The End of Pokémon, produced by one of the minds behind Netflix's Castlevania, is all kinds of disturbed
Gotta free em all!
A new trailer for a darker, fan-made Pokémon film, The End of Pokémon, dropped earlier today. Unlike every official film, The End of Pokémon looks at a grown up Ash as he tries to free pocket monsters from the tyranny of their trainers.
The trailer includes Professor Oak, Misty, Brick, Jesse, James, and a few other notable characters from the anime popping up with new designs and voice actors. It has some shoddy animation that makes the whole thing feel weird.
At one point in the trailer Professor Oak says that it's "too late to save Pikachu," in which Ash responds: "then we'll save them all."
Ash adorns a creepy Pikachu mask and gains followers that start burning gyms, attacking trainers like Brock in the street, and freeing Pokémon in captivity. It's not for the squeamish either as the trailer features Primeape getting gunned down, Ninetales biting the head off a Marowak, and a lot of other blood-drenched violence like that.
It's not unexpected as the trailer is produced for Adi Shankar's Bootleg Universe, a channel of videos with darker versions of franchises like The Punisher. Shankar also produced the Netflix version of Castlevania.
Nintendo and The Pokémon Company go the extra mile to make sure their series remains kid friendly, so we'll probably never seeing anything official like this. We've seen plenty of other attempts at making Pokémon darker, like this gangster-themed comic, and it only makes us yearn for more.
Check out the trailer if you're eager for more Pokémon while waiting for when Pokémon Sword and Shield comes to Nintendo Switch on November 15, 2019.
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Aron Garst is a journalist and writer exploring the future of games and interactivity. Follow him on X at @GarstProduction.
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