Japan Disaster Coverage Invaded By Rampaging Pokémon

With the recent release of Pokémon Black and White, those mischievous pocket monsters are popping up all over the place, including some places they probably shouldn’t, like all over British free daily newspaper Metro’s coverage of the disaster in Japan.

The partial Nintendo takeover of an issue of the free daily Metro might have been a boon for the paper’s advertising team, but this is one of those cases where advertising and content don’t mix well. Kotaku commenter TopHatLayton sent us these scans, covered with joyfully parading Pokémon interspersed with tales of the devastation, fear, and trauma caused by the tragic Japanese earthquake and tsunami.

Stories such as “Trauma of children forced to flee home” and “Fears grow for missing Britons”, the latter accompanied by a picture of an infant feared lost in the devastation, make the colourful cartoon characters hard to swallow.

Imagining the Pokémon invasion is a result of the disaster only helps a little bit.