Pokémon Just Gave Us the Perfect ‘Game of Thrones’ Replacement

There are a lot of things I never expected to say about Pokémon, but “this might be the perfect replacement for Game of Thrones” was pretty high on the list. And yet, after getting a closer look at Aardman Animation and The Pokémon Company International’s upcoming stop-motion series, Pokémon Tales: The Misadventures of Sirfetch’d & Pichu, I’m convinced that anyone already missing A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms should probably start paying attention. No, Pokémon is not suddenly getting into bloody succession wars, political marriages, or the occasional beheading. What Pokémon Tales does have, however, is a deeply earnest knight wandering around with his much smaller companion, determined to prove himself while getting into increasingly ridiculous situations along the way. Sound familiar?

The comparison becomes even harder to ignore once you know what Aardman is actually doing with Sirfetch’d and Pichu. Sirfetch’d wants to become a “great knight,” while Pichu effectively serves as his squire. Together, they head out into the Galar region on an adventure built around that relationship, and suddenly Pokémon has its own very tiny, very adorable Dunk and Egg.

‘A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms’ Works Because Dunk and Egg Aren’t Typical Westeros Heroes

Image via HBO

The brilliance of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is that it takes a world we associate with enormous wars and even bigger personalities and looks at it from ground level. Dunk is a hedge knight trying very hard to live up to his idea of what a knight should be, even when reality keeps making that considerably more complicated. Egg, meanwhile, is the smaller and considerably more surprising half of the partnership. Their dynamic works because neither character is quite what the other expects, and because the series gets to explore Westeros through two people who are essentially wandering into one problem after another.

That is exactly what makes Sirfetch’d and Pichu such a promising pair. During a roundtable attended by Collider at Pokémon XP, the Aardman team described Sirfetch’d as a character who genuinely wants to become a great knight. Pichu is his squire, joining him on that journey despite being a considerably less obvious choice for a medieval fantasy sidekick. Put them together, and you have the same wonderfully lopsided silhouette that makes Dunk and Egg instantly charming: one proud aspiring knight and one tiny companion following him into whatever terrible idea comes next. Obviously, Sirfetch’d already looks the part. The Pokémon has always been designed around the image of a knight, carrying its enormous leek like a lance and using a bundle of leaves as a shield. But giving Sirfetch’d the actual ambition of becoming a great knight turns that visual joke into a character arc. He isn’t just knight-shaped, he has an idea of the hero he wants to become. And this is Aardman, which means things are going to go wrong.

Sirfetch’d and Pichu Could Be Pokémon’s Dunk and Egg

That last part may actually be the most important connection between the two shows. A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms works because Dunk’s earnestness is allowed to be funny without making him a joke. He wants to do the right thing. He wants to be the kind of knight all those songs and stories promised existed. Unfortunately for him, Westeros has other plans. Sirfetch’d is perfect for that kind of story. Aardman’s best characters are often incredibly sincere people, chickens, sheep, or occasionally pieces of clay whose plans go spectacularly wrong, but even when the comedy becomes absurd, the characters themselves remain completely committed to whatever they are trying to accomplish. Give that storytelling sensibility to a Pokémon who has decided he is going to become a great knight, hand him a tiny Pichu squire, and send them across Galar. That’s a show.

Galar makes the comparison even better. The region already draws heavily from the United Kingdom, and Pokémon Sword and Shield filled it with castles, ruins, rolling countryside, ancient legends, and Pokémon that practically demand a fantasy story. Aardman isn’t trying to turn Pokémon into Westeros, but it doesn’t need to. The ingredients for a much sweeter version of the wandering-knight adventure were already sitting there. More importantly, Pokémon Tales appears willing to let the journey itself be the story. Sirfetch’d and Pichu don’t need to save the entire Pokémon world every seven minutes. They can meet strange Pokémon, stumble into local problems, misunderstand each other, fail spectacularly, and continue down the road. That’s part of what makes Dunk and Egg such a refreshing corner of George R.R. Martin‘s universe in the first place. There is also something inherently funny about both partnerships being built around a character who desperately wants to embody the romantic ideal of knighthood while traveling with a tiny companion who can completely disrupt that fantasy. Egg isn’t merely Dunk’s obedient little squire, and I have a feeling Pichu isn’t going to spend 21 episodes politely carrying Sirfetch’d’s metaphorical luggage either.

Pokémon Doesn’t Need Its Own ‘Game of Thrones,’ but This Is Even Better

Calling The Misadventures of Sirfetch’d & Pichu a Game of Thrones replacement is obviously ridiculous on paper. One is part of a famously violent fantasy franchise about power, family, and political conflict. The other stars an adorable electric mouse and a duck carrying a leek. That’s exactly why I can’t stop thinking about it. What A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms proved is that the appeal of Westeros was never limited to dragons, battles, and people fighting over a chair. Sometimes all you need is a knight, a squire, a road ahead of them, and the promise that something is about to go terribly wrong. Pokémon apparently looked at that formula and accidentally found its own version. If the result gives us even half the warmth, comedy, and unlikely companionship that makes Dunk and Egg work, Pokémon fans have a real treat ahead.

Pokémon Tales: The Misadventures of Sirfetch’d & Pichu will debut exclusively on Disney+ in 2027 with 21 seven-minute episodes.

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Release Date

1997 – 2023-00-00

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Network

TV Tokyo, TV Osaka, TV Aichi, TVh, TVQ, TSC

Directors

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Shigeru Omachi, Koji Ogawa, Fumihiro Ueno, Hideki Hiroshima, Maki Kodaira, Makoto Ooga, Ayumi Moriyama, Keitaro Motonaga, Shigeru Ueda, Fumihiro Yoshimura, Minoru Ohara, Yoshitaka Makino, Kiyoshi Egami, Makoto Sokuza, Bjarne Heuser, Naoki Murata, Kenichi Nishida, Tomoe Makino, Masahiko Watanabe, Hiroaki Takagi, Tazumi Mukaiyama, Ryohei Horiuchi, Yoshihiro Oda, Hiromichi Matano

Writers

Junki Takegami, Atsuhiro Tomioka, Hideki Sonoda, Yukiyoshi Ôhashi, Yuka Miyata, Takeshi Shudo, Shouji Yonemura, Shinzo Fujita, Michihiro Tsuchiya, Deko Akao, Reiko Yoshida, Aya Matsui, Junichi Fujisaku

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Franchise(s)

Pokemon

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• 

  Rica Matsumoto

  Satoshi (voice)

• 

  Ikue Otani

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  Pikachu (voice)

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