It Looks Like The New Pokémon Anime Series Will Tell The Story Of Pikachu's Life Before Ash

Well... That's actually kinda interesting. I don't have much else to say, Ash is pretty boring so maybe they're using this to drum up more attention or something.

Guess it's time to pump out another million episodes, meanwhile there's many adult anime shows that never got finished...

Actually quite intrigued by this.

Cute and intriguing!

Interesting. Haven't actually watched the anime since Black & White due to Iris's "You're such a kid" bit was irritating as all hell.

As neat as it is for the anime to do all regions, I'd really love a game to do the same.

Guess I have no choice but to watch this. There's SO much personality! I can only watch it with the sound off right now since I'm at work but just from the visuals alone, I can tell this will be THE season to watch for awesome Pokemon action.

Pikachu as a Pichu I cant wait!

Almost looks like they’ll be retelling the past seasons and adding Go into the story... I’d like to think that’s not the case, but it was the first impression I got from the trailer!

I'm honestly shocked they've left the 'Origin Story' idea off the table for over 2 decades. It seems like low hanging fruit, but somehow still comes as a surprise.

Maybe there's hope for other origin stories to expand the mythos. Like getting to learn all about Ash's absentee father figure. Maybe also learn how Giovanni rose to power within Team Rocket.

Or maybe... Just maybe... Those two are the same story because I never stopped beliveing that Giovanni is Ash's real dad.

I'm actually somewhat interested in what direction this series will go now so I'll check out the first few episodes at the very least. Last Pokémon episode I watched was B&W season's first episode.

I watched the first two seasons as a kid and then stopped watching back when R/S series started because I was getting bored of the anime. It was bit too childish and I was at the age that I kinda thought you'd have to move on from stuff like Pokémon but I never stopped truly stopped playing the games. I was fully back a some time after Gen 4 came out when I started playing Diamond. I also watched some episodes here and there when Ash was in Sinnoh.

But Pichus don't exist in Kanto. Let's Go, Pikachu and Eevee implied as much by excluding all evolutions and pre-evolutions introduced past gen 1.

You mean Game Freak lied to us?!

.... That's something i didn't realize I wanted! Pretty exciting

I wonder if it'll be a sad backstory (abusive trainer? Abandonment? ) Because Pikachu was really aggressive towards anyone. Maybe he has a reason why he hates pokeballs. Maybe Giovanni is related to this backstory.

I am so gonna watch this!

A Pikachu origin story? I never even thought about his life before the series started even though he's a front and center character. He's been in his second evolution form for so long that I forgot that he came from a Pichu.

Ech. I'm so tired of Satoshi and his stupid hair that juts out from the side of his cap and his OP Pikachu.

Imagine if every Pokemon series set in a new region featured a new primary trainer. Wouldn't that be fabulous?

I'll stick with the games.

You know what? I was bummed out about Ash being the protagonist again, but this...I'm okay with this! Maybe it'll help me forget about the dumpster fire that Sword and Shield will be.

Color me intrigued, which is saying something as I haven't seen the anime in years besides a few clips here and there. Might have to dip back into it for at least a few episodes.

Maybe they’re gonna explain how nobody in Kanto ever noticed pichus existed at that point. Or go for a “everybody knew all along, only 150? Are you crazy?”.

while the games go down in flames, the anime rises from the ashes...
regardless, in4 the pikachu nerf for plot purposes

I am very disappointed they kept that yucky Sun & Moon art style... i was hoping they'd go back to when they looks so awesome back in X & Y... and what the heck happened to Mew,s adorable iconic voice?! This people will hire anyone to voice act any Pokémon nowadays it would seems... as for the story, is obvious Go is a replacement to every male character (Brock, Cilan, Clement) that has ever traveled with Ash and most likely that girl will be the same for all female companions (Misty, May, Iris, Serena) (4th companion is tba i guess) so is obvious the story is going to be very different which will be what will make this interesting to watch for veteran fans of the anime series.

I still really hate that art style, it looks and feels really lazy...

They called the support Go? Wow... Also, as others mentioned, no Pichus in Kanto, that's why no one knew of them in Gen 1.

Was it just me I was it almost all Gen 1 pokemon with a few Gen 8 and then one or two from neither? Like there's Lugia, and Wabafet, but other than that the only non Gen 1s that I noticed (granted I only watched it once) were Scorbunny and the electric dog one.

