Beloved Pokémon YouTuber says Nintendo killed PokéNational with copyright strikes

PokéNational Geographic is a YouTube series known for fantastic shorts that depict the world of Pokémon as a nature documentary would. The videos, which debuted in 2023, quickly went viral for their bespoke clay-like visuals and their detailed descriptions of how Pokémon species might exist in the wild. But now, Elios, the animator behind the series, claims Nintendo has filed so many copyright strikes against the channel he will be forced to shut the entire thing down.

On April 26, Elios uploaded a video in which he describes his predicament. According to YouTube, channels with fewer than three strikes can remain active, provided creators complete a course on copyright infringement. The problem is that PokéNational Geographic has accrued well over three strikes in a short time span, all reportedly stemming from Nintendo of America.

YouTube and Nintendo of America did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Elios says he would be open to deleting the offending videos, but hasn’t been given the opportunity to do so.

“I can’t really fight this,” the YouTuber says in the video.

The complaint apparently cites Elios’ use of the Pokémon video games’ “works, characters, and imagery” as the issue. Except for using the in-game cries that play when monsters are pulled into battle, nearly everything in the pseudo-documentaries was made by Elios himself. The audio roars that he samples from the game are all under three seconds, which Elios believes fall under fair use. He is currently taking the time to download all of his videos for posterity, but he will not be allowed to upload them again.

“I’ve gotten internships, I’ve gotten jobs because of PokéNational, because I showed people my animation skills through that,” Elios says.

Elios also notes that he has spent the last few years giving his animations a more educational bent and translating them into other languages to help facilitate their use in classrooms. The channel was successful enough that it popularized a genre of Pokémon documentary videos, many of which are made via AI seemingly trained on copyrighted works.

“I don’t know how to save the channel, I don’t know if I can,” Elios says.

The animator will continue making art on a separate channel, but it won’t be based on Pokémon anymore.

“PokéNational is dead,” Elios states.