PG 5

When you stop and think about it, the Pokémon series of video games ought to be terrifying. Sure, on the one hand, most of the pocket monsters the player controls are drawn with chubby cheeks and eyes whose size is equaled only by their cuteness. But at the same time, those rolly polly creatures do battle with each other by unleashing lightning storms, fireballs, and tornadoes. From a design standpoint, they shouldn’t look like Bambi’s woodland friends. Pokémon should look like something that could take on Godzilla.

In other words, they should look something like the frightening CG image here.

Nintendo’s Pokémon franchise has been around long enough that many people have literally grown up with it. One such long-time fan is Yuki Morita. Morita, undoubtedly inspired by the creativity of video games and computer graphics, now works as a CG artist.

While Morita isn’t part of the Pokémon development team, that didn’t stop him from reimagining the cover to one of the series’ two original titles, the 1996 Game Boy release Pokémon Green.

PG 3

Pokémon Green’s original cover features Venusaur, the most evolved version of the leaf-type pokémon Bulbasaur. Still, even having reached the zenith of its power, Nintendo’s version of Venusaur isn’t exactly intimidating. After all, you can only do so much to toughen something up when it starts off as a cute little reptile with a flower growing out of it back.

▼ You’re supposed to send this adorable guy out to fight for your entertainment? What’s next? Bare-knuckled baby brawling?

PG 6

Morita felt the original illustration failed to do justice to the powerful Venusaur, a bruising pokémon with the ability to spew poison at its foes. So, the CG artist decided to take a swing at reimagining the classic cover.

We’d say he hit it out of the park.

Morita tweeted the image to his followers, garnering the following reactions.

“No way that would fit in your pocket.”
“It looks like it could break out of the pokéball anytime it wanted to.”
“If you actually used it to battle another pokémon, it’d wind up destroying everything in the surrounding area.”

Despite the inevitable collateral damage, we’d still like to see Morita’s Venusaur in action. We say drop it on a deserted island with that gangly weirdo from Cloverfield, and let’s see who’s left standing (our money’s on the pokémon).

Source: Jin
Top image: Nerdlocker
Insert images: Neoseeker, Bulbapedia, Twitter