Anyone who watched the original Pokémon anime in the ‘90s will remember the “Pokérap,” the catchy-ass song that played at the end of episodes where James “D Train” Williams and Babi Floyd rapped the names of all 151 original Pokémon. The anime did this again for two generations, for the Johto and Hoenn seasons, but hundreds of Pokemon have been added since. There are 1025, to be exact, and that’s before Winds and Waves adds more next year. But it’s the series’ 30th anniversary, so The Pokemon Company has created an updated equivalent of the “Pokérap” highlighting every Pokémon that’s come out so far, and it’s 22 minutes long.
This song by singer Masayoshi Oishi starts off less as a hip hop song and more like something you’d hear in an anime OP, but it changes genres around throughout like an progressive orchestral suite. It goes from swing to salsa to smooth jazz to heavy metal and many more before getting back to sounding like a lively anime OP. If the song is gonna be about as long as an episode of the Pokémon anime, it’s gotta have some peaks and valleys. The song is in Japanese, so several Pokémon will have names you’re probably not familiar with if you don’t speak the language, but I’ve spotted several of my favorites so far as I’m writing this, so I will clap and cheer like someone who needs pictures to understand the books he’s reading.
You can definitely tell when a critter is one of The Pokémon Company’s favorites because they get some original animation or a notable callout during the song, but the video is worth watching through at least once just to see how they really commit to giving every Pokémon at least a few seconds of screentime, collaging together official art, screenshots from the games, and even some clips from the anime. Even if you have an obscure favorite no one cares about, you’ll find them in this 22-minute epic.