@DavidMac The series is going to go through all the regions in order supposedly, and this was a preview of the first few episodes. For once it makes sense.

Pretty weird to think that Oak gave Ash a second stage Pokemon when you think about it. No one else starts with a Wartortle, Charmeleon, Ivysaur, etc. etc. (Obviously I get it, Pikachu was the first stage at the time, but as things change in the future, some things turn to kinda look odd in retrospect).

@duffmmann The justification I heard for that was that they didn't know Pikachu and other Pokémon like Jigglypuff and Magmar had baby forms until Johto's Professor Elm discovered them. Of course, that begs more questions than it answers, but whatever.

@Silly_G Maybe this anime story will explain that the Pichu are not really from Kanto and was accidentally brought to Kanto by Team Rocket then they force evolve them into Kanto species in their second stage and that's why only the Pikachu evolution form was only known in Kanto and nowhere else.

I can't believe we never heard about Pikachu's backstory until now. (And the fact that I never thought about it before...)
This new series really looks more like a reboot or a continuity of the latest movies. Oh, and Mew's there too!

Looks better than Sun and Moon that's for sure.
AND NO OVER DRAMATIC STUPID FACES!!!

@Raccoonius you're such a kid

Wait the new companion is actually named "Go"? That's a little ridiculous

Gengar has Night shade eye lasers(I know it's not exciting but dang does it look cool).

So this is a reboot indeed, Ash becoming just a trainer. I'm not too fond of how Team Rocket looks.

Kill the rat brat. With fire. (Just kidding. 😛)

Seems like some timeline manipulation shenanigans going on here! Has the Monitor from the DC Infinite Crisis TV crossover story been meddling in Pokemon!? Pichu wasn't invented until the 2nd generation of Pokemon games!! Not possible for Ash's Pikachu to have evolved from one! As it hadn't been invented!!! 😝😂

Retcon yeah yeah I know

@retro_player_22 Oo I just had a thought! Perhaps all Pichu's are born in Johto, and all migrate to Kanto as Pikachu's! 👌

I stopped giving much thought to why certain Pokémon suddenly exist in one region, but for whatever reason never migrated or traveled to a previous one. I mean, Johto and Kanto share the same land mass.

I did always wonder. Are new Pokémon now retconned into earlier existence when remakes come out? Like, are we supposed to now take games like FR/LG, HG/SS and OR/AS as the new canon for those particular stories?

@Chibi_Manny its not lazy......you havent been watching since 2014 in Japanese... I have....you have no idea how many people got laid for XYZ because how expensive it was to animate the animation is not lazy....go watch the power of us Wit studio made it the people behind Attack on titan. yeah people from that movie are working on this....please dont complain without researching

@Narrator1 actually johto pokemon where supposed to be in the first game...but where cut so theres that.......

omg its sounds like something so obvious to make im surprised it took this long to have a pikachu backstory. will keep my eyes peeled on this

At long last we may finally know why Pikachu don’t like being inside a pokeball and was a jerk in the beginning.

I have to binge watch the Sun and Moon series from beginning while it’s still on Netflix. Not going to make the same mistake like with XYZ

guess they are still keeping the same garbage art style...

@Ttimer5 doubt it because pikachu has seen Giovanni and never had any reaction that indicated he was recognized.

@Narrator1 that would have to mean nobody had experienced a live hatching of any of those pokemon at any point in history which seems a little odd considering humans and pokemon have been around each other for a LONG time according to the anime. id be fine if they just retconned things so they had always been around, but every time a new gen comes out they pretend all the new ones were just discovered. it was weird even back in gen 2 when they were like "oh yeah theres this other region where all these new pokemon we just found exist." don't know where they were all hiding at since they clearly have had long established societies there. dont know why they insist on making things sound so illogical when a quick retcon would fix it all...

@GAMER1984dude doesn't change the fact that sun and moon and now sword and shields art style looks like complete garbage. i dont expect it to go back to xy quality, but at least put out something decent.

@companyoflosers
you are right, I forgot about that. But remember that Ash has seen many pokemon and has forgotten some and does the Pokedex thing again .......so yeah, forgetting is a thing in Pokemon.

.....and Ash will still be the same age. lol

...did that Pichu just say "Pikachu"?