Infinite Wealth Sujimon Softlock?

So I've been playing through the sujimon substory and I really have appreciated it so far. Reminds me of the Real Estate/Cabaret from 0

I've been progressing pretty normally up to this point until I reached a point where I hit Sujimon level 35 and got a text from Joker saying he wanted to throw me a party at Aces Gym, I naturally figured this would be the showdown so I grinded a few gold trainers beforehand and put myself at an even level 40 for what I assumed would be the showdown.

Showed up at the gym, Sodachi left the party and I walk out of the gym normally and nothing happens after that.

I looked up a guide because I'm not sure if I was missing something but apparently once you reach level 40 you're supposed to be able to return to Aces Gym and pick up Super Sodachi (which sounds cool I've kept him on my team from the start) but when I return to the gym, no such thing happens, which means I cannot take sodachi back into my party, which means I cant receive the text from joker to initiate the real showdown.

Am I softlocked? Am I doing something wrong? I want to see what the sujimancer job is all about and it'd be kind of a kick in the dick to restart my playthrough, I understand I could probably go to an old save and see if that fixes it but I'd rather have people be aware of this bug as long as I'm not the one doing something wrong

Has anyone had a similar thing happen to them?