Ash's future after Journeys

[PikachuSmasher]

As much as this series feels like curtain for Ash, they will never end it here. In fact, the writers have said the day Ash is a Pokemon master, the show is over. I don't see that happening soon. After the PWC, we'll have Gen 9 with new Pokemon for Ash and new companions, new region etc.

 

[KaylaBaraonda]

They might end the anime with gen 8 and keep the Netflix live action instead.

 

[KirbyBulba737]

I think that if Ash wins the PWT, then he's going to be replaced, if he loses I can see him sticking around.

 

[PikachuSmasher]

They might end the anime with gen 8 and keep the Netflix live action instead.

Unlikely. The anime isn’t bound to end until Pokemon goes down or when the writers decide to make Ash a Pokemon Master(The PWC is probably a step in that goal). Plus the Netflix series is not made by the same people in the anime, so no chance Ash will continue on from Journeys in a live action, at most, it’ll be an AU Ash or a completely new character

 

[Silktree]

If Ash beats a champion, any champion, then I don't want to hear about how interesting the next region's gym leaders will be. I can't consider Iris a champion because she was really treated as a gym leader.

I don't like the idea of Ash being replaced by another boy with a Pikachu, but I'm in favor of a tag tournament goal where novice trainers (like a new companion) partner up with experienced trainers (like Ash). I don't think that Ash will win the PWC, but the only way to truly challenge him if he proves to be as strong as Lance or Cynthia, is making him rely on a newbie for his victories. Contests are dead outside of remakes, so it's high time female companions were serious battlers.

And I don't see how the PWC is rushed. We get a battle every 3 months on average, and there are at least four Hyper Class opponents left. My main complaint is that OLM seem to have forgotten about the Elite Four (except for calling Lance one, which is a silly downgrade when he beat the PWT and was only second to Leon in the last PWC season). I blame SwSh for that.

 

[Kurolegacy]

God I hope not. What a terrible send off for the protagonist of the series for 20+ year that this would be. Not only do Ash and his goal barely get any focus with Ash just being there most if the time and them flat out skipping over Ash’s stuff but this has got to have been the worst the writers have ever been at actually showing the bonds between Ash and his Pokémon. Not only did they speed run Ash to getting a full team but most of his Pokémon came fully evolved leading to little to no actual growth of his Pokémon across the series and the team its stagnation. If they did plan this to be Ash’s last hurrah, he certainly deserves better than what they’ve done with him thus far.

 

[Daren]

God I hope not. What a terrible send off for the protagonist of the series for 20+ year that this would be. Not only do Ash and his goal barely get any focus with Ash just being there most if the time and them flat out skipping over Ash’s stuff but this has got to have been the worst the writers have ever been at actually showing the bonds between Ash and his Pokémon. Not only did they speed run Ash to getting a full team but most of his Pokémon came fully evolved leading to little to no actual growth of his Pokémon across the series and the team its stagnation. If they did plan this to be Ash’s last hurrah, he certainly deserves better than what they’ve done with him thus far.

Honestly, I know it's cynical but I think at this point there is no possibility for a good send-off for Ash at any point in the future either. At least the PWC would be a good accomplishment on paper, and if the stars align perfectly the reserves could be used and we can at least pretend all the previous regions were meaningful to his win.

Edit: To elaborate a bit, a world champion is an obvious idea for a finale/sendoff series. In fact it's hard to think of many things that could replace it as one when we see multiple Champions involved now. If this isn't intended to be his last season than it's pretty likely whatever is will be unplanned or at least feel less impressive than this.

 

[Alola]

Honestly, I will look the other way regarding however Journeys decides to end and welcome Ash traveling a region again while doing a Gym Challenge.

I miss the Gym Battles & Gym Leaders. I miss the Rivals & Rival Battles. I miss the six on six League Battles. I am old-fashioned but idc.

 

[vivian20]

If Ash gets to the master class, he will be a pokemon master. I mean, what else could a pokemon master be? If he defeats Leon, he will be the best pokemon master in the world. But I think he can still be the main character, defending his title and fighting against rampaging legendaries and evil teams.

 

[Silktree]

If Ash gets to the master class, he will be a pokemon master. I mean, what else could a pokemon master be? If he defeats Leon, he will be the best pokemon master in the world. But I think he can still be the main character, defending his title and fighting against rampaging legendaries and evil teams.

That format wouldn't work without him mentoring a newbie (an actual battler). It's hard to root for the strongest trainer.

 

[Kurolegacy]

If Ash gets to the master class, he will be a pokemon master. I mean, what else could a pokemon master be? If he defeats Leon, he will be the best pokemon master in the world. But I think he can still be the main character, defending his title and fighting against rampaging legendaries and evil teams.

