Pokemon Reveals Lance’s Secret Ties to Galar

As the first Champion in the franchise, Lance has been one of the biggest icons in the Pokemon anime overall. As a traveling trainer, Lance has popped up in a few episodes over the course of its various series and he recently made his big return with the latest episode of the newest iteration of the franchise. While Ash and Go have been traveling around various regions of the franchise, the latest episode of the series brought them back to the Galar region in order to see the finals of the Pokemon World Championships that pit Lance against newest champion Leon.

Although their battle was already one of the biggest battles of the series to date, quite literally as they both used the power of Dynamax, the end of the battle also revealed a major surprise as Lance noted that Galar has been one of the regions he has visited over the course of his travels. Surprisingly, the region inspired his own look! The same look we’ve seen for years!

After Leon won the battle against him in Episode 12 of the series, Lance congratulates Leon and says that he once trained at Galar’s Dragon Gym. He was so inspired by the gym’s history and their uniform that he reflected that in his own blue and orange look. This does make one think twice about the floating canon of the anime series, but it’s certainly a fun shout out to the new region!

Just as @sgrimp_ notes in the tweet above, fans had initially believed that the Dragon Gym’s uniforms from Pokemon Sword and Shield were inspired by Lance’s look, but Lance confirms in the anime that the opposite is the case. It should be noted that these captions are not official (as the series has yet to get an official English language release), so it could be de-confirmed at a later date.

If this indeed remains the case, this could be considered a retcon to Lance’s adventures in the series, and after seeing him lose to Leon, it could be seen as Galar getting just a bit more push because it’s the newest region. But seeing that the newest anime has been based in Kanto for the most part, this probably isn’t the case. But what do you think about this shout out from Lance? 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.