The new anime based on Game Freak's best-selling video game Pokemon Sword and Shield called Twilight Wings kicks off the series with an episode that will melt your heart.
The first episode titled Letter introduces us to a new character named John, who is a big fan of the Galar region's Pokemon champion, Leon. Upon learning that Chairman Rose is visiting the children's hospital he's staying in, John writes a letter for him.
John almost missed the chance to meet the Chairman as he took too long to write the letter. The sickly child learns that the Chairman has gone to the rooftop to take the flying taxi leaving the hospital. When he reached the rooftop, he sees that Chairman Rose has already left the building. But the Chairman would notice the child staring at him from afar on the rooftop and decides to return.
The starstruck child fainted when the Chairman began talking to him, which prompted the flying taxi's Corviknight to dash to his side and catch him from falling. John finds his hands empty, his letter missing, only to find it being blown away by the wind towards the Chairman.
He tells Chairman Rose that he wrote the letter for him, which made the Chairman pick the letter up. Chairman Rose finds John's drawing of Champion Leon with his Charizard at the back of the letter, commenting on how the child captured Leon's likeness in his doodle. He then tells John that if Pokemon likes him, just like how Corviknight showed earlier, then he has the potential to become a great trainer. The Chairman's words resonated in the child, giving him hope as he watched the flying taxi take Chairman Rose away.
Seven Pokemon Episodes Connected by a Flying Taxi
The lovely episode is the first out of seven episodes of a new anime series. While we will see familiar faces from the game in the anime shorts, it will mostly feature new characters in the Galar region, taking a look at the daily lives of normal people. The five-minute episodes are all interconnected by a flying taxi - a transportation carriage lifted by the Pokemon Corviknight.
We saw some characters from the 'Pokemon Sword and Shield' game appear in this episode. Most prominently seen were Chairman Rose and his executive assistant Oleana, visiting a children's hospital and signing kids' shirts as a sign of goodwill. We also saw Champion Leon battling against the Fighting-type Gym Leader Bea from Pokemon Sword. There was even an easily overlooked cameo by Ash Ketchum and Pikachu.
Giving a Voice to the Voiceless
In this episode, we finally heard how the voices of Chairman Rose and Oleana actually sounds like. In the game, characters bizarrely moved their lips without making any voices. The decision not to have voice acting in the latest Pokemon game drew criticisms from long-time fans of the series.
Meanwhile, Game Freak defended their decision not to include voice acting. "...Firstly, this is an RPG with a whole lot of text that we're then localizing and releasing in nine different languages at the same time," says director Shigeru Ohmori in an interview with Metro. "So from a purely practical point of view actually getting that organized and carrying out all the voice recording, the corrections and so on in nine different languages for release on exactly the same day is something that would be incredibly difficult."
The second reason he says concerns character images. "...If you've got a voice on that character that instantly provides to the player an image, a feel for that character that they don't generate themselves, it's pushed on them from the development side," says Ohmori. "Whereas if we have really flavorful text, for those characters, but no voice, the players can kind of create their own image of who that character is as they're playing. And that's something we really like to encourage as we're creating games."
The latter excuse for not having voice acting in the game is now shattered by the new anime, as the Chairman Rose now has a distinct voice that players and watchers could identify him with. However, the Chairman reappearing in the Pokemon Sword and Shield expansions is highly unlikely, which is why it's now okay to have the two above mentioned characters to finally be represented by a voice.
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Pokemon Twighlight Wings will have a new episode every month. You could catch the latest episode on the Official Pokemon Youtube Channel.
