Who knew that all this time Magikarp was a beefcake beast?

Pokémon GO may have captured the attention of Pokémon fans for the past several months, but now that Pokémon Sun and Moon, the next official installment in the franchise’s Nintendo games, has been released, it’s the new Master on the block.

Sun and Moon have only been out for a few days, but some fans have already plowed their way through the game, and one Japanese Twitter user @Nakano_Official has done so in the most masochistic way possible: by only using Magikarp.

▼ Bro, if you skip fin day,
you’re never gonna splash more than, like, five feet.

For those skeptical of such a Farfetch’d feat, here’re the screenshots and original tweet: (click pictures to enlarge)

▼ “I made it to the hall of fame in Pokémon Sun and Moon just
using a Magikarp I caught! I’m having sushi for dinner tonight!”

Well, there it is! The Magikarp’s name is Yashoku (which fittingly translates to “dinner”), it only has one move (“flail” which does get stronger the lower the user’s HP is), and it’s equipped with an evolution-stopping Everstone… because who would ever want a Gyarados when you could have a level 70 Magikarp instead?

There were of course some people who doubted the accomplishment, calling fake. One such accusation was that the Magikarp could never beat a ghost-type Pokémon, since the normal-type attack flail does nothing against ghosts. @Nakano_Official replied that in those cases, they simply used up all of flail’s PP (power points) until Magikarp used struggle (the self-damaging attack that Pokémon use when they have no attacks left), which can hit ghosts.

Another strategy used struggle but in a different way. In especially difficult battles, @Nakano_Official would just stall and keep healing Magikarp until the opponent’s Pokémon ran out of PP on all their attacks, and then it would be forced to use struggle, which hurts itself when it uses it. Eventually Magikarp would stall long enough for the opponent to struggle away all of its own HP.

There’s also the fact that Magikarp can learn Z-Moves in Pokémon Sun and Moon, some of which are fairly impressive:

▼ From the video’s comments:
“THEY LAUGHED AT MY SPLASH SO I SPLASHED IN THEIR BLOOD.”

Here’s how Japanese netizens reacted to this Magick-al accomplishment:

“That is amazing. I’d never have the patience.”
“Congratulations! You deserve it.”
“You have truly learned what it means to love a Pokémon.”
“I can’t believe you beat the game faster than me using just a Magikarp.”

If you haven’t checked out Pokémon Sun and Moon yet, then you may want to get on that! It’s got Snorlax waking up to unleash a nightmare-inducing explosion, hilariously-tall Exeggutors, and the adorable Pikachu-wannabe Mimikyu. And best of all, you don’t have to beat it only using Magikarp… although we have to admit, we kind of want to try.

Source: Twitter/@Nakano_Official via My Game News Flash
Featured image: Twitter/@Hamilton3055