Due to the various often conflicting canons, the popularity of the anime, and a large amount of Fan Wank, Epileptic Trees, and fanon, the Pokémon franchise is especially prone to this.
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General
- The Pokémon world is often stereotyped by non-fans as "a bunch of kids enslaving wild animals and forcing them to fight each other". This is completely untrue, and the franchise (particularly Pokémon Black and White) makes a ceaseless effort to demonstrate otherwise. While the core gameplay focuses on battling by its nature as an RPG, most Pokémon are said to enjoy battling, and even seek out Trainers of their own; wild Pokémon are even said to envy Pokémon who have trainers. Various characters of all ages are also shown to use Pokémon for non-violent means like sports, nursing, or construction. Not only that, but other media outside of the games show that Pokemon are even capable of refusing to fight for one reason or another. Even the aforementioned Black and White claims that captured Pokémon don't feel enslaved unless mistreated, and are capable of leaving their Trainers of their own accord if they so desired. Pokémon Legends: Arceus lampshades this as well, with one person mentioning that if they were really unhappy they'd just flee the farm you leave them on.
- Some fans erroneously believe that the entire Pikachu species is terrified of being inside Poké Balls. This only applies to Ash's Pikachu, who simply doesn't like being in his Poke Ball. Similarly, some fans believe that all Pikachu are afraid of evolving into Raichu; once again, this only applies to Ash's Pikachu, who rejects evolving into Raichu in the anime after being grievously injured by a particularly aggressive one belonging to Lt. Surge. Then again, the anime's penchant for featuring Pikachu over Raichu, as well as the fact that most Pikachu are always out of the Poké Ball doesn't help its case. The games eventually introducing several gimmick versions of Pikachu who cannot evolve at all, like Cosplay Pikachu and Cap Pikachu (the latter being based directly on Ash's Pikachu and having its own unique Z-Move, in addition to regular Pikachu having one to itself), or giving Pikachu special gimmicks that require it to be incapable of evolving if it is to have them, like Pikachu being one of three unevolved Pokemon to have a Gigantamax form which blocks its ability to evolve if it has the Gigantamax Factor (the other two being Meowth and Eevee, two other species often seen unevolved due to their popularity), has also not helped this.
- Thanks to the old "Pikablu" rumors (circulated by magazine articles that used it as a preliminary name for Marill's Early-Bird Cameo in The First Movie), people often mistake or confuse Marill as a Pika-clone representative of Generation II. The truth is that Johto's Pikaclone is Pikachu's newly-introduced baby form, Pichu, and Marill is an entirely unrelated Pokémon.
- It's not uncommon to find people who believe Genesect is a Cyborg Kabutops and not a separate Pokémon. While the two designs share some small similarities, there are many differences. Kabutops is based on a horseshoe crab while Genesect resembles a cockroach. They are also completely different types (Rock/Water vs Bug/Steel). There is also no mentioned link between them in any official source, so it's pure theory crafting on the part of the players.
- There have been shonen-aimed adaptations, however, most Pokémon adaptations (including the anime and Adventures) are actually kodomomuke (unisex series aimed at kids). Due to their actiony natures, along with Adventures' darker tone,note Pokémon works tend to get lumped into shonen (especially since several other mon series are shonen).
- Many Western fans, and even some people on This Very Wiki, believe that Giratina is a Satanic Archetype, and its home of the Distortion World is the Pokémon equivalent of Hell. In actuality, Giratina is meant to be a personification of antimatter, and the Distortion World is responsible for keeping the stability of the universe in check. The comparisons to Satan and Hell are mainly due to Values Dissonance. Arceus and the Creation Trio are based on Asian creation myths, but with the vast majority of Westerners coming from backgrounds informed by Christianity, Westerners immediately associate Arceus with the Abrahamic God just because Arceus created the world, and likewise associate Giratina with Satan because it was banished to the Distortion World by Arceus.
- People often assume all Mimikyu hold a grudge against Pikachu. While Jessie's Mimikyu in the anime holds a grudge against Pikachu, most other Mimikyu are depicted as lonely and kindhearted friendly ghosts who dress like Pikachu not only to protect others from seeing their true form (as doing so can be… unhealthy… for the viewer), but also because they want to achieve Pikachu's level of popularity and acceptance among others.
- Pokémon only go by "it". While most characters do use "it", Pokémon have always been referred to with gendered pronouns in English translations and it's gotten more common since the DS games. In general, the games use gendered pronouns more than other media.
- Similarly, the official plural of Pokémon species in both the games and anime (as well as other media) is the same as its singular: "two Pikachu" instead of "two Pikachus".
- For a multitude of reasons, some of the weaknesses of certain types in the series' Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors setup tend to confuse those who began playing the games during the first two generations. This comes down to the early TCG grouping some types together, accidentally inaccurate information from the anime, or dual-typings just muddying the situation.
- It is common to assume that Rock is immune to Electric, when they actually take neutral damage. This misconception is because the most common Rock-types encountered in Gen I (the Geodude, Onix, and Rhyhorn families) are part-Ground, and Ground is immune to Electric. The five other Rock-types, those being all the generation's Fossil Pokémon, are vulnerable to Electric (and actually weak to it due to their secondary typings), but since only one of the fossil Pokémon is used by an enemy trainer over the course of the game (the Aerodactyl used by Lance during the penultimate battle of Gen I), few players would have a chance to test and discover this. This was not helped by the anime, which erroneously states that Rock-types are immune to Electric attacks in Episode 56, while a Kabutops shrugs off Pikachu's Electric moves in Episode 46 when it should be weak to them.
- Ice was also assumed to share the same strengths and weaknesses as Water, as Water/Ice was also a common type combination in Gen I (shared by Dewgong, Cloyster, and Lapras). Notably, Fire didn't resist Ice until Generation II.
