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Remakes of Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire were recently released on the Nintendo 3DS, and fans have been abuzz about all the little differences and new references in the games. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m not very familiar with the series but I’m happy to take interesting questions, so here’s one from Sean A.!

This line from Steven in Pokemon Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire references an episode of the Pokemon anime, “～ Pocket Monsters XY Special Episode: The Strongest Mega Evolution ~Act II~” in which Steven teams up with a trainer named Alain (who, yes, has a black Mega Charizard) and battles rayquaza. Is this found in the Japanese version of the game? Because the implications for the Pokemon canon could be massive if that’s the case.

Sean included this image from the English version of the game:

I wonder whatever happened to him and that black Charizard of his…

Alas, I don’t have the Japanese games to check and even if I did I’d probably be pretty terrible at it, but using the powers of the Internet I was able to confirm that the Japanese versions indeed reference a black Charizard/Lizardon user!

Here’s a look at the text side-by-side:

Japanese Version (basic translation) English Version Seeing that little white one you’re traveling with brings back memories. You know, seeing that white beauty there that you travel with… The Legendary Pokemon Rayquaza is said to descend at the Sky Pillar. I once faced off with it long ago, actually, I’m reminded of the Legendary Pokemon Rayquaza, said to descend at the Sky Pillar. I once had the chance to see it face to face. Although, it was a long time ago now… and I’m reminded of the young trainer who used a black Mega-Lizardon as we battled the Rayquaza together then. The young man who battled against Rayquaza beside me… I wonder what became of him and his black Lizardon… I wonder whatever happened to him and that black Charizard of his…

I still need to find the full Japanese text of this scene all in one place, so my rough translation above is sort of in a patchwork format right now. But the main thing to take away is that yes, the Japanese text clearly refers to a black Mega Charizard user, the Sky Pillar, and all that. In fact, Japanese fans seemed to take great delight in this connection with the anime too!

Summary: Yes, the Japanese text includes references to the anime in this part of the game.

So hopefully that helps answer the question about the possible anime connection! I’m not familiar enough with some of these things to know what this might mean for canon or whatnot, but it’s cool to see everyone so excited about it, so that’s good enough for me!

(If anyone playing the Japanese version can get me screenshots or at least a transcription of the full scene here, please let me know in the comments or Twitter!)

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