While Pokémon may nine times out of ten be family-friendly, even this series isn't shy away from taking the series to dark and serious routes from time to time.
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Anime and Manga
- In the 1997 Japan-only light novel Pocket Monsters: The Animation, the world of Pokémon is a Crapsack World where ten year olds are legal adults with all the taxes and troubles that entails, many Gym Leaders bribe trainers because four losses in a row means their licenses are rescinded, and Pallet Town is a desolate, crime-ridden cesspool because there are no jobs and no one ever succeeds at being a Pokémon Trainer. Even the reason behind Ash's Disappeared Dad is dark: Delia Married Too Young and became pregnant at eighteen. Her husband ran off one day on a Pokémon journey, just like her own dad did, and never returned. Delia doesn't love him anymore but never divorced him, and she resents Ash to a degree because she misses her youth. Furthermore, a Nurse Joy tells Ash not to evolve Pikachu because ones that evolve into Raichu too early end up suffering Power Incontinence and giving themselves heart attacks, leaving them traumatized if they survive.
- Pokémon Adventures, a manga spinoff of Pokémon's video game series, has fights to the death for everyone, humans included. The series was toned down by Hoenn but still contains a lot of dark themes.
- Pokémon: Diamond and Pearl Adventure! is this in a way. Not in terms of violence, though it has been described as "Dragon Ball meets Pokémon" and is hefty on the fighting that rivals Adventures, but more-so in the plot. Especially when Mitsumi and her Tyke Bomb past is involved.
- From the main anime series, Pokémon the Series: Diamond and Pearl is noticeably darker than what came before. This is due to the combination of Social Darwinist Paul, Team Galactic's Adaptational Villainy, and Hunter J, a prime contender for the most evil villain in the series.
- The Team Flare arc also really takes the cake, featuring an antagonist being killed off on-screen.
- Pokémon: Zoroark: Master of Illusions is definitely this, having one of the most shockingly evil antagonists in the series to date, heaping amounts of Cold-Blooded Torture, and easily the most violent onscreen death in the entire series. Even though Celebi manages to heal Zoroark, it still counts.
- Pokémon: I Choose You! is still optimistic, fun, and inspiring, but it makes elements from the original series it reimagines a more emotional roller coaster. Not only does it feature one of the most power-hungry rivals in the franchise, the human companions of Ash both have tragic pasts. Verity is estranged from her mother and Sorrel once had a Luxray that froze to death trying to keep him warm in a blizzard. The film also has much more intense battle scenes and a tear-jerking, more character-focused story; and it doesn't forget that the main characters are just 10-year-old kids dealing with issues that are quite dramatic for their age. The final battle also involves an army of Brainwashed and Crazy Pokémon, and Ash narrowly saves Pikachu by getting him into his Poké Ball before he's disintegrated in a Heroic Sacrifice; only being brought back from Ho-Oh granting him eternal happiness as the Rainbow Hero.
- Pokémon: The Power of Us continues this trend, with a more character-focused story at it center. It includes yet more dark scenes including Zeraora's past, and doesn't shy away from humans and Pokémon in danger as it shows Harriet's Snubbull dying in a fire 50 years before the events of the film; making battles and the story much more personal. The film was also the first to be directed by Tetsuo Yajima, one of the directors of Origins below.
- The next film directed by Yajima, Pokémon: Secrets of the Jungle qualifies; with its story focusing on themes of childhood; parenthood and identity as well as having a main villain who ends up killing Koko's birth parents in order to accomplish his goals, with the film having a Bittersweet Ending where Koko finally leaves the forest on his own journey so his adoptive father Zarude can rejoin the tribe.
- Pokémon Origins has 4 episodes. But it shows it's definitely darker, as it's a re-telling of - and is catered to the people who grew up playing - the original Red and Blue Pokémon games released for the Game Boy. The fighting is more brutal involving worse attacks, blood-curdling screaming from getting bitten and almost dying, or being beaten to death by a stun baton, and a Mewtwo that is portrayed as a powerful psychotic monster.
