Cilan
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- Feb 2, 2011
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I've been curious/pondering this for a while and I figured I'd decide to make a topic about it and get other people's opinions.
Now we know that Ash is meant to represent Red, the playable character in the Gen 1 games. Gold, the male protagonist in the Gen 2 games, ended up getting an anime counterpart, Jimmy, for The Legend of Thunder special. Now, what if the Johto series followed Jimmy's story instead of Ash's? Do you think the show would have been successful? And let's say for Hoenn, they introduced Brendan as a new trainer who wants to college gym badges to compete in the Hoenn League, and May would have her same role due to the introduction of Contests in Gen 3. Or, what if they reversed the roles and had May go for badges and Brendan compete in Contests like their manga counterparts?
You can probably see where I'm going with this. I know it's been brought up a bunch of times about whether or not Ash should be replaced, if he should age, etc. but this thread is about opinions on whether or not the anime would be more or less popular if Ash wasn't the main protagonist throughout the entire show's run, and instead each region would have its own set of main characters like the games.
Now at this point in time I honestly feel that Pokemon wouldn't be Pokemon without Ash. He's been there since day one and at this point he's too iconic of a character to be replaced. And of course you have Pikachu, the mascot of the entire franchise, so getting rid of him would be out of the question. But what if the anime decided to use the male protagonists in the games instead of Ash in each region? What direction do you think the anime would have gone in? Would it have made a difference whether or not Ash was there or not?
Me personally, I feel that it could have gone either way. When you look as shows like Yu-Gi-Oh, they replace the main protagonist with each new series, and depending on who you ask, this makes the series better or worse. The Pokemon anime is supposed to advertise the games, and we've gotten plenty of anime equivalents of game characters, except the male protagonists for the most part since it's always Ash in the anime, who was meant to represent Red. Not to mention that Ash 'resets' at the beginning of each generation anyway, so he's basically starting over each time he goes to a new region. He has to catch new pokemon and compete at new gyms, so to me I don't think it would make a difference.
I think I rambled enough ^^'
Do you think that the anime would be as successful as it is now if they replaced the male protagonists of each generation, or do you think that it was Ash that helped the anime gain its popularity?
Now we know that Ash is meant to represent Red, the playable character in the Gen 1 games. Gold, the male protagonist in the Gen 2 games, ended up getting an anime counterpart, Jimmy, for The Legend of Thunder special. Now, what if the Johto series followed Jimmy's story instead of Ash's? Do you think the show would have been successful? And let's say for Hoenn, they introduced Brendan as a new trainer who wants to college gym badges to compete in the Hoenn League, and May would have her same role due to the introduction of Contests in Gen 3. Or, what if they reversed the roles and had May go for badges and Brendan compete in Contests like their manga counterparts?
You can probably see where I'm going with this. I know it's been brought up a bunch of times about whether or not Ash should be replaced, if he should age, etc. but this thread is about opinions on whether or not the anime would be more or less popular if Ash wasn't the main protagonist throughout the entire show's run, and instead each region would have its own set of main characters like the games.
Now at this point in time I honestly feel that Pokemon wouldn't be Pokemon without Ash. He's been there since day one and at this point he's too iconic of a character to be replaced. And of course you have Pikachu, the mascot of the entire franchise, so getting rid of him would be out of the question. But what if the anime decided to use the male protagonists in the games instead of Ash in each region? What direction do you think the anime would have gone in? Would it have made a difference whether or not Ash was there or not?
Me personally, I feel that it could have gone either way. When you look as shows like Yu-Gi-Oh, they replace the main protagonist with each new series, and depending on who you ask, this makes the series better or worse. The Pokemon anime is supposed to advertise the games, and we've gotten plenty of anime equivalents of game characters, except the male protagonists for the most part since it's always Ash in the anime, who was meant to represent Red. Not to mention that Ash 'resets' at the beginning of each generation anyway, so he's basically starting over each time he goes to a new region. He has to catch new pokemon and compete at new gyms, so to me I don't think it would make a difference.
I think I rambled enough ^^'
Do you think that the anime would be as successful as it is now if they replaced the male protagonists of each generation, or do you think that it was Ash that helped the anime gain its popularity?