The current Pokemon animated series airing in Japan, Pokemon Journeys, has been on hold now since early April due to Japan’s state of emergency status during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. But that is about to change next week, as the official Japanese Pokemon Twitter account announced its impending return.
Though this new series of the anime has yet to debut in the United States on Netflix, it has been underway in Japan for quite some time. There is usually a delay in the U.S. of new Pokemon episodes because of the dubbing process, but thankfully this new series doesn’t relate to the story of the Sword and Shield games, as the anime usually premieres in Japan alongside the release of the games they are based on. This often had English fans finishing the story of the game before they ever even saw the corresponding anime in English. But this time, the Journeys anime is instead based on the Pokemon world as a whole, alongside general themes of the mobile game phenomenon, Pokemon GO. Since Netflix will have a stockpile of roughly 20 or so episodes (which it plans to release as 12 per quarter of the year) the Japanese hiatus will likely not have much of an effect on the English dub.
After announcing the hiatus on April 19, the official Japanese Pokemon Twitter revealed that the series will resume airing with the episode titled "A Massive Panic! Sakuragi Park!!" on June 7. This is because the state of emergency in Japan was just lifted this past week.
There has been a fair amount of other Pokemon anime news lately as well. It was recently revealed through translator and behind-the-scenes content sleuth, Dr. Lava that legendary Pokemon Lugia was actually created for the second movie, titled in Japan as "Pokemon: Lugia's Explosive Birth," not for the second generation of games, Pokemon Gold and Silver. The title for the dub of the film is "Pokemon: The Movie 2000: The Power of One." Dr. Lava also revealed that the original head writer of the Pokemon anime, Takeshi Shudo, created Lugia, and was devastated to find out that the film ended up giving the legendary Pokemon a male voice instead of a more feminine one. Apparently Shudo was so upset over this it drove him to drink.
The U.S. debut of Pokemon Journeys is just two short weeks away, and will premiere on Friday, June 12. Fans can get themselves excited by giving the new English theme song from band Walk Off the Earth a listen here.