Netflix Sets Your Reservation For 'Pokémon Concierge' Stop Motion Miniseries

There’s no battling in the lobby! Okay there might be

See? Not every non-main animated Pokémon series was made for YouTube! Oh man I’ve been meaning to talk about this for a while. Netflix has released a trailer and set a premiere date for Pokémon Concierge, the first direct collaboration with The Pokémon Company.

“When Pokémon need a break, they head to a peaceful resort to relax, looked after by a team of Pokémon concierges,” the logline says. The four episodes in the miniseries run anywhere from 14 to 20 minutes. It follows Haru, as she learns how to take care of the Pokémon guests, and the more she does it and makes them happy, she ends up finding a new side to herself. Netflix calls it an “imaginative and ambitious stop-motion project” masterfully made by the widely praised dwarf studios. The trailer not only features the memorable Generation I Pokémon like Rattata, Bulbasaur, Pikachu, Eevee, Dragonite, and Magikarp, a bandana-donning Charmander as well as the Psyduck Haru grows close to, but Hoppip, Wingull, Unova’s elemental monkeys Pansage, Panpour, and Pansear, Wooper, a heat-providing Lampent, and more. The species diversity is very commendable. Putting the teaser here since I hadn’t had previous opportunity but do read on.

The cast? Oh it’s stacked. In English, Haru is voiced by Karen Fukuhara, known for The Boys but also starred as Kipo in Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts, as F in the Star Wars: Visions short The Village Bride, and as Glimmer in She-Ra and the Princesses of Power. Josh Keaton has done extensive work in Marvel and DC media but is probably best known as The Spectacular Spider-Man and Hal Jordan in Green Lantern: The Animated Series and Justice League Action as well as Shiro in Voltron: Legendary Defender, and here, he voices Tyler. With possibly just as big a name as that, we have Lori Alan, known as Pearl on SpongeBob SquarePants and Diane Simmons on Family Guy as Watanabe. Imani Hakim, who played Chris’s younger sister Tonya Rock on Everybody Hates Chris, voices Alisa. Sure, Pokémon is in a place where it can feature the likes of Zeno Robinson and Steve Blum, but it can still be surreal to have certain actors within its circles. In the Japanese version, Haru is voiced by Non, Tyler by Eita Okuno, Alisa by Fairouz Ai, and Watanabe by Yoshiko Takemura. It seems the characters have the same name in both versions, presumably as the hotel is an international vacation destination for anyone, without necessarily pigeonholing guests to be from specific countries. Mariya Takeuchi, known for her legacy in the City Pop Japanese music genre popular in the 1980s, sings the main theme song, “Have a Good Time Here”.

The show is directed by Ogawa Iku from a screenplay by Doki Harumi, with concept art and character design by Uesugi Tadahiro.

While this is Pokémon’s first original series for the streamer, the Indigo League first began streaming on the service with the Black & White fifth generation series starting in 2014. Previous series and their accompanying movies to the current would be removed significantly deep into the current series. However, in the United States the show itself moved to the streamer starting with Journeys, and the last two movies to date were released straight to Netflix in the States too. Pokémon Concierge was originally announced at February’s Pokémon Day Pokémon Direct, just before Sandler’s Handlings got started. Netflix said the show’s stories would be inspired by the comics, anime, and fan contributions. Now, the miniseries is set to premiere just about 10 months later and before the year is out on December 28.

Source: Netflix