- Psychic is sometimes thought to be strong against Ghost. It does neutral damage. The reason for older fans thinking this is because the only Ghost-type family in Gen I (the Gastly line) was part-Poison, which is weak to Psychic. And while the only Ghost-type introduced in Gen II (Misdreavus) is a pure Ghost-type, it also isn't used by any trainer in the game (despite there being a Ghost-type Gym) and can only be encountered in the final post-game area.
- Some fans believe that a Charmander (and it evolutions, Charmeleon and Charizard) will die if its tail flame is extinguished by water. This comes from an ambiguous statement made by Brock in the anime, and the fact the Charmander in that episode is sick from being in the rain (not to mention starved and tired). This was a misunderstanding. In fact, a Charmander's tail flame is an indicator of its health, and it being extinguished is a symptom of its death, not the cause. Several later instances show Charmander and two different Charizard having their tails completely submerged, and their flames continuing to burn even underwater.
- Kanto and Johto are often claimed to be Fantasy Counterpart Cultures to the Japanese regions of Kanto and Kansai. They're actually hybrids of those regions with the east and west sides of Chubu, which separates the two in real-life. This misconception likely stems in part from the introduction of subsequent Japan-based regions Hoenn, Sinnoh/Hisui, and Kitakami, which are each meant to much more directly mirror Kyushu, Hokkaido, and Tohoku.
- Similarly, you often see people claiming that Unova is a straight Fantasy Counterpart Culture of the United States, which is only partially true. Unova was specifically based on the New York City metropolitan area, and for evidence of this, look no further than Castelia City (a bustling skyscraper-filled area with its own equivalents of the Brooklyn Bridge and Times Square) and Nimbasa City (home to the Broadway-inspired Pokémon Musicals as well as equivalents to Madison Square Garden and Grand Central Station). In fact, while some of Unova’s Pokémon take inspiration from broadly American things (see: Braviary), the Pokémon of Unova draw inspiration from all over the world, reflecting the "melting pot" nature of New York City, instead of being based on purely American cultural things like cowboys, Bigfoot, or baseball players. Fans also claim that certain areas in Unova represent different areas of the US when they really don’t; for example, people claim that Virbank City is based on Los Angeles due to its proximity to Pokéstar Studios and its name being similar to “Burbank”, when its heavy pollution, oil refineries, “tough” aesthetic, and location relative to the rest of Unova are actually based on Joisey.
- It's assumed by some fans that Team Rocket is meant to be based on Yakuza, and that English versions tweak them to be based on The Mafia instead as a form of Woolseyism. This isn't the case; they were always supposed to be based on mafiosos. In fact, a Team Rocket member in Mt. Moon, potentially the first one you meet in the entire series, refers to the group as "the Pokémon mafia" (ポケモンマフィア) even in the Japanese version. The English versions do change their leader Sakaki's name to Giovanni (as in Don Giovanni), but that's just going with the theme - almost everyone and everything gets a Dub Name Change in Pokémon.
- Just because a Pokémon is weak to a certain type does not mean it is lethal for them to touch anything made out of that type's element. For example, the anime has shown Fire-type Pokémon drinking water, and the Fresh Water item in the games can heal any Pokémon regardless of its type. Furthermore, even Pokémon weak to Grass-type attacks can still be found in, well, tall grass.
Video Games
- Contrary to popular belief, not a single player character in the series is canonically 10 years old. While most of them are admittedly of unknown age; the only player characters to have their age confirmed are Red (being 11) and the Alola protagonists (their age is unknown, but they're stated to be somewhere between 11 and 14) and Hilbert/Hilda (14); additionally, Rei/Akari are assumed to be "15 or so" in-universe by Cyllene. The reason the whole "ten years old" thing has been ingrained in the public consciousness is because of the proliferation of the anime during the early days of the franchise, whose main character is 10. Eternally. This also happens with the non-player characters, where any character that doesn't outright appear to be in at least their 30s will get assumed by many people to be in their early teens, even though most characters don't have a confirmed age and have nothing in-game nor in official supplemental media that suggests them to be that young.
- Nowhere in the games is it said that you must be ten to be a trainer or that all trainers start at age 10. In fact, throughout the games, you see trainers who are way younger than 10 (such as the reoccurring Preschooler and Twins classes). What you do have to be a certain age for is to actually travel. In Alola, it is explicitly against the rules for anyone under 11 to undergo the trials. You'll never see trainers younger than that age wandering that far from towns or areas with a lot of people; it's always the older teens and up (like Ace Trainers) who you see out standing around on more isolated routes. Pokémon Scarlet and Violet further show that even trainers younger than 10 can achieve high-ranking positions, with Poppy being an Elite Four member at only 9 years old.
- All trainers get Pokédexes. Except they don't — you're always a special case, along with some other select trainers. Along the same lines, not every trainer gets their first Pokémon from the local lab. A few trainers you'll met will mention in flavor text that they got their Pokémon in other ways, usually from a family member. Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire even has the player help someone catch their first Pokémon when your father (a Gym Leader, not a professor) is too busy to assist them. This one largely comes from the anime, where Pokédexes are common and most trainers receive their starter from a lab, though neither is universal even there.
- A lot of people, when imitating the style of the game's battles, misuse the phrases "It's super-effective" and "It's not very effective". These phrases are only used in the games when attack moves do more or less damage than normal due to a type advantage. They aren't used with moves that only inflict status effects, and any moves that do more damage outside any type advantage are identified as "critical hits".
- Nurses in the games do not look any more identical than nurses in Real Life. They just share one sprite, which Nurse Joy of the anime is based on. An early TCG card even depicted a blue-haired nurse, despite the sprite having pink hair.
