Pokemon TV

Genre: Video Application

Players: 1

.

Review:

Pokemon TV is a free Video Application released on Nintendo Switch in 2021. Released with no advance notice and little fanfare, this is an application that lets users watch Pokemon-related content.

The content here is split into Series, Specials, Junior, and More.

In Series, it includes the Pokemon anime series… though not all of it. As of this writing, this category contains seasons 1-3 of the series, and seasons 21-23, as well as “Oblivious Ash”, which seems to be a random assortment of episodes where series protagonist Ash… is oblivious.

Specials seems to contain animated spinoff series and shorts, stuff based on the Pokemon franchise, but only some of it set in the same version of that franchise seen in the main anime series, and none of it being any of the main series content. As of this writing, this category contains the Pokemon Ranger and the Temple of the Sea special, the Pokemon Evolutions series, the Bidoof’s Big Stand animated short, the Pokemon Twilight Wings series, the pokemon Generations series, and the pokemon Origins series.

The Junior section contains videos meant for very young children, including sing-along stuff with computer-animated characters and other simple animations. Let me warn you now – if you are a parent with young children and your child discovers they like this stuff, you will instantly regret ever getting pokemon TV, as it is exactly the kind of saccharine content seemingly designed to make parents cringe.

Finally, the content in the More section is devoted pretty much to footage of various Pokemon card game and videogame tournaments. And… I don’t have much to say about these, as I don’t follow cybersports.

It’s not a bad amount of content to get for free and without ads, and making things even better is that this app makes good use of the Nintendo Switch touchscreen… something that’s oddly rare in Nintendo Switch video streaming apps. Unfortunately, the video quality is wildly inconsistent here, and at times it can look extremely rough.

Also, while complaining about something free is running into “looking a gift horse in the mouth” territory, I can’t help but find it a bit disappointing that this app doesn’t allow you to access all of the Pokemon TV series, doesn’t include any of the movies, and of course it doesn’t have the Detective Pikachu movie (though Nintendo just giving that away seems extraordinarily unlikely). In short, even for an app that only has Pokemon content, this is very much not even close to a comprehensive collection of that content.

Still, if you’re a fan of Pokemon wanting to watch the classic TV series on your Nintendo Switch, or wanting to pick up on some strategies in the games by watching tournament footage, there is some value to be had here… as long as you get a stream that’s not destroyed by terrible resolution issues. However, if you’re not interested in the specific content here, or not into Pokemon in general… well, this app doesn’t really have anything to offer you.

tl;dr – Pokemon TV is a streaming Video Application for watching Pokemon-specific content. Naturally, this means it won’t appeal to everyone, but even Poke-fans may be disappointed that the app only contains select seasons of the TV series, none of the movies, and has some ugly issues with streaming resolution. However, if you are a Pokemon fan, you’ll still probably find this app worth looking into. After all, it is free and without ads, so it doesn’t cost you much to try it out.

Grade: C+

^{You can support eShopperReviews on Patreon! Please click HERE to become a Sponsor!}

^{This month’s sponsors are Andy Miller, Exlene, Johannes, u/RamboFox, Ilya Zverev, Connor Armstrong, Eli Goodman, K.H. Kristoffer Wulff, and Stov. Thank you for helping to keep the reviews coming!}