Disney+ Lands Pokémon Tales in New Global Pokémon Distribution Deal

Disney+ has struck a new global distribution deal with The Pokémon Company International, and the headline project is one of the franchise’s strangest-looking screen experiments in years.

Pokémon Tales: The Misadventures of Sirfetch’d & Pichu will debut on Disney XD and stream exclusively on Disney+ in 2027. The stop-motion series is being made by Aardman, the British studio behind Wallace & Gromit, Chicken Run and Shaun the Sheep.

The agreement also includes Pokémon the Series: The Beginning, the classic Ash-and-Pikachu series that began airing on Disney XD earlier this month and is now streaming on Disney+ in the U.S. and select international markets.

The deal was announced on August 28 during the “Behind the Scenes with Aardman” panel at Pokémon XP in San Francisco — the same weekend that brought Pokémon TCG Pocket’s dual-type card reveal and, as the event wrapped, the Pokémon: Wild Card film announcement.

What Disney is actually getting

This is not a blanket transfer of the entire Pokémon TV library to Disney.

The announced agreement covers Pokémon Tales as a worldwide Disney+ streaming title and brings Pokémon the Series: The Beginning into the Disney XD/Disney+ lineup.

That distinction matters because Pokémon’s screen catalogue is spread across multiple services and territories. The August 28 announcement is a new distribution partnership, not a full takeover of every Pokémon series currently available elsewhere.

The new Aardman project is the centerpiece.

Disney Kids & Family president Ayo Davis described Pokémon Tales as a way to give the franchise a different visual and comedic perspective, while Pokémon’s director of original animation Phil Rynda emphasized the appeal of seeing Galar rebuilt through Aardman’s handcrafted style.

Sirfetch’d and Pichu head into Galar

The series follows Sirfetch’d and Pichu on a journey across the Galar region, the setting introduced in Pokémon Sword and Pokémon Shield.

The official synopsis says the pair set out to help and protect Pokémon throughout the region. Their missions rarely go as planned, but the mistakes, rivalries and dangers they encounter gradually build their friendship.

That setup fits Aardman unusually well.

Sirfetch’d already has the posture of an overly serious fantasy knight. Pairing that with a much smaller Pichu gives the studio an obvious odd-couple dynamic to play with.

Aardman director Tom Parkinson, creative director Nat McKay and model-making creative lead James Young appeared at the Pokémon XP panel alongside Rynda to discuss how the characters, sets and comedy were being built for stop-motion.

The series is leaning hard into visual comedy

An official Aardman frame from the stop-motion Pokémon project. Credit: The Pokémon Company International / Aardman.

One of the more interesting production details to emerge from the Pokémon XP presentation is that the series is designed as a dialogue-free comedy.

Rather than building scenes around spoken conversations, the storytelling is being driven through movement, expressions, staging and sound.

That is much closer to classic visual comedy than the usual Pokémon anime format, and it plays directly into Aardman’s strengths.

Contemporary coverage of the panel also put the production team at more than 260 people and noted how little finished footage a stop-motion animator can complete in a typical week. The exact numbers are less important than what they reveal: this is not a CG show dressed up to look handmade. The physical production process is the point.

The official footage and artwork already show the kind of tactile detail Aardman is known for, from textured landscapes to physical character models and miniature environments.

Pokémon the Series: The Beginning is already on Disney+

The second part of the deal is much more familiar.

Pokémon the Series: The Beginning follows Ash Ketchum and Pikachu at the start of their journey and draws from the original 1997–1998 animated run.

Disney+ began streaming the series earlier in August, while Disney XD also added it to the channel.

That makes it the first title to launch under the new Pokémon-Disney distribution arrangement, even though the larger deal was not publicly explained until the Pokémon XP announcement.

For Disney, the combination is fairly obvious: one title brings nostalgia, while the other is a brand-new interpretation of the same franchise.

Aardman has been building this for a while

The Pokémon-Aardman collaboration was first announced in December 2024.

A first proper look followed in July 2025, and new artwork and story details were shown at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival in June 2026.

The August 28 announcement does not reveal the project for the first time. What it finally answers is where the series will live.

Disney+ will be the exclusive worldwide streaming home for Pokémon Tales, with Disney XD also carrying the show when it launches in 2027.

There is still no exact release date.

Disney and The Pokémon Company also have not announced an episode count in the material released so far.

What happens next

The new teaser gives a much clearer look at Sirfetch’d and Pichu in motion, but the larger structure of the series is still being kept fairly simple.

We know the setting.

We know the two leads.

We know the show is built around their attempts to help other Pokémon across Galar.

And now we know where it will stream.

What we do not know yet is the exact 2027 premiere date or how many episodes Aardman is producing for the first run.

For Pokémon, the deal gives one of its most visually distinctive projects a global Disney platform.

For Aardman, it is a chance to take the studio’s physical comedy and handcrafted animation into one of the biggest entertainment franchises in the world.

That is more interesting than a generic streaming-rights shuffle — and much more specific than saying Pokémon has simply “moved to Disney.”