Pokémon anime’s Brock and Misty reunion has a perfect, old-school callback

Fan favorites Brock and Misty guest starred in the Pokémon cartoon’s last two Japanese episodes, featuring in a two-part special that reunited them with Ash after several years out of the spotlight. Seeing the trio back at it again was cool enough, but a callback to the original Pokémon games made the episodes even more exciting.

As is customary in the world of Pokémon, Ash takes on Brock and Misty in a pair of gym battles to prove just how much stronger he’s gotten since he last saw them. It’s easy to forget that the Kanto kids are gym leaders first, Ash’s traveling companions second — but the Sun and Moon two-parter makes sure to remind us.

What’s cool about these gym battles isn’t the nostalgic excitement of Ash besting his buds’ new and improved teams and earning some old-school badges. It’s that the anime recreates Brock and Misty’s poses from the Game Boy Pokémon games, throwing it back to their familiar sprites.

You know what that means, team: We get to see a shirtless Brock. And shirtless Brock has a six-pack. A Twitter user puts it best: “Can you believe that Brock tried and failed to hook up with a single girl for 20 years when all he had to do was TAKE OFF HIS DAMNED SHIRT?”

It’s a good question, because damn, Brock. When did you have time to work out between all that cooking, traveling and futile flirting?

Everyone is understandably freaking out about Brock, but we appreciate that Misty’s battle stance shows up, too. And her original swimsuit shows up briefly, too, as another throwback.

An English version won’t air stateside for quite awhile, so we’ll have to let these pics sate us for now. It’s nice to see the gang back together, at any rate.