Pokemon fans collectively decide who has the stupidest shoes in the whole series

Pokemon Legends: Arceus Irida
(Image credit: Game Freak)

Pokemon fans have collectively decided who has the stupidest shoes in the series by hosting a tournament on Twitter. 

The tournament was started by Twitter user @casey_closed, who asked fans to vote for the pair of shoes they think is the stupidest from the Pokemon franchise. The only rules were that fans had to vote based on their opinion of the shoes, and not the character - the trainer wearing the abominations on their feet was irrelevant in this competition.

Round one saw the likes of Irida vs Marnie, Brawly vs Gladion, Rosa vs Maxie, Ingo & Emmet vs Nessa, Crasher Wake vs N, and Bede vs Elio. The tournament went on for another three rounds, which eventually ended with Irida vs Ingo & Emmet, with Irida coming out on top as fans decided that the Pearl Clan leader had the stupidest shoes out of all the Pokemon trainers. 

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So how did fans feel about their winner? Well, the replies to the tweet above are just as silly as the tournament itself. Referring to Irida's shoes, one Pokemon fan said: "They honk with every step," to which the tournament's organizer replied: "She's got that SpongeBob walk SFX." 

Some fans were disappointed by the results, while another took the discussion outside of Pokemon entirely by saying: "No one can beat Sora from Kingdom Hearts in that regard." Unfortunately for fans of Sora's clown shoes, it looks like he'll be ditching them for Kingdom Hearts 4.

Surprisingly, as one Twitter user pointed out once the tournament had ended, Mela from Pokemon Scarlet and Violet somehow managed to avoid being mentioned in the competition. If you're wondering why this is such a big deal, I encourage you to look up the character and get a look at their extremely over-the-top red boots. I have no idea how they manage to get around in them. In the tournament creator's defence, they replied to the tweet explaining: "[to be honest] I forgot about her."

Shoes aside, here's our list of the best Pokemon games

Hope Bellingham
News Writer

After studying Film Studies and Creative Writing at university, I was lucky enough to land a job as an intern at Player Two PR where I helped to release a number of indie titles. I then got even luckier when I became a Trainee News Writer at GamesRadar+ before being promoted to a fully-fledged News Writer after a year and a half of training.  My expertise lies in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, cozy indies, and The Last of Us, but especially in the Kingdom Hearts series. I'm also known to write about the odd Korean drama for the Entertainment team every now and then.