With more than 1000 episodes produced over the course of nearly three decades, Pokémon is one of the most popular anime ever made. Every season, series protagonist Ash ventures to another region of the globe, where he encounters strange new Pokémon that he must use to defeat the gym leaders and fulfill his lifelong goal of becoming a Pokémon master.
Although the older seasons of the anime are pretty easy to find online – some even aired on Netflix for a considerable amount of time – newer ones are harder to come by. Fortunately for Pokémon fans, then, they’ll soon be able to watch one of the newest series for free.
Starting July 3rd, Pokémon the Series: XY will be added to Pokemon TV, a free app that allows fans of the franchise to stream episodes on their mobile devices. The show will go live starting July 3rd, or so The Pokémon Company announced on its Twitter page.
Join Ash and Pikachu as they enter the Kalos region!
After arriving, our heroes make new friends, meet new Pokémon, and encounter challenges along the way. What adventures await them in Kalos? #PokemonTheSeries: XY is coming to #PokemonTV this Friday! pic.twitter.com/bbxaP5gW2N
— Pokémon (@Pokemon) June 29, 2020
In case you aren’t familiar with the property, the Pokémon franchise is set in a world in which people can catch and train cute and cuddly monsters, which they can then force to fight each other for their own amusement. With such a cruel premise, it’s surprising the series managed to become as popular as it did. However, as many critics have noted, that’s probably due to its appeal to our capitalistic urge to own and collect.
The franchise initially began as a collection of video games. Series creator Satoshi Tajiri came up with the idea after he saw a bug crawl from one portable console to another. Wanting to make a technology that could transfer in-game assets from one device to another, Tajiri not only invented Pokémon, but played an important role in the creation of several multiplayer video games.