The US Department of Homeland Security has posted a bizarre and, frankly, rather tasteless video that splices footage of ICE immigrant raids with clips from the iconic intro to the Pokemon anime.
As spotted by Kotaku, the video was uploaded to the official DHS X account yesterday. It shows various enforcement officers, including ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement), police officers, and the military breaking into properties and arresting people.
Unfortunately, it also shows clips from the Pokemon anime, as well as using the anime’s theme song to soundtrack the upsetting montage. What’s more, the words “Department of Homeland Security” appear at the beginning of the video, rendered in the very recognizable Pokemon font.
As if all of that wasn’t enough, the video also shows various “criminal aliens” arrested by ICE, but rendered in a sort of parody Pokemon card format. Their weakness is even listed as the Ice type, which feels particularly tasteless.
I’ve got to wonder exactly whose idea this was and why they thought it was okay, but of course, it’s possible that this video did indeed travel its way up the chain and met with approval at every turn, which is perhaps even more demoralizing than this being one person’s maverick whim.
One body whose approval this video almost certainly did not obtain is, of course, Nintendo, the company that holds the IP rights to Pokemon. If you’re familiar with Nintendo, you’ll also know that the Japanese gaming giant is, to put it mildly, fond of litigation in certain circumstances.
I’m no legal expert, but I suspect that if Nintendo wanted to, it could probably challenge DHS over its (presumably) unlicensed use of Pokemon assets in this video. I don’t imagine the parody defense would get the department too far in that instance, but again, not an expert.
Regardless of your political leanings, I think it’s fair to say this DHS video is in pretty poor taste. Let’s hope sanity and wisdom prevail and the video is taken down, and whoever’s responsible for it has a long, hard think about what they’ve done.
