Throughout the decades, Nintendo’s Pokémon franchise has portrayed the titular pocket monsters in one of three typical ways: they’re either pets, natural extensions of every day life, or forces of nature whose existence can sometimes be a little messed up. And when they aren’t one of those, they’re off doing their own thing without a human trainer along for the ride.
With Netflix’s Pokémon Concierge series, the aim is to show what the Pokémon are doing when they’re finally allowed to take a whole break and be left to their own devices. Originally revealed back in March during a Nintendo stream, the stop-motion anime from dwarf studios (Rilakkuma and Kaoru) got a full first look during this weekend’s Anime Expo in Los Angeles. The series stars Rena Nounen (also known as Non, previously seen in The Three Sisters of Tenmasou Inn) as Haru, a young girl who’s just started to work as a Pokémon resort.
Talking to Concierge director Iku Ogawa, Non talked about portraying Haru and how she felt more of a connection to the character because of how the show is filmed. She and Ogawa revealed that the dwarf staff filmed her facial expressions during the voice acting process, which was then used as a reference point to create components of Haru’s face that would be used during shooting. Seeing those components laid out in order and then applied to Haru’s model really underlines how much of an undertaking stop-motion filmmaking is, and makes the end result look all the more impressive.
The entire behind-the-scenes video is just very cute, and there’s just something instantly adorable about seeing Pokémon figures with flowers and luggage. With Nintendo gradually revealing more of how the world of Pokémon works, a show like this couldn’t have come at a better time, and it allows the franchise to further show how it can branch off into interesting directions.
Pokémon Concierge arrives on Netflix in December.
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