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Gorgeous Japanese Twitter art depicts the charm of everyday household life…with Pokémon

Katy Kelly Feb 14, 2020
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This talented artist let the sweet escapism of the Pokémon world seep into her real life living space.

When Pokémon initially hit the Western world it was accompanied by a whole host of similar monster raising franchises: the two most famous of which were Monster Rancher and Digimon. What was it that gave Pokémon that huge edge over its rivals? My hunch is that Pokémon has one aspect where it wins out: self-insertion.

Think about it! In the games, anime protagonist Ash/Satoshi is left hanging in favor of a self-insert character. Every person who picks up a Pokémon game takes their own journey through a world where the cute critters not only exist, but are a huge part of the eco-system. Digimon and Monster Rancher hold a similar escapist charm, but Pokémon has you living a (mostly) normal life in the confines of its fictional world, forging your own relationship with your cute team and engaging with other humans who live along Pokémon just like you do.

That fantasy is taken to another level in Twitter artist @esasi8794’s beautiful art, where she imagines a whole story set against the backdrop of her own household. She even fleshed out the original character she created by illustrating how he came across all the Pokémon pictured.

▼ A beautiful collection of Pokémon gambol about (translation below).

これは、うちの敷地内で出会った生き物やできごとをポケモンで置き換えてみたイラスト。でも実際に彼らがいたら、こんな出会い方もするんだろうなぁ・・・ pic.twitter.com/xs4DbG13HL

— ネヲ (@esasi8794) February 7, 2020

“This is an illustration where I tried depicting various events and encounters I had with living things around where I live, but replacing all the living things with Pokémon. If they had been there, maybe it would’ve gone more like this…”

The first scene is a tranquil, straightforward illustration of a male trainer bringing out some potted plants to a cozy veranda, where a happy cluster of grass and bug Pokémon are basking in the sun. In order, the pictures that follow detail:

An Oddish that happily plopped itself in the trough where the trainer was going to plant some new shoots
A Skiploom, basking in the sunlight on top of a cement block, so the trainer can’t put a planter there
Fluffy Pokémon like Whimsicott and Jumpluff cluster to the trellises once the weather gets colder
On sunny days, Bulbasaur likes napping under the shade from other plants
Skitties from who-knows-where climb into empty planters and squish together inside it to sleep
Other cat types, like Meowths and Glameows, show up and then stop showing up — but they sometimes spread out to enjoy the sun ontop of metal containers
One night, after hearing rumbling in a trash can, the trainer saw a small Furret pop right out of it!
Lots of Caterpie about to coccoon swarmed his grandpa’s garden, so the trainer moved them all back to their habitats.
In the summer he sees families of Zigzagoon wandering around; you can tell because of how different their bodies are sized.

@esasi8794 added a bonus story in a reply to the set of pictures:

“This isn’t much of a story, but in real life I did raise a huge number of swallowtail larvae that took up home in my houseplants and then I helped them to migrate… But also, a huge swarm of fuzzy caterpillars migrated from my neighbor’s trees to our storehouse, along the wall. I’m fine with bare caterpillars but I’m deathly afraid of the fuzzy ones, so the second I saw them I thought I might faint…”

Thankfully, those caterpillars were just regular normal caterpillars you see out in the wild. Presumably @esasi8794 would have actually fainted were she to have seen a migrating line of Pokémon caterpillars such as Larvesta or Snom.

▼ The one on the left averages a height of 1.1 meters (3.3 feet), and the right averages 0.3 meters.

https://twitter.com/paoloumpa/status/1215812992559808513

These gorgeously rendered scenes of Pokémon playing out real-life experiences earned @esasi8794 a heap of praise from fellow fans:

“I love this way too much.”
“Oh, I’ve cried about wanting to live in a world like this one. This brought back long-submerged memories of elementary school summer vacation… Wish I could go back.”
“An odd-ish weed is growing in your garden…”
“It would be so fun to live in a world like this alongside Pokémon.”

What Pokémon do you think you’d encounter in your own day-to-day life? Let us know in the comments!

Source, featured image: Twitter/@esasi8794
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