Nintendo has just held an extensive Direct following the conclusion of the Summer Game Fest season. In a 40-minute presentation, Nintendo detailed a wide variety of forthcoming titles from both internal and external studios.
New 2D side-scrolling Super Mario, a remake of Super Mario RPG, a new WarioWare game, the Metal Gear Solid Master Collection, and the Batman: Arkham Trilogy were among the most thrilling announcements. But Detective Pikachu Returns was one of the most memorable Nintendo Direct trailers, and not necessarily for the right reasons.
Detective Pikachu, a 2016 Nintendo 3DS Pokemon spinoff, put players in the shoes of Tim Goodman, a young Trainer who encounters a talking Pikachu who claims to be a great detective. Tim, who suffers from amnesia, must assist Pikachu in discovering his identity while resolving several major mysteries along the way.
Detective Pikachu Returns is a long-awaited sequel, but similar to its predecessor, there is a major element that could stand out in a negative way.
Detective Pikachu’s Voice Is Strangely Familiar
In the overwhelming majority of Pokemon adaptations, Pikachu’s voice is small, cute, and mouse-like. Even when Pikachu is agitated, its tone remains adorable. If fans heard Pikachu’s intonation in isolation, they would immediately recognize it as belonging to a small, mouse-like creature.
Since Ikue Tani has voiced Pikachu for over 25 years, this characterization has become engrained in the minds of fans. Consequently, when Pikachu does not sound like Ikue Tani, the difference can be quite startling. It’s one thing to give Pikachu a deeper or rougher voice, but quite another to give him a human voice, which is precisely what the Detective Pikachu series does.
One of the most unsettling initial elements of the 2019 live-action Detective Pikachu film is that Pikachu speaks with a human voice, and not just any human, but Ryan Reynolds. Reynolds’ voice actually works quite well for this iteration of Detective Pikachu, lending him a mischievous yet sweet tone that helps bridge the gap between Pikachu’s normal noises and a fully-grown man’s voice.
The Detective Pikachu game fails to bridge this gap nearly as effectively. In the North American release of Detective Pikachu, the voice of the titular Pokemon detective is provided by Kaiji Tang, an outstanding voice actor perhaps best known for his role as Ichiban Kasuga in the Yakuza series. Kaiji’s voice is utterly ideal for a character like Ichiban, a lovable, rogue-like, and whimsical buffoon, but it doesn’t sound right coming from Pikachu’s mouth.
In Detective Pikachu Returns, Kaiji Tang reprises his role, and if the recent reveal trailer is any indication, it veers perilously close to the uncanny valley. Despite the fact that Kaiji is doing an excellent job, capturing the tone of a Sherlock Holmes-like character, this voice just doesn’t fit with Pikachu’s adorable movements and demeanor. Kaiji’s lower vocal register gives Pikachu an unusually gruff sound, which is the biggest discrepancy.
Comparing Kaiji’s Pikachu voice to that of Ikue Tani’s is like comparing night and day, and given that Tani’s is the only voice that the overwhelming majority of fans have consistently heard for the past quarter-century and a half, there is bound to be a significant disconnect for long-time fans.
Kaiji’s interpretation of Pikachu, on the other hand, does make the film stand out from the crowd from the get-go. On October 6, 2023, Detective Pikachu Returns will be released for Nintendo Switch.
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