APokemon GOplayer found a PokeStop featuring a horrifying version of Pikachu as a kiddie ride. The hugely popularPokemon-themed mobile game takes the fun outdoors by making players catch Pokemon out in the real world. One of the featuresPokemon GOdeveloper Niantic has planted on landmarks throughout cities across the globe are PokeStops, locations where players can spin a disk on their phones for in-game rewards.
The center of the diskfound at a PokeStopsoften features a picture that relates to its physical location. If a PokeStop is at a gas station, there might be a picture of a gas pump or an automated car wash, for example. It’s a fun feature that helps to further ground the fantastical world ofPokemonin the real world.
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Reddit user KingCo_ found a particularly disturbing PokeStop in Cabramatta, a suburb of Sydney, Australia, and posted it in thePokemon GOsubreddit. It’s a Pikachu-themed kiddie ride. Kiddie rides are those coin-operated machines, classically depicted as a spaceship or a horse, that kids sit on as it gently rocks them back and forth. This one should offer somewholesomePokemonfun. This Pikachu kiddie ride, though, is a nightmare. In fact, the PokeStop’s community-developed and Niantic-approved description says, “Nightmare fuel of the beloved Pokemon electric mouse…” before the description trails off.
This Pokestop’s name, and theperfectPokemonnicknamefor this especially gnarly Pikachu, is “Grotesque Pigachu.” Pikachu’s face and neck are where things go horribly awry. Gone is Pikachu’s classic adorable face and in its place is a bizarre grinning pig monster. Pikachu’s nose is usually drawn as a small black inverted cone. The kiddie ride version has Voldemort’s unsettling dark and deep nose slits but protruding just a little bit more to give it a slightly more human and much more unnerving appearance. Its neck has a series of rolls leading down to the chest that looks like this kiddie ride of Pikachu was once a kiddie ride of a wrinkly pug. Pikachu has never had a well-defined neck, but he’s certainly never looked so stubby and grotesquely human.
