Watch Your Favourite Pokémon Smoke, Drink And Murder Each Other In ‘True Detective Pikachu’

On face value, aside from a similarity in their names, there is very little linking the first season of True Detective, a nihilistic, Southern gothic murder-fest and the forthcoming Detective Pikachu, the latest installment in a cheery fantasy franchise for children about wide-eyed, fluffy pocket pets.

But, if there’s anything that True Detective taught us, it’s that taking things at face value is a good way to find yourself stumbling around a dark cavern retrofitted with speakers and home to an incestuous sociopath who wants nothing more than to mumble vague stories about God while trying to cut you open with a knife.

First impressions be damned: the world of True Detective and the world of Pokémon are both predicated on exploitation, horror and the ceaseless, gnawing threat of existence. After all, what’s more horrifying than keeping furry monsters trapped in a tiny metal ball, bringing them out of their miniature prisons only to have them fight their hellish brethren for no apparent reason?

Now, spotting the similarities between the two properties, a comedian named Sam Haft has crammed the two together in glorious symbiosis, producing one of the 21st’s centuries true nightmare masterpieces: True Detective Pikachu.

Feast your eyes on the short video first, and then we will reconvene below.

Shit’s vaguely terrifying, hey! The short nails everything from the dread suffused throughout True Detective to the requisite cameos from your favourite Pokémon and Pokémon-adjacent characters (poor, ill-fated Team Rocket, hey?), all while striking the perfectly mounrful tone.

Ultimately, nightmarish Pikachu make-up and all, the short works far better than it has any reason to. It’s almost like the slow, humiliating drag through life is as painful and surreal for pocket monsters as it is for the rest of us, hey?

The pressure is now officially on for the makers of Detective Pikachu, due out in Australian cinemas this fast-approaching Thursday May 9, who have no choice but to edit in a last-minuted Matthew McConaughey cameo.