Pokétoon is an animated web series of shorts based on the Pokémon games. Unlike Pokémon's other animated series such as Pokémon Generations and Pokémon: Twilight Wings, Pokétoon is not an adaptation of any of the games; instead, it opts to tell original stories that focus more on the average resident of the Pokémon world.
The series can be viewed here
on the Japanese official YouTube channel with English subtitles available.
In 2022, it was announced that the shorts would finally be released in the West starting on June 17 on the Pokémon TV app and website and all 8 episodes would be released on the service weekly throughout Summer. They can be watched on the official English Pokémon YouTube channel here.
On September 18th, 2024, it was announced that Pokétoon would be returning with new shorts, running over the next eight weeks with four horizontal and four vertical episodes releasing every Wednesday until November 8th, 2024.
Pokétoon provides examples of:
- Acrofatic: Chansey are a species that are rotund and have below average speed at best. The hat-wearing Chansey is fast enough to run on water and dodge Safari Balls thrown at it in all directions without using Minimize. This is a reference to the Safari Game where Chansey are notoriously known to be very rare and difficult to catch due to their tendency to run away.
- Ambiguous Situation: Hiro, the main character of "Murkrow and the Midnight Adventure" is implied to have gotten into some kind of accident that resulted in him becoming an amnesiac, but the details of how it happened are never explained.
- Animal Talk: While to humans it still sounds like they're saying their own names, the various species of ghost Pokémon in "I've Become a Gengar" all speak the same language.
- Animesque: Inverted by the "Scraggy and Mimikyu" shorts, which are modeled after American cartoons from the 1930s and 1940s.
- Brown Note Being: The Scraggy's face turns blue after seeing Mimikyu's true form.
- Circling Birdies:
- In "Scraggy and Mimikyu," tiny Poké Beans circle Scraggy's head after it rolls head-first into a tree.
- When Primeape's trainer in "Angry Primeape Observation Diary" tries having the titular 'mon zone out with the likes of Psyduck, Quagsire, and Slowpoke, it ends up getting similar birds around its head to those of the games.
- Contrived Coincidence: In "The Pancham Who Wants to be a Hero", Pancham catches a boulder that would have crushed an Impidimp. However, Impidimp can't get out from under the boulder's shadow because of a sprained ankle, and Pancham can't hold up the boulder for much longer. Then a geyser erupts on the cliff above them and the water from it pours down.
- Daddy's Girl: Blossom is shown to have a stronger relationship with her dad than her mom, with the former being her main inspiration in regards to wanting to become a Trainer just like him.
- Deconstructed Trope: The short "Charcadet Childhood Friends" manages to deconstruct catching Pokémon, from the point of view of the Pokémon. a wild Charcadet decides to go off and get stronger with a Trainer the first chance it gets, while also abandoning its shiny Charcadet friend. The short goes out of its way to show that while both benefited from this, it was still an insensitive thing to do.
- Easy Amnesia: The episode "Murkrow and the Midnight Adventure" centers on a boy named Hiro who developed some form of amnesia after an incident that left him in the hospital. It was bad enough that it made him forget about all of his Pokemon friends and the adventures he had. But as he reacclimates, his memories come back quickly.
- Face of a Thug: Pancham wants to be a hero, and is worried that if it evolves into Pangoro, people will be scared of it. It wears an Everstone on a necklace to prevent this. It throws away the Everstone to evolve and gain enough strength to save Impidimp and the trapped miners, but they all recognize Pangoro as a hero anyway.
- Failure Montage: After Blossom attempts catching a Pikachu, there's a sequence of her failing to catch various other Pokémon. It ends with her throwing a Poké Ball at a lounging Slowpoke and missing completely.
- Fantasy-Forbidding Mother: Downplayed. While not to the level of Bianca's dad, Blossom's mother doesn't let her daughter become a Trainer, and her reason for doing so is more reasonable: Blossom has a bad habit of being so wrapped up in her own world that she often ignores her surroundings, which is proven right when Blossom hastily finishes washing the dishes but one falls off the rack and breaks due to not being placed more carefully.
- Forced Transformation: A girl named Hilary turns into a Gengar in "I've Become a Gengar".
- Foreshadowing:
- Blossom's father's Charizard is shown to have been defeated by a Dragapult during the Galar League. Later on, Blossom's mother is seen clutching a pillow with a Dragapult print and Blossom's father tells her that seeing Blossom command Charizard reminds him of her when she was younger. She's the Trainer who defeated Blossom's father, and she still owns the Dragapult.
- Yugo the delivery driver in "Another Day with Gardevoir" is introduced dreaming about competing in a tournament against a girl and her Mawile, and has a small Qualot Berry case that he clips to his mirror as a good luck charm, with a scene during his journey showing he picked up a Mega Stone for his then-beloved Gardevoir. The case is where Gardevoir hid the Key Stone after Yugo lost against the Mawile in a tournament and gave up his dream, which becomes extremely useful when he and Gardevoir are in a potentially fatal accident...
