The anime calendar is heating up again, and while most fans are watching Crunchyroll for the big Summer 2026 drops, one old-school legend is quietly making a comeback: Pokémon: Indigo League.
According to information shared by anime update account @animeupdates on X, the first Pokémon anime is set to become available for streaming on August 7, 2026. The report also says the series will get a major Disney XD push in the US, starting with an all-day marathon on August 6 from 9:00 AM to 10:30 PM ET.
For Malaysian fans doing the time-zone maths, that marathon would run roughly from 9:00 PM on August 6 to 10:30 AM on August 7 MYT. After that, Disney XD is reportedly scheduling episodes on weekdays at 2:30 PM ET and weekends at 8:00 AM ET from August 10 onwards. That works out to very late-night weekday viewing for us, but a much friendlier weekend slot at around 8:00 PM Malaysia time.
The bigger win here is streaming. The article notes that platforms like Netflix and Hulu already carry selected Pokémon shows and movies, while Tubi is also giving fans a free option to watch. As always with anime licensing, SEA availability can be a bit messy, so Malaysian viewers should still check their local app listings before getting too excited. But the direction is clear: the original Pokémon anime is becoming easier to access again.
And honestly, this one matters.
Before Pokémon became a massive game, trading card, merch, mobile, and movie empire, Indigo League was the version many of us met first. Ash Ketchum leaving Pallet Town with a stubborn Pikachu, Misty yelling at him every other episode, Brock somehow being both the mature one and the funniest guy in the room — this is the blueprint lah.
Based on the 1996 Pokémon video game, the anime launched in 1997 from OLM and followed Ash’s dream of becoming a Pokémon Master. The setup is simple, but still powerful: in a world full of creatures with unique abilities, trainers catch, raise, and battle Pokémon. Ash starts his journey on his 10th birthday, gets paired with Pikachu, and slowly builds the friendships and rivalries that made the franchise feel huge even before the games fully exploded globally.
For SEA fans, especially those who grew up watching whatever version aired on local TV, Indigo League is pure nostalgia fuel. This is not just “old anime content being added to a platform”. It is the season that made Pikachu a household name, taught a whole generation what type matchups were before they even owned a Game Boy, and gave us the original emotional damage with episodes like Butterfree and Charmander.
It also lands at a good time. Pokémon has moved far beyond Ash now, with newer anime stories and characters carrying the franchise forward. But that actually makes Indigo League more interesting to revisit. Newer fans can see where the whole anime side started, while older fans can test whether the classic still hits or if nostalgia has been doing heavy lifting.
Spoiler: it probably still hits. Maybe a bit goofy, sure. But the charm is still there.
If Tubi or other streaming access lands cleanly for Malaysia and SEA, this could be the easiest way in years for casual fans to restart Ash’s original journey without digging around for DVDs or random uploads. For parents, older siblings, and longtime fans, it is also a pretty solid excuse to introduce a new generation to the version of Pokémon that started the anime obsession.
Disney+ Press confirms that all episodes of Pokémon: Indigo League Season 1 are scheduled to stream on August 7 in its August 2026 US release calendar. That first-party page does not confirm the Malaysian Disney+ catalogue. The Disney XD times and other platform references above remain attributed to the reporting source.
Primary source: Disney+ Press
Reporting source: ComicBook Anime