Yup, Masaaki Iwane talks about that very thing in that one interview he did back in 2015. dogasu.bulbagarden.net/features/tra...

It's a shame how, back in the day, most of us in outside Japan didn't have a way of keeping up with the Japanese version week-to-week. Can you imagine how much excitement would 've been generated by seeing Raikou showing up in the Next Episode Preview, in real time!?

Watch out Kojirou, he's coming for your gig!

One of the Pichu has a little tuft of hair in the front that the others do not. When I was watching this I assumed this was done to show us that this one's the leader of the group or something, but at the end of the day it seems like it's no different from every other Pichu in the episode...?

There are a lot of things about this image I love, but probably my favorite part in this is the implication that Musashi and Kojirou have broken out a champagne bottle in order to watch Pokémon.

Speaking of this scene, I've gone on record stating how much I dislike how so many of the Johto Pokémon are being depicted as helpless little babies, and unfortunately we see that again with the Pichu in this episode. They can't even use any of their Electric attacks without passing out!? Boooooo! 😠

This whole "Pichu vs. Onidrill" scene reminds me so much of the "Pikachu vs. Onisuzume" scene from the very first episode. In both episodes, a member of the Pikachu family fights off an Unshou Ishizuka voiced bird, all while the exact same piece of music plays in the background.

The noisemakers Anju puts up around her (totally not an apple) orchard are called "naruko" (鳴子). Real-world naruko are used for the same reasons they're used in this episode; to ward off birds and other pests that could potentially harm a farmer's harvest.

This is particularly odd because the *last* time our heroes were at an apple orchard (Episode 128 "The Rediba Whistle!") the show had no problem using the term. I wonder what changed.

For some reason this episode shies away from referring to the red fruit as "apples" (リンゴ or りんご), instead using terms like "orchard" (果樹園) or "fruit" (実 or 果物). This is despite the show being able to use "banana" just a handful of episodes ago. bsky.app/profile/doga...

The character-of-the-day, Anju, is voiced by Fumiko Orikasa! Most of you will probably know her best as Rukia from the show Bleach, but she's been in a whole lot of other things as well.

The episode's title, "Pikachu and Pichu!," is very similar to the title of the Pikachu episode that aired alongside the third movie, "Pichu and Pikachu." This was probably intentional; after all, the show was still very much trying to make Pichu the show's Next Big Thing™

Episode 179 "Pikachu and Pichu!" The first episode of the new millennium involves our heroes helping out a young woman with a rat infested orchard 🤮 The Pichu being such weaklings was annoying but otherwise this was an alright episode. #DogasuWatchesJohto

*Technically* second, but this is the first time we're seeing an entire episode with her and her new hair color.

And that's all for "Mewtwo Lives!" We'll see Mewtwo (and Pures Rock!) again in "Mewtwo Strikes Back Evolution," and Mewtwo itself will reappear in a Pocket Monsters (2019) episode nearly 20 years later, but as far as Mewtwo material written by Takeshi Shudo this is it!

Mewtwo's plot wrapper-upper beam also created a Pikachu hot air balloon, I guess!

The ending to this is kind of trash. Mewtwo gets upset, shoots a beam into the air, and then...everyone lives happily ever after, the end. It's clear Takeshi Shudo couldn't come up with a decent way to wrap all this up so he gave us this deus ex machina nonsense and called it a day.

Mewtwo's supposed to weigh about 122 kilos (269 pounds), by the way.

This episode marks the first (and only?) time Takeshi meets Sakaki! In a late Hoenn episode Musashi and Nyarth make an ice sculpture of their Boss, prompting Takeshi to comment "I feel like I've seen this person before..."

Why not just...use your Pokémon to destroy this robot? Takeshi still has that giant snake Pokémon made out of boulders, remember...?

This special being colored digitally means computers are now a part of the animation pipeline, which in turn also means that copying/pasting Pokémon like this is now possible. If this had been done on animation cels then the animators would have had to draw each individual Pokémon one by one!

Why are they just standing around, waiting for some random explosion to free them? You're telling me not a single person in that jail cell thought to use the army of powerhouse Pokémon behind them to break out themselves?

These are the worst restraints ever, right?

Seeing Mewtwo using its own two feet to walk like any other bipedal creature feels so unbelievably cursed to me.

TV Special "Mewtwo Lives" (Part Three) Takeshi Shudo's writing takes a steep nosedive here because boy oh boy does he botch the landing here. There's still some exciting action going on but there's also a lot about this that just doesn't make any sense. #DogasuWatchesJohto

I feel like I'm one of the only #anipoke fans who just doesn't see this as a big deal? So those babies are Nidoqueen instead of Nidoran, big whoop. It really does seem like such a non-issue to me.

Him sticking half his hand into the water just completely contaminated the sample he's taking, right?

I guess when Mewtwo stumbled across this cave it's entirely possible this jail cell was already there, like as a relic of some past war or something, but it's also funny to think of Mewtwo just being bored one day and going "you know what this place needs?" 😅

For some reason this show *really* wants us to know that Satoshi's Grass-Types know how to make a canoe lol bsky.app/profile/doga...

Speaking of the world, the map behind Sakaki implies that the Pokémon World equivalent of the Australian continent is nestled between its versions of South America and Africa...!?