With Pokemon being the most popular franchise ever, it’s easy to understand why some die-hard fans choose to get their favorite characters tattooed on themselves for life. But it’s not as simple as just booking in with an artist and getting poked – you need to find a professional who’s actually good at what they do.

Sadly, that’s not always what happens. Not everyone has the time, money, or patience to go looking for a good artist, or perhaps they get drunk with a friend who decides to go wild with a sewing needle and pen ink to give everyone stick and poke tats. And in any of those cases, the end result doesn’t always come out looking like a Pablo Picasso work of art.

Bring Pokemon into the mix: an enormously popular series with almost 900 monsters to choose from – and some are a lot harder to draw than others. If you don’t know what you’re doing then, well, you can see where this is going. Here are our picks for the top 10 worst Pokemon tattoos ever, ranked from bad to downright terrible.

#10 – Logan Paul’s Squirtle Squad

Apologies for the grotesque image – though you can see why it’s made the list. In 2019, Paul shocked fans when he revealed he was getting his first-ever tattoo: the leader of the mischievous Squirtle Squad, to celebrate his love for Pokemon.

Choosing to get it above his groin, the YouTuber endured the pain through literal tears, only for his new ink to get infected just 40 hours afterward, hitting home just how important proper aftercare is.

Don’t just take our word for it – even Logan himself called it “absolutely disgusting.” He did return to the tattoo artist to get it retouched, though the end result was still “half-assed” in his opinion, and we do kinda agree…

#9 – Pikachu’s happy ending

You’ve probably seen this one before if you’re a frequent Reddit visitor. If not, some backstory: a client of tattoo artist Lindsay Baker of Niteowl Tattoo in Massachusetts, USA, came into her shop requesting their badly-inked Pokemon be covered up. We can’t say we blame them.

According to the professional, the customer had received the offending art from a drunk girl – probably not the best person to give you a permanent inking, but hey. Instead of going the full cover-up route, Baker created a new design around the old one, with Pikachu painting the bad tat on a canvas. Absolute genius.

The patron was apparently “so excited” over the finished result, which took around two hours to complete. We love a happy ending.

#8 – Disgusting Dragonair

This one is so gross, we very nearly threw a NSFW tag on it. We’re not sure why you’d want to be impaled by a Pokemon, or anything at all for that matter, but there’s just something about it that churns our stomach slightly.

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It’s almost tragic because the design of the Dragonair is actually quite good, but the fact it’s diving through someone’s neck makes you forget that pretty quickly. The drops of blood are just the cherry on the top of a rather “WTF” cake.

It’s practically impossible to understand why anybody would want to have this as a tattoo that sticks with them for the rest of their life, but each to their own, we guess.

#7 – Metapod, Destroyer of Worlds

All kneel before Metapod, the Destroyer of Worlds. No, but seriously, you’d better. He might curse you with an equally bad tattoo, and trust us, you don’t want that – you might end up on our list.

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Jokes aside… Why? That’s all we can wonder here. Not only is the Grass-type one of the most boring Pokemon there is, but the Ye Old English-style font adds an extra layer of nonsensicality.

Is this an attempt at a rude double entendre since Harden is the monster’s only move? We can only guess. Either way, it’s an awful tattoo.

#6 – Defective Pikachu

Detective Pikachu is one of the best games to come out of the Nintendo 3DS era, and it even spawned a movie starring Ryan Reynolds, so it’s easy to see why fans would get the iconic monster tattooed on them. In this case, though, they should have gone to another arti st.

Not only does the Electric-type’s face look enlarged and bug-like, but its skin is red and blotchy from the irritation. While this surely went away once the tat calmed down, it does look like the Pokemon has caught an infectious skin disease.

To top it off, we can’t tell whether it’s holding a knife like a murderous fiend or if that’s supposed to be a magnifying glass at a side angle. We’d like to think it’s the latter.

#5 – Nightmare fuel Pikachu

If you could design some Pikachu ink, would you want it to look like a five-year-old drew it? No? Us neither. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what happened to this woman. Unless she deliberately chose a child’s drawing, in which case it gets a pass.

Not only is the Pokemon misshapen, but it also looks like something straight out of Five Nights At Freddy’s with its giant bug eyes that stare into your soul like a hungry animatronic demon. The only thing that looks accurate is the tail.

If this was us, we’d hide the tattoo behind our ear too. Sorry.

#4 – Hitmonlee and Hitmonchan

This tattoo is supposed to be Hitmonlee and Hitmonchan fighting, if you can call it that. It looks more like a scene from Paul W. S. Anderson’s Alien vs. Predator film than a pair of Pokemon.

Hitmonchan’s legs look disgustingly human and remind us of Michelangelo’s David sculpture, but not in a good way. And then you’ve got Hitmonlee’s face which is more akin to an earwig or other nasty bug. Absolutely nightmare inducing.

It’s actually a pretty cool concept, but unfortunately, it didn’t work out well on paper (or skin in this case). Perhaps it could have been different if they’d used a skilled artist – a true shame.

#3 – Dodgy Charmander

Now we’re in the top three contenders for worst tattoo ever, and if you think the Hitmonlee and Hitmonchan one was bad, well, it only gets worse from here. This rather dodgy Charmander looks like it’s been scrawled on by a child.

Not only is it badly drawn and probably inked on by someone who was either was very drunk or 12 years old, it looks as though its face has been mashed in with a shovel. Repeatedly.

They’ve also added a cigarette into its mouth – and it’s probably not the ‘normal’ kind of smoke either, if you catch our drift. How edgy.

#2 – Sh**ty Charmander

If you’ve been on the internet for a few years, you’ve no doubt seen this one floating around. Officially dubbed “Sh**ty Charmander” by fans, the now-famous ink rose to fame after being posted to Reddit in 2015.

The poster’s friend, the amateur tattooist, was supposedly drunk and on prescription drugs when they decided to give themselves a permanent dedication to their favorite Pokemon. The end result left the forum in hysterics and quickly went viral.

It’s easy to see why the internet finds it so funny – it’s so bad that it’s actually good.

#1 – Deez Nuts Pikachu

Here it is: the ugliest Pokemon tattoo of all time. Yes, some of the others on our list are artistically worse, but this ink is downright scary. The more you stare at it, the more horrifying it gets.

If the multiple piercings or its terrifying death stare didn’t freak you out already, the “Deez Nuts” tank top most certainly will.

This definitely isn’t what Game Freak had in mind when they debuted Cosplay Pikachu in Omega Ruby & Alpha Sapphire…

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