Genesis
Before the world had weather.
The Origin Spirit Divides the World
元靈開闢圖
Arceus stands on the unfinished altar while time, space, and antimatter take their positions below. The mist has not yet decided where the mountains go.
Composed as a 開闢圖 — a 'separation of heaven and earth' scroll, the genre Chinese painters reserved for creation itself.
Depicted: ArceusDialgaPalkiaGiratinaDarkraiCresseliaHeatranRegigigasUxieMespritAzelfShayminManaphy
The Elder of the Seed Garden
種園長者
The old one has not moved in a season and the garden has simply grown around him. His flower is doing the breathing for everybody.
Depicted: VenusaurIvysaurBulbasaur
The Water Chapter
Everything begins at the ford.
Thunder Mice at the Shallows
雷鼠淺灘
A colony scattered across the rocks like sparks that landed and stayed. Count them; there are always more than you counted.
Depicted: Pikachu
Ducks at the Ford, Mist Withholding the Far Bank
野渡鴨群
Two-thirds of this painting is blank paper. The far bank is not missing — it is simply not being shown to you yet.
A textbook use of 留白 (liúbái), reserved blank, where emptiness carries more of the picture than ink does.
Depicted: PsyduckDrifloonEevee
Ten Thousand Carp Ascending
萬鯉溯流
They are going upstream because upstream is where you go. None of them can explain it. All of them are certain.
Depicted: Magikarp
The Carp Passes the Dragon Gate
鯉躍龍門
Beneath the gate, a fish. Above the gate, the thing the fish becomes. The painting refuses to show you the moment in between.
鯉躍龍門 — the carp that clears the Dragon Gate falls becomes a dragon. A myth that has been waiting a thousand years for this exact species to be invented.
Depicted: GyaradosMagikarp
The Long Afternoon
Nothing happens, at length.
Sunning Themselves, Entirely Without Ambition
曝日無為
The handscroll is nine feet long and nothing in it is in a hurry. This is the most honest landscape in the collection.
Depicted: SlowpokeSlowbro
Companions at the Rock Pool
石潭同遊
Everyone you met first, arranged as a scholar would arrange his favourite stones — by temperament, not by size.
Depicted: SnorlaxGengarSquirtleBulbasaurCharmanderPikachuPsyduckJigglypuffClefairySlowpoke
The Sleeper and the Nine-Tailed Fox
眠獸與九尾
The fox keeps watch out of politeness. Nothing is coming. Nothing has ever come.
The nine-tailed fox (九尾狐) is a Chinese omen long before it is a Pokémon — here it has been demoted to a babysitter.
Depicted: SnorlaxNinetalesVulpixPikachuClefairyPsyduck
Ice Bird Over the Falls, Cat Unimpressed
冰禽瀑上
A legendary bird crosses the waterfall. The cat sitting on the sleeping mountain does not look up. The moth does not look up either.
Depicted: SnorlaxMeowthVenomothArticuno
Raiding the Orchard of Immortal Peaches
大鬧蟠桃園
The peaches confer immortality and are guarded carefully. The monkeys have taken eleven and are working on the twelfth.
孫悟空大鬧蟠桃園 — the Monkey King ransacking the Queen Mother's peach garden in Journey to the West. Casting Mankey was not a difficult decision.
Depicted: MankeyAipomSneasel
The Great Gathering
Everyone arrives at once.
Eight Evolutions Descending the Stream
八變臨溪
One animal, painted eight ways, each convinced it is the correct one.
Depicted: EspeonSylveonFlareonUmbreonJolteonVaporeonLeafeonGlaceonEeveePikachuCubone
The Same Family, Given Room
同族散處
Unrolled, the family spreads across four feet of riverbank and stops being a group portrait. It becomes a place they happen to live.
Depicted: UmbreonEspeonVaporeonJolteonFlareonLeafeonGlaceonSylveonEevee
Sky Serpent Over the Assembled Valley
天蛇臨谷
The green serpent crosses the upper third of the paper and everything below carries on with its afternoon. Correct behaviour, in a landscape this old.
Depicted: RayquazaFlygonVibravaSylveonEspeonUmbreonLeafeonGlaceonJolteonFlareonPikachu
Night Visitors
The lanterns are not lit for us.
Crossing the Plank Bridge at Dusk
薄暮過橋
Two of the figures on this bridge have bodies. The other three are being polite about it.
Depicted: GengarHaunterGastlyPikachuPsyduck
Among the Banana Palms, After Rain
雨後蕉陰
Wet banana leaves, and a great deal of purple where the shadow should be. The shadow is fine. Do not check on the shadow.
Depicted: HaunterGastlyGengar
Moon Rising Behind the Old Trunk
古槎月出
The tree has been dead for a century and is the most populated thing in the valley.
Depicted: GastlyHaunterGengar
The Tea Gathering of Things With No Feet
無足者茶會
Tea has been poured, dumplings set out, and the guests have arranged themselves around a table none of them can sit at. The host is delighted.
The 雅集 — the scholars' elegant gathering, painted for eight hundred years as the highest form of civilised life. The guest list has been revised.
Depicted: GengarHaunterGastlyKoffingWeezing
Return
Fire on the tower, and then quiet.
Rainbow Phoenix Above the Burned Tower
虹鳳臨焦樓
Three beasts died in the fire and were brought back by the bird that started it. They have not discussed this since.
The 鳳凰 (fènghuáng) does not rise from ash in Chinese myth — it appears when the age is about to become good. The tower below suggests it is early.
Depicted: Ho-OhEnteiRaikouSuicune
Small Gods Under a Full Moon
月下小神
Three of the figures in this painting are said not to exist. They are sharing a riverbank with a carp and a penguin, which settles the argument.
Depicted: CelebiJirachiMewSlowpokeMagikarpPiplup