‘Best Wishes’ Characters Iris and Dento Revealed on ‘Pokemon Sunday’

I was at the Pokemon Center in Tokyo yesterday and they were handing out Reshiram and Zekrom keychains to people who preorder the games – each keychain plays the respective Pokemon’s in-game cry. I was in a rush and the line was too long, but maybe someone from Japan will post their cries soon.

Pokemon Sunday has revealed the full character designs of Iris, the new female companion to Ash, as well as a new male character, Dento; both will appear in Best Wishes, the next “season” of the anime that will take place in the Isshu region. Iris is confirmed to have a Kibago as seen in the character sheet leaked a few weeks ago, but nothing is known about Dento at this point in time. Click the screenshots below to enlarge them.

During one of the segments, the Pokemon Sunday crew was able to get inside the new Black and White tour buses that will be traveling around Japan this month. They tried out the game demo inside, battling Belle, Cheren, and encountering a wild Shimama on a rainy route. It is interesting to note that Shimama’s mane was white during the first part of the battle, but once it used an Electric-type attack, the mane started to glow yellow… could we have varying animations like this with other Pokemon? [I was watching a low-quality video when I wrote that originally – it glows yellow before and after the attack.] Next week, the show promises to reveal more details on Victini.

Update (6:00 PM) – TV Tokyo has uploaded 5-second clips of Tsuutaja, Pokabu, Mijumaru, and Reshiram. They are presumably from the first or so episode of Best Wishes, which probably means one of the characters sees Reshiram for an instant like Ash saw Ho-Oh and Dawn say Mesprit.

Update #2 (6:30 PM) – The TV Tokyo website also posted biographies of the characters. For Iris, they say, “Her specialty is tree climbing, she makes good use of berries for herself, and she is a girl with very wild behavior. For some reason, she is traveling with the Dragon-type Pokemon, Kibago.” For Dento, the new male, they say he is “A Pokemon Sommelier (waiter) who is a source of abundant knowledge and experience, diagnoses the compatibility between Trainer and Pokemon, and gives advice on how to befriend. Is this really, in fact, true?!” My theory based on the biographies: Iris replaces Dawn (obvious to anyone) and Dento replaces Brock or is just a rival in Pokemon Contests. Thanks goes to KurowaSan from our forums for the translations!

Update #3 (6:45 PM) – Higher-quality videos of the anime preview and game footage added below thanks to our friends at Filb.de.