Explore the hilarious trend of Pokemon fan redesigns, learn why original designs often work best, and discover community creativity pitfalls.
The Birth of a Bulbless Trend
A recent wave of Pokemon fan creativity has taken an amusingly reductive turn, beginning with the humble starter Bulbasaur. The trend involves digitally removing a Pokemon’s most iconic features, leaving behind a strangely simplified—and often comical—creature.
The Pokemon community is renowned for its artistic reinterpretations of Game Freak’s original creature designs. While these fan projects can yield impressive alternate forms or regional variants, the case of Bulbasaur demonstrates a limit. Removing its signature plant bulb doesn’t just change its appearance; it strips away its core identity as a Grass/Poison-type Seed Pokemon, undermining the logical foundation of its design.
Dubbed “Saur” by user Pokemon Gems on X/Twitter, the bulbless starter quickly drew comparisons to a “cute frog.” This observation is particularly apt, as lead designer Ken Sugimori explicitly based Bulbasaur and its evolutionary line on real-world amphibians, specifically frogs and toads. The redesign, therefore, accidentally circles back to the real-world inspiration but loses the fantastical hybrid element that defines Pokemon.
As is common with internet trends, “Saur” acted as a catalyst. The concept of creating “naked” versions of Pokemon—removing their elemental or defining traits—spread rapidly through the community. The Charmander line, famous for its fiery tails, became an immediate next target, showcasing how the joke could be applied across different creature concepts.
Been there pic.twitter.com/zhM9ZpzW44
When Creativity Runs Dry: The Limits of a Joke
The trend’s expansion revealed its inherent creative ceiling. Charizard, stripped of its mighty wings, and Volcarona, denuded of its fiery moth wings and renamed “Rona,” became subjects. These edits often result in creatures that look like lesser, pre-evolved forms, inadvertently proving why the original evolutions exist. A wingless Charizard begs the question of its Flying-type designation, while a flameless Ponyta loses the visual cue for its Fire typing altogether—a common mistake in fan redesigns that overlooks gameplay and lore integration.
Bruh just noticed the poor detouring
Predictably, the well of novel ideas for this specific joke ran shallow. The trend soon recycled obvious targets, like the Gen 1 Fire-type Ponyta, stripped of its majestic flames and reductively renamed “Pony.” This highlights a frequent pitfall in fan-driven meta-humor: without a new angle or deeper critique, the comedy becomes repetitive. For advanced community members, the challenge lies in evolving a simple meme into meaningful commentary or art, rather than just repeating the same formula.
Bulbasaur remained the central figure of the jest. Artist Hungryfox produced an edit imagining the bulbless creature in a classic Pokemon game sprite, complete with a negative level indicator—a clever meta-joke about losing power and identity. This approach offers a practical tip for fan artists: integrating your edit into authentic game aesthetics (like sprite work or official art styles) can add a layer of charm and credibility that a standalone image lacks.
The Core Lesson: Respecting Design Intent
The underlying message of this entire trend is a backhanded compliment to Game Freak’s designers. While fan favorites like Vanillish (the ice cream cone Pokemon) are often cited as designs that could be improved, the official creations are holistic. Every part of a Pokemon’s design—from Pikachu’s cheeks to Charizard’s wings—typically serves a purpose, denoting its type, abilities, or lore. Removing these elements often exposes why they were there in the first place.
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This conversation naturally extends to the perennial debate within the Pokemon community: which game era perfected the formula? Discussions about art and design are intrinsically linked to gameplay philosophy. The trend of “naked” Pokemon, in a way, tests the strength of those original designs by removing their most distinctive features. It prompts a valuable exercise for any fan artist or critic: analyze a design by asking what you could remove *without* destroying its essence. If the answer is “nothing,” then the design is likely functionally cohesive.
No reproduction without permission：Game Guides Online » “Naked” Bulbasaur prompts Pokemon fans to strip the Pokedex with mixed results Explore the hilarious trend of Pokemon fan redesigns, learn why original designs often work best, and discover community creativity pitfalls.