New Pokemon Anime Clip Introduces Team Rocket

The next Pokemon anime series might be shaking things up in pretty significant ways as Ash will be traveling back through every past region of the franchise thus far rather than just the new Galar region from Sword and Shield. There’s going to be a new protagonist along with Ash for the ride as well, but even with all of changes it’s still going to feel like the anime fans have come to love. One of the main reasons why is Team Rocket still being up to their old ways for the next series.

The new Pokemon anime recently shared a special preview teasing much of what’s to come from the next era of the series, and one clip in particular reveals the return of Megumi Hayashibara as Jessie, Shinichiro Miki as James, and Inuko Inuyama as Meowth. Check it out in the video below, or you can see the full special preview in the video above.

Pokemon: The Series will be officially making its debut November 17th in Japan, and the first episode of the new series is titled “Birth of Pikachu,” and the synopsis for it reads as such, “In a forest somewhere in Kanto, there once was a lonely Pichu. This Pichu – who was still quite young – had a certain encounter and farewell. This took place shortly before Ash and his partner Pikachu started travelling together. This is the beginning of the anime ‘Pocket Monster.’”

With as much as there’s going to be changed about the new series, it is not a complete reboot as it initially seemed. Team Rocket’s inclusion cements the fact that the anime will still have some of the fan favorite gags that fans have come to love from the series overall, but the newer elements introduced could be signifying a change in the next iteration. But it’s going to be quite a while before that happens, so Team Rocket’s going to have full reign over all the shenanigans.

Other cast members confirmed for the series include Daiki Yamashita as Gou, Yuichi Nakamura as Professor Sakuragi, and Kana Hanazawa as Koharu. Staff confirmed for the new series include Daiki Tomiyasu serving as chief director for OLM, Maki Odaira as series director, Kunihiko Yuyama as creative supervisor, Shoji Yonemura overseeing series construction, Shuhei Yasuda serving as character designer, Masafumi Mima as sound director, Yuki Hayashi as series composer.