Shipping

From Bulbapedia, the community-driven Pokémon encyclopedia.

An example of a shippy scene in Pokémon.

Another shippy scene

Shipping (short for "relationshipping"; カップリング Coupling in Japanese) is the belief that two characters in the Pokémon universe are in a relationship, or have romantic feelings that could potentially lead to a relationship. It is generally used as a suffix attached to a word related to a pair of characters (like in PokéShipping). For example, a person who would like to see Ash and Misty as boyfriend and girlfriend would be a PokéShipper, and as a PokéShipper, he or she would support PokéShipping. In addition to "shipping," and "shipper," there are "ship," which is a word for the pairing itself, and "shippy," which is used as an adjective. For example, if Ash and Misty kissed, that moment would be considered PokéShippy. A basic rundown follows.

Noun: ship (pairing) : Example: "I support that ship." means "I support that pairing."

Adjective: shippy (supports a ship) : Example: "That hug was shippy." means "That hug makes them look like a couple."

Verb: shipping (action of supporting a ship) : Example: "I enjoy Pokéshipping." means "I enjoy supporting Ash and Misty as a couple."

Verb (infrequent use): ship (action of supporting a ship) : Example: "Do you ship?" means "Do you support that/any pairing(s)?"

Person: shipper (supporter of a ship) : Example: "We are all shippers of that couple." means "We are all supporters of that pairing."

Blushing is often used to show attraction.

The term "shipping" originated in the X-Files fan community 1. At that time, a Shipper supported the prospect of a romantic relationship between the series' main characters, Fox Mulder and Dana Scully. The term crossed over to the anime community when Maria Rocket and other Team Rocket fans from TRHQ used the term to describe a relationship between Jessie and James. Thus, RocketShipping was born. It is to this day still uncertain if this was an independent development of the term (As a play on words of the word Rocketship) or not. Regardless, soon the term was applied to dozens of other Pokémon pairings (today there are easily over 1,000 formally named and recognized pairings). Once popularized in the Pokémon fandom, soon spread to other fandoms frequented by Pokémon fans and former Pokémon fans, such as Digimon, Dragonball Z, and Harry Potter.

Japanese anime fans have their own form of naming couples, and this applies to the Pokémon fandom as well. The names of pairings are determined by combining the first two syllables of each character's name to form one word. In heterosexual pairings, the male character's name comes first. For example, a pairing between Satoshi (Ash) and Kasumi (Misty) would be called SatoKasu. In homosexual relationships, the seme (dominant) character's name comes first. For example, a pairing between Satoshi (Ash) and Shigeru (Gary) would be called ShigeSato.

Some popular ships include