Detective Pikachu Movie Trailer Shows Us More Than We Wanted to Know About Pokemon Skin Textures

By now, you probably think you're over your initial shock about the Detective Pikachu movie. "I know the score," you say. "It's a movie about a talking Pikachu, who's voiced by Ryan Reynolds, solving a mystery in a world of humans and Pokémon living side-by-side. Old news."

You know nothing, Jon Snorunt. Detective Pikachu's debut trailer, released earlier today, gives us an unexpected close look at something new, all right: The fur and skin textures of various Pokémon. Pikachu is delightfully fuzzy. Charizard is bumpy and scaly. And Mr Mime is smooth, except for a dusting of duckling down on his head.

Detective Pikachu is seemingly going for a more "realistic" look with its Pokémon, and fans are delightfully horrified. Models of the Pokémon are on display at Legendry's offices, so here's your one chance to get a good look at the tastebuds on Greninja's tongue. I mean, a really good look. Get up in there. Breathe it in. Just breathe.

Are you in your happy place? Good. Now picture yourself running your hand over the baby-fine hairs on Mr Mime's head.

The premiere Detective Pikachu trailer has caused the Internet to erupt. Nobody's sure how to deal with these confused feelings about real-world Pokémon. There was bound to be some uncanny valley going on in a movie about Pokémon in the real world, but this is on another level. We want to hug Pikachu, but we also want to push him away while screaming for the services of a veteran exorcist.

It doesn't help that stills of Pikachu make him look like a banged-up doll. In fact, the first screenshot I saw of the titular Detective Pikachu reminded me of the Cabbage Patch doll whose face I ruined with crayons before throwing her in a tree. When she fell out of the tree months later following a snowstorm, she looked, well, like this:

Detective Pikachu hits theatres on May 10, 2019. You won't have to wait that long for good clean Pokémon fun, though. Pokémon Let's Go Pikachu and Let's Go Eevee come out this week, and we already have tons of guides for you to look through. We also have impressions of the game the Detective Pikachu movie is based on.