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Whoa, who knew Snorlax fans had this much energy?

As you can guess from his drowsy-sounding name, Snorlax is a pretty chill Pokémon. As a matter of fact, the rotund Pocket Monster spends so much time sleeping that he’s been a plot-convenient roadblock on multiple occasions in the Pokémon franchise.

But while Snorlax is most famous for stopping Pokémon Trainers from getting from Point A to Point B, it turns out he’s also got an uncanny ability to get people moving as well. While the U.S. and Japan have been enjoying Pokémon GO for weeks, the mobile game only launched in Taiwan recently, and the country’s pent-up Pokémon passion was on frenzied display when word got out that Snorlax, as well as evolved dragon-type Dragonite, could be caught in Taipei’s Xin Beitou district.

Gamers began pouring out of the neighborhood’s park and station to chase down the two rare Pocket Monsters, and while we’ve seen Pokémon GO cause mini-migrations in Tokyo, this is on a whole other level, as waves of humanity flowed across the roads and formed a horde of literally hundreds.

▼ Things were pretty crazy-looking at street level, too.

Even after the sun went down, the crowds hardly dispersed. Later footage shows the night illuminated by smartphone screens, with players adding to or checking their Pokédexes.

Some media outlets likened the spectacle to a zombie apocalypse movie, although there’s a key difference in that people were running towards the creatures in Taipei, not away from them. Still, after all that running around, we imagine a lot of those people were dead tired, and more than ready to make like Snorlax and hit the sack for several hours of shut-eye.

Top image: YouTube/TVBS NEWS
[ Read in Japanese ]