It really cannot be understated how great it is that in the 2020s, we're getting so many different Pokemon anime in very different animation styles. For decades, the only animated Pokemon property we got was the main TV anime starring Ash Ketchum. As popular as the games and the overall franchise is, and for all the innovations it provided across its associated media, the TV anime was pretty static and formulaic a lot of the time. But starting in the mid-2010s and into the 2020s, the Pokemon animated canon got to expand beyond just the TV anime. We got stuff like Pokemon Origins, followed byPokemon Generations, which are animated retellings of various notable events in the games, and later, we would get short web anime such as Twilight Wings, Hisuian Snow, the PokeToon shorts, and Paldean Winds. Pokemon would later dip its toes into the world of stop-motion, with the subject of today's review, Pokemon Concierge, which was announced in the February 2023 Pokemon Presents video. I thought "Ooh! This looks cute! I'd love to watch it!" And just this December, Pokemon Concierge finally dropped for all to see. I'm glad to say that Pokemon Concierge is a pretty good short anime on par with the others I mentioned in terms of overall quality, but I feel like it could have been something more.
So what's the story? A young woman named Haru has been having a tough time of it, and nothing's been going right for her. To get away from it all, Haru decides to take a job at the luxurious Pokemon Resort, a resort that caters exclusively to Pokemon guests and isn't the stiff, stuffy work environment that Haru is used to. Through trial and error, Haru manages to carve out a place at her new job, doing everything from befriending a shy Psyduck to helping a Magikarp that can't swim to save its life. Every day is fun and filled with new discoveries as Haru comes to enjoy her new life at the Pokemon Resort. Oh, side note: This is gonna be my last review of 2023, and I'm glad that this is the series I get to end the year on, because it's a pretty cute, wholesome little romp.
For anyone who's only familiar with stop-motion animation via Tim Burton and the Rankin-Bass Christmas specials from back in the day, fun fact: A lot of the earliest stop-motion animation was done in Japan, including said Rankin-Bass specials. It's much harder to produce because unlike 2D animation which is just drawings made to move with technology, stop-motion is extremely intricate and labor intensive due to the level of technical skills needed for it being much higher than what's needed for 2D, such as prop setup and photography, among other things. Stop-motion as an animation form has actually evolved quite a bit and seems to be coming back into the limelight, what with stuff such as Pui Pui Molcar, Mad God, Guillermo Del Toro's Pinocchio, everything that Laika puts out, and so on. The animation for this was done by Dwarf Studios, who also worked on the Rilakkuma and Kaoru anime. As someone who's not familiar with their work, I have to say that the work they put into Concierge's animation is amazing. All the characters are made from different materials, and depending on the Pokemon, they can be either sleek plastic or soft felt. The fact that the animators put actually captured tiny details like the texture of a Pokemon's fur really helps the immersion. There's a lot of thought and care put into things like body movement and facial expressions for both humans and Pokemon, with some details about that being mentioned in a cute making of video that Netflix put up on their YouTube channel. Definitely check out that video if you can. The set pieces for the backgrounds are also very well done. I don't have as much to say about the soundtrack, as its cute and I did enjoy the Mariya Takeuchi song. I do appreciate that they made a remix for the evolution music at one point.
I admit, I'm kinda mixed on the characters. They're not bad or anything, but I feel the series' short length of four ten-minute long episodes didn't allow the creators to let their characters to grow, nor do we really get to know any of them on a personal level. Because of the series' short length and focusing more on Haru learning about how the Pokemon Resort works, the side characters all feel very one-note and bland. Tyler is just a laid-back surfer dude, Alisa is just Haru's helpful senior, and Watanabe is just the nice boss. I'd very much like to learn more about this cast of characters and what they're like, but again, the series is so short that it's unable to do so. There's so many unanswered questions about all of them, such as: Is Watanabe the founder of the resort, or does she just work there? What are Tyler and Alisa like when they're off the clock? What made them decide they wanted to work at the resort? Do they all have lives outside the resort? How do they go about dealing with the guests? How do they handle stress? Seriously, there's so much potential with them and I do like them, but they really deserve to be fleshed out more. On the other hand, the Pokemon characters are all very expressive and full of personality, and the animators did their absolute damndest to bring them all to life.
Actually, speaking of questions, there's a lot that I really want to know about the show's setting. Who founded the Pokemon Resort? Do Pokemon get designated rooms in the hotel, or since they're on an island, can they just go wherever they want? How do they accommodate big Pokemon like Metagross and Dragonite? Since Watanabe doesn't want her employees to treat working at the resort the same way as an office job based on how she reacts to Haru making data charts in the first episode, how does Watanabe handle the business side of things with the resort? How do they even get funding? As much as I like this short series and the idea behind it, its short length both in episode number and duration leave no room for fleshing out the concept and the characters more. Hell, it wasn't even revealed that Pokemon Concierge would even get just four episodes until it dropped on Netflix! The previous series Dwarf Studios made, Rilakkuma and Kaoru, had 13 episodes, so I was under the impression that Pokemon Concierge would have the same amount of episodes. Like...who decided it should just be four episodes?! And they could have at least mentioned this from the start!
I hate to go on about Concierge's short length, and don't take this to mean I didn't like the show, because I did. I genuinely enjoyed Pokemon Concierge for what it is, a charming, wholesome, laid-back Pokemon series making use of stop-motion animation to bring the Pokemon world to life in a new way. It's a great new entry into the Pokemon animated canon, and I honestly wish there was more. Who knows, maybe they'll make another season in the future? I hope so, but if not, it's still a cute show for what it is. Whether you're a Pokemon fan or not, Pokemon Concierge is a nice kick-back-and-relax kind of show that's short, sweet, and to the point, and man do I wish there were more of it!