- On a similar note, at no point in the game are any of the Pokémon Centre nurses given names, let alone named "Nurse Joy". Again, this misconception comes from the inescapable cultural pervasiveness of the anime.
- Red:
- It is common knowledge that Red, the first protagonist, is The Quiet One through and through. In reality, Red has been heavily implied to speak, but we never really hear his dialogue. He also smiles in a good majority of the Red/Blue/Yellow official artwork. Red being an eternally silent character, however, became Ascended Fanon in later works: In both FireRed and LeafGreen and Sun and Moon, Blue makes snappy comments regarding how silent Red is, and in Gold/Silver/Crystal (and their remakes), Black 2 and White 2 and the aforementioned Sun and Moon, Red only speaks in ellipses. Red is usually depicted as a Perpetual Frowner in post-FRLG depictions as well.
- It's common knowledge that Red spent three years on top of a mountain. In the games, while Red is said to have not seen his mother in a long time, it's never stated that he stayed on Mt. Silver for three years straight. He could have been on his journey, recently ended up on the mountain training, and you just happen to find him there. Red went to the tournament in Pokémon Black 2 and White 2 and Pokémon Sun and Moon depicts an adult Red as a well-adjusted individual who travels, which shows that he isn't all that introverted.
- Red's design is a bit of an issue. It's extremely, extremely common in fanart (especially yaoi or art making him to be a stoic Badass Normal) for him to have a more Bishōnen variant of his classic design, dubbed "Pixiv Red" or "Uber Red" by fans. The major difference from his classic design is he's older than depicted in any game, has red eyes, and has straight hair. That design is used heavily in art for HGSS, while Red's design has long since changed to a different brunette design. Since Pokémon Origins, however, it's become more common to use his canon design due to the backlash surrounding the fanon and because several media (and Pokémon Sun and Moon) clearly use his canonical design.
- Red's classic design appears to have a red jacket, similar to Ash's blue one in original anime. However, early promotional artwork
◊ for Gen 1, along with a model sheet◊ provided for Let's Go!, indicates he's actually wearing a red vest over a black shirt with white sleeves. His design in Masters reflects this, updating the vest to look more like, well, an actual vest◊. His anime counterpart, Ash, follows suit with his Journeys outfit featuring a visible blue vest over a white shirt with a green stripe across.
- Blue:
- He's usually thought of as a continual obstruction, in opposition to the eternally good-natured and nonthreatening rivals of later games, but the truth is a little more complex. While personality-wise, he's shown constantly insulting the player and generally being a jerk, he's also a major dispenser of Player Nudges: every time you beat him, he offers at least some kind of advice on what you should do next, such as telling you about the location of HMs or useful nearby Pokémon. He tended to word his advice much more condescendingly than later rivals, but he was still highly willing to dole it out, and especially towards the end of the game, he becomes downright complimentary at points, if still egotistic. Part of this is cross-pollination with Silver from Pokémon Gold and Silver, who really is that big of an jerk (despite mellowing out of it much later on).
- A commonly thought-of trait of his is that he will challenge you out of nowhere during or after difficult gauntlets when your resources are spent and sucker punch you. This only happens once, in Silph Co. Every other fight with him is either optional (Route 22), has enough forewarning to gladly let you ready yourself for it (S.S. Anne, Pokémon Tower, the Elite Four battle), or happens right after you should have already visited the local Pokémon Center (Nugget Bridge, Route 22). Again, this is a trait exhibited far more often by Silver, who really does tend to come out of nowhere with forced fights after several trainer battles.
- In the first generation of Pokémon games, Blue uses a Rattata on Nugget Bridge, then a Raticate on the S.S. Anne. After that battle, Raticate disappears from his team. A common theory was that in the battle, you (the player) killed Raticate. This is not the case—and it was not Bowdlerised out either. Part of this comes from a misconception that the player is the only one to use the Pokémon storage system, and that everyone else only carries the Pokémon they own, even rival trainers. Blue outright confirms that he's using the storage system by having caught "over 40 kinds, pal" on the S.S. Anne (him ditching the Raticate entirely rather than keeping it around to fill an empty slot in his party can be blamed on his elitism). The other part is that Blue's next encounter after the S.S. Anne is in Pokémon Tower, which is a graveyard, and Blue starts the battle by asking why the player would be there if they have no dead Pokémon, which, if taken on its own, sounds like Blue has a dead Pokémon. However, upon ending the battle, Blue just claims he's there to try his luck with catching a Cubone or some Ghost-types, giving him a clear reason to be there—this is usually left out of the theory.
- Many fans mistakenly refer to Pokémon Tower as "Lavender Tower", due to it being located in Lavender Town. Less common, but still a thing, is calling Pokémon Mansion "Cinnabar Mansion" due to being in Cinnabar Island.note Furthermore, and a mistake that often shows up in Creepypastas, sometimes people assume the Lavender Town theme also plays inside Pokémon Tower, when the latter in fact has its own theme.
