Prior to the launch of Pokémon’s new cozy life simulator Pokémon Pokopia, a trailer for the game released in November gave birth to the popular idea that Slowpoke is, in fact, a gyaru. Inspired by a snippet of Slowpoke’s drawn out, dopey style of speech, Japanese artists took to portraying the Pokémon as an anthropomorphized, sleepy schoolgirl, which set off a whole trend. However, now that the full game is out, the gyaru fantasy has been shattered by none other than Slowpoke’s choice of pronouns, according to Game*Spark.
In the aforementioned trailer, Slowpoke’s single line saying, “Ahh, but…, but, the ground around here is so bumpy, and it’s hard to walk onnn…” was the trigger that got a few people obsessed with the idea that the Pokémon gives off the energy of a listless gyaru character. The headcanon, called “Gyaruyadon” (derived from gyaru + Slowpoke’s Japanese name Yadon) then exploded on social media after illustrator ShinnotenP published their take on a yawning, pink-haired humanoid character based on the Pokémon.
Japanese voice actress Yuka Hinata then further fueled the hype by dubbing the illustration with her take on Slowpoke’s Yawn (in a cute, girly fashion you’d hear in a slice-of-life anime, no less).
However, now that Pokémon Pokopia is out, we have more than just a snippet of Slowpoke’s speech available, and Gyaruyadon truthers have been hit by the fact that the Pokémon actually uses the personal pronoun “ode” when referring to itself. Now, the Japanese language has a very wide range of first-person pronouns that reflect not only the speaker’s gender, but even age and personality. “Ode” is hardly a pronoun a person would use in real life, but due to the way it’s most often used in fiction, it gives off a masculine and cartoonish “gentle dumb giant” impression, like the big yellow cyclops in Chiikawa who also happens to be named “Ode” after the pronoun he uses.
In short, Slowpoke’s style of speech is anything but girly, and Japanese Pokémon fans are in disbelief. Quoting their own illustration from November, artist ShinnotenP uttered only a stunned “the first-person pronoun “ode,” of all things.”
On the flip side, as Game*Spark points out, another Pokémon has newly risen to gyaru status instead. Apparently, Bulbasaur uses the first-person pronoun “uchi” in Pokémon Pokopia, which is stereotypical of gyaru characters (think Momo Ayase in Dandadan). Combined with its cute and cunning manner of speech, this has given Japanese fans some new ideas, so it might only be a matter of time before gyaru Bulbasaur fanart becomes a thing.
Pokémon Pokopia is out now for Nintendo Switch 2.
