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How did the original Ash's story end?

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For those of us who believe that SM is not a continuation of XYZ, as stated by the sound director, how do you think that the original Ash's story continued after XYZ?

I'd like to believe that he rechallenged and won the Indigo League.
 
He goes to train in Mt. Silver along with a well-made team consisting of his old Pokémon. He challenges the now joined Indigo-Silver Conference afterwards. No travel pals this time around, but they all gather in Pallet Town for a party after Ash's League
victory!
 
All of them, including Goodra on a laptop.

I'm tempted to say Gary should be the final opponent, but that would be needlessly derivative as well as inconsistent with Gary's new goals. Perhaps Jimmy/Ethan. The lack of prior competition (except for that movie cameo, lol) would be kind of anti-climatic, but they could work that out during the Mt. Silver part of the story
 
Kenta (I refuse to call him Jimmy) is older than Ash, so... A reverse situation of the games? I see him having a Mega Beedril. Maybe Raikou?

Also, we should talk about how Ash finally defeats Giovanni. Ho-Oh and the GS Ball should be involved, I'd say.
 
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To be honest, it would be more poetic and cinematographically whole if this hypothetical epilogue ended with Ash arriving in Mt. Silver and potentially meeting Ethan. Requiring a League win feels almost like diminishing his previous achievements just because he didn't manage to win the respective Leagues.

His continuing adventures are a different story, naturally. Involving him in the disbandment of Team Rocket is a better idea. Also, didn't Ono have an epilogue about Jessie and James getting married and settling down?

I wonder what Shudo's original plan for Ash was.
 
Going by Shudo's blog, the final storyline would have been a fight between people and Pokemon... involving Ash versus Pikachu.
 
I wonder what Shudo's original plan for Ash was.

I heard somewhere along the lines of the series ending with a Pokémon Revolt or Ash growing up from Pokémon affairs to the real world. Here's the blog translated by someone on Reddit:

年月がたち、老人になったサトシは、ふと、昔を思い出す。

Months and years having passed, Satoshi, who has become an old man, suddenly¹ remembers the old days.

それは美化された少年時代の思い出。

It is an embellished memory of childhood.

空想……、

A fantasy²......,

想像の生き物ポケモンたちとの冒険。友情。共存。

The imaginary creatures, Pokémon, and their adventure. Friendship. Coexistence.

それは、現実の人間の世界で、サトシが出会えなかったものだっかもしれない。

That is, in the real human world, something Satoshi could not possibly encounter.

しかし、少年時代のどこかに、確かにピカチュウやポケモンがいて、ムサシがいてコジロウがいてミュウツーがいて……

However, somewhere in childhood, surely Pikachu and the other Pokémon are there, Musashi and Kojirou are there, Mewtwo is there...

それだけではない、サトシの少年時代の冒険で出会ったすべてが、老人になったサトシの目には見える。

Not just that; everyone Satoshi encountered on his childhood adventure can be seen in the elderly Satoshi's eyes.

サトシの耳にサトシの母親の声が聞こえる。

Satoshi hears his mother's voice in his ear.

「さあ、早く寝なさい。あしたは旅立ちの日でしょう」

"Come along, hurry to bed. You set off on your journey³ in the morning, don't you?"

翌朝、母親に叩き起こされたサトシの姿は少年に戻っていて、元気に家を飛び出していく。

The next morning, woken up by his mother, Satoshi, once again in the form of a young boy, energetically rushes out of the house.

それは「ポケモン、ゲットの旅ではなく、ポケモンマスターになる旅でもなく、自分とは何かを」探し、他者との共存を目指す旅だ。

This is a search "Not to catch Pokémon, not a journey to become a Pokémon Master, but to discover what I am", a journey with the goal of coexisting with others.

¹ふと (futo)- could also mean "casually", "unexpectedly", or "by chance" ²空想(kuusou)- could also be "daydream" ³旅立ち (tabidachi)- the verb form 旅立つ is also listed in dictionaries a euphemism for dying, similar to "pass away"

As for my take on how the original Ash's story ended, I always imagine he would be reflecting back on far he has gotten in the League and how close he is towards victory. He'll tell everyone about it with joy and excitement, especially to his old friends like Misty, Brock, May, Dawn and others. But by being so close to victory and later realizing that he would have surpassed Alain in their next battle, Ash would start thinking about closing that gap for the championship and figuring out what to do next. He would look at his Pokémon who made him into the trainer that he is, and realize that they should all partake in that goal, not just his current team. Of course, he hasn't heard of any League tournaments being available for the time being, so Ash revisiting his old Pokémon is less of training for the next League and more of rediscovering of his passion.

