Who wouldn’t feel like whipping up a batch of sweets if they shared their house with Pikachu and some other Poké pals?
There’s definitely an appeal to the Pokémon games’ standard story of setting out on a worldwide quest to catch ‘em all, then train ‘em all and defeat every rival on your way to becoming a Pokémon Master. But if we really did share our world with Pikachus and other adorable Pocket Monster species, wouldn’t it be nicer to just hang out with them?
That’s the atmosphere of a video series recently released by the official Japanese Pokémon YouTube channel. Titled Sweet Winter with Pokémon, each episode sees the series’ lone human character cooking up a new batch of sweet snacks to enjoy with the Pikachu, Charmander, Jigglypuff, and Psyduck who are his housemates.
For example, in the newest video the human gathers up a selection of fresh fruit with which to make fruits ame, a traditional Japanese sweet that’s similar to candied apples. In addition to strawberries and mandarin oranges, he also makes some shiratama dumplings to intersperse with larger sections of fruit, combining 150 grams (5.3 ounces) of shiratama flour with 70 milliliters (2.4 ounces) of water to form the dumplings that he then steams.
For the glaze, he mixes two parts of sugar for one part of water in a frying pan and brings it to a boil, and while his patient Poké pals watch and wait.
The chef isn’t done yet, though. Next on the snack menu are baked sweet potatoes, which get roasted, sliced in half, topped with shredded cheese, and put back into the over one more time for eight minutes at 180 degrees Celsius (356 degrees Fahrenheit). And last, he prepares some sweet chestnuts, stir-fried in a wok with 200 milliliters (6.8 ounces) of water, 10 grams/11 milliliters (0.4 ounces) of cooking oil, and 40 grams (1.4 ounces) of sugar.
By then the sun has gone down, so the whole group heads into the backyard for a dessert party under the stars.
▼ Between the old-fashioned stove and Charmander’s tail, they should be plenty warm.
The whole video is dialogue and narration free, letting you give your ears over to the soothing music, enticing cooking sounds, and adorable murmuring of the Pokémon.
If you need even more cooking/cuteness, the other two videos in the series include scenes of making Pikachu and Jigglypuff cream puffs…
…and fruit tarts.
Unfortunately, the fruits ame video is the final episode in the Sweet Winter with Pokémon series. On the bright side, we’ve got enough warm and fuzzy feelings here to last us through the rest of the cold weather…but we’re still keeping our fingers crossed for a Spicy Summer with Pokémon follow-up.
Top image: YouTube/ポケモン公式YouTubeチャンネル
Insert images: YouTube/ポケモン公式YouTubeチャンネル (1, 2, 3)
● Want to hear about SoraNews24’s latest articles as soon as they’re published? Follow us on Facebook and Twitter!
[ Read in Japanese ]