Pokémon Live! didn't have to go nearly as hard as it did, man. By all accounts it should have been a trainwreck. And it IS insane, don't get me wrong. It's a very "cursed Pokémon franchise knowledge" kind of property. But it weirdly manages to be genuinely funny and entertaining and have earnest emotional themes?? It frequently boggles my mind that "Everything Changes" was one of the songs that was ripped from 2.B.A. Master instead of being written for the play, because it's such a poignant and beautiful song about a mother struggling to accept her son growing up and worrying about what factors she can't control might shape the kind of adult he's going to be, and you're telling me it was originally about evolving a fucking Metapod into a Butterfree?????
If anyone has no idea what I'm talking about btw, allow me to introduce you to Nintendo of America's official Pokémon stage musical from 2000, watchable as a bootleg recording here or a stitched-together edit of multiple bootleg recordings here.
