Pokemon Insanity - Italy is Not Unova

Pokemon Insanity - Italy is Not Unova is an extremely violent Pokémon JRPG for the Playstation 5, known for its urban crime setting and its extreme violence. It's a tongue-in-cheek absurdist black comedy game that homages (and spoofs) games like Pokémon, Yakuza-Like a Dragon, No More Heroes, Persona 5, the Trails series and Danganrompa and slasher movies. 
It's the first M-Rated Pokémon game ever, made for the very few people who love Pokémon, J-Pop, psycho yandere girls, vigilante justice, blood dripping everywhere from the bodies of total assholes, explosions, maid cafés, explicit lesbian fanservice, and insanity, lots and lots of insanity, maybe too much for the likes of Game Freak, since this game is Italian-developed. Its inspiration comes from Slasher movies, however you are playing the serial killer yourself, and the people you kill are people who deserve it. 
It involves you playing as antiheroic Italian Otaku serial killer Annalisa Miyawaki, also known by her codename AKB-47, traveling through Italy and killing criminals such as members of the Italian "'Ndrangheta" yakuza, violent migrants, corrupted politicians, child abusers and many others using a Pokémon-decorated AK-47 rifle she had bought from Lucca Comics before her parents' suicide (she names her rifle "Aki-chan" and believes it's real) and Pokémon toys rigged with various types of bomb. 
It's a game so batshit insane that at the same time it makes you laugh and tremble, something that relishes so much in its campy yet gruesome violence that feels like both an Earthbound-esque parody of JRPGs and especially of Pokémon, and at the same time it's seriously, seriously disturbing with the fun coming from watching a Harley Quinn-like psycho girl utterly brutalize people who deserve it because their faults are genuinely horrible stuff. 
== Setting ==
The game is set in Italy.
Most of the time you are free to roam the city of Milan, where Annalisa lives, and do sidequests such as assassinating criminals or doing much more normal work which is played as minigames. 
Occasionally you get to fight a Gym Leader, which causes Annalisa to be transferred to a different city such as Bologna, Brescia, Catanzaro, Napoli, Turin, Venice, Reggio Emilia and Ingurtosu (a place in Sardinia): after beating the gym leader, you can no longer return to the city you fought them in. 
== Gameplay ==
The game is a turn-based game where you control Annalisa and three Pokémon. Whenever Annalisa dies, it's game over (because if she dies, no one thinks the Pokémon dolls are attacking since they're just toys unless Annalisa gives them life in her mind). 
The turn-based battle system involving Pokémon is because Annalisa sees her vigilante antics as playing a JRPG. You can't catch Pokémon, instead you buy them at a shop called a Pokémon Center (they really exist, though in Japan, not in Italy). Annalisa then "gives life" to those Pokémon. 
Annalisa can visit the Maid Café Cutty Sark (the name is taken from a Captain Harlock-themed bar in Rome) in order to gather information about criminals she has to kill. 
Unlike Pokémon, this game forces you to be in Nuzlocke (every Pokémon you lose is lost forever). Evolving Pokémon requires them to be taken at the Pokémon Center as you're exchanging a Pokémon doll with another doll.
Unlike most Pokémon games, there are no Kanto Pokémon aside from one very rare Pikachu doll, instead the "Pokédex" is mostly made of Unova and Alola Pokémon dolls (because Annalisa doesn't like Kanto Pokémon).
Roaming through Milan is open world: you can do a vast array of sidequests including picking fights with criminals, doing assassinations, or just doing normal work (which is done by minigames). Like in No More Heroes, challenging a Gym Leader requires you to collect enough money, as you have to pay your own trip to the city (and Annalisa is poor). 
Doing sidequests increases your Kawaisa and whenever you rise up a rank you get bonuses. 
The gameplay when challenging a Gym Leader is reminiscent of the Trails series, involving doing various quests in the city in order to collect evidence and advance the plot. A "Gym" is a dungeon involving you chasing the culprit and fighting the boss.
== Characters ==
=== Playable ===
* Annalisa Miyawaki
=== Secondary/Flirt Options: ===
* Irene Sonoda
* Francesca Kimura
* Marianna Ono
* Sofia Takemura
=== Gym Leaders ===
Annalisa calls "Gym Leaders" the various assassination targets that require her to travel outside Garlasco and in other cities in Italy to solve cases. After murdering those guys, Annalisa performs special finishers that are references to video games. Killing a "Gym Leader" nets you their badge, AKA one of their embalmed organs. There are Gym Leaders in Bologna, Brescia, Catanzaro, Napoli, Turin, Venice, Taranto and Reggio Emilia. 
* Reginaldo Sculli, Bologna gym leader: a professor of computer science at Bologna University. He often invites young girls to various places where he has sex with them in exchange for good grades. He claims that it's because his wife is barren and he wants children, but pedophilia is absolutely unforgivable so Annalisa kills him with her "Fellatio Finisher Vii(olence) Remake", AKA tying him to a bed and then inserting Aki-chan into his mouth, then shooting so that the bullet breaks his throat. He's inspired by Suguru Kamoshida from Persona 5, in fact Annalisa describes him as a "real-life Kamoshida". Killing him yields the "Pedophile Badge", AKA his penis.
