Two episodes of the Pokémon anime were never aired, and for 12 years fans have been puzzling over what happened in them. Now they could get hold of the scripts.
Why are the episodes gone? In March 2011, a major seaquake struck off the Japanese coast, claiming numerous lives and destroying around 400,000 buildings.
As a result of the disaster, Japanese broadcasters decided to indefinitely postpone the airing of two episodes of the Pokémon anime. Originally, the episodes were supposed to be aired at a later date, but this never happened.
What were the consequences? It was the double episode “Team Rocket vs. Team Plasma (Part 1 & 2)”. It would have been the finale of a story arc in Pokémon: Black & White, the anime’s 14th season.
The plot revolved around Team Rocket attempting to seize control of the Unova region. For 12 years, fans have wondered how the conflict between the villains of Team Rocket and Team Plasma ended.
Now fans of the series managed to get their hands on the scripts of the lost episodes.
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A piece of Pokémon history
How were the episodes found? As Kotaku reports, a fan tracked down someone who had copies of the scripts for the episodes. The fan then started a call for donations in order to be able to buy the scripts from the owner.
The community raised $4,000, but ultimately the owner decided to make the scripts available for free. All donations have been refunded. The fans, of course, did not stop there and translated the documents directly into English.
Twitter user Annet accompanied the search for the missing scripts and shared the success on May 1: History was made there. In the embedded tweets you will also find the links to the translation.
What were the episodes about? In Pokémon Season 14, Team Rocket tried to get their hands on a piece of a meteorite. Giovanni planned to harness the energy of the Meteonite, as it is known in English, to gain dominion over the Unova region.
In the missing episodes, the meteorite was owned by Team Rocket, but was then stolen by Team Plasma. However, they lost control of the stone’s power and the released energy destroyed entire buildings. This meant that the villains, who were actually more funny than threatening, were probably too close to the real catastrophe.
Though the full episodes will likely never be shown, fans finally know how the story was originally intended to go. Some are now speculating to what extent the tragic events affected the anime’s subsequent plot, suggesting that Team Plasma was originally intended to play a larger role.
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