Pokémon: A World Without Nipples
- SJ Williamson
- Aug 3, 2025
- 4 min read
As an artist, I have a few pet peeves about gender performance through art. Today, I'll be going over one of my pet peeves about my favorite video game, show, and franchise: Pokémon. Here's the pet peeve and my research question for the day: where in the world are nipples in Pokémon?
Targeted Age Group
The show, movies, and video games tend to target kids 10 and older based on the ratings. I may be one of the older fans, but I still enjoy watching and playing Pokémon. Some people have suggested that the exclusion of nipples on shirtless guys might be because of the younger targeted age group.
Are nipples really too sexual or inappropriate for younger viewers? I don't think so. I'm sure young children have gone swimming at a public pool or beach and seen hundreds of pairs of men's nipples. How many women's nipples have they seen? Doesn't matter as much to me for the sake of this argument in the world of Pokémon, which doesn't bare women's nipples. The point is, in America at the very least, it is socially acceptable for men to bare their nipply chests. So why is it appropriate in reality but not in cartoons and video games? Who decided that hand-drawn and animated male nipples were too adult for young tweens? As a counter-argument for this reasoning, I also have seen a lot of anime that targets more mature audiences that also don't include anatomically correct nipples on shirtless men. Overall, I think targeted audience age is not a valid excuse for this phenomenon.
Sexuality
If you didn't know already, I'm on the asexual spectrum. I'm not attracted to nipples; this is strictly a pet peeve as an artist, not a voyeur. However, another thought about the nipple-less land of Pokémon is its possible connections to sexuality. This perspective goes a bit farther than the targeted age demographic by suggesting that nipples have an inherent connection to sex or sexual attraction. Maybe this connection is real in certain cultures (LGBT+ or racially) or kink communities; I don't think it is that clear in America's largely heterosexual, conservative culture.
There are numerous characters in the anime, manga, and video game who are male and are pictured shirtless. We've got the big and bulky Crasher Wake as well as a cool boy in the form of Gaeric. The nipplelessness seems consistent regardless of character age or body type/size. American culture, and I'm sure many others, tends to glorify and sexualize skinnier, more fit men and women. It's kind of strange to me. I've never had a problem crushing on less traditionally attractive people. Still the nipplelessness transcends these traditional ideas about what is supposed to be considered sexy or not.
Gaeric himself is an interesting case. As people would assume less sexual connotations in Pokémon due to the targeted age group, Gaeric is a male character that is overly sexualized in my opinion. While this blog post isn't about female characters, I am sure there are certain female characters that are more sexualized in design like Olivia from the Alola Region or Nessa from Sword & Shield. Rule 34 unfortunately exists. Gaeric's design is interesting because not only is he shirtless while living in the snowy Alabaster Icelands (maybe his nipples froze and broke off his body), but he also has other sexualized features on his chest. He has an obvious six-pack and even performs work-out moves like squats when interacting with your character in Pokémon Legends: Arceus. He also has a symbol on his chest related to his clan in the game. This symbol is intricate, taking time to design and if he were real, time to manage. People have debated whether or not it is chest hair (it is the same color as his facial hair) or a tattoo (because of the flatness in the animation). Either way, well-maintained chest hair and chest tattoos tend to be symbols of sexualization. His design may pass into the sexual arena even without anatomically correct nipples. If so, then why not just add nipples to his character design? It's this specific character that tells me that banning nipples due to sexual connotation can't be the true reason why male Pokémon characters lack nipples. If adding nipples to the design is what would tip the scale into the too sexy range, I'm greatly confused as I don't know anyone into a guy for how his nipples look.
James & the Giant Teats
Sexuality has been reason for censorship of things other than artistic design. Some sexualized episodes of Pokémon have been banned in different countries. For example, Episode 18, titled "Beauty and the Beach" (2000), was banned in America because one male character crossdresses in a bikini with the biggest boobies known to man, pictured below. James often crossdresses using disguises in the series, but usually it consists of dresses or fully covered chest. This disguise with fake boobs was not just overly sexualized; it was too representational of transgender possibilities, something that goes against the conservative, anti-LGBT+ culture in America at the time. It would not be allowed in children's shows in the early 2000s.
So where does this leave us? Nipples are either oversexualized or left out of the anime anatomy for the hell of it. Perhaps our oversexualized culture needs a redo anyway; perhaps other countries' sexualization patterns need one too. Nipple isn't a bad word. However, it's like no udder.
Comments