*This article is compiled from IGN US and is not reproduced without authorization.
When you are overwhelmed by work, you should relax. Drinking a cup of tea and eating a snack are all good choices. You can also stand up and stretch your body. Maybe you can also check out the ASMR video of Halley creaking and eating cookies for 8 minutes.
In case anyone doesn't know what ASMR means, I'll explain here that its full name is "autonomous sensory meridian response," or spontaneous perceptual meridian response, which classifies some of the sounds that make the brain feel pleasurable. For some people, ASMR can produce a pleasant stimulus sensation in the back of their brain, neck and spine, but not all of them feel the same way. In recent years, ASMR has been developed as a type of video that has been submitted to YouTube and gained a lot of popularity, including slapping various objects, whispering into a special microphone, cooking, crumpling plastic or paper, and so on. The video is also packed with content, from the more intimate ASMR role-play to hours of careful cleaning of miniature Zen gardens or decluttering cosmetics.
Not everyone experiences the thrill that ASMR is supposed to trigger, and the types of sounds that trigger it vary from person to person. But it goes without saying that even if this excitement is not available, many ASMR videos themselves create a pleasant and relaxing atmosphere. That said, combining cute Pokémon with ASMR can definitely bring a higher level of enjoyment.
Pokémon's video team in Japan has been working in this area for two years. Pokémon released its first video on its Japanese YouTube channel in January 2020, in which a small dragon sleeps in front of a small fire for 30 minutes, waking up from time to time to light the fire with a flame on its tail. That's all! The only characters in the entire video are the little dragon that snoozed for half an hour and the crackling fire.
It wasn't until August that The Pokémon Company released a second video, which was 15 minutes long, but this time it was slightly lively. In the video, a Jenny tortoise is happily playing on the beach, accompanied by a variety of relaxing sounds, such as the sound of the waves lapping at the beach, the creaking sound of the Jenny's little feet stepping on the sand, the sound of splashing water from time to time playing in the sea, and the occasional sound of long-winged gulls flapping their wings.
Then, Pokémon releases new ASMR videos every few months. Some are frog seeds wandering around in a small forest for an hour, Pikachu is playing in the living room, and there is a video of Pogaman bouncing around in the bedroom for half an hour, and finally slowly becoming sleepy and falling asleep. The latest release of the video is divided into three parts, the entire series is called "Pokémon Came to My House", created by the Chinese producer Lao Dao, who also opened his own channel "Eclipse Official Channel" on YouTube to release cooking videos, Bilibili account for "Eclipse". Although the video in this series is not labeled ASMR, it contains some soft sounds that are very ASMR characteristic, and the recipe is also themed after a few cute Pokémon.
While ASMR videos are common on YouTube, the ASMR videos released by Pokémon are more appealing because they are usually interspersed with various game trailers, announcements, music videos, animated promotions, and TCG announcements published on Pokémon's official channel. Most videos are intended for notification or promotion, although for this type of official brand channel, this content is normal. Among these commercial videos, The Pokémon Company has spent a lot of time and effort to launch this series of videos that seem to have only the characteristics of cuteness and relaxation, which is inevitably eye-catching.
We got in touch with Pokémon's Headquarters in Japan and asked a few questions about the ASMR videos they posted, to which a Pokémon spokesperson replied that the Pokémon that appeared in the videos and the various behaviors they performed were carefully selected based on "their seasonal habits and Pokémon ecology."
Why did the Pokémon Company make these ASMR videos?
"The official Pokémon company's channels have never released long videos, but they have received a desire from viewers to be accompanied by long videos while doing other things (or work)." In addition, one of the advantages of Pokémon is that people can feel that Pokémon are always with them, and in pokémon GO, players can even capture Pokémon in the real world. We think there must be viewers who want this kind of intimate video.
"With that in mind, we decided to create these videos in the form of the popular ASMR on YouTube. We feel that these videos with sound as the protagonist and the presence of sound can be perceived have great potential."
The speaker concluded by adding that their entire team was grateful to the audience for their positive reviews of the series' videos, and they wanted to continue making them, even though the next ASMR video was not yet scheduled. Looking back at the videos they've released so far, we can see that they contain sounds from cooking and many sounds from nature, and the videos of Bogaman and Pikachu also have the sounds of various beatings and fabrics, and of course, the chewing sounds of Harley. If they were going to cover all ASMR types, maybe they should have released a duck whisper video that was at least half an hour long, and of course, personally, I'd rather see ASMR content for Rechu Pancakes in the Arora area.