PewDiePie Fans Find An Unlikely Pokemon Crossover
Some dedicated fans of PewDiePie had a field day after they thought they had spotted an unexpected reference to the Swedish streamer in a recent episode of "Pokémon Journeys: The Series."
The potential crossover symbol that fans spotted appeared in Episode 59 of "Pokémon Journeys: The Series." As the episode begins, a disoriented Grookey wakes up Ash's regular companion on the show, Goh. When Ash gets up to help, the shirt he has been wearing to sleep has a red fist with an orange border printed on it. That symbol, fans on Reddit felt, was suspiciously similar to PewDiePie's own signature "Brofist" logo, which features a fist with a pronounced border in the shape of the letter P.
While the two symbols don't look exactly alike, they share enough of a passing resemblance to spark some speculation and jokes from PewDiePie's fans. The idea that the logo could indicate some sort of crossover, or an easter egg, at least, was strengthened when other fans on Reddit mentioned that the episode also featured a chair that resembled one that PewDiePie had used in the past.
However, other members of the Reddit community were quick to point out that not only had this possible crossover been spotted before, but it was pretty easy to debunk.
PewDiePie's dedicated Pokémon fans had a more straightforward explanation
Shortly after viewers spotted the potential Pokémon and PewDiePie crossover, fans of the long-running anime and video game series pointed out in the top-voted comment that the red fist was the in-universe symbol for a Fighting-type gym. Specifically, it is typically associated with Trainer Bea and is seen on her various outfits.
Other Reddit users posted evidence showing that variations on the fist logo have been used by Pokémon for quite some time, and that any connection to PewDiePie was either coincidental or even a reference the other way around. Of course, that didn't stop fans from jokingly accusing the creators of Pokémon of using time-travel to visit the future to steal PewDiePie's logo.
It isn't entirely surprising that PewDiePie fans would embrace a possible crossover with Pokémon, nor is it a shock that enough community members had such an advanced knowledge of the franchise to correct the confusion. There is a long history of Pokémon activity within the streamer's audience, as shown by the custom PewDiePie Pokémon card one fan created for the streamer in 2020.
Unfortunately, those same fans will have to wait patiently for any kind of official Pokémon/PewDiePie collaboration, no matter how unlikely.