Splashing into the Unique Stop-Motion Paradise of ‘Pokémon Concierge’
Writer Caroline Cao talks with animator Iku Ogawa on overcoming the scariest part of Netflix's new Pokémon series: animating a human
"Pokémon Concierge" is out on Netflix.
Courtesy of Netflix
Words by Caroline Cao
You might have lost count of all the Pokémon creatures in the ever-expanding Japan-based Pokémon franchise, now 27 years old. First created by video game designer Satoshi Tajiri, it’s a fantasy world where trainers can collect, battle, and nurture their various “pocket monsters” (as Pokémon is loosely translated). It’s exhausting to track down all the infinite video games, anime, movies, comics, to “catch ‘em all,” as the Pokémon motto goes. You can watch the 52 episodes of the first season of the 1997 Pokémon Indigo League on Netflix, alongside titles like Pokémon Master Journeys and Pokémon: The Arceus Chronicles. Last year was a banner year for the franchise, eliciting bittersweet tears for the die-hard Pokémon fans. After 25 years, the anime lead Ash Ketchum has risen to the title World's Greatest Pokémon Trainer. Alongside his iconic Pikachu, he was just one of those “ageless” characters, seemingly remaining 10 years old for more than two decades. So we entered a post-Ash period, with the Pokémon Horizons follow-up anime focusing on a new human cast for a Netflix release in February 2024.
But before Horizons, there’s the December release of Pokémon Concierge, an anticipated animated title on Netflix, and breath of fresh air in Pokémon animation. Its hero is not a 10-year-old, but a 20-something adult. Also, it’s Pokémon in stop-motion, the kind of word that could get an animation buff salivating. You’ve seen Pokémon in pixelated video games, plushies, trading cards, and the 2-D cartoons. But now Pokémon comes in the eye-popping textures of a handicraft art form. Animated by dwarf studios, Pokémon Concierge is an all-ages dream, made for kids but also for the “kids” who grew up with the franchise.
Growing up in Texas, I was 5 years old when I started watching Pokémon anime, my first anime before I fell for Sailor Moon and Studio Ghibli. I was tapping away on the Game Boy instead of doing my homework. Pokémon Concierge director, the Tokyo-born Iku Ogawa himself, was about 6 years old when he played the original Pokémon games and watched the original anime, so he had been an old-school fan.
When speaking to Ogawa (through his translator Shion Ebina), he says it was crucial to balance the “real and the fantasy” of the series’ tropical island Pokémon Resort, a sanctuary for Pokémon to wander and play among human guests. The resort is the new enchanting home for the 20-something Haru, recently employed as a new Pokémon concierge.
"Pokémon Concierge" director Iku Ogawa.
Courtesy of Netflix
Ogawa’s team succeeded in a plush “stuffed-animal” aesthetic for many of the cuddly Pokémon puppets (Tadahiro Uesugi did the character designs). I got a preview of three episodes of Pokémon Concierge, and it lulled me into this soft oasis with open arms. Diverse with textures, the island is chock full of colorful fruit, verdant vistas, crystal-clear water, and scampering Pokémon of all shapes and sizes, some smooth and some wooly. Ogawa says that achieving a “realistic” Pokémon means attention down to the patterns of the props and wardrobe, and I caught on a second viewing that Haru’s printed shirt bears the shape of little Oddish.
So I confess that my jaws dropped when I peered into Ogawa’s early macabre stop-motion. In a short innocuously titled I Wanna Be Your Friend, a slinky-like creature is so desperate for friendship that he contorts his legs past his endurance. In I Think You’re A Little Confused, a sentient sausage-like protagonist ends up mashed in a gory pulp. His darkly comic hand-drawn cartoons feature a character getting decapitated by a child’s swing and then a falling banana puncturing his skull. Yes, the kid-friendly Pokémon franchise is often built on battles, but it’s curated to often reach PG-levels of action. Pokémon Concierge is less on the battles, so far. Maybe Haru frets over a few cute Pokémon scuffles—as benign as cat play-fights—but they get over it.
In "Pokémon Concierge," Haru is recently employed as a new Pokémon concierge.
Courtesy of Netflix
When recruited to execute something as cotton candy-sweet as Pokémon Concierge, Ogawa voiced that his greatest concern was his inexperience at “human drama,” not so much the Pokémon, considering his surrealist portfolio. When reading the premise (script by Harumi Doki), Ogawa was instantly nervous about animating Haru, a human young woman. He told a producer, “I’m not sure I really have confidence in being able to portray grown-up females.” Still, he wanted to do right by her personality, his “new opportunity to take [his animation skills] up a notch to portray human drama.”
He credits two guides: First, he admired the human animation of fellow dwarf studio director, Masahito Kobayashi of the Netflix show Rilakkuma and Kaoru; his second guide was Haru’s human reference, the voice actress Rena Nōnen (who voiced the lead Suzu in In This Corner of the World), with her expressions captured in the voice booth to mold Haru’s lip movements.
Ogawa admits that he had fun working with Haru’s apprehensive state. “I love it when she panics and [is] in this state of turmoil,” he says. When Haru gets struck with job anxieties, the camera dramatically zooms onto her and the frame goes black-and-white. In Nōnen’s words, "She works so hard, but sometimes things just don't work out.” Haru is going through a rough patch when she arrives on the island. So when her new employer sincerely assigns Haru to just relax on her first day, Haru’s anxiety-ridden brain tells her she’s being tested. Luckily she learns to roll with the good vibes. Even the theme song, sung by Japanese city pop singer Mariya Takeuchi, sings, “Have a Good Time Here.”
(Haru is English-dubbed by Karen Fukuhara, whose voice is recognizable in The Boy and the Heron English dub, and her Haru performance hews to her spunk as the eponymous Kipo in Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts).
Had I beyond a 20-minute interview, there was so much I wanted to ask Ogawa, such as the state of stop-motion in Japan’s animation industry and his favorite type of Pokémon. I managed to inquire about Ogawa’s influences, and he perked up when I mentioned being a fan of Henry Selick, director of The Nightmare Before Christmas. He also owes gratitude to Tsuneo Gōda, the founder of dwarf studios and creator of the famed Domo, the cute sawtoothed mascot of the Japan Broadcasting Corporation since 1998.
From left, Pokémon concierge Haru and Pokémon Psyduck.
Courtesy of Netflix
Pokémon Concierge can be a lovely gateway into the Pokémon universe for a newbie trainer. Each episode clocks around 13-20 minutes, delectable like the candies in Haru’s tin. It’s not up to Ogawa if there will be more Pokémon Concierge beyond its four short-and-sweet episodes, but he is comfy with more Haru adventures if it comes to it. You’ll have to experience the Poké-paradise through Haru’s big, soulful eyes to drink it in.
But dare I add that Pokémon Concierge is also a portal into the labors of dwarf studios as well? The aforementioned Rilakkuma and Kaoru, a plushy family friendly series, is on Netflix and it stars a salarywoman living with her sentient stuffed animals in a more bittersweet—yet just as optimistic—counterpoint to Haru’s adulthood experience. Ogawa is also credited as a co-director in the breathtaking, adult-oriented HIDARI pilot, populated with berserk samurai puppets chiseled from wood.
If you also decide to drench yourself in the darkness of Ogawa’s gorier projects, you can cleanse the palate by spending time with Haru, eating all the candy you want, and playing with Psyduck.
Pokémon Concierge is streaming on Netflix.
Published on December 28, 2023
Words by Caroline Cao