You’ve probably seen photos of a Geodude mascot with strangely checkered legs going around the internet lately. Most likely, it was accompanied by people making fun of the photoshop-like ‘transparent layer’ that was printed on its legs. Well, it turns out that this same mascot was made a tourism ambassador by the Iwate Prefecture for the surrounding area. This was done in partnership with The Pokémon Company.
Photo from Nintendolife
It seems that Geodude was chosen as their tourism mascot due to Iwate’s kanji directly translating to “rock” and “hand”. I mean, who else would be a more perfect mascot given that translation? And it seems that people already love him, going by reactions online!
(LOOK: New Pokemon sneakers are coming, and you gotta catch ’em all!)
The only bump is the question of the legs and whether the pattern was intentional. A representative from The Pokémon Company explained to The Huffington Post Japan that they endeavored for “Geodude to have an appropriate form”. Their design is such so that anyone who interacts with him might have a “pleasant encounter”.
Photo from Nintendolife
(You can now live your weeaboo dreams with this Pokemon wedding)
I’m not sure that completely answers the question, but at least we have this theme song to distract us from that:
What Pinoy character do you think we could name as a tourism ambassador?
