That’s what the hardcore community says anyway, but I’m not sure if it makes a difference. Anyway, I did this in the original Pokémon games though, using the MissingNo. duplicating item trick. Infinite Rare Candies without a cost? Heck yeah, my dumb twelve-year-old brain said. Now, my Pokémon didn’t turn into beefcakes like the Bulbasaur up above, but they should have. These are basically steroids after all.

14 The Great Mouse Detective

Great Detective Pikachu was probably the most surprising spinoff next to Pokémon Conquest when it was announced for the 3DS back in 2016. Even though it was never confirmed for a North American port, many fans started a petition to get Danny DeVito to voice Pikachu in the localized version. It was so loud that the actor even commented on it. Sadly, the game still isn’t out here and yet plans for a film are already in the works. Shockingly, Legendary Pictures went with Ryan Reynolds to voice Pikachu. Huh? Danny DeVito, or death. Only he can solve gruff crimes like this. Now Great Detective Pikachu is, of course, more about mysteries than murders like in this comic, but still, Ryan Reynolds is a weird play.

13 Old Man Pokémon

This may be me, but Pokémon is the simplest concept to grasp. All you have to do is deplete a Pokémon’s HP into the red, or use some sort of status effect to weaken it so you can then capture it with a Pokéball. Watching the anime basically taught me that before I even played the game. You’re even given Pokéballs before Viridian City to catch Pokémon with and yet in order to get to the Viridian Forest, you have to listen to the ramblings of an old man. Dude, I already caught Pokémon. Look! I know how this works. It’s one of those tutorials you can’t skip that has persisted through every game since. Can’t you just put it in a manual? Kids are smart nowadays.

12 Squirtle’s Body Issues

Okay so I’m going to repeat another topic from my first comic run and that’s the issue surrounding moves. Before I complained about restraining Pokémon to only have four moves in the games when the anime doesn’t follow the same rules. I also sort of touched on this comic’s joke before, but I’ll elaborate more. Why can’t elemental Pokémon just use their element’s power? For example, let’s take Squirtle as he is in the comic. He doesn’t start with Water Gun or any water-based moves. Seriously? He’s a water type turtle for crying out loud. Moves, in general, don’t make a lot of sense, but hey, if you need to follow the rules then there are backdoor ways to use attacks. Just use that finger Squirtle.

11 Breeding Buddies

Brock’s backstory in the Pokémon anime is a bit unsettling. His father left him and his brothers and sisters alone to become a Pokémon trainer. The mother is never mentioned, but we can just assume she’s dead. His father returns after Ash beats him in a Pokémon battle so that Brock can follow his dream of becoming a Pokémon breeder. It’s a noble goal, which starts out great, but he soon becomes someone more interested in breeding with girls more than taking care of Pokémon. I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again. Brock is Pokémon’s Pepé Le Pew. What’s stranger is he never really talks about his family ever again. He took care of his horde of siblings so long as a gentle brother and now he’s some sort of weird woman crazed loon.

10 Pokéwalk With Me

The best Pokémon games, to me, will always be Pokémon Gold and Pokémon Silver. Why? Not only do you get a hundred new Pokémon to catch in a brand new region, but you get to explore the old region too. Not only that, but Red is waiting for you in the cave where Mewtwo was. Of course, the DS remakes are the better versions to get. Not just because they’re updated graphically, but also because they came with Pokéwalkers. With it you could send a Pokémon to the device, which you could then level up by walking around in real life. It definitely got me outside more. I won’t lie though, I tried to cheat by flailing my arms. I never went so far as to hook it up to a small child though.

9 Trading Traitors

Trading in Pokémon is in the DNA of gameplay. It’s impossible to “catch ‘em all” without the use of trade. It doesn’t mean you have to technically trade with another person. If you have another system and another game then sure, trade away with yourself. Don’t act like you’ve never done this before. Anyway, with every new Nintendo system and every new Pokémon entry, trading has evolved, pun intended, to become a lot easier. Pokémon X and Pokémon Y ushered in a fantastic online system for various types of trades. So when you need to evolve your Pokémon like Kadabra, a Pokémon that literally needs to be traded to transform, it becomes easier. Of course, your friend could be a huge traitor too. Anonymity makes the Internet a terrible place.

8 The Heist Of The Century

This comic may not be the funniest in terms of raw laughter, but I love the idea it sets up. I so want to see Team Rocket come back together for one last job to rob the Pokébank. Can you imagine how easy that would be? A clever hacker could probably snap through Nintendo’s security like a twig if they really wanted. Jesse, James, and Meowth sure as heck couldn’t, but if they were smart they could easily find some computer literate thug. Then they could get the recognition they so rightfully deserve. I say that knowing full well they’re pretty diabolical. Oh sure they have their touching moments, but they’ve crossed the line one two many times. That said sometimes it’s fun to root for heists and this one I’d pay to see in theaters.

7 A Snorlax Sized Problem

I’m not sure if this was the first life sized Snorlax sold, but it’s definitely the first time I saw one. It is incredibly cute, but ridiculous in size and price. Sure that would be a nice gift for your Pokémon enthused child, but where would you put that? As you can see in that link, it takes up the size of a bed. So placing it on a wall would also be problematic unless the room is huge. I mean it must be if your parents who can fork over around $500 bucks for this thing. I like the idea the Nerd Rage guys came up with though. It’s sort of a reenactment of the original encounter from Pokémon Blue and Pokémon Red. It’s silly, but a great idea.

6 Creeper Con

This is a pretty apt description of the hardcore Pokémon community. Even though people of all ages play it, the games are primarily targeted toward children. They simply have more time to dedicate their lives to it from the anime to the games to even the card games. Of course, they’re going to be all over the convention scene. Then there are the ultimate hardcore Pokémon adult players who obsess over obtaining the perfect team. They dabble with EVs, or Effort Values, which are secret stats that will determine how powerful a Pokémon will become. It turns Pokémon into a numbers game. You may as well be playing with spreadsheets. Lastly, I wouldn’t call grown adults who attend these cons creeps, but it’s a funny joke nonetheless.