Gotcha!

This music video is a perfect illustration of why I love anime. From the godlike team up of Rie Matsumoto and Yuki Hayashi, a divine duo that's proven themselves together twice over with Kyousougiga and Baby, I Love You Daze, loads of incredibly animation talent from studio Bones and other connections, and a bumping song by BUMP of Chicken, this music video was born. All it needed was three minutes. Three minutes of time to completely embody the appeal, history, and wonder that is the nearly 25 year old franchise known as Pokémon. Every bit of love I've ever had for every facet of this franchiseand every bit of love the team creating this music video had for this franchise, bursts into a beautiful celebration of the series, one that has made me feel more passionate than I've felt about anything for a long time. That passion I'm feeling right now, to me, thats the real power of anime.

I watched it about eleven times since it released. Every time i cried from nostalgia. Greatly captures feelings of bond created with characters across the entire franchise. Animation and music are both bangers. Studio responsible for the animation have shown, that they care for the franchise and love it as much as the viewers the video was targeted to. Incredible atention to details, that make you immersed in the experience. It is the embodiment of my childhood dreams and memories and I feel really thankfull that TPC wanted to acknowledge how we as Pokemon Trainers felt during those great moments in our life. Thank YouPokemon.

Before going to my short review of this sensational music video, I would like to talk a little about Pokémon and my love for it. As a kid, Pokémon was one of those shows that I always loved watching, so much so that sometimes, I would watch an entire episode repeatedly without getting bored of it. I loved watching my favourite characters go on various adventures and then fight with other Pokémon trainers—in order to become the very best, like no one ever was! (Sorry, that was kinda cringey.) I loved hearing the cheesy lines of Team Rocket as they used their silly plans to defeatAsh and his crew, but failed every time. I loved the adventurous feeling of the show that always made me feel inspirational. Actually, I loved pretty much every aspect of Pokémon as a kid. Well, I still love Pokémon. I'm certain most of you do as well. Even though I stopped watching it quite a while ago, Pokémon still has a very special place in my heart, and most likely, it always will. No matter how mediocre the show might be, I think I'm always going to keep loving it. And watching Gotcha! gave me the exact feeling I used to get watching Pokémon just a few years ago. Despite being just a short 3 minute music video, Gotcha! managed to greatly encapsulate the beauty of Pokémon. Not only did I absolutely enjoy every single second of it, but I also felt incredibly nostalgic while watching it. For starters, the animation is nothing short of amazing. The artstyle is really colorful and captivating. It somehow manages to make you energetic and enthusiastic within a very short amount of time. The character designs are also aesthetic. Studio Bones really put a lot of effort into the animation. If you pay just a little attention, you'll be able to see the sheer amount of details that most of the scenes have. The song is also very, very catchy. It's totally befitting to the electrifying nature of the video. I really loved BUMP OF CHICKEN'S (that's how they write their name) previous work on one of the movies of Doraemon (Another favourite childhood show of mine), and they did a marvellous job with the music in Gotcha! as well. Pokémon might have been your childhood, or might have not. Either way, Gotcha! is undoubtedly a very well-produced music video. It's short in length, but succeeds at doing a lot of impressive things within the span of only 3 minutes.

It would seem that to properly enjoy Gotcha!, some degree of nostalgic feeling towards Pokemon is required. Which, to be fair, is not exactly unexpected. Should you be one of those that didn’t really get around to playing or watching Pokemon in their childhood (which somehow seems to be a minority group), this music video isn’t going to have the intended effect on you. After all, it consists mainly of short flashes of various characters from the Pokemon franchise, and you won’t even recognize a lot of those – even more as some of them are characters only from the games, not from the animeadaptations. The animation is the best part – such quick-paced storyboard requires fluid animation to not look like a flipbook, and this requirement was fully filled. I also like how it has a sort of nostalgia filter that made parts of the video look more old-school, fitting with the theme. The song wasn’t really my cup of tea, I’ve heard better ones by Bump of Chicken. In terms of story, there is no story – as mentioned previously this is practically a compilation of very short character clips tied together through protagonists of the games. So yeah, if this was your childhood then “Wow 10/10!”, if it wasn’t then not so much.

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