Any anime fan worth their salt is at least vaguely familiar with the work of legendary Japanese voice actor Daisuke Ono. The accomplished male seiyuu has worked in the industry for almost 20 years now, contributing his voice to an endless number of iconic anime heroes and villains. Now, the incredibly talented voice actor is tackling the world of pocket monsters, as an official tweet confirms that an upcoming episode of the latest Pokémon will see Daisuke Ono joining the cast as Galar region Pokémon League Champion Leon.
https://twitter.com/anipoke_PR/status/1223901876053135362
Named Dande in Japan, Leon is one of the most iconic characters in the latest Pokémon games, Pokémon Sword and Shield. It only makes sense, then, that the currently airing Pocket Monsters anime would get an equally iconic voice actor to portray him. Fans will be able to hear Daisuke Ono voice the Galar region Pokémon League Champion when the character debuts in the 12th episode of the anime, titled “Daimax Battle! Saikyō Ōsha Dande!!” (Dynamax Battle! The Strongest Champion Leon!!). The episode will air in Japan on February 9th. The episode is set to bring in another iconic character: Lance, the Dragon-type Trainer and member of the Indigo Elite Four from the Kanto region. Lance and Leon are set to do battle in the episode as part of the Pokémon World Championships.
It’s hard to find a classic anime franchise that Daisuke Ono isn’t a part of. The acclaimed voice actor made some of his earliest impressions as the voice of Sebastian Michaelis in Black Butler and Battler Ushiromiya in Umineko When They Cry, and later voiced memorable characters like Shizuo Heiwajima in Durarara!! and Shintarō Midorima in Kuroko’s Basketball. It’s his more modern roles that will likely be most recognizable, though. He lent his voice to the Osomatsu-san anime as Jyushimatsu, and also voiced Jotaro Kujo in JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure and Erwin Smith in Attack on Titan.
The new Pokémon anime series, simply titled Pocket Monsters, premiered on TV Tokyo on November 17th of 2019, just a couple of days after the worldwide launch of the Pokémon Sword and Pokémon Shield games. The anime series currently airs on Sundays at 6:00 p.m., the same timeslot as the previous Pokémon anime, Pokémon Sun & Moon.
The anime is produced as studio OLM, with Daiki Tomiyasu serving as the chief director for the series. He was previously the director of Pokémon Sun & Moon. He’s joined by Maki Odaira, director for the series and previous episode director on Pokémon Sun & Moon. Kunihiko Yuyama is the creative supervisor on Pocket Monsters, while Shoji Yonemura is in charge of series construction and Shuhei Yasuda is working as character designer. Music for the anime is being composed by Yuki Hayashi, while Masafumi Mima serves as sound director. The series has a huge amount of scriptwriters, with some of them being Reiko Yoshida, Shoji Yonemura, Deko Akao, Jun’ichi Fujisaku, Michihiro Tsuchiya, Touko Machida, Yuka Miyata, Aya Matsui, Atsuhiro Tomioka, and Akemi Omode.
While most Pokémon anime feature one protagonist, the iconic Ash (or Satoshi in Japan), Pocket Monsters actually features two. Daisuke Ono’s Leon will be butting heads with Ash, but he will also confront new series protagonist Go. Voiced by Daiki Yamashita, Go is a 10 year old with a cute little Scorbunny who’s dream is to capture all Pokémon, especially Mew. He and Ash are set to do a fair amount of traveling, as the new Pokémon anime is set to feature all regions previously seen in the series, including the latest region of Galar from Pokémon Sword and Pokémon Shield.
This also isn’t the only anime series based on Pokémon Sword and Shield to be airing right now. Pokémon: Twilight Wings (Hakumei no Tsubasa) is an anime web series consisting of seven five-minute episodes currently being produced by Studio Colorido. The series debuted on YouTube on January 15th, and while the Galar region Pokémon League Champion Leon has yet to appear in the series, there’s a strong chance that he’ll be voiced by Daisuke Ono there as well.
