About

Black Nurse Joy refers to a leaked image of a Black Nurse Joy, who is rumored to appear in the upcoming Pokémon Legends: Z-A video game. Notably, this would be the first time a Nurse Joy character is depicted as a Black woman in the Pokémon series, with every other iteration of Nurse Joy typically looking identical. The purported character design was leaked on October 12th, 2025, by X / Twitter user CentroLeaks and spread over the following days, inspiring fan art and some discourse about making Nurse Joy Black being a DEI or woke change.

Origin

On October 12th, 2025, the @CentroLeaks_alt X^[1] account posted a purported leak from Pokémon Legends: Z-A of a Nurse Joy design in which she is depicted as a Black woman, garnering over 9,100 likes and 3 million views in three days. The image has since been removed from the post, but was reposted by X^[2] user @UniteVids along with another Nurse Joy design that more closely resembles her usual look, writing, "Finally we are getting different aspects for Nurse Joy in Pokémon Legends Z-A," gaining over 22,000 likes in the same span of time.

Spread

The rumored leak inspired numerous reactions and fan art online as it spread in mid-October 2025.

On October 12th, 2025, the image of Nurse Joy was posted to the /r/PokeLeaks^[3] subreddit, titled, "We finally have unique nurses in Pokémon center instead of clones," gaining over 1,100 upvotes in three days.

Shortly after, X^[4] user @princessxemnas posted the image, writing, "NURSE JOY WITH DARK SKIN OMGGGG SHE'S SO CUTEEEE," garnering over 80,000 likes in three days.

On October 13th, X^[5] user and streamer @Tectone quoted a post sharing the design, writing, "I hate to be that guy but, according to Pokémon canonical lore, all nurse joys of their region look identical. Which means this nurse joy is actually black facing," garnering over 29,000 likes in two days.

Later that day, X^[6] user @Akakioga posted a photograph of herself in Nurse Joy cosplay as a response to a user sharing the image, garnering over 48,000 likes in two days.

On October 14th, 2025, X^[7] user @RhymeWithRay posted a piece of fan art based on the purported leak, garnering over 8,500 likes and 1,000 reposts in a day.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References