@Dephender's long post: I think you're dead-on in everything you said. That's very likely the ultimate reason for the long delay.
That, and finding an appropriate point to air them that TPCI would agree with, seeing as their skipping forced TPCI to make that edit to BW022 covering up the plot hole. I don't think TPCI wanted TV Tokyo just airing them out of nowhere between unrelated episodes, as that would end up being how it went in the dub too, thus confusing many dub viewers.
One slip-up, though:
6 months+, actually. That's what was said. Still, the full plans for the entire initial story arc, with TR vs. TP as the conclusion, would have been made before BW even aired.Originally Posted by Dephender
To reference episodes that were cancelled is a fool's move, and contradicts the claims of those who believe they're cancelled that the studio "wants people to forget about them." Plus, Liepard is seen again toward the end of the OP, being beaten by the Looker/TRio team. All the other Plasma Pokemon in the OP (the ones controlled by Colress) are going to be in the show, so logically, so will Liepard. And what better way to introduce it than through those episodes that are being referenced in it's first scene on the OP? Makes perfect sense to me.
Here is the source: it's a French site and the likely TPCI guy commenting is Goltik. And as for why he's likely in TPCI, it's worth noting is that he didn't even start commenting by talking about the two-parter; he actually first said something that in hindsight was absolutely correct: that the Unova League is going to be in Season 16 of the dub, not Season 15, and that Best Wishes will end in 2013. To know both of these waaay ahead of time before they became public knowledge, and said with such certainty, indicates he's an inside guy.
And before anyone says anything, there is a glitch on the site that always makes the comments' dates read the current month. All comments were actually made in February 2012.
BTW, it's also interesting that a Latin American source said the same basic thing a week prior, but in less detail than Goltik did (they said the episodes "come with modifications", whereas Goltik went the whole hog and directly compared them to the fishing episode, noting that the scenario / placement was changed.)
That's assuming he used any members of his team aside from Pikachu in the two-parter to begin with. He very well may not have.This makes it sound like they will be worked into the current storyline meaning TR will have white uniforms, Ash's Team will have changed etc
Correct. Note that Goltik also said "Late 2012" as a possibility. In fact, it really never was one, but "Season 16" started in Japan in Q4 and, had there not been some weekly breaks that were not anticipated back when these comments were made, Episode N could have started in December as well. This makes sense: if Goltik is with TPCI and thus not one of the actual Japanese production team members, then he doesn't know the exact ordering of the episodes in "Season 16", just the content (The Unova League, Episode N and the two-parter, etc.) Hence, his need to speculate Late 2012 in additon to early 2013.
