My daughter spent most of Pokémon Detective Pikachu finding out everything about the now-massive world of Pokémon.

A switch went off somewhere in the runtime of this movie that hadn’t quite gone off, beyond a surface appreciation of the Pocket Monsters, in the subsequent watches of the anime.

She seemed to finally understand the purpose of type differences, the idea of training, and the kind of connection between trainer and her Pokèmon. Easy. Every kid can have their phase given the opportunity.

Best of all, she’s asked to experience it. This is what parenting is like. You learn that you can lead a horse to water, or a child to Pokémon, but you better wait till they’re ready to really engage in the finer details of such a populated cast of creatures.

It reminded me why Pokémon is good, how exciting it was to have those same feelings of discovery the first time, and how this less literal movie that isn’t just a rendition of Red-Blue, is actually more successful at selling the idea of an inhabited and shared world.

The film loses its footing as often as it is secure, sure, but unlike those Sonic movies, the connection between characters is meaningful, always plot and story relevant, and wraps around in a nicely detailed lightweight plot that doesn’t overwhelm the audience.

It would be wild if they do not put out more of these, or something in this vein, because like her, I’m sure this has grown a separate audience that is ready for new adventures, and not simply to retread the retellings of older videogames they will get to later on.