Zarude announcement teases movie and Mystery Gift

An announcement has been made for trainers in the United States to receive Zarude, the rogue monkey Pokemon, from the new Pokemon movie: Secrets of the Jungle!

An interesting announcement came out last week with the recent trailer for the next Pokemon movie coming out for the franchise. Pokemon Secrets of the Jungle, or better known as Koko in Japan, will follow the hero of the franchise Ash Ketchum and his loyal Pikachu as they explore the mysterious jungle and encounter a new friend. The new adventure is to feature a new Pokemon that has yet to be encountered in the series and the franchise games. Zarude, the rogue monkey Pokemon, is to be the main Pokemon that is helping the protagonists of the story. The new trailer showing the Pokemon in action was not the only big reveal trainers heard of over the weekend.

When a new Pokemon is featured in a brand new movie, trainers are just as excited to interact with the same Pokemon with the recent core series game. It was refreshing to learn that along with the new trailer for the movie, a release date for trainers to receive Zarude will be coming to Mystery Gift on December 13. The distribution for Zarude was supposed to arrive earlier this year with the release of the current movie; unfortunately, due to the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak, the release for the movie was pushed back for holiday 2020 in Japan and in 2021 in the United States. For trainers that purchased tickets in advance for the movie, they were to receive codes to download via Mystery Gift while walking into the theaters before watching the film. Now with the delay for the movie coming out, the distribution for Zarude will be online on Dec. 13 and further instructions to be announced when the date arrives.

Zarude is the latest mythical Pokemon from the animated movie series. It is also the first mythical introduced for Generation Eight to be accessed for trainers to acquire via Mystery Gift for Pokemon Sword and Shield. The announcement for Zarude came with the first teaser trailer for the movie Coco, as the Pokemon’s silhouette was seen during Pokemon Day. Trainers are always excited to collect rare and special Pokemon to their collection in whatever Pokémon game, trainers cannot wait to interact with Zarude as soon as possible.

As a Grass and Dark-type Pokemon, Zarude has some intriguing features as a mythical Pokemon. Zarude has features that resemble a standard prime ape, very close to look like a baboon or mandrill. With the inspiration of Pokemon Sword and Shield having the Galar region inspired by the landmass of the United Kingdom, the inspiration of Zarude could possibly come from the Shug Monkey. In English Folklore, the Shug Monkey is known to have a shaggy black coat for fur with starry-wide eyes. The description for the mythical Pokemon is almost spot on, and the creators at Gamefreak are notorious for getting inspiration for powerful Pokemon from other cultures’ creatures of legend.

Zarude joins a small class of mythical Pokemon that are featured to be Dark-type. Darkrai remains the only mythical Pokémon that is pure to the type breed. Hoopa would be considered in the same class, but only if the Pokemon’s Unbound form and not its default base form. Dark-type Pokemon intend to have fantastic defense base stats, and from the characteristics that Zarude has shown so far, looks like that it is a defensive and healing Pokemon. Other similar characteristics for Dark-types include a Pokemon to have more of a drive of malice, but Zarude looks to be a defender of good and innocent Pokemon.

Zarude as a Pokemon looks like that it was an abandoned design from Pokemon Sun and Moon. With the fellow simian species derived from the Alolan region, Oranguru and Passimian were separated by each version game; however, shared similarities that Zarude would definitely tie into. Oranguru is a Psychic-type Pokemon while Passimian is a Fighting-type Pokemon. In recent generations of Pokemon, fans have lingered the idea that the new trio-typing for starters should be fighting, psychic, and dark instead of grass, fire, and water Pokemon. This trend normally was appreciated in Generation Six in Pokemon X and Y with the final evolution stages of the starters sharing both types respectively. Zarude being the missing link from Pokemon Sun and Moon was most likely shelved for the possibility of being available in future titles, as it is debuting soon for trainers.

The excitement for trainers to finally interact with Zarude on either Pokemon Sword or Shield is a universal goal that all dedicated Pokemon fans are looking forward to. Even more so, that the same fans that bought tickets before the film even was released were excited to see the mythical Pokemon’s new interaction with the heroes of the Pokemon franchise. It would be even more spectacular, that the downloaded Mystery Gift for trainers contained another downloadable content episode for trainers to interact with on Pokemon Sword and Shield so that the encounter with Zarude was almost similar to the one trainers will see in the movie. That way, that the quest for Zarude would be more earned than just a simple gift that trainers have received in the past. Regardless, trainers are more than ecstatic to interact with Zarude over the holidays, capping off a great year in Pokemon for the franchise as a whole.