'Detective Pikachu' Fans Are Ticked About German Trailer

Detective Pikachu is still the talk of the Internet, but at least one dubbed version of the [...]

By Christian Hoffer

Detective Pikachu is still the talk of the Internet, but at least one dubbed version of the trailer is picking up some criticism for dubbing over an iconic part of the Pokemon franchise.

Earlier this week, WB and Legendary Pictures released the first trailer for Detective Pikachu, a new live-action movie starring Ryan Reynolds as the voice of a talking Pikachu who solves mysteries and Justice Smith as his human partner Tim. One of the catches in the movie is that only Tim understands Detective Pikachu, with the rest of the world hearing only Pikachu's familiar "Pika Pika" noises.

Voice actress Ikue Otani has been the voice of Pikachu across multiple mediums over the last 20 years and reprises Pikachu's "Pokemon" voice in the trailer. However, a viral Twitter post pointed out that the German trailer dubbed over Otani's voice with someone else.

Needless to say, Pokemon fans were not thrilled by the change, especially as it erases Otani's immense contribution to the franchise.

We'll note that this isn't the first time that Otani's voice has been dubbed over. Early episodes of the English version of the Pokemon anime occasionally dubbed over Otani in some early episodes, mostly due to editing issues. The German dub of the Pokemon anime also used a different voice actor for Pikachu, but eventually switched over to Otani's version of the iconic cry.

Luckily, the bizarre decision to replace Otani seems to have quickly been overturned. The popular German YouTube channel KinoCheck released a revised version of the trailer, which uses Otani's version instead. We'll note that Warner Bros' German account still has the original trailer up with the bizarre Pikachu replacement.

Detective Pikachu will be released on May 10, 2019.

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