- Similar to Origins, the YouTube-released microseries Pokémon Generations takes a more mature approach to the Pokémon World, while still being a Truer to the Text adaptation compared to the main anime. The second episode alone shows the secret police arresting Team Rocket members and interrogating them in a realistic fashion, Looker tracking down Giovanni as if it was a Police series, and finally the police raiding the Viridian Gym, with Pokémon being used for wall infiltration and Giovanni being "an experienced trainer" being used as an analogue for "heavily armed".
- Pokémon: Twilight Wings is a web series that focuses on the world of Pokémon Sword and Shield, and keeps the focus on characters while not shying away from how depicting life in the Galar region can be. The series features two hospital-bound children as major characters; and shows how ones from the games all have their own challenges even outside battle. The sixth episode even deals with conflict between friends in a manner that is more dramatic than the main anime, with one friend trying apologize with the help of gym leader Allister; and the episode introduces him in a graveyard while NOT shying away from the darker aspects of his character.
- The movies in general are this, most of them having at least one of these features:
- A subject that's more serious or complex than usually found in the TV series.
- A crazy antagonist, who can be anything from a Mike Nelson, Destroyer of Worlds (e.g. Lawrence III) to a Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds (e.g. Mewtwo, Molly Hale) to just plain sociopathic (e.g. The Iron Masked Marauder, Grings Kodai).
- A character getting killed, either temporarily or permanently.
- The Electric Tale of Pikachu is an adaptation of the first anime arc. On top of being Hotter and Sexier, it is also darker. Take the adaptation of Ash's Charizard vs Ritchie's Charizard, which ended in Ash's Charizard almost killing Ritchie's.
Video Games
- Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time/Darkness. While the first game's offered a character that simply tried to ruin your protagonists' lives and was a cosmic Jerkass, the sequel goes further by sending your protagonist duo to the literal End of Days, having to face down a legendary Pokémon that has become an evilly subverted primal force of nature, and a Big Bad who not only traps children in unending nightmares, but also poses as an "ally" who suggests that it's all your fault and the best way to fix things is to kill yourself.
- Gates to Infinity is similarly dark in tone, taking place in a world that's lost hope to the point that the negative emotions of Pokemon in the world have created an Eldritch Abomination that threatens to destroy everything. The resident team of villains is also rather similar to a suicide cult, having grown so sick of the world that they're trying to protect the aforementioned Eldritch Abomination (By hunting down and "defeating" the humans that were called to the world to destroy it), feeling they have nothing left to live for and that a better world could be born from the destruction. Their leader gets extra points for essentially committing the cold-blooded murder of a kind, lovable Pokemon, and nearly killing the hero immediately after.
- Pokémon Platinum. In Diamond and Pearl, we get Dialga and Palkia, and the Team Galactic storyline ends at the Spear Pillar. In Platinum, we get Giratina's shadow interrupting the proceedings from another dimension, and have to carry the chase onwards into the Distortion World. Nothing lives in the Distortion World except for Giratina, making it a literal Ghost World. It's just...eerily calm. It also has some issues with proper gravity.
- Black and White definitely qualify, too - the game does not in fact end with the Champion as in the previous four generations, the villainous team takes a much heavier role in the plot than before, the plot itself is much less of an Excuse Plot, and on top of all that we also have the single most despicable villain in the series up to that point.
- X and Y give us several mentions of war and death and villains that want to commit genocide in the belief that they are the only ones worthy of living in the world. The postgame side quest also revolves around a homeless girl.