- The games using Pokémon Speak is a complicated example. People say that only the anime does this and that the games only have them starting Pokémon X and Y. The games actually use Pokémon Speak since the first generation. Yes, even before Pokémon Yellow, where Pikachu got speaking roles (yes, Pikachu saying its name was older than X and Y). When people mention "Pokémon don't speak their names", they usually refer to the cries they make, forgetting the fact that the cries either are hampered by technology (you can actually notice Togepi's cry being similar to its anime talk) or follow the rule where intimidating/cool/adult Pokémon make more beastly groans (while subtly saying their names, see Charizard). People often forget that Pokémon NPCs exist, and that while talking to them, you will realize that they DO speak their names◊. However, in the early games (prior to Pokémon Black and White), their speech was translated literally (with a few exceptions such as Chansey), so when you talk to Jigglypuff, it will say "Pu-pu-ri!" or something similar, as its name in Japanese is Purin. It wasn't until Black and White that Pokémon would consistently say their English names. Overall, it seems to follow the same pattern as the Japanese anime — stuff that isn't an animal or has a sound-effect-based name uses its name, while others make more animal-type noises. So, Pokémon in the games do use Pokémon Speak to an extent. However, it depends on the Pokémon, is often in Japanese regardless of the translated names, and in some cases might be onomatopoeia. Truer to the Text adaptations such as Pokémon Origins and Pokémon Generations mostly forgo Pokémon Speak in exchange for animalistic noises.
- For a short time, it was commonly thought that at the climax of Pokémon Black 2 and White 2, Ghetsis orders Kyurem to kill the player in the Japanese version, and that the English version censored it to Harmless Freezing. But even in the Japanese version, Ghetsis orders Kyurem to freeze the player.note The mistake occurred due to non-Japanese speakers watching footage of the scene in the early days of the game's Japanese release and jumping to conclusions. It doesn't help that Kyurem's Glaciate is rendered as a circle of icicles that fly towards the player pointy-end first, making another outcome look more likely.
- In Pokémon Sun and Moon, a popular fan theory that popped up after players finished the story is that the Ultra Beasts attacked and destroyed the universe all pre-Gen VI games are set in. This is only vaguely implied in the games themselves. The closest thing to confirmation we get is that a character from Gen III Hoenn has some vague memory of defending the Battle Tower from some threat before falling through a wormhole. All that is known for sure is that whatever it was, it attacked the Battle Tower (and by extension, probably the Battle Frontier) of the GBA/DS universe, which is a major step down from the complete universe annihilation that's theorized.
- Mewtwo:
- Many people will swear up and down that in the games, Mewtwo was created (at least in part) by Team Rocket. While this is true for Pokémon Adventures and Pokémon: The First Movie (the popularity of which can be blamed for this misconception), in Pokémon Red and Blue, no connection is made between the two at all. Likewise, many people will cite multiple scientists creating it. While the English localization wrote the Pokémon Mansion journals as if that were the case (which carried into both FireRed/LeafGreen and Let's Go! Pikachu/Let's Go! Eevee), and The First Movie again shows Mewtwo to have been created by a team of several researchers, the original Japanese has the journals written in the first person, and the actual Pokédex entries only mention one scientist (incidentally implied to be Dr./Mr. Fuji, and confirmed in Pokémon Origins).
- Related to this, many believe that the reason Team Rocket took over Silph Co. was to obtain the Master Ball and use it to capture Mewtwo. Nowhere is it even as much as implied in the original games that Team Rocket is aware that Mewtwo even exists, and multiple grunts and innocent workers in the building state that the company was taken over to further Giovanni's ambition to Take Over the World.
- Mewtwo being able to talk and being an aloof introvert is a case of Adaptation Personality Change in the anime, though Pokémon X and Y implies part of the latter has been added into game canon. In the games, it can't talk and it's considered extremely dangerous because it's uncontrollable. Detective Pikachu combines the two ideas, using its Berserk Gene as a plot point but also featuring a talking Mewtwo.
- Many people will swear up and down that in the games, Mewtwo was created (at least in part) by Team Rocket. While this is true for Pokémon Adventures and Pokémon: The First Movie (the popularity of which can be blamed for this misconception), in Pokémon Red and Blue, no connection is made between the two at all. Likewise, many people will cite multiple scientists creating it. While the English localization wrote the Pokémon Mansion journals as if that were the case (which carried into both FireRed/LeafGreen and Let's Go! Pikachu/Let's Go! Eevee), and The First Movie again shows Mewtwo to have been created by a team of several researchers, the original Japanese has the journals written in the first person, and the actual Pokédex entries only mention one scientist (incidentally implied to be Dr./Mr. Fuji, and confirmed in Pokémon Origins).
- A long-standing assumption made by fans is that the Pokédex's entries are written by the various child protagonists, and as a result a lot of exaggerations and misinformation are present, such as Magcargo supposedly having a body temperature of 18,000°F (9980°C). Pokémon Red and Blue, however, has Professor Oak explicitly state that the Pokédex itself automatically records data upon seeing a Pokémon, and not that the player writes it. This misconception likely stems from a combination of detailed entries only appearing when the player obtains a Pokémon (thus it appears they write it), Gameplay and Story Segregation being used to make certain Pokémon sound more impressive than what the game's rules allow them to be, and the entries themselves straining various axioms of the sciencesnote presuming that the entries are true.note As an example, the above temperature reading is hotter than that of the sun's surface.
- Several characters, most notably the rival from the Johto games, have Fan Nicknames that are often cited as official. They're actually unnamed in canon, with their name coming from the player.
- Johto's rival eventually got his favored Fan Nickname (Silver) canonized in the mobile game, Pokémon Masters.
- Giovanni is frequently assumed by both fans and non-fans to be a Villain with Good Publicity, with his public image as the Viridian City Gym Leader masking his secret role as Team Rocket's leader. But in fact, the inverse is true: NPCs will note that Giovanni being the boss of Team Rocket is common knowledge, while nobody knows the identity of the Viridian Gym Leader (not even the Gym Guide).
