Sure, Pokémon may not generally be considered to be offensive (except by the same caliber of person who burns Harry Potter books for being evil childrens’ witchcraft manuals), but Cracked.com recently shed some light on the fact that Nintendo’s Pokémon Creation department has gone the way of Capcom’s Mega Man Boss Naming department, in that they have completely run out of good ideas. The difference is that, when Capcom runs out of ideas, they just start picking farm animals at random; however, when Nintendo runs out of ideas, things get a bit…darker.
Those playing through Pokémon Black/White know that much of the game takes place in Unova, a metropolis modeled after New York City. Modeled a bit too well after New York City, actually—right down to a recreation of Ground Zero from the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
That’s pretty awful, but where does Kyurem come into play? Nintendo may be lacking some tact here, but they at least had enough tact to refrain from referring to the Ground Zero location as “part of the city that was destroyed by bloodthirsty religious zealots, killing thousands of innocent people.” Instead, they said that two meteors hit the city, and that one of those meteors…spawned Kyurem. That’s right: Kyurem is a Pokémon spawned from the 9/11 attacks. If that’s not bad enough, Nintendo decided to add a small touch that puts it over the top as the most offensive Pokémon ever: Bulbapedia.com lists his height as being 9′ 11″.
You stay classy, Nintendo.
Checked Bulbapedia, someone actually altered the Dex last night to say 9’10”. Don’t know which one is true.
Ha ha ha ha! That’s the Nintendo I know and love.
Being the resident Pokemon fan, I’ll mention a couple of things: Kyurem is found nowhere near that area, and it’s actual Pokedex entry (at least in the English version) has its height at 9’10”
http://www.gamesradar.com/ds/f/pokemon-black-and-white-pokedex-kyurem/a-20110303154150335080/g-201004091000657031
The US version was modified when it got here. Original version had it crash there, and found there. Height was 9′ 11″.
Also, Sheep Man, wasn’t a random choice. It’s a reference to “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” the inspiration for the movie “Blade Runner,” the main plot of which revolved around androids.
Yeah, I did verify that bulbapedia said the height was 9’11” at the time of posting. I trusted cracked on the rest because they usually have their facts straight – which I will never get used to saying about a publication that used to be a poor man’s mad magazine. But after doing some more research things didn’t seem to check out.Still, at least I had an occasion to make that (poor) photoshop.
Um… no. Not even close. Kyurem is found way up north and to the right. Try failing with style next time.
Tommy, I admitted my sources may have been incorrect in the post directly above yours. For the record though, I think asserting that there are 9/11 references in a videogame that may not actually have any is a pretty stylish way to fail indeed.
First of all, there was never an update to Black and White. Second of all, Japan calls it 11/9 and uses meters. For the Japanese to understand the reference, Kyurem should’ve been 11 meters, 9 centimeters, or 36’5″, and there are bigger Pokemon, so the size works. And 3 meters (exactly its height) is 9 feet, 10.11 inches. Lastly, the desert is IN CANON your everyday ancient ruinsthat went away long ago. Even the Pokemon there are “ancient spirits.” There is no destructive meteor, besides the one that brought the 9’10” Kyurem. And heck, it didn’t even fall anywhere near the desert! It’s in the top-right of the map for crying out loud!
I hate it when people don’t do their research and forge controversy, and people who know what they’re talking about can’t do anything to stop them. Just for the sake of publicity and satisfaction.
You’re listing disproofs to a five year old comment where I admitted my source turned out to be false. Grade A sleuthing, Perry Mason.
Kyurem flipped me the bird just the other day. What an offensive Pokémon he is!
Wow, that’s so very interesting! You are so very charitable to spend so much of your life looking up any possible connections between Pokémon and horrific events. Why, I never even cared how tall that Pokémon was, let alone it’s name. Nice work. Seriously. Woo. Yay.
As mentioned in the article, it was taken from Cracked.com, so the research wasn’t entirely my own, just a bit of fact-checking (and my sources ended up being incorrect anyway.) I have a lot of questionable hobbies but cross referencing videogames and atrocities in my free time is not one of them. Nude Jazzercize, on the other hand…
Also, for the record, I would totally be the evil twin. You are the Flexo to my Bender.
Wow , they related to other games. Cool.
Anyway Gen 5 was pretty much random. Lamp pokemons ._.
You seem to be forgetting Black people Pokemon in Gen 1. Not to mention the blob Pokemon, Ditto, as well as Porygon. I never thought about the lack of creativity of all the gens until recently. Psyduck. Not very creative. Freaking Lickitung man.
Nintendo don’t actually make the Pokemon games, GameFreak (a 2nd party company) do.
Capcom also doesn’t have a “Mega Man Boss Naming Department”.
Honestly I think this is a bit of a stretch
Alot of a stretch
A monster destroying a city is nothing new
There was a pokemon episode were it shows a giant tentacruel destroying a city is that offensive?