Over the next several months Twitch will stream the first 932 episodes of the Pokemon anime series, as well as every movie. The livestream will begin August 27 and last into 2019, the company announced today, making it not only the longest TV-like marathon Twitch done to date but also a perfect test of the human will to endure.
The marathon will start at 0300 AEST August 28 with episode one of the Indigo League season, when Ash and Pikachu had their first falling out. From there episodes will run for eight hours Monday through Thursday with Friday and Saturday reserved for reruns and movies airing every Sunday US time.
In addition to the usual co-watching experience provided by the Twitch chat, the stream will also have an overlay called the Pokémon Badge Collector. It lets you collect Pokemon just like you were filling out a Pokédex by clicking on a small icon when it appears next to the version in the show.
Each one gives a certain amount of points with more points earned for rarer Pokemon. While these points will feed into an overall leaderboard, it’s not clear if they’ll have any other interesting effects.
Twitch has launched a number of TV streaming marathons in the last couple years, ever since the popularity of its success with an eight-day chill session of Bob Ross’ The Joy of Painting. Popular gaming and esports streams can be notoriously juvenile or even toxic, but in my experience the groups that get together to watch old TV on Twitch are refreshingly laid back.
When Twitch streamed every episode of Mister Rogers’ Neighbourhood last autumn, the cynicism of everyone watching seemed to die away, replaced with a sense of self-love and compassion.
Viewers were mostly hyped to see Fred Rogers feed his fish. But I also spent a handful of late nights watching Twitch reruns of Knight Rider, an enjoyable and surreal experience made all the more trippy by being able to interpret the hamfisted 80s anachronisms flashing in front of my eyes through the reactions in the Twitch chat.
The best part of any Twitch Presents marathon is getting to see how heroes and villains arise in real time as people react to a show. The last time Twitch showed Pokemon it was only for 24 hours straight, and even that was enough for some weird but wonderful shit to go down. (For anyone interested, the varied chat logs from that day have been archived for future generations to shake their head at.)
Here’s the complete list of all the Pokemon seasons and movies Twitch will be airing on Twitch Presents, with only a handful of notable ones missing:
Show
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Pokémon: Indigo League
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Pokémon: Adventures on the Orange Islands
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Pokémon: The Johto Journeys
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Pokémon: Johto League Champions
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Pokémon: Master Quest
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Pokémon: Advanced
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Pokémon: Advanced Challenge
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Pokémon: Advanced Battle
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Pokémon: Battle Frontier
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Pokémon: Diamond and Pearl
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Pokémon: Diamond and Pearl Battle Dimensions
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Pokémon: Diamond and Pearl Galactic Battles
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Pokémon: Diamond and Pearl Sinnoh League Victors
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Pokémon: Black & White
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Pokémon: Black & White Rival Destinies
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Pokémon: Black & White Adventures in Unova and Beyond
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Pokémon the Series: XY
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Pokémon the Series: XY Kalos Quest
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Pokémon the Series: XYZ
Movies
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Pokémon: The First Movie
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Pokémon: The Movie 2000
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Pokémon 3: The Movie
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Pokémon: Lucario and the Mystery of Mew
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Pokémon Ranger and the Temple of the Sea
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Pokémon: The Rise of Darkrai
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Pokémon: Giratina and the Sky Warrior
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Pokémon: Arceus and the Jewel of Life
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Pokémon—Zoroark: Master of Illusions
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Pokémon the Movie: Black—Victini and Reshiram/Pokémon the Movie: White—Victini
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and Zekrom
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Pokémon The Movie: Kyurem vs. The Sword of Justice
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Pokémon The Movie: Genesect and the Legend Awakened
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Pokémon the Movie: Diancie and the Cocoon of Destruction
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Pokémon the Movie: Hoopa and the Clash of Ages
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Pokémon the Movie: Volcanion and the Mechanical Marvel
Comments
6 responses to “Twitch Will Stream Months-Long Pokemon Marathon Starting Next Week”
Hey, everyone! Stop talking about our latest anti-consumer act of naked greed and look at this! It’s that stuff you love! Wheee! EVERYTHING IS FINE!
BREAKING NEWS
Entertainment/recreation blog post article on the subject of entertainment/recreation.
I think you may have understood the target of my sarcasm. Reporting on this fuckery is fine. What I’m cynical about is the fact that Twitch threw something out to be reported on, instead of what people were talking about before that.
Oh god, what have they done now?
It’s this thing: https://www.kotaku.com.au/2018/08/streamers-turn-off-ads-to-protest-twitch-prime-dropping-its-ad-free-perk/ from the last few days, anyway.
(tl;dr: One of the primary perks of Twitch Prime was ad-free viewing. Twitch removed that perk, re-enabling ads, and claimed they were doing it to support streamers. Except a bunch of streamers have point out how that’s complete bullshit, and many if not most of the ads won’t send a cent to streamers. Twitch declines to respond to this, but instead says everyone should totes get on board with watching a Pokemon marathon. “Nothing to see here! Oh hey, pokemon! Let’s all talk about that, and not how we’re fucking liars!”)
I can’t say I’m surprised, given the parent company is Amazon.