*Gorman Mpemba, Brescia gym leader: an immigrant from Nigeria, who is guilty on having killed and raped various girls in the city. Killing him gives you the "Fake Refugee Badge", AKA his testicles.
*Giuseppe Ucciero, Catanzaro gym leader: a doctor in Arnaldo Pugliese hospital in Catanzaro. He intentionally released a mutant virus created by the mafia, gave bioweapon vaccines made by the 'Ndrangheta that cause heart attacks in people, so that they have to spend further money for heart surgery (said money is taken as pizzo by the 'Ndrangheta). He's killed with the Superilkuloden ("su per il culo" is Italian for "up the ass"), a finisher involving Annalisa injecting Ucciero with multiple doses of the mafia's bioweapon vaccines up the ass, and then watching him scream as he dies by heart attack. Killing him gives the "Bioterrorist Badge", AKA his heart.
* Don Mauro Vommici, Napoli gym leader: a priest who is secretly part of a ring of people smuggling alongside the de Bono family. Annalisa kills him with the "Undertail", AKA a reenactment of the way Dante's Inferno punished simony: she puts him face down, buries his head in trash and shoots his feet point-blank with her Aki-chan so that he dies either by asphyxiation or by blood loss. Killing him gives the "Simoniac Badge", AKA his feet.
*Hidesaburo de Bono, Reggio Emilia gym leader: head of the de Bono 'Ndrangheta family, and the man who had taken Annalisa's mother Maria Luisa as a concubine. Annalisa hates his guts. He holds an important auction where senator Yasuhiro Zavanone is invited. Killing him gives you the "Mafioso Badge", AKA a test tube filled with his blood.
=== Elite Four ===
the "Pokémon league" is a villa in Ingurtosu, Sardegna, where senator Yasuhiro Zavanone lives and which serves as a meeting point for four exponents of 'Ndrangheta families. Zavanone is a powerful mafioso who became a senator thanks to his connection to the powerful 'Ndrangheta families Zappia, Toyoda, Tamura and Ostuni, who hold influence over the state itself. Elite Four are the heirs of those four families, while Senator Yasuhiro Zavanone, who is the "champion of the league", is an important connection for the four mafia families and paid by all of them. Elite four do not give badges as they're just finished by shooting in the head (as Annalisa knows nothing about their faults). Zavanone, on the other hand, is finished with the finisher "Ultimate J-Pop Finisher", which is based on hanged, drawn and quartered.
* Takeshi Zappia
* Rocco Toyoda
* Calogero Tamura
* Yoshiyuki Ostuni
* Champion Yasuhiro Zavanone
=== Team Rehab ===
Team Rehab are the policemen trying to arrest Annalisa and take her to psychiatric hospital. Team Rehab grunts are normal policemen but appear as straightjacketed men with iron masks and samurai-like helmets. The Admins have no name, and the leader is never fought as the police obeys the State. 
TBA
== Plot ==
Annalisa Miyawaki starts by recounting how she ended up becoming a criminal, while laying in bed hugging her Hatsune Miku dakimakura. 
Until three years before, she was a normal girl, just with a passion for Pokémon. But the energy bills in Italy have soared, and Covid caused both of Annalisa's parents to lose their job. Annalisa's father committed suicide due to being unable to find a well-paid job and left her and her mother alone. Her mother sold herself as a concubine to rich 'Ndranghetista Hidesaburo de Bono, and as such ended up involved with mafia work and abandoning her daughter. So Annalisa became more and more isolated and attached to her Pokémon merchandise. Annalisa had no mortgage loan to pay, but in order to survive she had to work, and started finding well-paid yet shady jobs as a way to support herself. Using parts of her old Pokémon cosplays, Annalisa designed her superhero costume, naming it AKB-47 from the band AKB48 and the AK-47 rifle she had bought in her last Lucca Comics, which she had named Aki-chan. 
After Annalisa finishes reminiscing about the past (the intro), she heads to Cutty Sark Maid Café in order to look for information about her next target. 
One of her friends, a maid and information broker named Irene Sonoda tells her that she has seen some guys in brown suits meet each other in the sewers, likely 'Ndrangheta men. 
Before going on a murder spree, Annalisa goes to the Pokémon Center (which is actually an armory) to stock up on Pokémon toys (rigged with bombs and various contraptions so that she imagines them to be real Pokémon). 
== Soundtrack ==
The soundtrack has been described as "insane J-Pop",. A lot of songs by Italian anime singer Giorgio Vanni (who is known for singing Pokémon openings), by J-Pop singer Skoll (Federico Goglio) and by AKB48 appear in this game, with a few songs from J-Pop groups such as Honey Hime, ZetaZeroAlfa, Raiya, Aggroknuckle, Ultima Frontiera and Sledgehammer, plus a metal cover of Ievan Polkka by Hatsune Miku, and those songs are diegetic, as Annalisa Miyawaki carries a bluetooth speaker with her and actually does play the songs herself as she travels. It's Annalisa's character trait that she's obsessed with Skoll and AKB48 other than Pokémon songs. 
Some songs that are part of this game's OST are:
* Honey Hime - Dragostea Din Tei (Japanese version)
* Giorgio Vanni - Pokémon Diamante e Perla
* ZetaZeroAlfa - Morimondo 
* Giorgio Vanni - Pokémon Oltre i Cieli dell'Avventura
* AKB48 - New Ship
* Skoll - Radio Mishima
* AKB48 - Boku no Taiyo
* Ultima Frontiera - La Luce dei Kami
* AKB48 - Bingo
* Skoll - Il Sogno di Mishima
* Korpiklaani - Ievan Polkka (Hatsune Miku metal cover)
* Giorgio Vanni - Pokémon Advanced Battle
* Giorgio Vanni - Pokémon Arceus: Un Nuovo Inizio
* AKB48 - Shoot Sign
* Raiya- Garo
* Aggroknuckle - Manipulator
* Raiya - Kichigai
* Elisa - Time to Say Goodbye
== Trivia ==
*The main inspiration came from No More Heroes and Killer7, M-Rated video games by Goichi Suda. 
*Unlike most Pokémon protagonists, Annalisa Miyawaki is not silent, nor can she be named by the player. The entire point of Annalisa is that the player is watching Italy, a location in the real world, from the point of view of a Pokémon-obsessed psycho, while in mainline Pokémon you're watching a world that is not real from the POV of yourself. 
**Though a future mainline Pokémon set in a region inspired by Italy would include a character who is a (much less psycho) expy of Annalisa Miyawaki. 
*The concept came from "a Slasher Movie-based game where the slasher serial killer is the one you play as and the victims are corrupt people".
*Some music Annalisa listens to and refers to as "J-Pop" (such as ZetaZeroAlfa and Ultima Frontiera) is in fact Neo-Nazi skinhead bands. Annalisa often makes clear she's not a far-right extremist, but she likes some songs from racist bands because they fit her psycho personality.
**Attempting to have Annalisa listen to songs that are specifically white supremacist or propaganda of Nazi-affiliated people causes her to react in disgust and saying that "psychos aren't racist, it's just their nature to kill".
**Neo-Nazi skinheads are recurring targets in sidequests and Annalisa is downright merciless against them. They make her puke because they "attempt to be psychos but know nothing about being psychos". Before killing him, Annalisa insults a neo-Nazi as being "what the Japanese would call Kakkoii... too bad that Nali-chan here is not Japanese!".
*This game was meant to be called "Pokémon Fellatio", but since that title was too offensive, it was renamed "Pokémon Insanity". This is lampshaded when Annalisa kills pedophile teacher Reginaldo Sculli by shooting him in the mouth with her AK-47, and before shooting she taunts him by saying "you finally got your fellatio, happy now?".
*Yasuhiro Zavanone is named after Yasuhiro Nakasone, a former prime minister of Japan, and Guido Zavanone, an Italian man who died the exact same day, and at the exact same age, as Nakasone. 
**Yasuhiro Zavanone is designed to look like Nakasone. 
*Hidesaburo de Bono being in Reggio Emilia, northern Italy, rather than in the south, is to avoid the south being stereotypically associated with the mafia, as industrialized northern Italian cities such as Reggio Emilia contain even more powerful mafia than the south due to control over industries (think mafia boss Francesco Grande Aracri, who Hidesaburo de Bono is based on, who used to live in Reggio Emilia). 
*Italian cities are based on Japanese ones. Catanzaro is based on a Japanese rural town with a Shinto temple, while Napoli looks like Fukuoka and has the Fukuoka PayPay Dome (referred to in the game as Stadio Maradona) and its castle Castel dell'Ovo looks like a Japanese castle from the Sengoku period. Milan has some Sendai landmarks in it. There are also host clubs (almost unheard of in actual Italy), underage girls' prostitution is common (it's called enjo kosai, and much more common in Japan than in Italy), there are references to "Ronin students", and people call each other by last name with honorifics and bow constantly (which is uncommon in Italy). You can also meet two Russian vacationers spending White Day in Milan, complaining how Italians always forget about it, plus, despite being Italy, you can see Kanji everywhere. 
*Admit, an Otaku yandere Harley Quinn expy going around Italy killing criminals using Pokémon dolls rigged with bombs sounds badass, doesn't it?
Category:Pokémon (series)
Category:Pokémon Games
Category:Japanese Role-Playing Games
Category:PlayStation 5 Games
Category:M-Rated Games
Category:Games About Serial Killers
Category:Role-Playing Games
Category:JRPGs
Category:Games About Batshit Insane People