Pokemon Returns to Original Anime Look With New Promo

Pokemon surprised fans by bringing back the anime’s original art style with a slick new promo for a new collaboration coming for the franchise! Pokemon is still in the midst of celebrating its 25th Anniversary, and through the past two years fans have seen new video game releases, new anime, new movies, new trading cards, toys and much, more more. This has included collaborations with all sorts of musicians and artists such as Daniel Arsham, who was previously tapped to provide some special new designs for a line of clothing for Pokemon and UNIQLO. Now, Pokemon’s collaborating with Arsham once more.

Pokemon has united with Daniel Arsham once more on a new art exhibit opening soon in Tokyo dubbed “A Ripple in Time” which features new sculptures from the artist in his style. To celebrate this new exhibit (and highlight the fact that it also shares a name with a recent Pokemon GO event too), the official Pokemon YouTube dropped a slick new promo for fans in Japan that not only features the artist themself, but goes all the way back to the beginning with a full original anime makeover for Ash and Pikachu. Check it out below: 

Pokemon has gone through a number of anime iterations over the years, and each one has given Ash a significant makeover as he enters a whole new region and new status quo. Before the release of the newest iteration, Pokemon Journeys, each series was pretty self contained and rarely had mentioned the events of what came before. The newest iteration has changed this majorly as Ash Ketchum has been allowed to explore every region of the franchise thus far and come face to face with fan favorites from the series’ past. 

It’s been such a wildly different series that fans have seen not only faces from the past, but even some brand new characters from the newest video game releases too. This makes fans curious to see what comes in each new episode, and while it might be far and away from this classic anime design, it at least allows Ash to acknowledge just how far he’s come. Then again, this older style does look pretty great in the modern day. 

But what do you think? Which has been your favorite Ash design from over the years? Would you want to see the original art style returning for a full project someday? How are you liking the Pokemon’s current anime these days? Let us know all of your thoughts about it in the comments! You can even reach out to me directly about all things animated and other cool stuff @Valdezology on Twitter!