- Sun and Moon really sets the bar high. Pokedex entries that do not try and hide the Fridge Horror of past entries and a villain that is genuinely insane and has a much more tragic backstory than past villains, along with a shockingly realistic depiction of emotional child abuse. The postgame ups it even further; you are fighting Ultra Beasts, a group of Eldritch Abominations from another world that are more dangerous than any other Legendary Pokémon and the game does not hide the dangers they pose. It is specifically mentioned that one of the Ultra Beasts has killed someone in the past marking the first mention of a human death in the franchise that is not just implied. However, these elements are mostly put on the backburner for these games, which are generally Lighter and Softer in tone...but they get pushed to the forefront of Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, which are darker and edgier (although Lusamine's villainy is significantly tamped down to make her a Well-Intentioned Extremist).
- Pokémon Colosseum, the Nintendo GameCube Spin-Off series set in Orre, is like this. The first game stars a Pokémon-stealing Anti-Hero from the Team Rocket-like organization running off with a prototype Pokémon-theft device in a desolate desert land, with more than few shades of Used Future. He eventually discovers a plot to "seal the hearts of Pokémon" — while it sounds really cheesy when you put it that way, it actually involves removing all sense of compassion from a Pokémon so that its primal bloodlust can be unlocked. The second game was Lighter and Softer in comparison, but was still set in Orre, which, even when "cleaned up" significantly, is still pretty grim.
- Even though it is lighter in some aspects, Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness is even darker then Colosseum. The Shadow Pokémon experiments have taken an even harsher form of experimentation, the biggest example would be the mascot Pokémon, Shadow Lugia. While the other game had Legendaries, they could be purified just like all the rest, this one is an experimental Pokémon that COULD NOT be purified (at least by the original methods). It's permanently lost its compassion and shows this through its twisted appearance. And in the ending, while the Big Bad surrenders with some persuasion by one of his sons, the other son vows to restore the organization to its former glory, and make you his first target afterward. It is also the only game in which the evil syndicate implicitly commits mass murder. It isn't shown on-screen, but Shadow Lugia picks up a ship from the ocean in the opening scene, and later you find the ruins of this ship in the desert. There are no suggestions anywhere in the game that any of the crew survived or that the two we see get swept overboard were found.
- This is the best way to sum up the Galarian versions of Articuno, Zapdos, and Moltres, introduced in the Crown Tundra expansion for Pokémon Sword and Shield. All three are described as being crueler than their Kantonian counterparts (Articuno being cold and callous, Zapdos being a belligerent Blood Knight, and Moltres being haughty and sadistic), and all of them have darker color palettes. For bonus points, Galarian Moltres is actually part Dark-type.
- Sword and Shield as a whole are also among the darkest main series entries to date; featuring villain factions that include Team Yell (mixing Soccer Hooligans and The Quincy Punk who are actually gym trainers in Spikemuth, essentially a lower-class neighborhood) and a Big Bad who doesn't try to hide behind a facade once his plan to recreate the Darkest Day is unveiled. Pokédex entries are also much darker, and multiple rivals this time around have dramatic backstories.
- Pokémon Legends: Arceus paints a very harsh picture of the relationship between Pokémon and humans. While the current games have humans and Pokémon living side by side with nary an issue, humans in the distant past (where the game takes place) absolutely feared Pokémon and for good reason; most wild Pokémon are aggressive and protective of their territory and won't hesitate to attack humans that irate them. The game does not attempt to soften the implications and outright say that people have been injured and killed by Pokémon, which also includes the small group of people who know how to capture and fight Pokémon. The player can get attacked by wild Pokémon this time around and getting too injured has them passing out (though luckily they don't die). The game also averts Never Say "Die" by directly working the deaths of both Pokémon and humans into the story. In addition, while twist-based main villains have already been done with Lusamine and Rose, Volo is unique in that he's helped the player since the very beginning and for a while is the only person to stick by their side when most of the world has turned against them, and there's almost no indication of him having an inkling of villainy in him, making it all the more disturbing when in the post-game, he reveals himself as one of the few truly irredeemable villains in the series (in contrast to the other two "twist villains", which had sympathetic backstories or motives), with his kindness throughout the entire game apparently being a front.
