The Pokemon Journeys anime has broken away from the established Pokemon anime formula in a number of key ways, such as having protagonists Ash Ketchum and Goh travel across the entire Pokemon world instead of only exploring a single region. Even so, fans were still shocked when the Pokemon Journeys anime teased that it was going to evolve Ash’s Pikachu into a Raichu. Now the episode in question has aired in Japan, revealing exactly what went down. Anyone that doesn’t want SPOILERS for the Pokemon Journeys anime should turn back now.
Basically, the episode in question is about Goh wanting to add a Pikachu of his own to his team. Goh winds up catching a female Pikachu, who tries to force Ash’s Pikachu to evolve into Raichu using a Thunder Stone. Pikachu has a long history of not wanting to evolve, dating all the way back to the original Pokemon anime series, and so it ran away from Goh’s Pikachu. There is a moment in the episode where it is implied that Goh’s Pikachu succeeded in evolving Ash’s Pikachu into Raichu, but it’s just to trick the audience. It’s quickly established that Ash’s Pikachu is still itself and not the Pikachu that evolved into Raichu.
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While this episode of Pokemon Journeys has aired in Japan, it has yet to release in English. Pokemon Journeys is exclusive to Netflix, with the next set of episodes set to release on September 11. So whenever this particular episode of the anime does air outside of Japan, it will do so on the Netflix streaming service.
The Pokemon anime series is known for sticking to a pretty strict formula, so Ash’s Pikachu evolving into Raichu would have been a shocking moment. But as previously mentioned, the anime has been taking some more risks lately. For example, in 2019, Ash finally won a Pokemon League Championship, after failing to pick up the victory for over two decades.
Fans can usually get a pretty good idea of what to expect from the Pokemon anime series based on the events of the video games, but this season has been far less predictable. However, it still occasionally features the Galar region and content from Pokemon Sword and Shield, so one has to imagine that episodes based on Sword and Shield DLC will be coming up at some point in the future as well.
So far, the Isle of Armor DLC has released for Sword and Shield, with the Crown Tundra DLC set to launch at some point later this year. What all it will entail remains to be seen, but fans should find out sooner rather than later.
Pokemon Journeys airs on Netflix.
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