Pokémon thrives on a generational crossover that has made it probably the most well-liked and endearing franchises on the planet—from these of us who trod via the tall grasses of Kanto as youngsters, to new generations who hopped on board in Scarlet and Violet, there’s a connection that transcends years. However as an older Pokémon fan, generally it’s laborious to really feel just like the franchise continues to be actually for you.
The video games are, by and enormous, nonetheless principally targeted on an unnuanced, simple, and simplistic set of RPG mechanics that make them glorious entries into the style for youthful audiences—and whereas there are challenges there, particularly in parts just like the aggressive scenes, that simplicity carries on within the collection’ broad issue. The anime likewise facilities a younger Pokémon viewers’s perspective: we would have grown up with Ash Ketchum, however Ash didn’t actually develop with us, and his replacements in Pokémon Horizons are additionally younger youngsters prepared for his or her first adventures of many, identical to we have been all these years in the past.
None of that is to say that Pokémon can’t be loved by older generations—in fact it could possibly. Like I stated, that’s the important thing to its longevity; it brings individuals throughout totally different durations of their lives collectively. The franchise is even sometimes prepared to discover this itself, with reveals like final yr’s J-Drama Pocket ni Bōken wo Tsumekonde, which was all a few younger lady revisiting the Pokémon video games of her childhood. However Pokémon has not often made me really feel seen as an older fan not too long ago (the heaps of technology 1 nostalgia apart) because it does in Netflix’s lovable streaming collection Pokémon Concierge.
You’ll assume that will be due to its human protagonist, Haru (Rena Nōnen/Karen Fukuhara). A stressed-out workplace employee who obsesses over not blowing conferences and overworks on shows, Haru involves the Pokémon Resort to each escape her regular life and begin a brand new job, one the place she is extra explicitly in contact with the world of Pokémon as we perceive it within the franchise already. We solely see glimpses of it, however Haru’s pre-Concierge life feels weirdly devoid of Pokémon as a facet of it, alien to a franchise that’s often specific in displaying off a society the place humanity and Pokémon-kind co-exist and thrive in mingling. Wrestle as she may at first, in a brand new profession with out efficiency opinions and a must slave over a laptop computer in her “free” hours simply to remain caught up, at first Haru flounders, after which thrives, as soon as she embraces the nippiness vibes of the resort and its denizens.
No, that feeling of being seen for me is as an alternative within the excellent foil Haru finds in her companion Pokémon on the resort: a neighborhood Psyduck. I, as a lot as I wish to be, am not a large fluffy yellow duck the scale of a preteen with psychic powers, however in Pokémon Concierge’s Psyduck I felt a kinship in contrast to something I’d skilled not too long ago as a life-long Pokémon fan. In fact, there’s the apparent reality Psyduck is a first-generation Pokémon, one of many authentic 151—we’re each oldheads. We’re each very harassed and liable to complications; mine simply make me wish to go lie down in a darkish room as an alternative of telekinetically elevate objects with my thoughts. However what actually drew me to Concierge’s Psyduck, past being a Psyduck, was an altogether extra easy reality: Psyduck is a resident of the island the Pokémon Resort, however they’re not a visitor. They have been already there, in paradise, and but… they’re Psyduck. They’re nonetheless a wired little duck with a nasty head and a need to be left alone.
It’s telling that even earlier than Haru makes it her purpose to make Psyduck her companion on the resort, Psyduck is drawn to this stressed-out millennial working from a lifetime of tedium in Concierge’s first couple of episodes—flittering round within the background, hiding in bushes, working away when the specter of social engagement turns into too obvious, inspecting her from afar as a lot as she turns Psyduck into her personal topic. Psyduck already has Haru’s dream of being on this idyllic island with little to do apart from calm down and vibe, and but they will’t do this—they can’t be just like the Pokémon which are invited to this occasion, an outsider trying in and wanting that connection.
It takes Psyduck and Haru discovering kinship in one another for them to each begin mellowing out and going with the movement of the magical world in Concierge, but it surely’s a kinship in understanding the place they’re each at of their lives: older, tireder, weighed down by the truth of the world, however nonetheless desirous to see that spark of magic that makes Pokémon’s joyful society thrive in themselves. After years of nonetheless loving Pokémon however feeling more and more out of contact with that spark, in Psyduck Concierge melted my crusty “genwunner” coronary heart—and stated there’ll all the time be a spot for me so long as I’m prepared to hunt out that connection.
Pokémon Concierge is now streaming on Netflix.
Need extra io9 information? Try when to anticipate the most recent Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s subsequent for the DC Universe on movie and TV, and every part you’ll want to learn about the way forward for Physician Who.
