For the last (almost) 25 years that the Pokémon anime has been running, where Ash and his friends have gone, Team Rocket have always followed. You’d have thought after all this time that they’d have realised there are probably better targets to aim for than little ol’ Pikachu, as cute as he may be. I mean, there’s currently like, 81 legendary Pokémon - you’d think if you were going to spend 25 years chasing anything, it’d be one of those.
Well, it looks like Team Rocket are blasting off again, but maybe for good this time. An upcoming episode of the current anime season, Pokémon Journeys, is titled “Farewell! The Wandering Rocket Gang!”, which would certainly imply that we might be seeing a send-off for one, if not all of the members we’ve grown to love.
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How likely this is to actually come to fruition is another story, though. Team Rocket are so intrinsic to the anime (and also, let’s face it, the best characters by far), it’d be like Ash making the decision to evolve Pikachu into Raichu. Coincidentally, that’s also a concept which has been strongly hinted at before, only to pull the bait-and-switch in the actual episode.
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Over on the Bulbagarden Forums, fans have been discussing their theories for the episode, and how likely it is that we’ll actually see the gang leave the show: “I think it’s worth [noting] that the title has no question marks that usually leave the claim of the episode names up in the air. Really interested to see where they go with this story,” wrote SonansuMan. “They did a lot of fake-outs in the past, but I feel like it is different somehow this time around. With how [much] less the Trio appears and such,” said Eevee800.
The episode is set to air on January 28 2022, so it’ll be a while before we see what actually ends up happening. I’m not going to lie, I hope it’s just bait: changing up the show format is one thing, but come on. Who else will protect the world from devastation?
Featured Image Credit: The Pokémon CompanyTopics: Pokemon, Anime, TV And Film, Nintendo