- Friendly Ghost: The worst thing the Ghost Pokémon inhabiting the school do is play pranks on kids wandering about after hours; their ranks include species with lore that paints them as being malevolent towards humans, like Drifloon and Jellicent, but they're content with the pranks. They also happily welcome Hilary in as one of their own and praise her whenever she (accidentally) scares the kids. It's also implied Gengar orchestrated the events of the episode after the staircase so Hilary could become more confident.
- Genki Girl: Blossom from "Blossom's Dream" and Meg from "Chansey's Safari Tag Game" are upbeat, energetic young girls with happy-go-lucky attitudes.
- Giving Up the Dream: "Another Day with Gardevoir" stars Yugo, who dreamed of winning a tournament with his partner Gardevoir, who he'd befriended back when they were a child and a Ralts. However, after losing the tournament to a young girl and her Mawile, he shut her Mega Stone in a dresser drawer at his childhood home and now works as a beleaguered delivery truck driver, thinking he's leaving her behind each day while she's actually secretly stowing herself in the back of the truck. Gardevoir retrieving the stone and hiding it in Yugo's Qualot Berry-shaped charm ends up saving their lives and renews Yugo's faith in their partnership, with him now taking Gardevoir along in a front seat of the delivery truck.
- Good Parents: While Blossom does butt heads with her parents in regards to not letting her become a Trainer, they do genuinely love and care about their daughter.
- Gravity Is a Harsh Mistress: Scraggy gets so frightened by Mimikyu, it runs through several train cars and off the back of the train. It doesn't fall until it slows down enough and realizes it's walking in midair.
- Homage: "Scraggy and Mimikyu" pays tribute to Western cartoons from The Golden Age of Animation, featuring heavy usage of Mickey Mousing and a small, mischievous creature getting one over on a larger one that's single-mindedly focused on a goal. It's even fitting that Pokémon from the Unova and Alola regions star in it, since those regions are based off of American states (New York/New Jersey for Unova and Hawaii for Alola).
- Identical Twin Id Tag: "Charcadet Childhood Friends" distinguishes the two Charcadets by having one be a shiny. In this case, it only means that one's eyes are blue instead of red.
- Idiot Hair: Blossom has a curly hair that sticks up from the top of her head (which she gets from her father) and is shown to be very naive about catching and training Pokémon. She decides to go out on her own to find a Pokémon and subsequently wastes all the Poké Balls she bought save one blindly throwing them at wild Pokémon.
- Inadequate Inheritor: Bonzly, the Safari Zone warden, thinks he is this as Chansey stole the hat of his late father who was the former owner of the Safari Zone. Chansey took the hat so that Bonzly would follow her to areas that needed assistance and was more than happy to return it.
- Kid with the Leash: "Angry Primeape Observation Diary" stars the titular 'Mon and its owner, an upbeat kid who initially spends his summer break dragging Primeape around to all sorts of activities in order to see it happy, until he realizes that what Primeape wants is to become stronger, so they battle their way all the way up to the top of their local League and win, at which point Primeape evolves into Annihilape. The kid finishes his presentation to his class by declaring he now wants to make a new observation diary about his newly evolved Annihilape, as the camera pans to reveal he brought his Annihilape to school, who is menacingly glaring through the window of the classroom.
- Little Stowaway: "Another Day with Gardevoir" has Gardevoir teleport into the back of her partner Yugo's delivery truck whenever he's on the job to secretly keep an eye on him.
- Mime and Music-Only Cartoon: "Scraggy and Mimikyu" and "Please Wait, Magikarp!" lack dialogue and narration. Both shorts rely on their visuals and music to tell their stories, with the former short also using wacky sound effects where appropriate.
- Mundane Utility: The Pokémon Anna's grandparents own are seen helping out with various tasks around the house:
- Their Slugma (which has a body made of magma) keeps their house warm in cold weather, in addition to heating up the stove so they can cook.
- A Minccino is seen using its broomlike tail to sweep stairs clean, which is in line with its natural behavior.
- A Spinarak, Ariados, and Joltik use String Shot to provide material for the grandmother's knitting.
- A Haxorus chops wood using its axelike tusks.
- Mythology Gag:
- The fight between Nidorino and Gengar from the opening sequence of Pokémon Red and Blue is referenced during the ending of "A Budding Dream", complete with a new chiptune rendition of its music. It taking place in a forest further references the GBA remakes.
- "I've Become a Gengar" uses two different piano arrangements of Lavender Town's theme as background music. In the original games, Lavender Town is the only place to find wild Gastly and Haunter... which evolve into Gengar.
- This is not the first time a human was turned to a Gengar. Pokémon Mystery Dungeon Rescue Team introduced us to Team Meanies' leader Gengar.
- During one of Hilary's unintended scares, the moonlight through a window causes her to resemble the sprite for unidentified ghosts in the original games.
- One-Steve Limit: Momo's the Japanese name of one of the side characters in "I've Become a Gengar," and that of the main character in "Jigglypuff's Song." Averted in the English dubs, which give them the names Vashti and Peaches, respectively.
- Pokémon Speak:
- The Mimikyu in "Scraggy and Mimikyu" makes squeaky "kyu" noises.
- The speech of the Pokémon in "A Budding Dream" follows similar logic to the anime; most of them say their own names, but Charizard, Nidoking, and Nidoqueen have growls that sound vaguely like their names.
- When Gengar speak around humans in "I've Become a Gengar", they're heard saying parts of their names. The rest of the short has Translation Convention in effect.
- "Jigglypuff's Song" has Jigglypuff singing the iconic Jigglypuff song from the anime.
- Price on Their Head: Implied in "Chansey's Safari Tag Game". The titular Chansey has a wanted poster of it and many trainers want to catch it for that reason.
- Retired Badass: Blossom's father's Charizard is old and spends its days sleeping in the front yard compared to battling in the Galar League in its youth. It will not use attacks on command by Blossom as it is too old to exert the energy to do so and only listens to her father. When the situation calls where its powers are needed, Charizard proves it can still fight like it used to as it immediately flies into action under Blossom's command to stop a feud between a wild Nidoking and Nidoqueen with the local trainers' Pokémon due to a misunderstanding. Blossom's father used to be a Galar League competitor who ranked quite high and her mother was implied to be one by her father. Her mother is confirmed to be one as it is revealed the trainer her father lost to was her.
- The Seven Mysteries: "I've Become a Gengar" has a band of students investigating their school's Seven Mysteries after dark. Six of them are caused by Ghost-type Pokémon that love playing pranks; the seventh is an unexplained phenomena that traps anyone who's still on school grounds by sunrise.
- Shrinking Violet: Hilary is very shy and timid, though the adventures she has with Gengar and its friends help her come out of her shell and become more confident.
- Singing Voice Dissonance: Peaches’ Jigglypuff in "Jigglypuff's Song" has a bassier voice than others of its species.
- Sizeshifter: The Chansey in "Chansey's Safari Tag Game" knows Minimize where it can shrink down to very small sizes. Played for Laughs when it shrank its body small enough to fit in Meg's small bag but its head remained big enough to fit perfectly that it covers the whole bag opening.
- Spot the Imposter: "Please Wait, Magikarp" has an inversion when a girl runs up to a group of Bulbasaur. After looking around at them for a moment, she makes a beeline for the one that's second from the right; the other Bulbasaur promptly reveal themselves to be Ditto.
- "Take That!" Kiss: The Chansey in "Chansey's Safari Tag Game" playfully blows a kiss after revealing herself by reverting her Minimize.
- Took a Level in Badass: The shiny Charcadet in "Charcadet Childhood Friends" starts off as a weak, timid Pokemon who is lonely after its friend leaves and unable to battle. But when it gets attacked by a group of Pokemon in an abandoned graveyard, it manages to fight back and evolve into Ceruledge after touching the Malicious Armor, becoming much stronger, enough so that it can stand toe-to-toe with its friend when they reunite.
- Translation Convention: While Hilary is a Gengar, all the Pokémon she meets speak the same language she does. A brief cut to her friends' perspective shows that Hilary is engaging in Pokémon Speak.
- Twisted Ankle: An Impidimp that had been trapped in a mine runs out once Pancham clears away some of the rocks blocking the entrance, but trips and sprains its ankle when it sees a boulder falling from above. Although Pancham catches the boulder in time, Impidimp is left unable to get to safety on its own.
- Unreveal Angle: The first time footage of Blossom's father battling in the Galar League is shown, the camera cuts away before the pan up to the trainer who defeated him gets past their neck.
- Vacuum Mouth: Scraggy sucks in a trail of Poké Beans that fell off a truck carrying luggage.
- We Used to Be Friends:
- The Chansey in "Chansey's Safari Tag Game" used to belong to Bonzly's father. When his father passed, Chansey took his hat and remained in the Safari Zone presumably as a wild Pokemon as Bonzly is not shown using Chansey's Poké Ball to return it so he can get the hat back.
- The two Charcadet in “Charcadet Childhood Friends”. The shiny one was meek and always relied on its non-shiny friend. When the non-shiny Charcadet goes off with a trainer, the shiny one wanders in the wilderness alone, trying to find its friend. When it becomes a Ceruledge, it goes after its friend, which is now an Armarouge, in retaliation for its abandonment. Once they’ve battled, they make amends.
- Wheel o' Feet: Scraggy's feet become a blur when it's running through the train cars to get away from Mimikyu.
- Wingding Eyes:
- Scraggy's eyes turn into hearts whenever it sees a trail of Poké Beans. They also briefly become hearts when it spots the bag of Poké Beans near the end, only for them to quickly go back to normal when it turns out to be Mimikyu again. When it slams into a tree, the eye closer to the tree turns into a star.
- Momo/Vashti, one of the kids from "I've Become a Gengar," has permanent starry eyes as part of her overall design.
