Pokémon anime

I mean, considering the lack of continuity between Alola and the previous gens it already kind of has happened to Serena.

Would Rica Matsumoto/Sarah Natochenny still voice Ash in another 20 years, though?

Of course she would.

They haven't started explicitly teasing another ship though... yet

Ash and Lillie might be a thing, though I think the sheer amount of female companion he has in Alola drew comparisons to a harem anime XD;

Rica would be 68 20 years from now. Even taking into account Japanese work culture, she'd still be near the end of her career at that point. And while Pikachu can use past voice clips, Ash can't. And neither can the VAs for Team Rocket for that matter... One of those three goes down, you can probably proceed with the off-screen dismantling of Team Rocket (the organization). If and when Rica goes down, then it's time to Wrap It Up.

I do grant, and have from Day One, that if any of the Gen 7 girls were designated "the" Gen 7 girl, it'd be Lillie.

Mok 73 agrees.

There will be no heavily promoted in-series Ash ship again, just the usual teases the writers throw in between Ash and every female companion we have every saga because they know people like it. But if you mean something major and focused on like Serena's crush was, I don't see them ever doing it again. Doing that first time around felt like a big deal, but nobody is going to care a second time.

And as said, with Ash staying forever and the female lead always leaving after the generation, there's like no point. Then again some pokeshippers have spent the last 15 years of their lives since 2002 hoping Misty would return in vain, so who knows. If people want to waste decades of their lives obsessing over ships in something like Pokemon of all things, that's their issues I suppose.

edited 16th Jul '17 9:22:05 PM by precita

Not true.

The 80 year old Masako Nozawa has voiced Goku for over 30 years, and there's no sign of her stopping any time soon.

edited 16th Jul '17 10:55:07 PM by Hashil

SM021 inspired Sarah Natochenny and Lisa Ortiz to start an animal welfare site.

https://www.voicesforfosters.org/

"Voices for Fosters is a non-profit organization run by two voice actors with a shared passion for animal welfare and education. Inspired by an episode of Pokémon dealing with death, Sarah Natochenny and Lisa Ortiz mobilized a community of artists to promote fostering programs around the world and help unburden overwhelmed shelter systems. Our goal is to bring the joy of pet companionship to people who didn't think they had the time, end euthanasia and improve care standards for all animals."

Fitting, as Sarah is Ash's voice actress, and Lisa is Litten's.

edited 18th Jul '17 12:39:09 PM by Zoroark69

Awwwww! <3 How sweet of them!

... I forget, was that the episode where Bulbapedia was like '[Pokemon] disappeared and shouldn't be listed as dead unless it's explicitly confirmed?'

edited 18th Jul '17 2:00:32 PM by lalalei2001

Yes.

The least they could do was write that it's implied.

I wasn't sure if it was the Stoutland episode, the Espurr episode, or the Litten episode XD;

I believe it's the Stoutland episode, as the Espurr episode had a character mention the old caretaker pass away sometime ago.

It might also be Lysandre's demise, as I recall Bulbapedia originally wrote that he perished during the fight before someone changed it, arguing with the whole disappear rule.

It's as if Bulbapedia is being written by 4Kids at times.

BTW, when are they ever going to write new Ash Ketchum page?

4Kids did have death now and then. Maybe they were confusing it with Cyrus, who did disappear XD

Kiawe caught Alolan Marowak in this week's episode. Of course, it's his signature Pokemon in-game, so that was to be expected.

Is Kiawe the only character shown just as experienced as he is in the games? Like Mallow, Lana and Sophocles all feel like beginning trainers or rookies, not anything like the experienced trial leaders they seem to be in the games. However Kiawe is the only one that seems just as mature, and confident as he is in the games. It's why a lot of people think the SM anime is almost a prequel to the games, because the main cast aren't quite trial leaders yet.

It's almost sort of similar to the way anime Misty and Brock felt like younger and less experienced versions of their game counterparts. In the games Misty is this experienced water pokemon trainer, in the anime she was a runaway from her Gym and the youngest of 4 sisters with little to no battle experience. Anime Brock was also too busy taking care of his family which didn't exist in the games, so Brock there stands shirtless like a tough trainer.

I notice the anime always purposely makes whatever characters they used into rookie or less experienced versions of their game counterparts. I think Cilan might be the only exception because he was exactly like his game version, and maybe now Kiawe.

I'll note that the anime has always been more comfortable with the deaths of humans than the deaths of Pokemon, for some reason. They straight-up had a 150-year-old Ninetails mistaking Brock for its trainer, even though it knew its trainer was long dead.

That was ironically one of the only times a Pokemon actually functioned in a manner similar to its real life inspiration.

New movie confirmed to be set in an alternate universe and Ash confirmed to never age.

I think you're misreading that. The quote is "time has not passed since the start of the journey. Ash is eternally 10 years old"

I bolded the bit that's important. Ash won't age but neither will anybody else.

Clearly every episode took place in the span of one year. :P

I never understood why they couldn't just gradually age him 1 year per region. Like be 11 in Johto, 12 in AG, 13 in DP, and 14/15 around XY.

It'd make sense in XY's case especially since he was drawn to look more like a teenager in that series.

Yeah, that is what I have been saying. Gradually age him up one year each season, and make him a Veteran trainer. Heck, they could have still kept Ash around by not making him the main character each season, but instead the player characters of each new season would get the generation and they would be his traveling campaign. This would work to have Ash still be around, but the position of noob would go to the current generation's player characters.

edited 22nd Jul '17 11:00:37 AM by firewriter

The two phrases actually mean different things, so I wonder which one the director means...

• "Ash is eternally 10 years old" means that Ash stays the same age regardless of how others age, ergo he's Not Allowed to Grow Up.
• "[T]ime has not passed since the start of the journey" goes beyond Comic-Book Time and suggests that the setting itself has stayed static, which is the definition of Frozen in Time.

I mean, if the reason why Ash is always 10 is because the setting is static, then he would just be able to age at the same rate as everybody else. That, to me, is different from being "eternally 10, which means Ash will be 10 forever, again regardless of how everyone else ages.

On a side note: looking at the Frozen In Time page was abit of an education. I mean... M*A*S*H in effectively Negative Continuity: the example of Col. Potter being in an episode set earlier than he arrived would be like saying Greninja was with Ash in Johto... wouldn't it?

Of course, both halves of the Director's statement could be true...

Also, I think we need a shot of that interview with Sad!Max and Sad!Bonnie underneath it.

edited 22nd Jul '17 11:52:09 AM by DonaldthePotholer

The not aging thing to applies to all of the anime's characters, not just Ash.

So it's more like time does pass, and the world around them changes, but the characters never age past whatever age they were at the time of their introduction.