#jn044

We’ve got some translations for a two-pager related to upcoming Sword & Shield Chapter in Pokémon (2019)/Journeys, from latest Corocoro magazine! Translations below, done by Dephender, I’ll link the source of the forum post to source tag!

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Now that the Pokémon anime is moving to the golden time on the golden day... IT BREAKS INTO ITS POCKET MONSTERS SWORD & SHIELD CHAPTER!! Satoshi and Go have gone to the Galar region! Their biggest adventure ever, which is centered around Daimax, now begins!! ON OCTOBER 23RD, IT'S OFF TO THE ONE AND ONLY... "SLUMBERING WEALD"!! The "Slumbering Weald", where the beginning of the adventure in "Pokémon Sword/Shield" takes place, appears!... does that mean Satoshi and Go will meet a certain duo of legendary Pokémon?!

Two mysterious Pokémon appear in a forest shrouded in thick mist. Could they be...?!

Satoshi and Go have gotten separated from each other in the forest. Oh no!

Sonia, Professor Magnolia's granddaughter AND assistant, appears as well!

There's hints of a scheme in Rose and the others' tale?!

The battles between the Kyodaimaxed Pokémon is a must see as well!

Considering the synopsis we’ve had for these episodes, I think either Sonia is borrowing hers to Gou during this moment, or she’s giving a spare to him. Sonia IS a past challenger, so she would have the dynamax band of her own, right? Of course, this is based on the games, we’re still not sure of Sonia’s past in Pokeani. But I’m hoping for similar past, as Kibana and Dande definitely are still the same kind of rivals and Sonia’s debut implied heavily that she knows Dande personally.

Sonia’s been on top of my favourite characters of gen 8, and I’m excited to see more of her, and how she’ll be exploring the Darkest Day lore with Gou alongside her. Should be fun to see, I can imagine Rabbifoot’s ears being played with again thou, asjhgjshfg. Also looking forward to seeing how she’ll be acting around Kibana, hehee. Oh, this post was originally about Gou’s dynamax band, whooops!

As the title says. Let’s get started, source is serebii.net forums, as always!

October 16th: JN041 - Operation: Dub Pikachu! / Half Numacraw

a)The Rocket Gang Nyarth is laid up with a cold. Musashi and Kojiro from the Rocket Gang, who have thus far been relying on his interpretations to understand what Satoshi's Pikachu talks about, decide to take the opportunity to train themselves so they can understand it on their own! To do this, they watch video footage of Pikachu that they've secretly recorded and dub over it...?! b) In a forest after a rainfall, Satoshi and Go encounter Numacraw that are stuck in the ground! And while the duo is doing its best trying to do something to help them, a Runpappa appears before them?! Screenplay     赤尾でこ (Deko Akao) Storyboard     湯山邦彦 (Kunihiko Yuyama) Storyboard     樋口香里 (Kaori Higuchi) Episode Director     牧野吉高 (Yoshitaka Makino) Animation Director     岡昭彦 (Akihiko Oka) Animation Director     柳原好貴 (Koki Yanagihara)

What’s new is the staff list, which is why I’m including it!

October 23rd: JN042 - Sword & Shield I: Slumbering Weald

One night Satoshi spots the "Daimax Band" he got from Dande, the strongest Pokémon Trainer in the Galar region, suddenly starting to glow on its own. Meanwhile, the Galar region has been experiencing a phenomenon where Pokémon are Daimaxing in places where it's normally impossible for them to do so. To solve the Daimax mystery, Satoshi and Go decided to visit the Galar region and see Professor Magnolia, the leading authority on Daimax research, but on their way there the duo got separated while in a forest shrouded in thick mist, where they encountered some mysterious Pokémon. Screenplay     米村正二 (Shōji Yonemura) Storyboard     齋藤徳明 (Noriaki Saito) Episode Director     上野史博 (Fumihiro Ueno) Animation Director     篠原隆 (Takashi Shinohara)

MAGNOLIA MAGNOLIA MAGNOLIA AAAAHHHH!! Also I, find it weird that the daimax band seems to be reacting in Kanto? It shouldn’t? Hmmmm.

For the next two episodes we only have title and staff list, no summaries. Possibly to avoid spoilers.

October 30th: JN043 - Sword & Shield II: Black Night

Screenplay     土屋理敬 (Michihiro Tsuchiya) Storyboard     齋藤徳明 (Noriaki Saito) Episode Director     門田英彦 (Hidehiko Kadota) Animation Director     谷澤泰史 (Yasushi Tanizawa) Animation Director     日置正志 (Masashi Hioki)

November 6th: JN044 - Sword & Shield III: Mugendaina

Screenplay     米村正二 (Shōji Yonemura) Storyboard     樋口香里 (Kaori Higuchi) Episode Director     又野弘道 (Hiromichi Matano) Animation Director     新城真 (Makoto Shinjō) Animation Director     升谷有希 (Yuki Masutani)

Intriquing to see that Yonemura is writing parts 1 and 3 but not 2. Hmm. Part 4 is still to be revealed, possibly will take til end of this month to learn more.

