Back in the day when Pokémon was a pop culture behemoth, and every child with a functioning set of eyes was glued to their TV set watching the Pokémon anime each morning, we all just kinda accepted that Meowth could talk. No one kicked up too much of a fuss about it, even though none of his fellow Pokémon companions were particularly interesting conversationalists (unless you believe repeatedly shouting out your name is a reasonable way to ingratiate yourself with other people). He was the one who could talk, while the rest of them bumbled around like idiots. We understood this.
But now Detective Pikachu has turned our knowledge of thePokémon Universe on its head, introducing us to a Pikachu that doesn’t belong to Ash Ketchum, and who talks all the fucking time. I mean, seriously, this thing doesn’t shut up. In the short trailer released by Nintendo today, it narrates the entire thing with its absurdly stern and deep voice, as if we’re all just suddenly supposed to accept that this cuddly little electric rat now sounds like he has a mortgage and a couple of kids.
You can’t just spring this on us, Nintendo. You can’t interrupt our lives in order to say “hey, by the way, you know that world famous mascot of one of our most popular and lucrative video game series? Well, yeah, he talks now. And he sounds like he’s been through some shit.” You can put an adorable little hat on him all you like, but we can’t take this right now.
Fortunately, Great Detective Pikachu: The Birth of a New Duo is only releasing in Japan for the foreseeable future, with it set to debut on the Japanese 3DS eShop on February 3rd. This will give us some time to try to adapt to Pikachu possessing a manlier voice than we do, if it ever sees the light of day on these chores.
Check out the trailer below:
