Pokemon’s anime has gone back to its roots with the latest iteration of the series as Ash has headed back to Pallet Town and the Kanto Region for the first leg of his new journey. He’ll be heading to the new Sword and Shield region of Galar soon enough, but the anime has balanced its share of both older characters and new additions thus far. This naturally includes Team Rocket, who have been a mainstay of the series since the very beginning. The latest episode of the series officially brought them into the fold, but something new and very different came along with them this time.
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Each series shakes up Team Rocket’s dynamic, but this latest shake-up is potentially huger than ever as now they have a special machine that gives them access to a wider library of Pokemon specifically chosen by their boss, Giovanni.
Team Rocket getting powerful loan Pokemon from Sakaki makes a lot more sense than him somehow just being okay with them catching like two Pokemon per region, and makes the fights against them more interesting. It being a gacha that they have to unlock with Meowth’s coin is genius pic.twitter.com/IUWcyvjTF1
— Rohanite (@rohanarts) December 1, 2019
The latest episode of the series sees Giovanni tasking Jesse, James, and Meowth with stealing Pokemon once more. But to give them an edge, and most likely expanding beyond their usual two or so new additions each generation, Givonani gifts them with a special gacha machine. By entering one of Meowth’s coins, Jesse and James are given two Pokemon at random.
The first example gives them a Gyarados and Tyranitar, along with a cheat sheet to show them what moves to use. James uses everything at his disposal while Jesse hilariously just yells out “Do a strong attack!” with each move. Unfortunately, the two Pokemon are defeated by a group of Bulbasaur, Ivysaur, and done in by Pikachu’s Thunderbolt, but this device is going to shake things up quite a bit.
So although they have left behind the Bewear gag of the Sun and Moon season and have gone back to blasting off again, this new gadget will give them two random Pokemon from across the various generations to use against Ash in each episode. It’s not quite clear just how this will change the dynamic going forward, but this new device will certainly give Jesse and James an edge.
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. 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. Voice cast members include Daiki Yamashita as Go, Yuichi Nakamura as Professor Sakuragi, Kana Hanazawa as Koharu, Megumi Hayashibara as Jessie, Shinichiro Miki as James, and Inuko Inuyama as Meowth.
