Ash Ketchum will finally be visiting the Pokémon world equivalent of Great Britain in the upcoming Pokémon Journeys: The Series on Netflix. We hope that the dubbing team resists the urge to give Leon a horrible British accent, along with everyone else in the Galar region.
Pokémon Sword & Shield were the first Pokémon games to appear on a home console. As such, some fans believed that they could feature voice acting. This turned out to not be the case, and all of the characters remained mute. The dialogue of the NPCs in Pokémon Sword & Shield was often written with an undetermined British accent in mind, but there are disagreements among the fans over what each one could be.
The Pokémon anime has featured characters with British accents throughout its run and the English dub did occasionally reference England/Great Britain as locations within the Pokémon world. These were usually posh accents that were reserved for stuffy characters and they didn't crop up very often. This could all change in the Galar region, as the dubbing team might expect all of the natives to be sporting thick British accents.
Pokémon Journeys: The Series will debut on Netflix with dubbed versions of the first twelve episodes of the anime, and Leon is set to appear in one of them. We hope that the team behind the localization of the Pokémon anime resist the urge to give Leon an accent that sounds like Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins.
This applies to everyone in the Galar region. Ash Ketchum will only be spending a limited amount of time in the Galar region in Pokémon Journeys: The Series, as he will be visiting every region with the aid of a teleportation device. This might be a blessing in disguise, as the world has hopefully been spared from a season of voice actors trying out their British regional accents in an anime. The fact that Ash Ketchum isn't doing the Galar Gym Challenge means we have been spared a scouse Nessa, a mancunian Kabu, or a welsh Piers, but there is still a chance that Ash will face off against a Leon with a bad cockney accent.
As funny as it sounds, it's not worth it.
Pokémon Journeys: The Series will debut on Netflix on June 12, 2020.