Japanese Title: Splitting Up the Combination!? Satoshi and Rotom
Original Airdate: November 25, 2018
US Airdate: March 28, 2019
Rotom's fandom for Laki has led it to be cast in the series. But that may end up breaking its fellowship with Ash, as the series may be going overseas for filming.
This episode contains examples of the following tropes:
- Continuity Nod: When Ash talks with Lillie about his fight with Rotom, Lillie admits she felt much the same way about Lusamine being a Workaholic and neglecting her.
- Fanboy: Rotom finally meets Laki and Smeargle.
- Friend-or-Idol Decision: Rotom faces this choice. A talk with Laki leads it to remain with Ash.
- Production Foreshadowing: At the time of the Japanese airing of the episode, one of the final scenes features the only overseas episode of Alolan Detective Laki set in a very obvious pastiche of London.note This would later be implied to be the England-inspired Galar Region.
- Self-Deprecation: Some of the issues the Detective Laki show suffers from seem like a comical lampshade to some of the problems many fans label the anime itself as having, such as Series Continuity Error moments (which here are excused as coming from not having time to error check scripts), or its Long Runner status leading to increasing new characters and backdrop to prevent it going stale, much like the anime does every series.
- Series Continuity Error: In-Universe: While watching the filming of an Alolan Detective Laki episode, Rotom freaks out when a line during filming contradicts the events of a prior episode, which a fact-checker on-site confirms.
