Fan Art of the Silhouetted 5th Generation Pokemon

It seems that the fifth generation excitement in the air is thicker than previous generations, possibly due to the fact that its announcement came out of nowhere and the release will be here within only a year. With Diamond and Pearl, the fourth generation was advertised over two years before its official release – Munchlax was already in the second Ruby and Sapphire movie before all the third generation Pokemon had even debuted!

This time around, the Pokemon Company decided to focus exclusively on the Pokemon of the current generation rather than advertising the next generation so early, leaving the advertising to the movie directly before the release of the new games. This “delay” probably increased the excitement factor as well, since the gap between the fourth and fifth generations was longer than usual – four years! If you count Munchlax’s debut, we have known of the fourth generation for over six years! Pokemon’s been out in Japan for fourteen years, and we’ve had Diamond and Pearl Pokemon for almost half that time.

So what have the fans been doing in their excitement? The only official, tangible bone we’ve been thrown is the mysterious silhouette of a bipedal Pokemon that holds the “key” to the 13th Pokemon movie, The Ruler of Illusion: Z. The members of PokeBeach forums, without even being told, have produced their own fan art of this Pokemon based on several theories regarding what it is. Some fans think the new Pokemon is an evolution of Lucario, Ninetales, Mightyena, Sonic the Hedgehog, and many other creatures! We have compiled all of the artwork posted by our members from this forum thread below for your enjoyment; click the thumbnails for larger images. Which design will come closest to the real thing? Well, probably none, but some of them are extremely cool regardless! Forum mod Xous is excellent at emulating Ken Sugimori’s style, as you can see in the last two pictures below.