The currentPokemonanimated series airing in Japan,Pokemon Journeys,has been on hold now since early April due to Japan’s state of emergency status during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. But that is about to change next week, as the official JapanesePokemonTwitter account announced its impending return.
Though this new series of the anime has yetto debut in the United States on Netflix, it has been underway in Japan for quite some time. There is usually a delay in the U.S. of newPokemonepisodes because of the dubbing process, but thankfully this new series doesn’t relate to the story of theSwordandShieldgames, as the anime usually premieres in Japan alongside the release of the games they are based on. This often had English fans finishing the story of the game before they ever even saw the corresponding anime in English. But this time, theJourneysanime is instead based on thePokemonworld as a whole, alongside general themes of the mobile game phenomenon,Pokemon GO.Since Netflix will have a stockpile of roughly 20 or so episodes (which it plans to release as 12 per quarter of the year) the Japanese hiatus will likely not have much of an effect on the English dub.
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Afterannouncing the hiatus on April 19, the official Japanese Pokemon Twitter revealed that the series will resume airing with the episode titled “A Massive Panic! Sakuragi Park!!” on June 7. This is because the state of emergency in Japan was just lifted this past week.
There has been a fair amount of otherPokemonanime news lately as well. It was recently revealed through translator and behind-the-scenes content sleuth, Dr. Lava that legendary Pokemon Lugia was actually created for the second movie, titled in Japan as “Pokemon: Lugia’s Explosive Birth,” not for the second generation of games,Pokemon GoldandSilver.The title for the dub of the film is “Pokemon: The Movie 2000: The Power of One.” Dr. Lava also revealed that the original head writer of thePokemonanime, Takeshi Shudo, created Lugia, and was devastated to find out that the filmended up giving the legendary Pokemon a male voiceinstead of a more feminine one. Apparently Shudo was so upset over this it drove him to drink.
The U.S. debut ofPokemon Journeysis just two short weeks away, and will premiere on Friday, June 12. Fans can get themselves excited by giving the new English theme song from bandWalk Off the Earth a listen here.
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