With nearly 1,100 episodes to its name, the original Pokemon series ended last year and things were set up for the new series that began on November 17th, 2019. It’s been moving along since then but as we noted last month, production has now been suspended thanks to the growing COVID-19 pandemic in Japan and the warnings and measures taken by the government. While older episodes will be run in place of new ones until such a time that the show’s production can get back on track, things are moving forward since there’s plenty to map out and accomplish during the downtime. One of those things is some casting as it’s been revealed by the official site that Tatsuhisa Suzuki has joined the show to play Kibana, better known as Raihan in previous English incarnations. With the show having been picked up by Netflix, we’ll see some English casting of the character someday. Check out the released visual below.
Daiki Tomiyasu serves as the chief director with Maki Odaira directing based on the series composition by Shoji Yonemura. Shuhei Yasuda is working on the character designs with OLM again producing the animation.
The Japanese cast so far includes:
- Daiki Yamashita as Gō
- Rica Matsumoto as Satoshi
- Kana Hanazawa as Koharu
- Yūichi Nakamura as Professor Sakuragi
『ポケットモンスター ソード・シールド』でも人気✨
ダンデのライバル #キバナ が#アニポケ に登場します！！声優を務めるのは #鈴木達央 さんです✨
キバナの名ゼリフ
アニポケで聞けるかな⁉
どうぞご期待ください‼ pic.twitter.com/zZpHxBqGtO— アニメ「ポケットモンスター」公式 (@anipoke_PR) May 6, 2020
Plot Concept: In a forest somewhere in Kanto, there once was a lonely Pichu. This Pichu – who was still quite young – had a certain encounter and farewell. This took place shortly before Ash and his partner Pikachu started travelling together. This is the beginning of the anime “Pocket Monster.”
