Pokémon: Path To The Peak is officially not an Anime.

It doesn't have a MAL page, each episode was released in the US before it was in Japan, the main Writer and Storyboarder both have non Japanese names, none of the characters have alternate Japanese names listed on Bulbapedia, and it looks artstyle wise a lot like a late 2010s Cartoon Network show.

Given the somewhat harsh opinions I've had on allegedly Anime Inspired Western Cartoons on this blog in the past, the last thing I expected was that the first one to get it right would be an actually officially licensed installment of an established franchise.  I thought the key would be an indie project like those pretty decent Western VNs that went viral in the 2010s.

But once again Nintendo understands the appeal of it's iconic IPs better then any other soulless corporation.  Pokémon is the one Nintendo brand that is as much of an Anime franchise as it is a Video Game franchise and they clearly get that.  For Mario it worked to let Illumination do their usual thing while playing into the 80s Nostalgia.  But Pokémon is first and foremost a 90s Nostalgia franchise and part of the infancy of Millennial Weeb Culture.

One of the things I said in one of those past posts is that a lot of my favorite Anime are Anime about Anime Fan Culture and so.one of the things I'd like to see is an "Anime" like that but which can make references innate to the Western Anime Fandom.  And that part of the appeal of this show, it isn't set in the actual Pokémon world but in a world like the real world.  

But it's also the Structure of a Sports Anime applied to the Pokémon Card Game.  Of course the trope about having a Parent who had a history with the same sport but left it for some reason does feel like more of a Western Sports Drama trope then a Spirts Anime Trope.  But how often does Western Media apply Sports Drama Tropes to a Nerdy Card Game? The very idea of applying the tropes of Sports Drama to Competitive Gaming is inherently an Otaku tradition, the closet normal Western Media comes to doing a Sports Drama for an unconventional Sport is Battle Rap and even that was only done twice and both had to have Eminem attached.

I also said before I would want such a Western Otaku Anime to reference more then just Weeb stuff, because most of us Weebs are combining our Japanese Media Interests with various other Interests we have.  So yes the way this show seamlessly melds some Western Ideas into the structure of a specific Anime Genre also fits.

I love how it reflects the way the first Generation of Pokémon fans now often have kids of their own.  Likewise I suspect Celestine's parents were Bronies.  

Celestine gives Non-Binary Vibes.  She has a very Tumblr Core Aesthetic which happens to fit her Rivals to Yuri role perfectly.