Meeting Up with the Monarch! – Pokémon Season 25, Episode 10

Plot episodeLeon vs FlintGoh catches Gossifleur

Meeting Up with the Monarch! is the 10th episode of Pokémon Ultimate Journeys: The Series, the twenty-fifth season of the Pokémon anime, and the 1180th episode of the English dub overall (Japanese episode 1186, Bulbapedia code JN100). It first aired in Japan on 4 March 2022 and in the United States on 21 October 2022. It falls within the season’s Marnie, the Monarch & a return to Kalos stretch (EP99–EP104).

Released on Netflix in the US on 21 October 2022 with the first part (JN091–JN102); Teletoon had premiered it in Canada on 30 July 2022.

Synopsis · Major Events · Trivia · Dub Changes · All episodes

Synopsis

After watching Leon defeat Flint, Ash spends a day training with the Galar Champion, who reveals his surprisingly childlike side and his fears about being unbeaten, while Goh catches a Gossifleur and learns about Leon’s past from Sonia. The morning after beating Marnie, Ash finds a note saying that Goh is waiting at the Motostoke Riverbank, but on his way out he hears that Leon is battling at Wyndon Stadium. There he watches the Champion’s Charizard trade blows with the Infernape of Flint, the Sinnoh Elite Four member Ash once met, until a Dragon Claw ends the match; Leon’s unbeaten streak continues, and the two promise to battle again. In the lobby Ash tells Leon that he has reached 15th place, and Leon invites him to train with him on the spot. At the riverbank Goh catches a Gossifleur that has been playing with Grookey, then lets it go on playing. Sonia, surveying Power Spots in the Wild Area, pushes the reluctant Goh into her car, despite his memories of her driving, to show him a good place for catching Pokémon.

Leon announces that he and Ash will train by the sea, but his terrible sense of direction lands them in a forest, so he switches to the mountains, where Charizard smashes boulders with Dragon Claw. They climb a waterfall, Leon recalls Charizard in mid-climb, and they plunge in free fall until Dragapult catches them; they land among a herd of Wooloo and follow a flock of Dreepy. Meanwhile Sonia tells Goh that Leon is a big kid around Pokémon when he is not battling, which Goh thinks describes Ash perfectly, and that as a boy Leon had few friends because he was busy helping at home and caring for his brother Hop, until meeting Charmander brought him friends and rivals through battle. Over lunch, Leon tells Ash that battling, training and playing all mean the same thing to him: having fun with Pokémon, and Ash wholeheartedly agrees.

A pair of Corviknight suddenly attack the Wooloo and Dreepy. Leon draws them away on Dragapult and calms one by covering its eyes with his shirt, while Ash climbs the cliff and finds a nest of three Rookidee, one of them injured: the parents were only protecting their young. When the agitated Corviknight strikes a passing Dreepy, the blast knocks the injured Rookidee off the cliff, and Ash dives after it until Leon and the calmed Corviknight catch them. Leon bandages the chick’s wing, and he admits he would have leapt too. When Ash asks what being Champion is like, Leon confesses that never losing made him afraid he had reached his limit, until Eternatus’s overwhelming power showed him stronger opponents still exist. He urges Ash to climb to the top and meet him there. Unfortunately, Leon cannot remember where he left his car, and hours later the pair finally reach Wyndon, where an exasperated Goh and Sonia are waiting.

Major Events

• Training with Leon. Leon beats Flint, back after 528 episodes, in a World Coronation Series battle
• Ash trains with Leon for a day
• Goh catches Gossifleur
• Sonia tells of Leon’s childhood
• The fourth version of 1·2·3, sung by Satoshi & Go, begins
• Barrett Leddy takes over Ash’s Rotom Phone

Pokémon making their anime debut

• Gossifleur#0829 · JN100

Captures and evolutions

• Gossifleur#0829 · Goh · caught while Ash trains with Leon

Trivia

• The screenplay is by Michihiro Tsuchiya.
• This is a plot episode: it advances the Kanto, Galar & beyond storyline.

Changes in the English Dub

• The Wyndon Stadium caption is removed
• Barrett Leddy takes over Ash’s Rotom Phone
• The Japanese opening becomes Satoshi & Go’s version of 1·2·3

Part of our Pokémon Ultimate Journeys: The Series guide. Browse every season of the Pokémon anime.