I believe he would remember that Ho-Oh on his first day as a trainer, how no one has ever encountered it despite attempts to call it back with the Tin Tower. Surely, that's a challenge Ash willing to accept. He sees the Ho-Oh again, and this time it's flying towards Mount Silver. A Rainbow Feather drops this time, falling in Ash's hand. Ash takes it as a sign that the time is right. He packs up with his now rotating team (as he intends all of his Pokémon to participate) and journeys to Mount Silver to hopefully encounter the Ho-Oh. That would be the ending.

Epilogue-wise, I imagine two-to-three years have past since the last episode of XYZ. Ash has become somewhat of a legend among new trainers. His heroics in the Kalos region managed to reach across the globe. Of how he had thwarted Team Flare along with other well known trainers. Of he had a unique Greninja that looks like him and rivaling that of Mega Evolution. And soon, people start digging up stories of his other exploits, such as being the only trainer that has taken down two legendaries from the undefeated Tobias and winning the Battle Frontier and the Orange League. Speculations arise on just how powerful is Ash based on those achievements. Meanwhile, there are rumors that a Ho-Oh being present at Mount Silver.

During this time, a young trainer named Bonnie would arrive to Kanto with two particular Pokémon at hand: A Red Zygarde Core named Squishy and a Greninja. She is looking for Ash, only to find out from Delia that Ash hasn't been home for quite a long time. The last known location he was in was Mount Silver. Bonnie is understandably upset, but decides to head to Mount Silver and return a special Pokémon to Ash. Along her journey, she encounters some of Ash's old friends like Brock and Misty.

Meanwhile the Team Rocket trio started to miss the twerp and his Pikachu. They were tasked to the Alola region, and were initially glad that Ash wasn't around to ruin their mission. But they start to miss his heroics and their chance to capture Pikachu. They speculated on where he could be. I still say they got into trouble with the Alola trainers and Bewear, so they weren't completely successful. But after their mission in Alola, the trio decides to look for Ash and capture Pikachu once and for all. Back at the Rocket HQ, Giovanni has decided to capitalize on the power vacuum left by his regional villainous rivals such Flare and Plasma. He has decided to capture Legendaries in the Johto region thanks to the rumors of Ho-Oh returning. He would also learn about the GS Ball and what it may contain (hint: Celebi). This is all a build up to a confrontation of destinies.

That's all I have right now, and it may change should something else happen. It's a lot longer than I thought, but then again I wanted to wrap most if not all the major plot points and character arcs established by the anime if I wanted the anime series from OS to XY to end with a conclusive note.
 
Holy crap. Shudo's epilogue makes it seem that something happened to wipe out Pokemon from the "real human world". Not only that, but the anime may be an embellishment of what really happened!

That man... certainly was unique.

The second is GoShogun, the '80s mecha anime which shared head writer Takeshi Shudo and director Kunihiko Yuyama with Pokémon. While the TV series was a merchandise-driven action show with a child protagonist, it concluded with the movie GoShogun: The Time Étranger (localized as Time Stranger), a much more experimental and adult oriented work set decades later. The child is gone, the rest of the team is now elderly, and the only female team member, Remy, is in a coma following an accident that is expected to be fatal. The bulk of the movie consists of Remy reminiscing about various time periods that intersect in a surreal fashion reminiscent of Wild Strawberries or Annie Hall (sans the comedy), with deliberate ambiguity as to how much of what we're seeing actually happened and how much is a dream. I don't want to spoil the ending but if you've seen the movie you'll surely understand why I think of it here.
Will watch! Conclusions to follow.
 
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This is a really weird theory, but I believe that the new Sun/Moon 'Ash' is in fact a clone. The old Ash, now that his adventure was over, started to age, and eventually, he will become a Pokemon Professor after Oak dies. After all, his name is a tree...
 
This is a really weird theory, but I believe that the new Sun/Moon 'Ash' is in fact a clone. The old Ash, now that his adventure was over, started to age, and eventually, he will become a Pokemon Professor after Oak dies. After all, his name is a tree...

"Satoshi" is a tree?
 
Kenta (I refuse to call him Jimmy) is older than Ash, so... A reverse situation of the games? I see him having a Mega Beedril. Maybe Raikou?

Also, we should talk about how Ash finally defeats Giovanni. Ho-Oh and the GS Ball should be involved, I'd say.

