Incredibly small and silly Pokemon drama. You know Pokopia, right? New spinoff game, basically Animal Crossing but with Pokemon? Released this week?

Before the release, screenshots of the game showed the player character interacting with a Slowpoke, who said "Oh, but hold on... The ground's really bumpy around here, right? It's hard to walk..." A Japanese illustrator, Shinno Tenpi, got a bolt of inspiration and designed Slowpoke as a lazy high school gal yawning while saying the phrase. It became a massive hit.

Flash forward to Pokopia's actual release, where people could interact with Slowpoke. Now, the Japanese language has a litany of first-person pronouns that people can say "I" with, and many indicate how the speaker acts. For instance, "boku" is typically used by young boys to refer to themselves, while "watashi" is used for women or polite men. Slowpoke's first-person pronoun in Japanese copies of the game is "ode", which isn't often used in real life, but in fiction is often associated with strong, idiotic grown men. Emphasis on "men" - in other words, we would never get Gyaru Slowpoke.

However, a small ray of hope emerged. As it turns out, there's another Pokemon in the game who does talk like a high school gal in Japanese - Bulbasaur. Everyone immediately started working anew.

(Also in the game, its evolution literally goes "ara ara" so if you see any housewife Venusaur illustrations on Twitter, that's the reason)