Thank you for 10 Years of Love, Guzma
August may almost be over but Happy Guzmaversary! 💜💀🖤
Celebrating 10 years of Guzma being my ultimate favorite character and forever.
August 11, 2016 marks the day when Guzma and Team Skull was officially revealed. But my Guzmaversary was August 20, 2016 because that was the day I fell in love with him. So I declare August to be the month of Guzma and Team Skull.
How did I discovered my love for Guzma?
It all happened 10 years ago when Nintendo or Gamefreak was continuously releasing official leaks for the upcoming Pokemon Sun and Moon game. My brother and I were anticipating who’s going to be the new evil team and who their respective boss will be. So on August 18, the moment I got home from work that very night I opened my laptop and searched through Google. To our surprise we were ecstatic to find out the new evil team - Team Skull. Team Skull was very different, street punks looking so hip and reminiscent to 90s gangsters, breaking the monotony of the usual organized crime gangs of the past Pokemon games. They looked like real thugs and that’s why we loved them already. The moment we found their boss and saw his name was Guzma, we hit seventh heaven like it was the very first time for Pokemon to have a very cool boss, full of swagger and with an amazing design.
I watched the official Sun and Moon trailers featuring Team Skull in Youtube and there’s this video with a gamer talking about how he loved Team Skull and their gangsta and hiphop aesthetic and was so especially elated that they had such a badass boss named Guzma who acts more like a delinquent leader than a criminal mastermind. He even pointed out his mannerisms like how he squats in battle instead of standing and the way he commands his Pokemon Ariados. He’s also got the most hilarious but memorable lines. It was really a breath of fresh air and I wanted to search more, however since it was getting late and I have to go back to work the following day, I had to pause and do my search on Saturday instead since I’ll be tired from Friday night’s grind for sure.
Then on Saturday, August 20 around 3:00pm in the afternoon was when I felt the magic. I searched for Guzma fanart on Tumblr and to my surprise - it was filled with so much Guzma goodness of all kinds! Edgy, romantic, funny and sexy. I didn’t realize how insanely popular he instantly became and I thought me and my brother were the only ones who like him. Every artists were creative on their take on portraying Guzma. Whether its art, fanfiction or memes it was an endless scroll of imaginations and I love each of their headcanons of him, to the point that I started making my own headcanons of my beloved boy as well. The more I saw these artworks the stronger my love for him grew. It was a wonderful Saturday afternoon to be alive.
Guzma’s introduction was very timely, because 2016 was the period of my life when I began working as a full-fledged in-house animator, my very first job. I just turned 25 years about two months before the trailer, and the transition from college graduate to working adult was really hard. So many adjustments, failed expectations and unfortunate but unavoidable events. There were times when I felt my efforts at work weren’t good enough but whenever I felt like giving up I always thought about Guzma. He never fails to uplift my spirit.
After the games were released I learned more about Guzma and loved him even more. It was unexpected but it made me so happy, because my favorite character has a very relatable backstory. What a coincidence that both Guzma and I are struggling from the disappointments of failure, the harsh realities of adulthood and the desire to leave the past and move on. Guzma’s fall from the start and redemption in the end has become my greatest insipiration to never give up.
Thank you Pokemon particularly Game Freak for giving us Guzma and Team Skull! 😊💖
