Pokémon TV App Is Being Discontinued Later This Year

Meh, the Pokémon anime wasn't so good to begin with.

I wish the Pokémon anime was more accessible, but I’m glad that the Pokémon TV service went on as long as it did. I’m grateful to have ben born just in time for PokéMania, and I’m glad that I got to see Ash’s journey from beginning to end as it happened live. Ash becoming world champion was actually one of the leading motivators for me going on a self-improvement journey in 2023, and his actions will continue to drive my life forward. Hopefully we can get DVD and Blu-Ray box sets of the Ash Ketchum saga. Gotta binge it all!

Gonna race to download it from the eshop and binge like there's no tomorrow

That's a shame honestly, I haven't used it much myself but I think it's good for kids to have a safe and free way to watch the anime. When I was a kid I watched hundreds of episodes via unofficial uploads on Vimeo, I think it was, but I doubt those are still up...

(Edit: I think it was actually Megavideo!)

There is always the good, old torrent.

@Dog I beg to differ. The anime is over two decades old at this point, and I remember as a kid the first time it came over to the west.

Now, respectively, I stopped watching the show around 2003, or whenever the Johto region wrapped up.

However in that time frame of the anime and movies they had some very solid memorial moments. Especially for Ash as a character. The anime, managed to show that while Ash wanted to be a pokemon master, it would never be at the expensive the of creatures he called friends.

The show had silly moments, touching moments, and overall it's a fun adventure. One of the best things the anime did was make Pokemon behave like real creatures. With personalities, and quirks exclusive to them.

The fact it's managed to stay alive for over 26 years, shows just how many people who grew up, are still growing up, love what the anime did for their childhood, and made their bond to the franchise even stronger.

This is why physical media is important.

They make more than enough money where hosting up the entire series, movies, and specials would be a drop in the water for them compared to any of their other endeavors. But chances are, they likely weighed user retention + however much they get from syndication and distribution.

And while the Pokemon series is designed enough to be viewed within a generational vacuum (for the most part), it really shows the absurdity of the age of streaming when you have to hop around 7 DIFFERENT SERVICES to access an entire series. Even two services is already pushing it for a lesser show!

I swear this app would have been more popular if it always had every episode instead of sticking to a strict 2 or 3 months period for every series. Knowing they're roughly 150 episodes each, that made for a heck of a marathon if you wanted to watch a complete series that wasn't the Indigo League.

That's what made me abandon the app in the end. I found easier ways to watch the anime.

There are better and easier ways of watching the Pokemon Anime and specials but it won't beat the novelty of being able to watch it on the Switch.

It’s going Ash’s route…

@Don Yeah they have that for the movies, but for us peeps in Europe it's impossible to buy the series in PAL / region 2 format!

Everything is on US NTSC / region 1 format when it comes to the english version of the series on DVD.
So you need to have a custom region unlocked DVD player if you want to buy and watch the series on DVD.

None of the series have been modernized and released on Blu-ray! Only the movies!

For such a huge franchise and TPC swimming in billions of dollars in money, it's absolutely mind-blowing how they are mishandling the Anime series.
As when it comes to streaming, you cannot even watch everything in one place. Pretty much every streaming service has the same handful of seasons, which is either the oldest stuff (first seasons) or the very latest stuff (sun/moon and latest Journey series).

So it's really messed up for such a huge franchise and big company, that makes it literally insane if not impossibly hard to access the Anime!

At least with the Pokemon TV app, they were cycling through the Anime seasons each year, but now that is being taken away too now. /facepalm

I actually JUST found out about this app and downloaded it YESTERDAY. Oh me oh my, I sure do love life! It is very cool!!

@Walactor grover pls

@Fizza geez I can hear the “Mary Jane! Noo!”, from here. Pretty sure that ep traumatized me as a teen.

That’s sad 😔 It is nice to have a free option of watching the episodes but they are taking it away

Honestly, nothing can last forever. And hosting a rotating selection of series was never really that interesting to me to begin with.

But it does somehow feel like Pokémon is actually going to change somehow. I have yet to watch the new series, but I can't imagine it staying beyond Scarlet and Violet. Also the movies seem to have stopped as well. And the next generation Nintendo console on the horizon.. It makes me wonder about what's next for Pokémon.

I mean, what will happen in 2024. The DLC is finished. So I am going to guess at least one new game. Maybe another Legends style game, or another Let's Go.. Or will they do something entirely new.

Most of it is on Netflix, plus that new claymation show, which is actually quite good.

Dang, this sucks. My youngest definitely made use of the app, to watch Pokemon.

I'd never watched the anime before so loved making a start on the original series via this app - gutted they are shutting it down just as I got going with it 😢

@FishyS Or you could buy the DVDs.

@Angelic_Lapras_King Not if he's in Europe...

@WiiWareWave Multi region DVD Players are extremely common. Heck, you can look up your player model and chances are there are codes you perform on your remote to make DVD player region free.

Also Germany have quite a few Pokemon blu rays the US doesn't that include the English dub and work on a UK blu ray player.

@Jeronan
I feel your pain regarding the region lock. I started collecting DVDs more than 20 years ago and back then before HD TVs there was an additional barrier on top of region lock: Region 1 TVs used NTSC and region 2 TVs used PAL format. At least now a region free player solves the problem of watching releases from other territories. I am a bit surprised that Pokemon TV is being discontinued. I wonder if they have something better to replace it although I am not counting on it.

Well, this is a bummer.
Moreover, on the general state of streaming, remember how when Netflix came onto the scene and people were falling over themselves proclaiming how streaming is the future and how it was going to make watching your favorite movies and shows easier? Well, the future (in this context) turned out to be kind of lousy, which leads one to wonder what the hell was the point.

Why will they give Pokémon episodes for free, if they can earn with the episodes on Stream. 😏

Netflix only has half the Kanto episodes where I live..

@Don NTSC is not the issue though, as TV's always supported both. NTSC is just looks worse than PAL (which I can live with and especially modern TV's can cleanup a lot).

It's the hard region lock on DVD's that's the problem and TPC never releasing the series in Europe (region 2).

I'm actually very upset about this, I love the Pokémon TV app and I use it often on my Nintendo Switch whenever I feel like watching some Pokémon anime. It even has multiple languages available and so very easily accessible. I hate that they are discontinuing it for reasons that I assume are because they aren't making any profit out of it since is a free streaming service. 2024 is off to a very greedy start from all them major corporations, is appalling!

Wasn't this the app that only had a handful of seasons at any given moment, the same as every other streaming service?

I don't think I will miss it.

Is this a case of an entire series being on YT via the Official Channel and this being a nothing burger? I know a lot of shows that have left services that are up in their entirety on YT like every Power Rangers Season and it's more important to make people aware of where it is rather than where it was.