Pokemon Journeys Takes Cue From Naruto with Magikarp’s Rock Lee Moment

One of the most iconic scenes in Masashi Kishimoto’s Naruto is when Rock Lee dropped his leg weights during the Chunin Exams, and now Pokemon Journeys: The Series tapped into the spirit of this moment with one of its own. Pokemon’s latest episode was definitely one of the oddest in the series yet as it broke itself into two different chapters featuring wacky stories. While the second half featured a Slowking that ended up possessing Ash Ketchum and the others, the first half had Goh train his slightly larger Magikarp to win a splashing contest.

In order to get his Magikarp ready to win the contest, which measured how high each Magikarp’s Splash attack would bounce them, Goh and Ash trained day and night to strengthen it. This physical prowess continued right up until the actual day of the contest as Goh had Magikarp take on the first few matches weighed down by some supremely heavy weights. So heavy that a Machoke even hurt itself trying to carry it!

After dropping off these weights in an epic way before the final match of the contest, Goh’s Magikarp splash bounce was so strong that it actually fly straight through the sky and right into space in the orbit surrounding Earth. Naturally, this indeed was one of the stranger events in the series overall but it helps that it had that Naruto flavor to anchor it!

This connection between the two franchises is merely a thematic coincidence, but Pokemon Journeys has also had a few direct connections to the Naruto franchise in previous episodes. Not only was there a special Pikachu designed after Boruto Uzumaki, but Goh’s ninja inspired Raboot runs around Naruto style as well. These are fun ties in between the two franchises that fans should keep an eye out for in the future!

What did you think of Pokemon Journey‘s own Rock Lee dropping the weights moment? What did you think of one of the wackiest episodes in the anime so far? Did you expect for Goh’s Magikarp to launch itself into space? Let us know your thoughts in the comments or you can even reach out to me directly about all things animated and other cool stuff @Valdezology on Twitter!