The Pokémon Company has unveiled a first look at the new Pokémon Evolutions anime series, which will feature characters and Pokémon from past and present generations.
The trailer proclaims that new anime will feature "Timeless stories from eight regions," referring to the eight different regions featured in the main series of Pokémon games. The teaser begins with Leon, the champion of the Galar region, which was featured in the most recent Pokémon generation, Sword and Shield. After briefly showing Hop, Leon's younger brother, the trailer quickly showcases characters from other regions and generations, including Lillie from Pokémon Sun and Moon, and Calem, the male avatar trainer from Pokémon X and Y. Details about the show's cast and crew were not announced, though the trailer does seem to show off higher quality animation than previous animated series from the franchise.
Pokémon Evolutions will be released in eight parts directly through The Pokémon Company's official YouTube channel and on the Pokémon TV app, which recently made its debut on the Nintendo Switch and is also available on iOS and Android devices.
The next season of the original Pokémon anime series will premiere this fall exclusively on Netflix. The series has been airing continuously since 1997 and has over 1000 episodes. Similar to the newly announced anime, this season of the long-running anime will highlight the franchise's past, and will feature Ash and Pikachu revisiting earlier regions and old friends from previous episodes.
The new anime series is the latest Pokémon project to be released as part of Nintendo's year long celebration of the 25th anniversary of the original games' release. Game Freak's first game in the franchise, Pocket Monsters Red and Green Version, was originally released for the black-and-white Game Boy in 1996. Since then, the low-budget, 8-bit RPG has grown to be the highest-grossing multi-media franchise of all time. The latest games in the main series, Sword and Shield, have sold over 21 million copies since their release for the Nintendo Switch in 2019. The next games in the series, the DS remakes Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, will be released on Nov. 19. Those games will be followed up with the next entirely original game in the franchise, Pokémon Legends: Arceus, which takes place in the distant past and evolves the series' gameplay with new battle mechanics and an open-world structure. The new game will launch on Jan. 28, 2022.
The first episode of Pokémon Evolutions will be released on Sept. 9.
Source: YouTube
