Despite being targeted towards young children as well as adults, thePokemonseries can actually be pretty dark at times. And not just through some of the games' main stories either, many of which involve death and Pokemon enslavement, but also through some of the deep lore which surrounds the series itself.
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Based on the anime, manga, and games, there have been numerous creepy conspiracy theories that have arisen from thePokemoncommunity, many of which have a bit of evidence to back them up. While they may seem a bit Farfetch’d to some, here are a few of the creepiestPokemonconspiracy theories to have arisen to date.
Updated Jul 08, 2025, by Tom Bowen:Despite its family-friendly image, the Pokemon series has some pretty dark themes hidden throughout its games and the accompanying anime and manga. There are plenty of mysteries too, which has inspired some fans to come up with their own theories and suggestions to explain away some of the inconsistencies and question marks that punctuate the overarching narrative. Some are a lot more plausible than others, although that’s not to say that they can’t all be true. In all likelihood, fans will never know for certain whether or not these creepy Pokemon conspiracy theories are accurate, but it can still be fun to speculate nonetheless.
20Misty is Dead
Though this one may seem a little farfetch’d at first, there’s actually some empirical evidence to suggest that Misty is in fact dead. In episode 24 of the anime,Misty is licked by Sabrina’s Haunter. The thing is though, numerous Pokedex entries for the Pokemon suggest that a lick from a Haunter is actually fatal. As such, it stands to reason that Misty would have died soon after that fateful lick.
Her continued inclusion in the anime would obviously suggest otherwise, but some fans of the show have speculated that this is just a symptom of Ash’s grief. As far as they’re concerned, all ofMisty’s battles from episode 25 of the anime onwardswere actually fought by Ash, who, stricken with grief for his lost friend, is attempting to keep her memory alive and her heartbroken Pokemon active.
19Parasect is a Last of Us-Style Monster
One of the things that makes the post-apocalyptic future depicted in Naughty Dog’sThe Last of Usgames so frightening is thatthe Cordyceps fungus that causes the mass outbreak is very much a real thing. Thankfully for humanity, the fungus is only able to take control of certain types of insects, at least that’s the case with the 600 or so different species of Cordyceps that have been discovered so far to date, anyway.
Unfortunately for the world of Pokemon, however, it seems that some of these species are capable of infecting certain bug-type Pokemon, most notably, Parasect. Most of the Pokemon’s Pokedex entries confirm that it’s being controlled by the parasitic fungus on its back. What’s not clear though, and what some fans believe may be the case, is whether Parasect is capable of infecting other Bug-type Pokemon with its spores just as the Cordyceps fungus is.
18Giovanni is Ash’s Real Father
Given his status as the big bad of the anime, the idea of Giovanni being Ash’s real father is quite a shocking one, no doubt. It would, however, explain whyGiovanni’s Team Rocket lackeysJesse and James always seem to be in the same region as the young protagonist despite the vastness of thePokemonworld.
Some believe that Giovanni is actually keeping tabs on his young son by sending his most harmless, yet most persistent grunts to keep an eye on him. This would explain why Team Rocket treats Pikachu so well whenever they do catch him and why in more than two decades they’ve never come close to physically hurting Ash despitethe group’s reputation for inflicting harm on both people and Pokemon.
17The Player Murders Gary’s Raticate
During therival battleon board the S.S. Anne inPokemon Red & Blue, Gary uses a Raticate as part of his team. This makes sense, as he’s shown to have caught a Rattata during the early stages of the game. When players next encounter Gary, however, the Raticate is nowhere to be seen, leading many to question whether it died as a result of the injuries it sustained during the previous battle.
Some have suggested that Gary simply swapped it out for a stronger Pokemon, but this seems unlikely given that he only has a team of five. That the battle also takes place in Lavender Town’s Pokemon Tower - a place where the souls of departed Pokemon are laid to rest - further strengthens the idea that Gary was unable to get poor Raticate to a Pokemon Center in time followingthe battle on the S.S. Anne.
16N Is A Zoroark
N is one of the more interesting characters to have beenintroduced inPokemon Black & White, largely due to the strong connection that he shares with both trainers and Pokemon. If a popular fan theory is to be believed though, there’s far more to the mysterious character than first meets the eye.
Many believe that N is not actually a human, but instead the Pokemon Zoroark in disguise and there’s a surprising amount of evidence to support this idea. As well as him looking a little like the Pokemon, there are also several instances in the games where players encounter a Zoroark shortly before or after meeting N. There’s even a point where interacting with Zoroarc triggers a flashback in N, which, at the very least, suggests that there’s a very strong bond between them.
15Wobbuffet Is Just A Tail
There are a few fan theories surrounding Wobbuffet’s tail, the first of which suggests that the Pokemon is actually an evolved form of Unown and that its tail is a remnant of its previous form. The second and more popular theory is not too dissimilar, although is perhaps a bit more difficult to believe.
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Some series fans have suggested that Wobbuffet’s tail is the main body of the Pokemon and that the large blue structure is just a decoy of sorts. This would certainly explain why the tail appears to have a face of its own, as well as why some of the Pokemon’s Pokedex entries talk about how it desperately tries to hide its tail.
14Humans Are An Invasive Species
One of the biggest criticisms people have of thePokemonseries is thatnew species of Pokemon are constantly being introduced. Though it’s possible that evolution simply happens at a much faster rate in the games' world than it does in reality, some players have come up with another, somewhat plausible theory to explain the phenomenon.
The theory proposes that humans colonized the Pokemon planet at some point in the not-too-distant past after the Earth became uninhabitable. This would certainly explain why new Pokemon are still being discovered on a regular basis, as well as the fairly drastic differences between people and Pokemon. It could even shed light on why there are so few adults in the games, with children presumably far more likely to have been rescued from the dying Earth than adults.
13Humans Are Also Pokemon
Another theory suggests that rather than being an invasive species, human is just another type of Pokemon. At first, this may seem a little ridiculous, but the fact that humans only make up a very small proportion of the total living creatures found throughout thePokemonworld could perhaps back this up.
Then there’s the fact that there are multiple versions ofcharacters like Nurse Joyand Officer Jenny. Granted, no human character in the show has ever evolved, but then, not every type of Pokemon can. Likewise, the fact that Pokemon of the same type can have different appearances further strengthens this line of thinking.
12MissingNo Are Corrupted Pokemon
Those who played the originalPokemongames will likely remember MissingNo. The glitched Pokemon allowed players to duplicate any item inRed & Blue, effectively providing players with an unlimited amount of rare candy and master balls. Though many consider it to have been a simple programming error orthe remnants of a removed Pokemon, some have other ideas about the origins of MissingNo.
It has long been believed that Pokemon are stored as digital data while in their Pokeballs or a PC box and one theory takes this idea a step further. It suggests that if stored digitally for too long, the data can become corrupt, causing the Pokemon to become MissingNo. Others have suggested that they could be failed Mew clones, which would also make sense given that they show up soclose to the Pokemon Mansionwhere other cloning experiments are known to have taken place.
While the anime follows Ash on his Pokemon journey, the first episode shows Ash meeting his first-ever Pokemon, Pikachu. In one particular scene in the first episode, Pikachu shocks Ash and a herd of Spearows to save them both from getting attacked. But in this theory, instead of Ash getting hurt, he actually dies from the powerful thundershock.The anime truly follows Ash as a ghost.
This theory would make sense for several reasons. Firstly, it would justify why Ash does not age in the show, he stays 10 years old for the entirety of it. It also makes sense because Ash is always asking questions and being very forgetful when it comes to basic Pokemon knowledge, this could be because he can’t remember a lot of information from his past life.
