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The Evolution of Pokemon
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Apr 7, 2025
From its initial inception, Pokemon was a world wide phenomenon. The animated series, movies, video games, card games, and endless merchandise have accounted for over 2 decades of Pokemon Evolution. But as the franchise grew older, somethings within the animated show needed to update. How exactly did Pokemon evolve into what it is today? And how did we finally get to a point where Ash and Pikachu are leaving the show after 25 years?
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0:00
You just don't get it, do ya
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We get it, alright. We just don't evolve our Pokémon that way. You like your way of evolving, and we like ours
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The Pokémon TV series was a Gigantamax-sized step forward for what would become not just a franchise
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but an unstoppable empire in kids' media. And Gigantamax really is the word to use here, because just like in the in-universe effect
0:24
the Pokémon TV series has not only grown to new heights, but it has changed its appearance drastically in the process
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The most obvious example of this change has been in the series' protagonist himself
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Pokemon began its life as a set of unfathomably successful video games
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created by Game Freak co-founder Satoshi Tajiri. But in just a few short years, the little pocket monsters would be emblazoned on merchandise
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adapted into a card game, and, of course, be featured in an animated TV show
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When the Pokemon TV series was finally released to North American audiences in 1998, one year after it debuted in Japan, it became a cultural icon in its own right
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The simple concept of a 10-year-old boy going on a grand adventure with his friends and an army of little monsters by his side was enough to keep kids enthralled
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The design and animation of the original series, which ran from 1998 to 2003 in the States, will forever remain iconic
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Done entirely by the talented minds at the Japanese animation studio OLM Inc., the show had a distinctly 90s feel to it, which other anime at the time were also steeped in, but the look and feel of the characters was where Pokemon really broke apart from the herd of Tauros
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The primary director of the show was, and still is, a man named Kunihiko Uyama
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He had the daunting task of bringing Pokemon designed by video game artist
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Ken Sugimori to the screen, but he also had to add new characters that felt like they were part of the world
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Luckily, because the games had such a clear and distinct style that worked so well with anime trends at the time
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he succeeded wildly. There's a long-held belief in the art of character design
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that says your characters need to have recognizable silhouettes. When stripped of all their features, you still need to be able to identify them
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Pokemon was so good at this that they literally made a game out of it But it not just the titular pocket monsters that were designed well The human characters are just as memorable none more so
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than Ash. Dressed in what might be the most 90s outfit ever conceived, Ash quickly became one of
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the most identifiable parts of the show, just behind his little yellow sidekick. His jagged
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Jet black hair, angular face, and bold facial features are etched permanently into a lot of fans' minds
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These early designs in the original series were vibrant, highly detailed, and sharp-edged against more softer backgrounds
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Since the Pokemon anime was initially created by hand-painting cells on a tight deadline
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there are countless instances where you can see little flaws, where trees weren't filled in all the way
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or they've forgotten the white on Ash's hat. This, of course, only adds to the charm of the original series
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But the rough-around-the-edges nature of the first few seasons wasn't just apparent in its art style
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The animation was equally as rudimentary. Once again, due to the high output expectations and it being done by hand, the Pokemon anime often had to cut corners
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Battles in the original series may be looked back on with fondness, but they were done as cheaply as possible, with repeating animations or hardly any animation at all
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What is this? What's wrong with it? While this practice is pretty common in anime, especially those in the 90s and early 2000s
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Kunihiko Yuyama and the other creatives at OLM used it super effectively by covering half the battleground in lightning
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or using character cut-ins as important moments to segue into or out of the action
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And while that worked in some instances, it wasn't as strong when it came to the characters moving and emoting outside of Poké Battles
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Ash and the rest of the characters were stiff in their movements, often appearing more like
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flat images with a single moving limb or flapping mouth. But that's not to say the entire show was
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like this. There were gems in the original series that became staples of the show moving forward
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like the fluid movement of Ash throwing a Pokeball, the animation for which we saw in the
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show's introduction, and then again and again throughout the original series. And even though
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the attacks were mostly stagnant the animators at OLM made them feel epic While Pok was certainly not the only anime to garner a North American audience at the time it was undoubtedly the biggest And as the Pokemon franchise continued to roll out
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down the hill and pick up speed, the TV show was helping to lead the charge, which meant that as
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more games came out, new series were created in tandem. The advanced generation Diamond and Pearl
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Black and White and XY ran from 2008 through to 2017 in North America
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We were introduced to new characters, new regions, and plenty of new Pokemon
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It was clear from the level of polish that the budget had increased with each season
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which had at least something to do with the newer generations of games that they were expected to emulate on screen
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The backgrounds had been upgraded in detail and quality, and Ash was given new outfits to fit with the changing times
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Those sharp features were still very much part of his character, though, and the art style was very similar to how it looked in the beginning of its run
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It just got progressively smoother. This was due to the jump from hand-drawn animation to digital
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There was really no choice but to make this switch in order to keep up with the workload
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Digital animation was really the only option. And though Ash and the rest of the characters still moved pretty stiffly and flatly
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it was obvious that the team behind the Pokemon TV show had big plans in mind for the future of the franchise
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as they moved into this new technological age. So came the Sun and Moon era
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By far the most controversial move in the TV show's history, Sun and Moon completely upended the established design of seasons past
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In order to fit with the aesthetic of the most recent set of games, they brought in new characters, a new region, new Pokemon
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and an update on Ash's outfit as every other series had done before
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But they didn't stop there. Ash's redesign would be the most complete fans had ever seen
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in the nearly two decades since the show's release. Those familiar sharp edges to his hair
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and clothing were rounded out. The colors he wore, while still being bright and fun
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were less saturated. For the first time in series history, he was no longer in some variation of his
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signature jacket, and even his bold features were shrunken down and simplified, in some ways
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looking more like a ditto version of himself than the character viewers had come to know There was predictably quite a bit of backlash to this change Where was the Ash we had all grown up with And who was the soft squishy character in
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his place? These changes were not done out of spite for longtime fans. In reality, there were
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a lot of practical and artistic reasons for Pokemon's new look that people like director
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Kunihiko Uyama and producer Hiroyuki Kato were using to their advantage. These simpler character
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designs actually made room for a lot of improvements to the show overall. With a less
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defined face and body structure, Ash and the rest of the characters were able to emote in new ways
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that just hadn't been possible before, and that also applied to the Pokemon who could squash and
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stretch to their heart's content, giving them more personality and life than ever before. With
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Simpler characters, backgrounds were able to be more elaborate, and the animators got to play with different art styles without it feeling jarring or out of place
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Even the battles maintained the general vibe of the original series while simultaneously stepping up their game in terms of animation
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And so, despite the controversy surrounding the change, this is the direction the Pokemon TV show has continued in
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The current iteration of Pokemon 2019's Journeys, the series, is even softer and squishier than Sun and Moon
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Its colors are more vibrant, and the movement is smoother than ever before
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Whether all of that is a good thing is up to each individual fan, but if Pokemon has taught us anything, it's that nothing ever stays exactly the same
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It evolves. And the creative minds who have stuck with the series since the beginning
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are clearly invested in evolving with their fans. Now it's up to the fans to grow and change alongside them
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Change isn't easy, but it is necessary. And that's important to remember now more than ever with the recent news of Ash's departure from the series
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With every new iteration, the show distances itself further and further from the one we remember from our childhoods
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And that's okay. It's undeniable that Pokemon has undergone and will continue to undergo new and solid evolutions
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Ones that will hopefully leave the show stronger than it was before. Ones that are full of fun, fluidity, and life
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Just how the world of Pokemon should be
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