The Ultra Beasts in Pokémon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon kind of look like they came from a different franchise. In the fiction of the games, these monsters are from another dimension than the one we inhabit, which is why they look less like Pokémon and more like distorted creatures you’d see in the margins of an edgy middle schooler’s notes. In actuality, however, it turns out these creatures’ otherworldly looks were inspired by rejected Pokémon designs.
Yusuke Omura, an illustrator and character designer who worked at Game Freak up until 2016, revealed on X that the Ultra Beasts were based on designs of monsters that studio co-founder and artist Ken Sugimori turned down during Omura’s time at the company.
Translation via Automaton:
I designed the Ultra Beasts by recalling some of the designs I made which were rejected by Mr. Sugimori, and I decided to deliberately use the very reasons for why they were rejected and base the artistic direction of the designs on them. So in some way, they’re like a manifestation of my own resentment– pretty scary.
Of course, this doesn’t mean that I hate Mr. Sugimori or anything like that.
Omura also responded to a fan theory that the Ultra Beasts were meant to look distinctly un-Pokémon-like, as if they broke the “rules” of what usually constitutes a Pocket Monster, and Omura said that was the intention and he’s glad it came through in their designs.
This is also supported by how Ultra Beasts have a significantly low catch rate in the games, as Poké Balls don’t recognize these uggos as Pokémon, thus leading to the creation of Beast Balls, which can capture these creatures, but are far less effective on standard Pokémon. The Ultra Beasts haven’t been featured in a mainline Pokémon game since Sword and Shield’s DLC, but have appeared in multiple spin-offs like the MOBA Pokémon Unite and the gacha game Pokémon Masters EX.
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English (US) ·