- The initial pair of mainline games in a generation always gets followed by a third release, which shares their Theme Naming. First Installment Wins is likely responsible for this one, as this is how Generation I's international release and the next three generations went. However, Generation I's Japanese release had an initial pair followed by a third and fourth that shared their Theme Naming. Further down the line, Generation V had a second pair which were Numbered Sequels, Generation VI didn't have any follow-ups, and Generation VII had a second pair which were Word Sequels. The Pokémon Direct on January 9th, 2020 addressed this as Pokémon Sword and Shield will not have a third game in the series and they will have a DLC Expansion Pack, completely eliminating the need for a follow-up game. Pokémon Scarlet and Violet would later follow suit.
- Many believe that the "Pika" in Pikachu's name comes from a lagomorph called a "Pika". In reality, it comes from the Japanese onomatopoeia for sparkling, ピカピカ (pikapika). Interviews state that Pikachu is based on squirrels, not pika, which is supported by it climbing a tree like a squirrel in the anime's first episode. (Of course, it certainly doesn't help that Pikachu's resemblance to any specific animal is... loose.)
- Many memes have been made about how expensive things are in the games - such as potions for "300 Pokédollars" or having to pay 200 Pokédollars for a bottle of water. This is actually because it's a Woolseyism for "円", which is the Kanji for Yen. The in-game currency is based off of Yen, not the "Dollar" like the US, Canadian, or Singapore dollar. Converting yen to US dollars is not exact due to relative currency values not being fixed, but can be roughly approximated as $1 USD = 100 JPY, resulting in $3.00 potions, $2.00 bottles of water, or selling gold nuggets for $50.
- This also comes up with the supposedly obscene price of the bike in Pokémon Red and Blue - the bike costs around $10,000. While still a lot, it's not unheard of for specialty bikes to cost that much. The player's bike is most likely a high-end model, given that it folds up into their backpack when not in use. The only other trainers that ride bicycles in the games look to be semi-serious athletes, so it's also reasonable to assume that the bike shops in the games only carry high-end models. This is why the store owner in Red and Blue wants you to ride the bike around and advertise for them.
- Generally, it is assumed that the "Dexit" controversy surrounding Pokémon Sword and Shield is that the National Pokédex is removed, and the removal made it impossible to transfer Pokémon not in the Galar regional Pokédex. In actuality, Generation VII Pokémon games do not have a National Pokédex either. However, Pokémon Sun, Moon, Ultra Sun, and Ultra Moon allow you to transfer all Pokémon that existed when those games released while Sword & Shield didn't, which was the main issue. Pokémon Let's Go, Pikachu! and Let's Go, Eevee! were the first main Pokémon games to not allow you to use or transfer all of the Pokémon species in the game but got a pass because many fans viewed them as a Spin-Off rather than a full main series game.
- It's widely believed that the AI of the various post-game battle facilities (e.g. the Battle Tower) will either cheat with RNG manipulation or outright counterteam you if your win streak gets high enough. While there is occasionally cheating, it's typically restricted to illegal movesets or abilities that aren't available to the player. Nothing in the games' code lets the AI alter the RNG and enemy trainers in the facilities have preset teams with some minor random variances. The series just has a considerable amount of luck baked into its systems, so everyone will inevitably run into bad luck at some point as they continue to increase their streak (and good luck as well, but people tend to remember more when they got particularly unlucky). This additionally applies to the Stadium series too, where people will swear up and down that the RNG is rigged against you, but they're just forgetting all the times the RNG benefitted them (you're not going to remember all those unnecessary crits you landed when you were knocking out some trash mon regardless, but you will remember when the AI got a crucial crit that made you lose the final battle of a cup and have to start all over).
- Pokémon Bank is also the first service related to Pokémon that charges money to transfer Pokémon...sort of. The Pokémon Stadium games included storage on the cartridge, and Pokémon Box Ruby & Sapphire (though meant as storage for a single save file) allowed cross-file transferral if certain restrictions were met on the target game.
- Pokémon Channel is often cited as a stupid, pointless game where all you do is watch Pikachu watch TV. This is a gross oversimplification; while the TV is an important part of the game, you can also participate in game shows and buy stuff off the shopping channel. You're free to leave the house and venture off into other locations to talk to Pokémon and play games if you get bored of the TV, too. The game also runs on real time and new events will happen every day, making it more of a Play Every Day type of game.
- A commonly stated rule of the "Nuzlocke" Self-Imposed Challenge is that it bans the use of Legendary Pokémon. In fact, the only 100% rule of Nuzlocke with regards to what you can catch is that you can't catch something if it's not the first thing you encountered in an area. This does exclude most Legendaries, since they tend to be encountered at the end of lengthy dungeons or roaming in areas you probably already visited, but plenty of other Legendaries (particularly "Mythical" Legendaries) are encountered alone or simply handed to you, making them fair game. That's not to say that many Nuzlocke players don't ban the use of Legendaries anyway, but it's not a universal rule. In fact, the original Nuzlocke Comics got some controversy for the main character catching a Victini in a run of White, despite the capture being perfectly legal under the stated rules, because he had previously fainted Groudon in Ruby and Mewtwo in FireRed, both of which were in the middle of large areas with high encounter rates.
- Many fans assume that the main villains of Pokémon Colosseum and Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness are "Team Cipher". In actuality, they're just called Cipher, without the "Team" moniker.
- Many expressed disappointment when it turned out Pokémon Legends: Arceus wasn't a Wide-Open Sandbox, but rather had an overworld structure akin to Monster Hunter (a town as a base, with an overworld divided into segments). Except neither Game Freak, Nintendo, nor The Pokémon Company had even implied that it would be, only calling it an Action RPG.
- Pokémon Let's Go, Pikachu! and Let's Go, Eevee! and Pokémon Legends: Arceus are often erroneously referred to as Spin offs, despite Word of God confirming that they are part of the core series. The confusion arises from their difference in format; the former eschews wild battles in favor of Pokémon GO-like catching mechanics, whereas the latter in an Action RPG with a battle system unique to the game (specifically, the introduction of agile/strong-style attacks and adjustments to the turn-based system) and different ways of calculating stats.
