The Pokémon Company has released a new POKÉTOON short, Summer Days with Wartortle, on the official Pokémon YouTube channel. The animated short follows a boy named Rikuto, who meets a very unusual Wartortle while visiting his grandmother on an island. It is the latest entry in the free anthology series of original Pokémon cartoons, and the official Pokémon account announced it with a short preview. Check out the official post down below:
What Summer Days With Wartortle Is About
The official description sets up the story: a young boy named Rikuto visits an island to see his grandmother. While he is there, he meets a Wartortle with a tail in a different color and a shell covered in algae, nothing like the Wartortle shown in the Pokédex. It turns out this Wartortle is a longtime family friend. The Pokémon Company describes it as a "summery, heartwarming tale of friendship."
The preview clip in the post shows Rikuto with a Leafeon at his side when the Wartortle bounds out of the grass. "No way! It's a Wartortle!" he shouts, before asking, "Do you two know each other or something?" He then notices that "this Wartortle's tail is a different color from the one shown in the Pokédex," and that "it's got algae on its shell too." After checking his Pokédex, he reads that a Wartortle's tail changes color as it gets older. The Wartortle splashes him with a jet of water and runs off into the forest, with Rikuto chasing after it.
The full short runs 13 minutes and 19 seconds and is free to watch on the Pokémon YouTube channel. The previous POKÉTOON short, A Tale of Two Charcadet, premiered in August, and The Chansey Chase arrived in July.
What POKÉTOON Is
POKÉTOON is an anthology of standalone animated shorts, each with its own creative team, art style and Pokémon at the center. The series began on the Japanese Pokémon YouTube channel on June 5, 2020, with Scraggy and Mimikyu. That first short drew on classic American theatrical cartoons, and its origins were covered in POKÉTOON Is A Brand-New, And Official Cartoon Inspired By The Looney Tunes; Currently Available To Watch.
The English versions came to Pokémon TV in August 2022 and the English Pokémon YouTube channel later that fall. The official POKÉTOON Shorts playlist now includes entries such as Another Day with Gardevoir, Diary of an Angry Primeape, Murkrow and the Nighttime Adventure, I Love Ducklett, A Clodsire Mass Outbreak, My Gogoat Journey, The Legend of Capsakid, Help! I've Turned into a Gengar, Wait for Me, Magikarp, Bonding with Kangaskhan, Snorunt's Summer Vacation and Sing! Dance! Altaria!
Pokémon's Other Animation
POKÉTOON runs separately from Pokémon Horizons: The Series, the main TV anime starring Liko and Roy that premiered in Japan in April 2023, and from Pokémon Concierge, the stop-motion series that Netflix released in December 2023. Unlike those shows, each POKÉTOON short tells a complete story in one sitting.
The Pokémon Company has more animation on the way outside the main anime. Disney+ recently signed a global deal with The Pokémon Company International that includes Pokémon Tales: The Misadventures of Sirfetch'd & Pichu, a stop-motion series from Aardman due in 2027, as covered in Disney+ Lands Global Pokémon Deal, Including New Aardman Stop-Motion Series With Pichu And Sirfetch'd. The same deal brought Pokémon the Series: The Beginning to Disney XD and Disney+.
Here is the full Summer Days with Wartortle short:
Which POKÉTOON short is your favorite so far, and which Pokémon would you want the series to build its next story around?
Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.