Today, The Pokémon Company gave us our first look at an upcoming Pokémon spin-off, Great Detective Pikachu: The Birth of a New Duo. It stars Pikachu....but not the Pikachu you’re used to.
The trailer, in case you haven’t seen it:
What stands out about this footage is that Pikachu is speaking actual words. Not only that, but Pikachu also has a weirdly deep voice, too. Given the whole detective thing, the voice acting makes sense...and yet. It’s a weird combination, no? Pikachu is supposed to be high-pitched and cheerful! And so, I couldn’t help my reaction:
Pikachu sounds like he could kill a man. Pikachu sounds like he is gonna fuck your shit up. Pikachu sounds like he has some dark secrets that he is trying to drown out with some spiked coffee. Pikachu sounds scary (and also, kind of hilarious).
I am not alone in this reaction. Here’s YouTuber TheJWittz, reacting to Pikachu’s voice:
Relevant bit: “Oh wow. I know they said in the original game announcement that he would have a grizzled detective voice, but I just don’t know if I was quite ready to hear this coming out of a Pikachu.” I like that he pointed out how hilarious it is to hear detective Pika talk to a normal Pikachu.
A couple of comments from that video:
Some comments on the IGN upload of the trailer:
From GameXplain’s upload of the trailer:
From Twitter:
And around the web:
[Source: Buzzfeed]
[Source: mrroyaute]
[Source: melon-con-carne]
[Source: teddybearyoshi]
There’s even a Tumblr dedicated to hard-boiled Pikachu stories now, too:
If nothing else, this new Pikachu is certainly an improvement over this monstrosity: