The world sure loves these colorful pocket-sized creatures! Modelpress reported that TV Tokyo will broadcast the 1000th episode of the popular anime ‘Pokémon’ on November 9th. The anime that has since conquered the world began 20 years ago when Ash (Satoshi in Japan, voiced by Rica Matsumoto) began chasing his dream of becoming a pokémon master in 1997.

To celebrate the milestone, TV Tokyo will hold various events and drafts. In addition, a special seiyuu guest will appear in the 1000th episode. Comedian Sunshine Ikezaki will make his voice actor debut in the episode, playing a pocket monster named Sleeper, a Psychic-type pokémon.

With its 1000th episode ‘Pokémon’ joins a commendable list of long-running anime shows that have passed the magical landmark. The list includes, for example, the longest-running anime title ‘Sasae-chan’ (over 7500 episodes as of October, 2017), the space cat ‘Doraemon’ (~1700 episodes) and Japan’s forever favorite ‘Chibi Maruko-chan’ (~1100 episodes). A nice club to belong to, don’t you think?

(Via Modelpress, TV Tokyo)