Anime Orbit is an irregular column where I summarize a stop along my journey through anime, manga, and the related spheres of popular culture over the past week.
Expect spoilers for covered material, where relevant.
One thousand two hundred and thirty-two. That’s how many episodes, in sum total, the original Japanese run of the entire Pokémon anime has. The episode that aired just two days ago, “The Rainbow & The Pokémon Master”, is the 1,232nd. I’m not trying to wow you with sheer numbers here—although if I were, just for reference, that’s about 400 more episodes than The Simpsons, perhaps the only American cartoon with an episode count in even the same ballpark—but I am trying to make a point. 1,232 episodes over the course of 26 years is a truly stunning achievement. Even if the show were utterly unremarkable in content, that would be worth commenting on.
But we’re not here to evaluate quality today. That’d be pretty much impossible for Pokémon, something that has sunk its fangs into my psyche as much as it has any other Millennial of a certain age and disposition. When I started watching the Pokémon anime—and really, that is how pretty much everyone still refers to it, as either just “the cartoon” or, if they’re slightly more of a weeb, “the anime”—I was a literal child. It was one of the first cartoons period I was ever invested in, long before I had any idea that cartoons from different parts of the world could be meaningfully different, Pokémon, when I first got into it as a child, offered me something very different from any cartoon I’d seen before.
My experience with TV had been very limited up to that point. I grew up in a fairly religious household where things like television were considered distractions and possible corrupting influences. We only got a TV in our house at all in the year 2000, and my grandmother had to do some convincing to convince my mom to pick up cable. It was a tiny hand-me-down thing with a fuzzy picture. Nonetheless, the Pokémon cartoon became important to me. How could it not? I was six years old, and here was this thing chucking all these crazy monster designs at me, and telling me that a young kid Just Like Me (more or less), could have adventures, make friends, and that there was a world outside of the town you grow up in.
I won’t pretend I’ve religiously followed the series in the 23 years since then. (Has anybody? I think even those who’ve seen all the episodes are more likely to have marathoned it in chunks, but maybe I’m underestimating the true Pokemaniacs out there.) But Pokémon has remained part of my life. I’m neurodivergent, and it was, to my recollection, my second total special interest after dinosaurs (I had a big, illustrated encyclopedia of dinosaurs. Wish I still had that thing!), and it’s remained enough of a hobby that I preordered Pokémon Violet. (I also play a fair few Pokémon ROMHacks, but we’re getting into hobbies-within-hobbies at that point) It’s stayed both a part of the cultural conversation and a part of my life, so seeing it finally end as of this 11-episode “postscript” season, after Ash has finally won a championship, feels not so much bad or good, but rather just surreal. I remember the news taking a while to really process for me. As in: “what do you mean the Pokémon anime is ending?” If it feels like the end of an era, it very much is. There will continue to be a Pokémon anime; two new protagonists are slated to start their own journey in just a few weeks, but the Pokémon anime that stars Ash—Satoshi in the original JP—is now officially over. That’s nuts. And I have thought about whether I wanted to even write anything about it, because on some level “that’s nuts” is all you can really say, but not writing anything would be even crazier. This series has been a part of my life since I could read. I have to say something, right?
Then let me say this; if the miniseries’ purpose was to kick shots of pure nostalgia right into my brain, it worked splendidly, and the last episode might be the purest example of that in the whole show. There are a lot of one more‘s in this episode. One more time where Brock gets all lovesick and then gets reprimanded by his Croagunk, one more Team Rocket scheme to snatch Pikachu, one more example of Ash bonding with a Pokémon he just met (it’s a Charmander here; Professor Oak has a new round of trainers to give starter Pokémon to, don’t you know?), etc. If you wanted to be cynical you could describe it as box-ticking. But honestly, there’s so much obvious affection in every frame of this anime that I really find it hard to summon up such a criticism. Toward the end of the episode, Ash’s Pidgeot, the second Pokémon he ever caught, returns to his team, and it’s such a hugely obvious nostalgia play that I started tearing up. I am not immune to affection from giant birds.
In general, they cram quite a few Pokémon into this episode, actually, although I’m sure some will nitpick some omissions. (The big surprise to me is that Ash’s Charizard doesn’t show up for even a split second. When a scene briefly calls for a big draconic flier, his much more recently-acquired Dragonite does the job instead. I’m not complaining, but it is slightly surprising!)
What took me from having watery eyes to full-on bawling was the final scene, where Ash and Pikachu—plus a bunch of Kanto wildlife—take refuge under a tree as a storm passes overhead. This too is a callback; you’ll remember that the very first arc of the series involved Ash biking through a thunderstorm as he tried to protect Pikachu from a flock of Spearows. More than just a reference, though, it’s a meaningful inversion. Back then, the Pokémon were hostile. Here, everything is peaceful and serene; Ash may not consider himself a Pokemon master yet, but in spite of the endless “eternal 11 year old” jokes, he’s clearly grown, and the show itself reflects that.
Not long after, Ash and Pikachu set off again, but this time, we don’t follow along. Our journey together ends here.
But, like I said near the top of this article, this isn’t really the end. The show itself acknowledges that; the retro “To Be Continued…!” text that’s closed out each episode of the miniseries says something a little different here, and really, can you argue with it?
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