- The now-legendary Pachirisu that won VGC 2014 is often stated to have come into fruition because Pachirisu was Se-Jun Park's favorite Pokémon, causing many casual players to prop the moment up as proof that you can play competitive with any Pokémon. This is unfortunately often misquoted; Se-Jun Park stated that Pachirisu became his favorite Pokémon after he won with it, and it initially found its way into his team because it fulfilled an extremely specific set of traitsnote that perfectly complemented his anti-metagame team.
- It is commonly assumed by fans that Green and Leaf were inspired by a scrapped female trainer who was featured on the cover of a Japanese strategy guide for Red, Green and Blue. However, this is only partially true. While it is true that Green and Leaf were both inspired by an unnamed female trainer◊ on the cover of a strategy guide, contrary to popular belief, neither of them were planned for the Gen I games. Early documents and concept art from the Capsule Monsters era suggest that a female protagonist was considered for Gen I, to the point of having sprites done, but said character is clearly not Green/Leaf. According to Ken Sugimori in a tweet from 2012, the female trainer that became the inspiration for Green and Leaf was simply a character he made up for Red and Green's strategy guide, as he wanted to depict a Power Trio to represent the three starter Pokémon.
- Due to the Memetic Mutation, players think that entering Cynthia's villa at Undella town in the Unova games will abruptly start a battle with her, one of the most difficult fights in the game. Not only do you have the option to decline a battle, but it's not even Cynthia's villa, it's Caitlin's.
- The potential for female Azurill to evolve into male Marill due to the two Pokémon having different gender ratios is treated like it's something Game Freak deliberately programmed into the games. Except not only was it a glitch, it's a glitch that has been fixed from Pokémon X and Y onwards.
- In a reversal of the Azurill situation, Nidorina and Nidoqueen's placement in the No Eggs Discovered group (which prevents them from making eggs) is frequently assumed to be a glitch or oversight, when in fact it's an intentional quirk of their evolutionary line — it's been kept for every appearance of the Nidoran line since breeding was first introduced, and an early tie-in book specifically mentions that female Nidoran lose the ability to breed once they evolve.
- In Diamond and Pearl, the Underground Man is commonly assumed to be Byron's father and Roark's grandfather, which was even listed on Bulbapedia for a long time. While he is related to them, his exact relationship to them has not been canonically clarified. It probably came from people assuming the obvious based on their respective ages; the Underground Man is old, Byron is middle-aged, and Roark is a young adult.
Anime
- Many people assume that in the infamous banned episode (Electric Soldier Porygon) that caused seizures, Porygon was the culprit, when it was actually a missile blowing up that caused the seizures, which Porygon had nothing to do with. note However, since an attack from Pikachu caused the missiles to blow up, you’re likely to hear many fans claim Pikachu single-handedly caused the seizures and “should have been banned instead”, when the missile was going to blow up and cause the flashing lights either way. Also, doctors believe that the seizures were wildly overreported; many prior episodes used similar flash effects without mass seizure reports, and most of the reported cases after that episode were actually reporting symptoms of psychosomatic illness (that is, the sort of things that your body can do to itself simply from the belief that you're ill). It seems that only a few kids had actual seizures, and then a rumor mill popped up where everyone worried that their kid would have a seizure, and the worrying itself produced the vast majority of alleged seizure cases.
- Each region has eight Gyms, and you need every Gym Badge to get to the Pokémon League, right? Except in the first season, it doesn't work that way. In Kanto at least, the actual number of Gyms is much higher and always increasing; you just only need eight of their badges to pass. The show displays this when Gary shows up in Viridian City to battle Giovanni; at the time, he had ten badges from the Kanto region, and wanted another. For that matter, you do not need to earn the badges in any specific order in the animenote , contrary to popular belief, and Gyms aren't ranked by "level". In fact, multiple characters other than Ash have displayed their badges, and at times they have various badges Ash also obtained, yet display them in their Badge Case in a completely different order than him,note and often include Badges that cannot be obtained in-game, such as the aforementioned Gary's badges which included the Boulder, Cascade and Rainbow Badges, plus seven that are never named in the show. Best Wishes also conflated the gyms from all of the Gen 5 games, with Ash getting the Toxic Badge in place of the Legend Badge and not facing either Drayden or Marlon.
- Fans frequently cite that Misty is twelve years old. Her confirmed age is ten, like Ash. The confusion probably exists because she is twelve years old in the loose The Electric Tale of Pikachu adaptation.
- Ash is one of only two protagonists with an official surname, and that's only in the dubs (in Japan he is simply "Satoshi"). The other one is Tracey Sketchit, also courtesy of the dubs (his original Japanese name is just "Kenji"). Misty is commonly cited as "Misty Waterflower" (which is an error brought on by confusing her sisters' titles for their surname) or "Misty Williams", but that is just fanon, as is Sabrina being "Sabrina d'Avalon", which has caught on in some sections of the fandom (it helps that it was derived from her French name, Morgane). Brock being "Brock Harrison" is Word of Saint Paul on Eric Stuart's part.
- Erika's anime self gets frequently lambasted for refusing to fight Ash just because he didn't like her perfume. In the actual episode, she only kicked Ash out of her store and it was her Jerkass staff who wouldn't let Ash into the Celadon Gym with no indication that Erika had any knowledge of it. Erika was perfectly willing to fight Ash once he got in, with the dub adding a line that she's obligated to accept all challengers for the badge. It doesn't help that the Ash/Erika shipname is BanShipping.
- People like to assume the reason Ash doesn't evolve some of his Pokémon, especially Pikachu, is because he wouldn't let them. However, at no point was Ash ever against his Pokémon evolving — he enthusiastically welcomed it every single time it happened. Even with Pikachu, in the two episodes that Ash considers evolving him (Electric Shock Showdown and Pika And Goliath), Pikachu has been the one that refuses the offer, even in a dream (Dream a Little Dream from Me!), and Ash keeps him as a Pikachu to respect his partner's wishes. In addition, the other unevolved Pokémon in the series also refused evolution (Ash's Bulbasaur and Dawn's Piplup), or their time simply never came (everyone else, except Rowlet, who swallowed an Everstone).
- It's often cited that all of the Ship Tease between Misty and Ash was 100% the work of 4Kids's translations and is not in the Japanese version. While 4Kids did add some teasing in and made it all-but-canon with songs like "Misty's Song" from Pokémon 2.B.A. Master and "Under The Mistletoe" from Pokémon Christmas Bash, the original Japanese scripts still had plenty of Ash/Misty teasing (such as Misty being jealous of Melody in the second movie).
- In another example of 4Kids being blamed for something they didn't change, it is often stated that when Ash's Pidgeot was Put on a Bus in the Japanese version, Ash didn't make an unfulfilled promise to come back. In reality, he makes the same promise in both versions, and it is not hard to find Japanese fans online complaining that Ash never came back. Pidgeot did finally return in Ash's very last episode, rejoining Ash's team.
- "Pallet Party Panic" is often thought to be the last Indigo episode. In reality, it's the first Orange Islands episode.
- It's frequently (and incorrectly) stated that Pokémon: The First Movie was aired with Pokémon: The Birth of Mewtwo as its prologue, which 4Kids originally cut out. This introduction wasn't in the original theatrical version, but was added in later Japan-only re-releases (and added as an extra on the Mewtwo Returns DVD), thus why its animation style resembles Johto rather than Kanto.
- Due to a Tumblr post that began circulating around late 2020, there's a misconception claiming that the first Early-Bird Cameo of a Generation II Pokémon in the anime was Raymond's Donphan in Pokémon: The First Movie. This is of course false: Ho-Oh appeared in the very first episode of the series, and Togepi was already in Misty's possession by the time the movie first came out. Plus, the movie was preceded by the Pikachus Vacation short, which featured the first appearances of Snubbull and Marill. In fact, Donphan was the fifth Generation II Pokémon to debut in the anime.
- There's a misconception that being a "Pokémon Master" means either becoming champion or being the world's best trainer. The series is intentionally vague on what makes someone a Pokémon Master, never directly connecting being a Master to being a champion or being the best trainer out there (with Sun & Moon's director Daiki Tomiyasu even outright saying that being a champion is just a step towards being a Pokémon Master). The likely genesis of the misconception is the fact that the majority of the competitions that Ash competes innote are battle competitions, with the Contests that May and Dawn competed in having battle aspects attached to them, coupled with the fact that, in all of the games barring Pokémon Black and White, the player is considered to have beaten the game only when they defeat the Champion. Ash is explicitly asked what being a Pokémon Master means in the I Choose You manga adaptation, and all he says is that it's "far above" being the world's best trainer, which renders "Championhood" insufficient, but otherwise maintains the vagueness. Aim To Be a Pokemon Master would finally clarify that, to Ash at least, being a Pokemon Master means meeting every Pokemon in the world and seeing everything there is to it. So while meeting, catching, and battling with Pokemon is part of that goal, being the best trainer isn't.
- Gary's starter is commonly mistaken to be his Eevee, the first and only Pokémon he sends out against Ash for a long time. This is also fueled by Eevee being the starter for the rival in the anime-inspired Yellow game. He actually started with a Squirtle, which wouldn't be shown until his confrontation with Ash in the Silver Conference as a Blastoise.
- Ash gets completely reset as a trainer in each region, brain cells and all. Only Black and White truly had him take a level in dumbass. While he started to cycle his team around Hoenn, Ash improving as a trainer can actually be seen over the course of the anime since Kanto, with Ash starting to use actual strategy more and more as early as late Johto, he starts to mellow out and mature more in Hoenn, while most of his losses in Hoenn and Sinnoh usually came from equally skilled or well-above-average trainers. X and Y also rerailed him to continue that natural progression. In reality, Black and White is the only true "reset" Ash has ever gotten; but it was infamous enough for people to apply it as being true for every region he starts in.note
- Following Ash's loss in the Kalos League, the rumors that they had hired the "BW writers" for it flared up, along with the constant saying that "XY hired new writers". However, the series, until Sun and Moon, has had mostly the same writersnote since the original series, with no "BW writers" or "XY writers".note The misconception appears to come from the fact that this episode and the final episode of the Unova League had the same head writer- never mind that this writer wrote countless other episodes as well.
- Fans also tend to blame the episode’s title for being misleading, as the title is "Kalos League Victory!", but Ash doesn’t win. This is merely a mistranslation- the kanji for "victory" can read the same as "championship".
- Ash died in Pokémon: The First Movie. In the original Japanese version, he was just Taken for Granite. Takeshi Shudō has stated that Ash didn't die during that scene, so he was likely in some sort of stasis instead. 4Kids added a lot of dub-only implications that Ash died.
- It's common for people to assume that Ash Never Grew Up, leading to fan theories about his strange ability to stay 10 years old, from Ho-Oh being able to grant a wish of eternal happinessnote to Mewtwo stunting his growth in Pokémon: The First Movie courtesy of Ash's petrification, etc. But this notion ignores the fact that every other human in the anime doesn't age at all, with the sole exception of Kukui and Burnet's baby (who was born in between Sun & Moon and Journeys). Examples In an interview with Arsham's Pokédex, Kunihiko Yuyama explained that the real reason why Ash doesn't age is because his world is forever in an early summer season, an ideal world for children. In short, Ash's situation is no different from characters like Mickey Mouse or Superman. The reasons he's singled out are because his age is explicitly stated rather than left to interpretation, and he's at an age where people tend to change visibly and rapidly with time.
