Pokémon Red is about to take center stage in the upcoming Pokémon live-action series.
A new trailer for the upcoming show, called PokeTsume, has debuted online, revealing that it’s actually all about how the classic Pokémon game affects one of its players.
🧢#ポケットに冒険をつめこんで🚶
— 西野七瀬主演🧢ドラマ「ポケつめ」【テレビ東京公式】 (@poketsume) October 5, 2023
10/19(木) 深夜24:30〜 出発💨
1️⃣大ボリューム‼️
100秒トレーラー解禁👏
2️⃣各登場人物の元になった
#ポケモン も解禁！ #ポケつめ #西野七瀬 #笠松将 #長谷川朝晴 #平野綾 #世古口凌 #渡邉斗翔 #塚地武雅 #内田理央 #佐藤江梨子 #柳葉敏郎 pic.twitter.com/5AGezgzTsm
The drama follows Madoka Agaki (played by Nanase Nishino), a university graduate who quits her job in a small Japanese port town to head to Tokyo for a new start. However, she bites off more than she can chew, taking on a presentation at her new company ADventure that sees the fate of the company resting on her shoulders.
Enter Pokémon Red.
Her mother, worried about Madoka’s stressful experience, sends her a care package: it’s Madoka’s old Game Boy and the original copy of Pokémon Red that she played as a child. Revisiting the game for the first time in 20 years, she realises it might just help her tackle her own problems.
PokeTsume is billed as the first Pokémon human drama, which sees the main character grow through her experiences with the game.
According to character descriptions from Serebii, Madoka begins to see similarities between the game and the real world, with certain characters representing classic Pokémon.
For instance, the character Kageaki Hiyama is apparently based on a Charmander who feels his flame is about to be extinguished. Meanwhile, a useless employee at her new company, Yuki Kode, is compared to a Magikarp. Ouch. Here’s hoping Kode manages to evolve before the show ends.
IGN’s Pokémon Red review gave it 10/10 and said: “Pokémon really is worthy of being one of the Game Boy system's greatest games – It's not just a fad, a craze, or a trend. If you don't have this game in your library, pick one up – it doesn't matter if you pick Blue or Red, they're both the same game. You'll just have to make sure you've got a friend with the other version if you want to catch 'em all.”
Want to read more about Pokémon? Check out our review of Detective Pikachu Returns as well as our rundown of the 10 best Pokémon games of all time.
Ryan Leston is an entertainment journalist and film critic for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.