A question to those who are worried Rockets won't show at all during Sword & Shield Chapter: I'd love to hear how you see this image :D

It's from the Sword & Shield Chapter preview we had a while back, clearly on top of Raihan's gym's roof!

I do believe they'll show up, but to what extend, who knows at this point. Imo they don't have to be showed into every episode of the arc. The placement of this in the preview was RIGHT after showing Musashi and Kojiro, suggesting strongly this is our beloved Nyarth.

Also, I REALLY hope they’ll do a rendition of the Slumbering Weilds track because it’s one of my absolute favourites! Same with the track that plays when the Legendary Doggos appear during the Eternamax battle! Man, I kinda want to replay Sword. Or take sis’ Shield copy and play that instead!

I look forward to seeing how they’ll do Rose and Oleana, doing them within four episodes seems kinda... packed. But they might be able to do it! Also they could definitely do something with them after the arc is done. So, in the games Rose steps down, gets arrested (?) and Dande takes over the Rose Tower and reimagines it into the Battle Tower. Oleana on the other hand goes do mining work, for Rose? If I remember correctly. She’s extremely loyal to Rose.

Anyway, these are my thoughts right now. Hop might appear as Sonia’s apprentice after some time, as the Darkest Day arc is what prompted Sonia to become a professor of her own field in the games, and then after the post game, Hop chooses the same route, and becomes her apprentice! I am so hoping we’ll see Hop, Marnie and Bede at some point, if not through the Galar Gym Challenge, then through the PWC.

I actually liked it better today. There was nice build up and the pacing was nice, and nothing looked too akward. Asiiide from Eternatus, CG will always look akward alongside 2d animation lol. But even if it looked akward I understand Eternatus isn’t exactly 2d-friendly design so, it’s the only option. Also gives it a nice, alien-like feeling.

I am quite bummed that Oleana seemingly doesn’t have her game ace Garbodor and they gave it to her subordinates instead, it told so much about her character to have so many beauty-themed Pokémon on her team and then her ace to be a trash Pokémon (I mean literal trash, not like it’s a bad Pokémon or anything). They could come around and say that the subordinate’s Gardobor actually belongs to Oleana, but I won’t count on it. Well, if they don’t say anything against the idea, I guess we can headcanon it as such.

Another small issue is how Satoshi didn’t get to go and meet Zacian and Zamazenta with Gou, in same fashion as we, the player, get to see them with Hop. It really seems like Gou is the player character insert here, and Satoshi is, well, can’t exactly tell what he’s supposed to represent. Thou, I am glad Sonia got to see the doggos, as she doesn’t get to see them in the Slumbering Wealds in the games. So, I think that sorta makes me forgive the Gou-only meeting and making Satoshi just SOMEHOW connect with Zacian.... actually I still have a problem with it lol

Rose and Oleana could have used some more background-introduction beforehand imo, but they’re not handled too badly. Gou is gonna battle Oleana while Satoshi battles Rose, and Dande goes to try and catch Eternatus so it won’t be misused by Rose anymore. I believe that’s the motive? Anyway, both battles have been built up by making the characters connected to each other in different ways, so I’m cool with the build-up to these battles.

Rockets were kinda fun today thou their role is seemingly to just promote Gigantamax Nyarth soo... lol At least they were fun, thou the fact that Eternatus SHOT Nyarth, causing it to Gigantamax was honestly kinda scary. Satoshi didn’t seem very happy to see Nyarth rampaging either, so I’m slightly hoping there’ll be some nice scene between the two after it’s over. Buuuuuut I won’t count on it lol.

Next week is the evolution episode for sure, it hasn’t happened yet and OP has spoiled it for months that it’s happening during this arc. So there’s no question about it.

All in all, I feel a bit better about the arc, still got slight issues with the way Satoshi and Gou are shoehorned into the plot just cause and reaaaally feel out of place as outsiders really, but the character dynamics have been fun.

Oh. Kibana was in today’s episode as well. Came to protect Sonia as the Gym Leader of Knuckle City/Hammerlocke. Real cute :3

I still liked it the most out of all of the arc but eh. This is def a controversal arc regarding who likes the storytelling and who doesn’t. And I loved Aether Arc and Necrozma Arc in Sun & Moon. Heh.

Next week is gonna be interesting to watch as it’s gonna have Vs Oleana, Vs Rose, Vs Eternatus, double evolution and conclusion to the arc? that’s a lot in one episode. Pooh.