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11th Aug 2016

Thousands of people are asking Nintendo to turn this dead gorilla into a Pokemon

Harambe the gorilla was shot dead when a child jumped into his cage

Matt Tate

Not content with making the sadly deceased gorilla, Harambe, 2016’s biggest meme, people are now campaigning to have him immortalised in pop culture forever as a Pokemon.

Harambe wasn’t pocket-sized, he didn’t fight in battles and he was an actual real-life animal, rather than a fictional monster. But none of those things have stopped nearly 15,000 people (at the time of writing) backing a petition to induct him into the series.

The petition, which is appealing to Nintendo rather than The Pokemon Company – a potential sticking point going forward – has a target of 15,000 signatures. In just a day it’s almost topped that, which shows just how big a deal the gorilla has become.

Eric CreamyMemes, who started the petition, said: “Harambe deserves to live on forever in our hearts. Support this petition if you want Harambe to become a Pokémon.”

Screen Shot 2016-08-11 at 17.49.57

He’s gone to some serious effort here. The mockup artwork shows two Pokemon – “Hambo” and his evolved counterpart, “Harambe”. They’ve been listed as Ghost/Fighting monsters.

Not long after the petition was posted it was picked up by a parody account for Shigeru Miyamoto, the legendary Nintendo game designer who was one of the main creative forces behind most of the Japanese company’s biggest franchises. Again, this is a parody account, and definitely not an endorsment from the real Miyamoto.

The internet in 2016 continues to amaze.

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Topics:

Harambe,Pokemon