The life of a Pokémon is not easy, essentially a gauntlet of fear, indentured servitude, and violence that only ends with a creature’s death. But the indignities do not even stop there. A talented but twisted artist named Christopher Stoll has been imagining what it might be like to dissect the little buggers and take a gander at their internal workings. He’s been sharing these gory visions through a disturbing yet fascinating project at DeviantArt called PokéNatomy. Each picture in the series shows a popular Pokémon character with all the skin and fur removed from one side of its body, allowing the viewer to glimpse the muscles, bones, and organs that would normally (and rightly) be hidden. It’s simultaneously educational and deeply unsettling.
The characters in this multimedia franchise, encompassing video games, trading cards, and numerous TV shows and movies, are often designed to be cute and appealing in a cartoony way, so the anatomical verisimilitude of these drawings can be jarringly dissonant. Take what Stoll has done with the franchise’s most recognizable character and mascot, that adorable little butterball, Pikachu.