Pokemon Anime Preview Teases Explosive Ash vs Kukui Finale

Pokemon will soon be moving onto the next generation of the anime next month, but before Sun and Moon comes to a close it’s got one final battle to finish. After Ash surprisingly won his first Pokemon League Championship to win the very first Alola Pokemon League tournament, but although he managed to become the champion he found himself facing one last challenge. Professor Kukui surprisingly stepped in to have a special exhibition match against Ash, and although the match seemed to come to an end with the latest episode there was one big surprise.

It turns out Tapu Koko was inspired seeing Kukui and Ash’s battle, and has joined the fight alongside Kukui in an attempt to defeat Ash. The preview for the next episode of the series teases Tapu Koko and Ash’s all out battle, and it’s going to be a flashy Z move showcase.

Episode 144 is titled “Alola’s Mightiest Z! Tapu Koko vs. Pikachu!” and the synopsis describes the episode as such, “The battle between Ash and Professor Kukui comes to a close…or at least it was supposed to, but then someone suddenly showed up: The Guardian Deity Pokemon Tapu Koko?! And believe it or not, it said it was joining the battle as Professor Kukui’s partner. It’s a guardian deity vs. the first ever champion in Alolan history! A battle the likes never before seen finally begins!!”

It only makes sense for Sun and Moon to be going out in such an explosive way as the anime will be undergoing a major reboot following this series. Pokemon: The Series, currently scheduled to premiere November 17th in Japan, is a groundbreaking era of the series rebooting things by featuring every region in the franchise thus far instead of just the new region, Galar.

Along with every region in the franchise, the new anime will have two protagonists. The new series will introduce Gou, designed by Pokemon character designer Ken Sugimori, who has a Scorbunny as his partner Pokemon and is also out to catch ’em all. So Ash won’t be the only focus of the anime series going forward.

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, and Daiki Yamashita has been confirmed as the voice of Gou.