A brutally simple and short but effective tale about letters, memories, and connection. The setup is snappy, the conflict is undeniably cheesy but heartwarming, and the resolution—somehow, some way—almost brought actual tears to my eyes. The characters, but especially the Pokémon, are bursting with personality, even the ones that quite literally appear for mere seconds in montage. The music is orchestrated wonderfully, elevating the emotional beats with a sense of warmth and nostalgia that perfectly complements the story’s simplicity.
What pisses me off the most, though, is just how good the visual worldbuilding is. Seeing Pokémon both thrive so naturally in the wild—“right, of course that Pokémon would behave that way”—and also integrate seamlessly into human society is something the animated Pokémon works consistently excel at. But in this short, it’s simply breathtaking. And that’s before even touching on the animation quality itself, which is utterly fantastic, elevating both the world and the unspoken Pokémon character moments to another level.
So why does the sheer excellence of this short also make me angry? Simple: why is this level of care and excellence only found in these animated shorts and not in the Pokémon games themselves? The more flexible medium of video games has functionally infinite potential, but, at the time of writing, seeing the currently disappointing quality of Legends: Z-A through trailers has continued to cement the idea that Game Freak will continue to squander opportunity after opportunity for true greatness. Even from a business perspective, it’s baffling—why is the quality for functionally an advertisement so, so much greater than the flagship product of the franchise? Even as the Pokémon franchise leans further into open-world experiences, the worlds in its games often feel comparatively so much more static and lifeless in contrast to the sheer vibrancy of not only this short, but other Pokémon media as well (see Pokémon Concierge, Pokémon Evolutions, Pokémon: Hisuian Snow, to name a few). The way Pokémon interact with each other and the environment, the seamless integration of human-Pokémon relationships—these things should be core to the games, yet they only seem to shine anywhere close to their potential in side media like this.
Of course, none of this is a knock on the short itself. If anything, it deserves even higher praise as a reminder of what makes Pokémon so magical in the first place. As a self-contained story, it is beautifully crafted, emotionally resonant, and visually stunning—a testament to the magic Pokémon is capable of when treated with the care and passion it deserves.
Story: 9/10
Characters: 9/10
Visuals: 10/10
Audio: 9/10
Enjoyment: 9/10
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