Pokemon Masters Has an Unexpected Connection to Detective Pikachu

Pokemon Masters has an unexpected tie to the Detective Pikachu video games. Earlier this month, The Pokemon Company and DeNA released Pokemon Masters, a unique Pokemon game in which players collect Sync Pairs (consisting of one Pokemon and one trainer) to add to your team. The trainer/Pokemon duo consists of famous Pokemon trainers from the various Pokemon games, including a mix of gym leaders, Champions, and rivals. And while the game's developers have noted that they'll likely stick with characters from the main series games and not spin-off games like Pokemon Coliseum, there's still at least one way Pokemon Masters has a connection with a very popular spin-off game.

Voice actor Kaiji Tang voices Noland, the Hikers, and the PokeFans in Pokemon Masters, while Khoi Dao voices Paolo, one of the rival characters in the game. If you're wondering why those characters sound familiar, it's because Tang and Dao voiced Detective Pikachu and Tim Goodman in in the English version of the Detective Pikachu video game, which inspired this year's popular live-action movie. While Ryan Reynolds voiced Detective Pikachu in the video game and Justice Smith played Tim, Tang and Dao were the first people to bring these characters to life in English over a year before the movie was announced. Both Tang and Dao (like many of the voice actors who appear in Pokemon Masters) are veteran voice actors that works mainly in anime and video games. Tang has appeared in everything from the Fire Emblem series to Berserk to Sword Art Online, while Dao has appeared in B: The Beginning, Fire Emblem Heroes, and Cells at Work.

Pokemon Masters is currently available on Android and iOS devices.