- One commonly cited plot hole is "Brock's disappearing Tauros"; that is, Brock catching a Tauros in the Safari Zone episode and said Tauros inexplicably never appearing again. Except he caught it using one of Ash's Safari Balls, meaning it's actually Ash who has it; it's presumably part of Ash's Tauros herd at Professor Oak's lab/ranch.
- Fans frequently make fun of the anime for all the times trainers command their Pokémon to dodge, wishing they could do that in the games. In fact, the games do have a dodge move in Detect, and almost every Pokémon can learn the functionally identical Protect.
- Greninja wasn't actually Ash's first fully-evolved Water-Type. While he was his first evolved Water starter, the title of being the first fully-evolved Water-Type Pokemon, in general, was Kingler.
- Many fans erroneously believe that Brock and Misty gave Ash their respective Gym Badges out of pity. It doesn't help that the show itself makes this claim on many occasions, but the reality is far from it. While Ash lost his first match against Brock, in the second match he actually had Brock and his Onix on the ropes, and was about to win when Pikachu accidentally set off the gym's fire sprinklers, weakening Onix and causing Brock's siblings to guilt Ash into forfeiting. It was Ash who felt sorry for Brock, not the other way around. As for Misty, not only did she blatantly cheat in her match against Ash (she coddled Pikachu before the match, making him not want to battle against her), their match was interrupted by Team Rocket attacking, and Ash got the Cascade Badge from Misty's sisters as thanks for saving them from the attack. So while he technically didn't "win" his battles against them, it's both incorrect and rather a disservice to Ash to say that they gave him their badges because they took pity on him.
- It's often claimed that Ash's first League victory was the Alola League. In fact, he also won the Orange League years before that, though due to it being a filler arc and being rather unconventional by League standards (focusing more on how Trainers interact with their Pokémon in different circumstances and completing challenges rather than battles), fans tend not to count that.
- Pokémon: To Be a Pokémon Master is sometimes referred to as if it were the Grand Finale of the anime in general. It does mark the end of Ash's saga, but the series itself is ongoing — it simply continued without Ash in Pokémon Horizons: The Series.
Manga
- Pocket Monsters is often cited as the first Pokémon manga. While it is the first multivolume Pokémon manga, it's actually the second manga overall; the first was a single volume 4-koma released a few months prior.
- Western fans of Pokemon largely like to act as if Pokémon Adventures and The Electric Tale of Pikachu are the only manga adaptations of the series. This is incredibly wrong as there are over forty manga series and counting. And despite Adventures frequently being called "the" Pokémon manga, it's not even the longest-running (that title goes to the above-mentioned Pocket Monsters, though Adventures has already long since surpassed it in actual volume count). The confusion is probably due to how those two manga are readily available in several languages besides Japanese, unlike most others. It's why you usually have fans speaking of "the manga", where they mean to say Pokémon Adventures.
- Pokémon Adventures:
- The concept that Pokémon Adventures is super-dark is this. While it is darker and gorier than most incarnations, almost all of the darker elements are from the Gen I and Gen II arcs, Future arcs stay Darker and Edgier, with things like Norman beating up his son Ruby or X being a hikikomori due to trauma, but much of the series' fan reception comes from exaggerations (in part due to Fandom Rivalry with the anime). In fact, the two most often reposted "violent" pages are an Arbok being chopped in half by Charmeleon, and a Psyduck being melted with an Acid attack fired by said Arbok. The former ended up being fine later, and the latter was a zombie.
- There is a quote by Tajiri that Adventures is the closest to his vision. This line has been taken out-of-context by fans who use it to say that the manga is the most accurate version of the series. The quote is from when Pokémon was in its infancy. Compared to its contemporary adaptations like the anime, 4-koma, or Pocket Monsters manga, Pokémon Adventures was the Truer to the Text version. It's since been displaced by even truer to the text adaptations, such as Pokémon Zensho and Pokémon Origins.
- Pokémon Adventures is thought by some people to be the official manga. In reality, Satoshi Tajiri never said that there was any official manga. Pokémon Adventures is simply the most popular one. It is worth noting, however, that Adventures is the only manga advertised on the official Japanese Pokémon website.
Miscellaneous
- Pokémon Live! is sometimes cited as having Giovanni as Ash's dad. In reality, the show only said that Delia and Giovanni dated. The two broke up years ago and Delia married Ash's Disappeared Dad. The play writer did say that they left some subtext that Giovanni might be Ash's father, but it's still up to fan interpretation whether they believe the subtext.
- Many often cite Takeshi Shudo's novelization of the Pokemon anime to showcase how dark the Pokemon world truly is; 10 is the legal age of adulthood and a 10-year-old can get married, being a Gym Leader is difficult, Delia secretly resenting her son, etc. However, none of this is hinted at nor shown in the anime proper. At most, these are what Takeshi wanted for the anime, due to his dislike with how childish and formulaic it is, as he also intended for the anime to end with Pokemon rebelling against humans with Pikachu and Meowth leading the rebellion.
- No, series creator Satoshi Tajiri is not on the Autism Spectrum. This misconception can be traced back to an unsourced claim from an unlicensed 2009 biography, which the author claims came from a MySpace page. The only official statement on the matter is a message from Game Freak's Information Coordinator to a UK Asperger's site, which refutes that Satoshi has the disorder.
