Watch: Pokemon Pits Dynamaxed Red Gyarados Against Leon’s Charizard

Pokemon‘s newest anime series has spent most of its time in the Kanto region as Ash and new hero Go have made their home base there, so fans have been waiting to see more of the new elements introduced in the Pokemon Sword and Shield video games make their way to the anime. The anime has dabbled with Galar a few times over the course of its first few episodes, but the latest episode gives the strongest example of Sword and Shield yet as it’s debuted a full-on Dynamax vs. Gigantamax battle between two of the strongest trainers in the franchise.

Episode 12 of the series sees Ash and Go attend the Pokemon World Championships, a tournament that pits eight of the strongest trainers around the world (with some of the region’s champions for good measure). They are there to see the finals, a match between Kanto’s Elite Four Champion Lance and the newest Champion introduced with the Galar region, Leon.

The two of them face off with Lance’s Red Gyarados and Leon’s Charizard and are pretty evenly matched. That is until the two of them use Dynamaxing, but Leon has the upper hand as his is a Gigantamax that gives Charizard a new form along with a huge boost in strength. Check it out:

The two of them might have been evenly matched in their normal forms, but once Gigantamax was used it was a completely different story. No matter what Lance tried to do, Charizard seemed to power through every one of Gyarados’ attacks. Leon had the upper hand her as well as a number of Charizard’s Gigantamax attacks were hitting Gyarados’ weaknesses.

At the end of the day, Leon does clinch the victory here and keeps his undefeated streak strong. While Lance is still one of the strongest champions in the franchise, it was suddenly clear that he was out of his element with these new tactics from Galar. What do you think of Pokemon’s first Dynamax anime battle? Let us know your thoughts in the comments or talk to me directly about all things anime and other cool things @Valdezology on Twitter!

Pokemon: The Series, is now airing new episodes weekly in Japan, but unfortunately is still not officially licensed for an English language release as of this writing. There’s also a brand new film on the way to Japan this Summer, Pokemon the Movie: Coco.