A Multicultural Cast

It's been around a year since the Detective Pikachu movie was released and I got to watch it a few times. Though I dedicated an entire week's worth of posts to cover various things related to the movie, there are really still a few things that I can discuss about it, and today's post will deal with exactly that. It's an old post idea that I never found the right time to write about, but with the one-year anniversary of the post for the main song of the movie's soundtrack (see below), I've decided to write about it.

The Detective Pikachu movie has a neat cast of actors and actresses, though many would mostly recognize Ryan Reynolds and Justice Smith, not so much the others. Even with that, all the major members of the cast taken together are representative of something important: the cast is multicultural, in that they all have different cultural backgrounds. This becomes a point of interest because they are different just like every Pokémon species is different, and this movie ties into Pokémon through and through.

For the two main actors of the movie, Reynolds is Canadian, while Smith is American with African-American (on his father's side) and Italian plus French-Canadian (on his mother's side) backgrounds; Kathryn Newton as the primary female supporting actress is also American. Bill Nighy, Chris Geere, Suki Waterhouse, and Josette Simon all have English or British backgrounds. Omar Chaparro is Mexican, Rita Ora (singer of the main song) is from Yugoslavia (specifically Albania), and Karan Soni is of Indian origin - as in, the country in Asia. Not to forget, Ken Watanabe is Japanese, as is Ryoma Takeuchi, the voice of Tim Goodman (played by Smith) in Japanese, who also appears in a physical cameo. That's indeed a long and diverse list of backgrounds, as diverse as the Pokémon featured in the movie.

Nowadays, some productions have taken to include actors and actresses of various backgrounds, so this is definitely an effort of that, regardless of it being intended or unintended. Being that part of the film was shot in London, it made sense to have a good number of English or British actors. The inclusion of actors of Japanese background obviously honors the origins of Pokémon from Japan (and made localization a little easier - Watanabe reprised his role in Japanese). All told, the cast list is multiculturally amazing.

A part of me has been instilled with the appreciation for different cultures, nations, and peoples, which for me translates into an appreciation for Pokémon with all its different species. Looking into the cast of last year's hit Detective Pikachu movie, there is an evident multiculturalism that only adds flavor to this movie, one that is pronounced with each time I watch the movie. It too becomes something to appreciate about the movie. This appreciation is something to be maintained, whether it involves this movie or Pokémon in general.

One year ago: Carry On Carryin' On

Two years ago: The Living Dex

Three years ago: Pastrana and Pikachu