Pokemon has debuted the latest iteration of its anime franchise and it’s been a huge hit with the fans who have managed to already check it out. But unlike other new anime releases, fans outside of Japan aren’t usually able to watch the series until it gets licensed for an official English language release months after its initial debut. This premiere was a little different, however, as the official YouTube channel officially released the first episode and fans from all over were able to check it out — and even promised to share more on a weekly basis.
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Unfortunately, this was a limited time arrangement as now the first episode of the new series, and presumably future episodes, is now region-locked to Japan (as spotted by @tsskiller on Twitter). Meaning that now it’s going to be quite a long wait before fans outside of Japan will be able to see the new series legally.
While fans outside of Japan didn’t expect the series to be available for viewing on YouTube for very long, seeing that first episode was certainly a surprise. Getting over two million views before being region-locked, it definitely shows that fans are at least interested at seeing the new episodes as soon as possible.
But as the series is released now, it’s on quite a hefty delay, and the episode was most likely region locked due to various licensing hang-ups. The Sun and Moon iteration of the series is still far from over in the English language release, so it’s going to be an even longer wait before the new series makes its official debut. But on the other hand, there will be quite a few episodes under its belt when it finally makes its official English language debut.
Still it does beg the question of whether or not the anime releases could be sped up given all of the other faster anime streaming services and licensors currently at market. 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.
