What would it take to get these episodes on TV?

Dogasu's Backpack | Episode Comparisons | Best Wishes!

It's been nearly ten years since "The Rocket-Dan vs. The Plasma-Dan" two-parter was originally meant to premier. TV-Tokyo / OLM / whoever can't still think that it's too early to release these to the public, right? Why has it still never aired, even after all these years?

This page goes over what TV-Tokyo / OLM would want to do to make these episodes TV-ready and how likely it is to see them to ever see the light of day.

Could the episodes have been retconned?

One of the ideas floating around when Pocket Monsters Best Wishes! were still on the air was that OLM would want to edit "The Rocket-Dan vs. The Plasma-Dan" so they could slyly insert into a later point in the series. What would it have taken for them to go that route?

Well for starters the show would have to figure out how to get everyone back to the Desert Resort. Board another helicopter with Dr. Araragi from somewhere else in the Isshu region? Pretend like there's some other desert in the Isshu region, one that's closer to wherever Satoshi and his friends are at the time these episodes are re-inserted?

The Rocket-Dan's uniforms would have to be palette swapped from black to white.

Depending on the role the sunglasses Waruvile played, its appearance would either have to be altered - maybe insert a generic scene of Satoshi throwing a Monster Ball to make it seem like it's not a wild pokemon - or removed altogether.

If any of the pokemon who have evolved since these episodes were supposed to air appear, they'd have to be swapped out with their evolved forms instead. Here's what everyone's teams looked like as of the 22nd episode of Pocket Monsters Best Wishes!

Human Character	Pokémon Team	Human Character	Pokémon Team
Satoshi	Pikachu Hatohboh Mijumaru Pokabu Tsutarja Zurug Kurumayu	Musashi	Koromori
Iris	Kibago Doryuuzu	Kojirou	LOL, he had nothing
Dent	Yanapp Ishizumai

Hatohboh, Pokabu, Kurumayu, and Ishizumai have all evolved since these episodes took place, so any scene with them in the two-parter would either have to be reanimated or removed completely. Of course, it's also entirely possible that none of these pokemon showed up in the first place so maybe OLM had nothing to worry about.

So could it have been retconned...? Well...maybe? We can't really know for certain without seeing the episodes for ourselves but I suppose it would have been possible to edit the two-parter while Pocket Monsters Best Wishes! was still on the air. But that brings us to the next point:

OK, so they can't retcon them now..how about just airing them as-is instead?

Best Wishes! being finished means there's no way to retcon them back into existence and so that leaves us with just airing them as-is with a disclaimer telling kids that this is an episode airing out-of-order. After all, that's what they did for "The Castle Beneath the Sea! Kuzumo and Dramidoro!!" back in the XY days, right? Just do the same thing they did back then and call it a day!

But here's the thing. XY was still very much on the air when "The Castle Beneath the Sea! Kuzumo and Dramidoro!!" was eventually shown. It was even early enough in the series that Serena was still in her original design! With these Plasma episodes, meanwhile, we're a good three or four (depending on how you count XY&Z) series out from the end of Best Wishes! and so it's way, way harder to do that now.

So you're saying we're probably never going to see these episodes again?

Yeah, basically. Unfortunately, the problem is that OLM / TV-Tokyo missed their chance to ever air the two-parter. Doing it too early would be deemed as insensitive to all the fans who died the week before these episodes aired, and so they waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. And wai-- oops, we waited too long, looks like we've missed our chance.

At this point, TV-Tokyo, OLM, the sponsors, etc. just don't want to bother with this two-parter anymore, point blank period. Yes, TV-Tokyo did promise to air them at some point, but that promise has since been taken down. Plans change, weeks and months worth of work are scrapped, and promises are broken. This sort of thing happens.

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This page was last updated on October 3rd, 2019