After last week's Pokemon leaks canceled Typhlosion, a new translation of the alleged lore paints the fire-type in a much more favorable light
It's been quite a week for Pokemon fans, and especially those with a soft-spot for the beloved Johto region starter, Typhlosion. Following a huge leak at developer Game Freak, alleged short stories detailing everything from the origin of the Pokemon universe to strange folklore-style tales about human-Pokemon relationships surfaced online.
One of these stories was about Typhlosion, and to put it politely, it didn't depict the Pokemon in a very flattering way. The alleged tale seemed to describe the Fire-type taking in a girl (who many assumed to be a child, since she wasn't described as a woman) while disguised, and making her forget about her family, before becoming her husband and father to her child.
It was… a lot to take in, but according to one Twitter user, Roltas01 – with the help of three translators, LonFuneon, Loudkuyuki, and Dark_Kudoh – the text of this supposed tale was machine translated when it first surfaced. This apparently led to the shared English version being full of discrepancies, and missing context about the Japanese folklore that may have inspired it.
From this newly human-translated version, it's claimed that the 'girl' in question was actually a young woman – her exact age still isn't clear, but @Roltas01 suggests it's "more in line with the age of 'adult' women displayed in folklore back then." Furthermore, it's suggested that the Typhlosion in the story is an allegory for a mythical creature, the shapeshifting yokai, Mujina, which would tie into the Pokemon disguising itself.
Roltas01 claims that certain aspects of the story – namely, the woman forgetting about her family, and the marriage – are examples of influences from Japanese folklore tropes. They also allege: "Giving birth to a monster and a human's child is just a way to represent that the woman may never be human and go live with her folks ever again, since her blood is now related to the spiritual world and can't go back. It's a point of no return symbolized by the birth of
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