Pokemon is heading back to theaters. A new movie, Pokemon: Wild Card, is set for release in 2027, and the announcement came packaged with an anime-style teaser. You can catch the details in the original report over at MSN.

The title alone is doing a lot of work here, and it turns out the card angle isn't just in the name. The film centers on a Pokemon TCG player and their partner Mimikyu, which confirms my first guess about this leaning hard into the card game side of the franchise. Given how much money the TCG prints these days, smart bet. The teaser going anime-styled is the part that interests me more, though.

The live-action Detective Pikachu movie was better than anyone expected, but it also felt like a proof of concept. If Wild Card is committing to an animated look for the big screen, that's a different bet entirely, and one closer to what the franchise actually is. Animated Pokemon is the native language of the brand, and it has been since the anime kicked off back in 1997. The movies, the weekly show, the specials. That's the house style.

I still remember renting Pokemon: The First Movie from the local video store and my mom being genuinely confused about why a kid who'd just discovered Final Fantasy cared about a cartoon rat shooting lightning. Different era. The point is, Pokemon movies used to feel like events, the kind of thing whole classrooms disappeared to on opening weekend. Yes, we've gotten theatrical Pokemon movies since then, plenty of them, but it's been a while since one landed with that kind of impact. An animated theatrical release in 2027 could recapture some of it, assuming the story holds up.

What we don't know yet is a lot, and I'd rather say that than guess. No confirmed animation studio, no word on whether this ties into any existing game, and no clarity on whether it connects to the anime continuity that moved on from Ash a while back. I have my suspicions about who's handling the animation given the look of the teaser, but suspicions aren't reporting, so I'll leave it there until The Pokemon Company names names.

Nina's going to have opinions about this, I can already tell. She's been on me for years that Final Fantasy lost its way cinematically while Pokemon never stopped making movies. She might have a point on that one. Don't tell her I said so.

2027 gives everyone room to get this right. If the art style holds up on a big screen and the story isn't just a two-hour card commercial, Wild Card could be the theatrical Pokemon movie that actually feels like an event again.