Why were these episodes not shown?

Dogasu's Backpack | Episode Comparisons | Best Wishes!

So why was "The Rocket-Dan vs. The Plasma-Dan" skipped in the first place?

The most we've been told in any official capacity is that the episodes were not shown "due to unfortunate circumstances" (放送を予定していました「ロケット団ＶＳプラズマ団！」は、都合により放送延期になりました). Based on what was happening in Japan at the time (March 2011) pretty much everyone knows that "unfortunate circumstances" is referring to the Great East Japan Earthquake.

The TL;DR version of the disaster is that on March 11th, 2011, one of the biggest earthquakes ever recorded in modern human history struck northeast Japan, triggering huge tidal waves that killed more than 15,000 people and caused billions of yen in property damage.

We know from the various previews that had aired in the weeks leading up to the debut that there were quite a few scenes of buildings being destroyed in "The Rocket-Dan vs. The Plasma-Dan." The popular theory is that the powers that be therefore felt that airing episodes would be in bad taste given the recent tragedies.

To be fair, the U.S. had the exact same reaction after the September 11th attacks; any movie or TV show that depicted skyscrapers being destroyed were either edited or not shown at all.

A third Best Wishes! episode, unrelated to this two-parter, was most likely skipped because of the disasters well. Its (original) title was "The Hiun City Fishing Tournament! The Fishing Sommelier Dent Enters!!" and it was meant to air on April 7th, 2011 as the 26th episode of Pocket Monsters Best Wishes! This episode was likely postponed because it features our heroes near water, which seems super innocuous now but at that time anything that might even hint at those deadly tsunamis were probably seen as too risky. An edited version of the episode eventually aired on June 23rd, 2011.

Since these episodes were skipped in Japan, they were also skipped when other countries got around to dubbing the series. I'm certain TV-Tokyo has some sort of clause in their contracts that gives them first dibs on new episodes (one-offs like The Mastermind of Mirage Pokémon, which was a co-production, being the exception) and therefore won't allow any other country to air the episodes before they do. In other words, if TV-Tokyo doesn't air them, then no one can.

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This page was last updated on October 3rd, 2019