New Pokemon Shorts Releasing Weekly on YouTube

A new series of shorts from Pokemon has started to air on YouTube this week. The shorts will be released once a week on Wednesdays for eight weeks, and are totally free to enjoy. These are similar to shorts that were released back in 2020, which are also still available to view via the Pokémon YouTube channel.

The news was posted on the official Japanese Pokémon X (formerly Twitter) page when the first of the animated shorts was released earlier this week. A small update was also made to the Japanese Pokémon website explaining the idea behind the new animation shorts. They are called Poketoons, using the English word “cartoon” combined with, of course, “Pokémon.”

The First of Eight Poketoons is Available Now

Seven More Shorts Are Coming

The first Poketoon is already available to watch on the Japanese Pokémon YouTube channel now. It is only 51 seconds long, so don’t go in expecting a full-length episode. As Poketoons are free for anyone to watch, they are just simple, cute stories meant to make fans smile rather than provide any important lore or story. The first one is also optimized for watching on a cell phone rather than a computer or a TV, so it is meant to be enjoyed as a quick pick-me-up wherever you are.

The first Poketoon is titled パモパモットパーモット！」(“Pawmi-Pawmo-Pawmot!”). As the name suggests, it stars three Pokémon, Pawmi and its evolutions, Pawmo and Pawmot, who are teasing a young girl at the park by dancing. The girl wants to hold them because they are so cute, and asks her father to get them for her. He does his best, but in the end, \he gets electrocuted when the girl pokes one of them that he is holding for her. It is definitely not a deep story, but it is a very cute animation.

The official Pokemon website describes the series as (translated),

It hints that all the videos may not be as short as the first one, though the concept behind the videos being just for fun means that you shouldn’t expect anything dramatic. The horizontal videos may have more content, or at least more length, but more than likely they will remain just something cute and fun to enjoy casually.

Previous Pokemon Animated Shorts

This Isn’t the First Time Pokemon Has Done This

As stated above, this is not the first time that a series of shorts has been released for free viewing by Pokémon. The last set began airing in 2020, and they were also known as Poketoons, and they aired on the Pokémon Kids YouTube channel. The first episode was “Scraggy and Mimikyu,” which aired in June 2020, followed by “Hero ni Naritai Yanchamu” (Pancham Who Wants to Be a Hero) and “Yume no Tsubomi” (Dreaming Tsubomi) the following year in May and June, after a big gap of time.

After that, “Mattete ne Koiking” (Just Wait, Magikarp) was released in July 2021, the “Poka-Poka MaguMaggu House” (Cozy Slugma House) in August 2021, the “Gengar ni Nacchatta!?” (I Became a Gengar?!) in September 2021, the “Fubuki no Natsu Yasumi” (Summer Vacation Blizzard) in October 2021, and finally the “Purin no Uta” (Jigglypuff’s Song) aired in December 2021. All the videos that had dialogue were released with English subtitles, as the original dialogue was done in Japanese.

These shorts are still available to watch on the international Pokemon YouTube now, and can be found by searching for the episode names listed above. The previous shorts were released only once a month, whereas the new series will be released once every week over the next eight weeks. It may mean that the episodes end up being shorter, but you won’t have to wait as long to watch them. You can check out the new Poketoons short every Wednesday.

Sources: AnimeNewsNetwork, Official Website

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