the scripts for the infamously cancelled "Team Rocket VS Team Plasma" Anime arc have been scanned and released online.

[Krvavi Abadas]

for those unaware of the backstory, this arc (intended to be Team Plasma's debut in the Anime) was canned at the very last second due to the Tōhoku earthquake. a decision which happened late enough that it had already gotten a preview segment in the episode intended to proceed it. it was even reportedly sent to the team that worked on the english dub, only for them to have to skip it as well.


the group instead debuted in a completely new episode released almost 2 years later. which wiped the canned arc out of canon.

this also notably wasn't the first time an episode of the anime went unreleased due to an earthquake, "Shaking Island Battle! Dojoach VS Namazun!!", from the Ruby and Sapphire season. was canned back in 2004 due to the Chūetsu earthquake.
though in that case it was a standalone episode that wasn't intended to be a highly important part of the storyline.

 

[SeafoamGaming]

Holy shit, this is a megaton: kid me was SO MAD they skipped over this and never went back to it: I even noticed around episode 50ish (Rival Destinies) the tone of the whole BW arc seemed to have shifted away from the more serious stuff they were building up, and that, plus the lackluster league and outright boring Plasma arc we did get led to BW as a whole feeling incredibly damaged by this one event. Least XY gave us a bad guy arc done well.

 

[EvilChameleon]

Gonna be fun to see the animatics that will eventually come out of this.

 

[Chaotic Neutral]

I was going to say that wow, that funding took no time at all. Very happy that the script eventually surfaced and in this manner.