Celebrating 1,000 Episodes of the Pokémon Anime

2017-11-13 Jedite83

The 1,000^th episode of the Pokémon anime aired on November 9 at 6:55 p.m. Japan Standard Time. For the anime itself, it was just business as usual—episode 1,000 continued Lillie’s storyline straight after she recalled a personal trauma. Needless to say, you would have been lost if you were jumping into the Pokémon Sun & Moon anime without watching some of the episodes prior. (Although it would be kind of an overstatement to say that you need to watch all 999 episodes beforehand.)

Incidentally, this would be the 990^th episode of the main Pokémon anime to air in Japan, but TV Tokyo considers this to be the 1,000^th episode because they include the TV specials. The 1,000^th episode milestone has occurred within the 20^th anniversary of the Pokémon anime series, so overall this has been quite a special year for the franchise.

TV Tokyo is commemorating the milestone with giveaways, among other things. None of this had much of a bearing on the episode itself, except for the fact that the comedian Sunshine Ikezaki had a cameo as the voice actor of Hypno (or “Sleeper,” as the Pokémon is known in Japanese). Sunshine Ikezaki, who is mostly known for YELLING REALLY LOUDLY ALL THE TIME, only had a few lines in the anime, and this was just restricted to saying Hypno’s name. It’s not much of a cameo for fans of the comedian, especially after last week’s Pokenchi episode showed him busting into the Pokémon recording studio, but it still makes for some fun trivia.

The fans have also been celebrating the 1000^th episode of the series with fanart and messages of appreciation on social media. You can find them through the hashtag #アニポケ放送1000回記念 (“AniPoke 1000^th episode broadcast commemoration”). Here’s a sample of some of the fanart: