2016 has been an awful year in a lot of ways, but one bright light has been Pokémon’s 20th anniversary. Throughout the year we’ve had monthly downloadable legendary Pokémon and giveaways. We saw Pokémon’s first foray into mobile gaming with incredible results in Pokémon GO. And of course in November we have the highly anticipated seventh generation games coming in Pokémon Sun and Moon.

The Pokémon Company continues the celebration with the newly announced animated short series Pokémon Generations. This weekly series will be found on the official Pokémon Channel on YouTube beginning September 16. The series runs through December 23 for a total of 18 episodes.

The regular Pokémon series has been running since the 90s. But these videos will highlight actual events and scenes from all the previous generations of Pokémon video games. The catch? They’re only three to five minutes long.

The minute-long trailer showcases many famous and fun scenes from the games. You can spot Gen 1’s protagonist “Red” with his face obscured by shadow. His rival “Blue” makes several appearances battling Elite Four trainers from the first game.

Other neat scenes include battling Noivern in Terminus Cave from Gen 6, fighting Heatran in Stark Mountain, and Regigigas at Snowpoint Temple in Gen 4. Most fans should recognize the infamous Red/Shiny Gyarados from Gen 2, seen here fighting a Dragonite. It ends with our hero finding Blue as the final boss and Champion at the end of Gen 1.

The first two episodes of Pokémon Generations debut this Friday. The series ends December 23. Pokémon Sun and Moon arrive on November 18.


This article was written by

Eric has been writing for over nine years with bylines at Dicebreaker, Pixelkin, Polygon, PC Gamer, Tabletop Gaming magazine, and more covering movies, TV shows, video games, tabletop games, and tech. He reviews and live streams D&D adventures every week on his YouTube channel. He also makes a mean tuna quesadilla.