Why is this not a real thing?

CWHargraves said:

Why is this not a real thing?

It is real...but with darker turn.

Rathurue said:

It is real...but with darker turn.

Damnit China!

Rathurue said:

It is real...but with darker turn.

Why am I not surprised?

great! now I get this depressed feeling everytime I look at it :|

Pokemon anyone?

Added to Almost Heart-Breaking on account of the translated commentary.

Many are bought.
↓
Everything is set free.
↓
They return to repay the kindness.
↓
I take them to see the world.
↓
We live happily.

Rathurue said:

It is real...but with darker turn.

Darker turn? I believe this image is way darker than the irl version. Having (seemingly) sentient humanoid miniature creatures being sold for less than a buck is way more sad.

onlyaw said:

Darker turn? I believe this image is way darker than the irl version. Having (seemingly) sentient humanoid miniature creatures being sold for less than a buck is way more sad.

That's offset by the commentary implying kind souls are buying their freedom. People almost certainly don't care nearly so well for the tiny animals.

Garrus said:

That's offset by the commentary implying kind souls are buying their freedom. People almost certainly don't care nearly so well for the tiny animals.

From the article:

In the best case scenario, they're freed from their prisons and end up as pets to people who aren't prepared to care for them.

1) You can't say that every single one is going to be bought by people who will set them free.

2) If someone IS trying to buy them all to set them free, that just creates an economic incentive to trap even more and sell them in larger and larger quantities until those trying to buy them to set them free can no longer afford to do so, and there's a crash with a far greater number of dead animals in the end.

3) These are things like sea turtles. You can't just keep something like that in an aquarium. Depending on where this is taking place (presumably, some big city in China), you may be many dozens of miles away from any ocean (and even further from any ocean not so polluted that it wouldn't kill them), and some of the other animals may be from the mountains a similar distance to the West, meaning you'd have a lot of trouble returning any such animals to their natural habitat... and even if they get there, there's no guarantee they'd survive because...

4) That presumes the people putting animals into keychains (who clearly don't give a shit about being kind or gentle to baby animals they're putting into functional coffins) don't maim or cripple the animals putting them in the keychain in the first place, leaving them with crushed organs and an excruciating death no matter what happens to them afterward.