Aardman’s Claymation Pokémon Series Just Dropped New Behind-the-Scenes Footage, and Fans Are Already Obsessed

Stop-motion animation has always carried a certain kind of magic that CGI struggles to replicate, and few studios have mastered that craft quite like the team behind ‘Wallace & Gromit.’ When that legendary studio announced it was teaming up with one of gaming’s biggest franchises, expectations understandably skyrocketed.

That collaboration is ‘Pokémon Tales: The Misadventures of Sirfetch’d and Pichu,’ Aardman Animations’ upcoming claymation series produced in partnership with The Pokémon Company. Following the success of Netflix’s stop-motion series ‘Pokémon Concierge,’ this new project marks the franchise’s most ambitious stop-motion undertaking yet, given Aardman’s decades-long pedigree in the medium.

New footage showcasing the meticulous craft behind the series has now started circulating, giving fans an up-close look at the puppet work involved in bringing Pichu to life on screen. The clip highlights the painstaking process of physically animating the character frame by frame, a technique that requires extraordinary patience given how labor-intensive traditional stop-motion production tends to be.

That level of detail tracks with what’s already been revealed about the show’s demanding production timeline. According to one Aardman animator, a mere thirteen seconds of finished footage can take a full week to produce, a pace that helps explain why these kinds of projects often take years to complete despite yielding such a distinctive visual result.

The series follows Sirfetch’d and Pichu, described by the creative team as a knight and squire duo who journey together on a gallant quest to help and protect Pokémon across the Galar region, the franchise’s UK-inspired setting first introduced in ‘Pokémon Sword’ and ‘Shield.’ Notably, the show is being narrated entirely from the Pokémon’s point of view, with the creatures speaking only their own names while the rest of the storytelling unfolds through animation, expression, and physical performance rather than traditional dialogue.

Peter Lord, Aardman’s co-founder and creative director, described the project as taking place in a region that feels especially close to the studio’s heart, given Galar’s deep ties to British culture and setting. He noted the series aims to give audiences a genuinely unique look at the Pokémon world, told entirely through the perspective of the Pokémon themselves.

That approach places Pichu, rather than the franchise’s more commonly spotlighted Pikachu, at the center of the story alongside Sirfetch’d, the green-onion-wielding duck Pokémon first introduced during the Galar generation. Early teaser material has already leaned into the kind of chaotic, character-driven humor Aardman built its reputation on across projects like ‘Chicken Run’ and ‘Shaun the Sheep.’

‘Pokémon Tales: The Misadventures of Sirfetch’d and Pichu’ is set to debut exclusively on Disney+ in 2027, with the Disney XD channel also picking up the series for television broadcast. The release is part of a broader global distribution partnership between Disney+ and The Pokémon Company International, one that has already brought the original ‘Indigo League’ season of the classic anime to the platform.

For a franchise that’s increasingly leaned into prestige animation partnerships to expand its storytelling beyond traditional anime, teaming up with a studio as celebrated as Aardman feels like a significant creative swing. Given the studio’s track record with beloved, character-driven stop-motion projects, anticipation for this Pokémon collaboration only continues building the closer it gets to release.

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