The best Ash Ketchum fan art on the first page of Google

With Safe Search on, no less

I was writing a story about a weird Ketchum and, of course, the internet out-weirded it with ease. It was a well-meaning Google Image Search. Safe Search is even on, filtering explicit results. Just “ash ketchum.” Not “ash ketchum fan art.” Not “sexy ash ketchum.” Not “ash ketchum bible verses.”

Then sorted by images at least 1,000 pixels in width, which might be Nintendo/The Pokemon Company’s problem: too few Ash images at high res to bump down the drums of fan art. There’s a good story about how Esurance’s pink-haired spy mascot of the early aughts ended up getting retired because porn of her supplanted (or at least joined) the company’s search engine results.

What I mean to say: it’s not like when I actively sought out the sexiest, stupidest, stretchiest Sonic Boom fan art. I didn’t even have to scroll down very far to find these.

This Ash (and the one in the header image above) comes from Deviantart’s t3hdm0n (and the third line of Google Image Search), who has a huge series of shirtless Ash images at the previous link. Thing is, dm0n took screen shots from the official Pokemon anime and then recolored Ash shirtless — like a million times over — which is causing some waves in the community, with some commenters suggesting it’s tracing at best, art stealing at worst.

Not everyone is so controversial, though. Over on the page, a young man with a Jacksonville Jaguars avatar wants to know:

Hello Please I Want To Recommend that Japanese Anime.

But yes.

Animes should not have any violence, no nudes, no deaths, no fights, no blood, no profanity, no content offensive, and no bad messages.

This bad boy from GIS line 2 (we’re talking a top 20 result) comes from Deviantart’s jbwarner86. The finely aged piece from ’07 — a great year, truly — depicts the most famous Ketchum with an everyday problem: too many ladies to make out with, too little time. It also appears to depict Ash with JNCO jeans.

Deviantart’s TheMaskofaFox almost cracked the top 10 search results, coming in at number 12. There’s one good funny one in the top 10, but it’s not attributable to the original artist, so we’ll have to skip that one. We’re also ignoring the bad Photoshop in the top 5 that’s Ash with a tear drop tattoo and popped collar that links to a wildly successful “homie ash” parody Twitter account, because that is some very #darksiders2 shit, or that awful, joke-stealing God parody account.

Anyways: gender bent Ash’s Poké Balls are looking mighty globular and close to the clavicles. Now I’m trying to think of actual canon, shirtless Pokemon anime characters and wondering if they have clavicles. A subject for another article, perhaps.

Here’s a third-liner that seems to have come from, well, not a place of complete sincerity. In the same vein (ew) of a lot of that Esurance lady porn coming from artists who found they could make more money off porn commissions than their own art, Deviantart’s Siberian-Wonder offers, “Btw, I don’t like this work,” noting that they did it, “Just to draw attention and get more views.” _{Kind of like this post, huh?}

Maybe you dislike stocky, re-colored shirtless Ash (either for moralistic plagiarism reasons or because he looks too much like a dumb-bodied ten-year-old, which he is) and maybe lithe body pillow Ash just doesn’t seem like he’s strong enough to protect you in case the two of you are out on a stroll in the park and get mugged, or maybe a barista calls your name out with a little bit of an attitude and you want them roughed up.

Point is: theology132 over at Deviantart has your back with another third-liner. Yes, they get more odd and abstract (or should I say Oddish and Abra-stract, hah-hah!) — these are just the immediate results. And with Safe Search on, again. Though they also manage to get more lewd the deeper you go.

Our own Jordan Devore has the art critic bonafides to explain why this piece works whereas the gender bent Ash is a bit off: “they took too many liberties with the face [in the previous entry]. the face is perfect in og form. never change that, obviously.” Great tips for inspiring artists!

OHMYFUCKINGGODIAMDEAD.

Thanks. Bless.