Charmander Is Grilling Something

The question is fifteen years old and nobody ever really answered it: what actually happens inside a Pokéball? Is the Pokémon digitally encoded? Compressed? Does it go somewhere else entirely—some waiting room outside of time—until it’s called back into existence for the next fight?

Designer Bruno Clasca put together a series of illustrations imagining the interior spaces of the three starter Pokémon’s balls, and the answer, apparently, is that they’re living their best lives. Bulbasaur has a garden. Squirtle has a bath. Charmander—my guy, uncontested—is grilling something over his own tail flame. The full series is on Clasca’s Behance. It’s genuinely charming, and it also makes the whole "enslaved to fight for sport" premise of the franchise feel slightly darker in retrospect. They have tiny domestic routines. They have preferences. And then the ball opens.