Mewtwo takes down Giovanni.

I don't like Shudo's ideas. I can't imagine Ash and Pikachu.

I also would like to pretend BW isn't canon.

I guess Ash wins Indigo with a strong team (Sceptile, Charizard, Greninja, etc.) then goes to Johto and other regions to win and become Champion (but I want Cynthia to remain Champion :p ).

He meets his old friends like Brock, Dawn, Gary, Pidgeot, Misty, Serena, etc.

He forms a couple with Serena, and the latter becomes a Top Coordinator (like May and Dawn) and evolves her Braixen into Delphox.
 
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To an extent, that happened in Mewtwo Returns. Too bad that Mewtwo didn't erase Giovanni's entire memories...

Hope Mewtwo finished the job this time.

Jessie would probably do Contests. She ended up as Top 4 in Sinnoh. I wonder what James and Meowth would do.
 
Okay, I just had a very crazy revelation. What if the Ultra Beasts got to the old Ash's world and destroyed it, and the Marshadow tagjng along with the new Ash is the ghost of the old Ash? I mean, this would be an accurate nod to the games.
 
He gets eaten by Muk

Or tracked the world and is known as the best ever trainer who couldn't win a league and marries some random woman and becomes part of the Kanto Elite 4. The end.

I prefer gets eaten by Muk thiugh
 
Holy crap. Shudo's epilogue makes it seem that something happened to wipe out Pokemon from the "real human world". Not only that, but the anime may be an embellishment of what really happened!
Ambiguity none-withstanding, it was beautifully written. I also loved how that epilogue was pretty much in-line with the themes of Mewtwo Strikes Back (and to a lesser extent, the next two movies). Good shit.
 
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It's a little hard to say. It depends on whether the anime'd have enough ratings to go on to Gold and Silver a few years later.

We know from Hidaka Kanto's arc was supposed to last 1 year and a half, and since it started on April 1st, it'd go until probably October 1998 (ignoring the Pokemon Shock incident of course). The first movie trailer, the one with the little girl and the older Kasumi (guessed to have aired during the hiatus by Dogasu, which does have evidence to be the case), can be interpreted in a lot of ways.

I could very well be wrong, and I came with this theory not long ago, but it could've been the actual ending, shown as still images and little animated part as they'd been made before the show's extention decision. Now during the hiatus (or afterwards), the producers having decided to make the anime longer (I believe so), in an attemp to advertise the July movie, made the trailer as a supposed ending as a huge hype to take people to the cinema (who knows? Maybe bringing back the TV series?).

I know OLM show wrong and misleading stuff all the time, however since this was the first movie who's to tell they were doing that? Perhaps it's what started this trend (starting with a very misleading trailer with shots they knew'd never appear in the movie, since the ending was scrapped)? Another evidence for this's that the trailer's never released in any way afterwards, and it's only available on the internet.

About Satoshi's fate and why he's not on the trailer: we can be sure it'd be a huge deal, so huge OLM didn't have anything on it yet, no animation neither something finished they could show. Kasumi appeared, along with a little girl and the other woman that ended up on the final version. While Dogasu did say the former two's are explained by the music used (sang by the woman's voice actor), the little girl a representation of Juri (I may be misremembering her name, not bothering to look it up), and last Kasumi a representation of a possible time-skip later on, I sincerely doubt it.

In my opinion the woman's design was reused for the actual film, with a totally different role (they do this a lot with COTD!), thus I can't say her original one... The little girl can be represented as someone thrilled about Pokemon as Satoshi was before starting his journey (like a new generation stuff in an epilogue, as several anime does) and Kasumi's became an adult and is with Pikachu for some reason... (no, I don't believe she married Satoshi, it's more like he left it with her for something... Maybe giving it to a new trainer? Whi knows?)

Sorry to be a little confusing, I wrote in my second language (which explains my constant words repeating habit) and sometimes I'm a little bad to show my reasoning... This is all ideas and nothing is concrete, I based all on evidences we've got and other examples, including other stories and how animation might work in Japan (as an Animation student myself).
 
He'll won the Kanto league by defeating Alain, Shinji and Hiroshi. He'll use pokemon from all regions.
Team Rocket will be defeated by team effort of all protagonists. Sakaki will die in a Disneyesque villain death. Musashi and Kojiro will go to jail and try to become better people.
Satoshi will marry the girl he deserves and decides to become the first Masara Town gym leader. Eureka will defeat him in a gym battle.
 
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