I consider Detective Pikachu an Anime movie as much as a Video Game movie because I feel it's the Anime Universe's version of the Detective Pikachu story (perhaps even specifically more inline with the recent AU Anime Films) mainly because of how they did use the Pokemon Speak trope for more then just Pikachu.
But people like Folding Ideas keep saying it's not really a Video Game movie because Pokemon was a multimedia franchise from it's inception.
Pokemon only seems like that to Western Fans because we got everything at the same time in September of 1998. In Japan Red and Green were released in February of 96 and the Anime didn't debut till April of 97, that's over a year, technically Super Mario Bros got an Anime faster.
So in Japan there were kids who'd already beaten the game and went into the Anime with expectations based on that. The Anime was always an adaptation of the Games.
Now Pokemon is unique among Video Game franchises, especially Nintendo First Party ones, in how much true unironic success it's had in other mediums. I think the Zelda Mangas are underrated but that's another rant, maybe for November.
But that's another thing, even if Pokemon had debuted in another medium I'd still think of anything in an intellectual property situation where post PS1 the Games still only appear on Nintendo consuls as a Video Game franchise first because Nintendo clearly owns it in some fashion.
Pokemon was in Super Smash Bros from gen 1. That's clearly a Video Game franchise.
I think the idea is that Pokemon is way to big now, to be considered just a Video Game, frenchise.
ReplyDeletePokemon has evolved past that, and the games have suffered because of that.
I agree the idea is more common in the west, but still, they still have the idea in Japan too.
So pokemon is not just, a videogame frenchise, it more than that, so it can't just be considered that.