Detective Pikachu
My Gen 1 team was set in stone years ago—Mewtwo, Charizard (raised from the start), Articuno, Gyarados, Dragonite. I wanted Pikachu or Eevee somewhere in there, but I couldn’t rely on cute in a real fight, so Dragonite got the slot. The puzzle was solved, and I didn’t think much about it after.
The Detective Pikachu movie announcement felt wrong. A live-action crime film where a 3D Pikachu voiced by Ryan Reynolds solves cases in a world of humans and Pokémon. Why would I want that when I could just rewatch Ash and Misty and Brock stumbling through the original series again?
The new trailer came out and something shifted. The world looks genuinely interesting. Pikachu is actually likeable, even with Reynolds’s voice. Justice Smith, playing someone searching for his missing father, seems fine to spend two hours with. The movie’s based on the Detective Pikachu game and releases in May 2019. I’m not saying I’m suddenly excited. But I’m not dismissing it anymore.
My condition is simple: my favorite Pokémon need to show up. Mewtwo seems to be in there already, which helps. But that’s the test—if this actually works, it has to earn the nostalgia it’s banking on.