The Pokémon franchise may be aimed primarily at children, but there's certainly no shortage of long-time, older fans who wish the series would've grown up with them, and that goes double for the even more child-friendly anime. What some returning fans may not realize, however, is that the Pokémon Company once did exactly that to celebrate 20 years of Pokémon.
The Pokémon anime mostly functions as a way to introduce the series to children who might be a little too young to understand the game's mechanics, while also offering more in-depth looks at certain creatures and characters by centering episodes on them. For example, in the anime, Pokémon say their names to help children learn them. Connections to the plot of the game are frequently toned down or absent as well, and the number of ongoing plot threads are usually kept to a minimum. As such, it often plays things safe, and thus the series can be a bit dull for older viewers. The Pokémon Generations anime miniseries, created for the franchise's 20th anniversary in 2016, took a very different approach, and it's exactly what these older fans were asking for all along.
Pokémon Generations consists of 18 episodes, mostly between 3 and 5 minutes long, and are animated in a style more akin to most other shonen anime than that used by the main series anime. Each episode adapts an iconic scene from one of the Pokémon games, such as the Red Gyarados from the Lake of Rage in Gold and Silver or the emergence of Groudon and Kyogre with world-destroying power from Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire. And despite the short run time and limited episode count, Pokémon Generations even brought some continuing story threads, such as Giovanni and Team Rocket's schemes, chaining together plot points from multiple games. Every episode is also easily available on Youtube, and has been since release.
Why Check Out Pokémon Generations Now?
For fans who've had these scenes in their minds for years, the opportunity to see them fully animated and voice-acted is pretty amazing. Generations also did away with some of the sillier elements of the main anime, like Pokémon saying their own names, instead opting to give the creatures more realistic growls and squeaks. It also does things that the main anime would never consider, like having trainers order their Pokémon to attack other humans, such as Lance's Dragonite using Thunderbolt on a Team Rocket leader. The series also focuses more on adult characters like detective Looker, since the protagonist characters who do appear are generally concealed and don't speak, mimicking their silence from the games. It also pulls from all 6 generations of games that existed at the time, so no matter what game a fan played first, there'll be something for them there.
If Pokémon Generations has any downsides, it's only that it shows fans what a more mature Pokémon anime might actually be like, if it were allowed to exist. Nothing here is so questionable that children couldn't watch it, but the changes made for Pokémon Generations place it more on the level of series like Dragon Ball or Bleach--slightly more mature and violent, while still avoiding adult topics like sex or drugs that the brand wouldn't want to be associated with.
Watch all of Pokémon Generations now on Youtube!