While that may be the fan perception, the anime itself has already had Ash state that even beating Leon would only be a step towards becoming a Pokémon Master. No idea where they’d take things from there but it seems even the writers have it built in that he’d continue with something.

 

[UxieLover1994]

Ash will never be a Pokémon Master in our lifetimes or our children's. The writers will always find a way to stall that title for as long as possible, and keep him and Pikachu around with only an advancement every 15-20 years.

I frankly think Generation IX will be a revert back to him travelling around a region collecting badges and taking part in leagues where he's almost guaranteed to lose. Goh would fail to capture Mew in the end of this series, and would leave to continue his goal.

Of course, anything could happen now, given the changes in the games. However, Ash will never be retired as a character.

 

[game3524]

Honestly, I know it's cynical but I think at this point there is no possibility for a good send-off for Ash at any point in the future either. At least the PWC would be a good accomplishment on paper, and if the stars align perfectly the reserves could be used and we can at least pretend all the previous regions were meaningful to his win.

Edit: To elaborate a bit, a world champion is an obvious idea for a finale/sendoff series. In fact it's hard to think of many things that could replace it as one when we see multiple Champions involved now. If this isn't intended to be his last season than it's pretty likely whatever is will be unplanned or at least feel less impressive than this.

Yeah, the PWC storyline is a logical conclusion. But it feels like this should have happened after Johto or Sinnoh.

 

[Jewel the Quaxly]

The PWC is honestly being handled so horribly, I can't fathom Ash's narrative ending with this, especially considering a severe loss in series values and the utter lack of proper care and well writing given to his story in Journeys. Ash has barely formed any bonds with his pokemon team, his "development" in this series was literally done off-screen and was for like two episodes, the PWC feels largely irrelevant in the grand scheme of things as it has done nothing to change Ash at all, and Leon only has, what, two pokemon revealed to the audience? They hyped up one pokemon on his team-we have no way of knowing how strong his other pokemon really is-if the final battle would even be a 6 vs 6.

Ash went from beating a latios and darkrai in DP to forgetting how to catch pokemon in BW-what makes people think this won't happen again? And remember how Ash's champion status wasn't recognized until over 75 episodes in, was only during the SECOND visit to Alola, and was by two CotD's and not, gee, I dunno, the people who supported him through the entire thing and was implied to keep in touch with him post-SM???

Ash's narrative ending here sounds good on paper and on paper only. As soon as you get the context, this is the absolute worst way to end Ash's story, especially given the severe lack of care given to Ash's past and how it has affected him in the future. All we've gotten are flashbacks done for more marketing and nostalgia-when have any of these flashbacks actually emphasized how much Ash has grown as a person?

You can hardly call the PWC "storyline" a proper story. There's a severe lack of proper development, a severe lack of relevancy to the narrative other than giving Ash something to do, and a complete lack of consistency piled on with the director himself literally admitting Ash is going to become more unbeatable as time goes on. Where are the stakes here? The elements of a good narrative are almost completely lacking in regards to pretty much anything related to the PWC and Ash having his narrative ending here would make no logical sense, nor would it benefit the writers or the marketing in any way whatsoever.

 

[Sai]

The PWC is honestly being handled so horribly, I can't fathom Ash's narrative ending with this, especially considering a severe loss in series values and the utter lack of proper care and well writing given to his story in Journeys. Ash has barely formed any bonds with his pokemon team, his "development" in this series was literally done off-screen and was for like two episodes, the PWC feels largely irrelevant in the grand scheme of things as it has done nothing to change Ash at all, and Leon only has, what, two pokemon revealed to the audience? They hyped up one pokemon on his team-we have no way of knowing how strong his other pokemon really is-if the final battle would even be a 6 vs 6.

How is the PWC handled horribly when it’s gotten a ton of focus through the series and we have more frequent battles than Ash’s Gyms in previous series? The reason he raised ranks fast is because the bottom rank has thousands of people battling at the same time and seeing Ash battle one off trainers all the time isn’t that interesting, which is why we got the battles we saw and we moved on. All the big battles we’ve gotten with Bea twice, Iris, Volkner the Vermilion Gym, Korrina, etc have all been very good.

As he rises in ranks the battles have gone from 1 on 1, to 2 on 2, and now to 3 on 3. I fully expect all Master Class to be 5 on 5 or 6 on 6. At least look at the progression we’ve had.

Ash went from beating a latios and darkrai in DP to forgetting how to catch pokemon in BW-what makes people think this won't happen again? And remember how Ash's champion status wasn't recognized until over 75 episodes in, was only during the SECOND visit to Alola, and was by two CotD's and not, gee, I dunno, the people who supported him through the entire thing and was implied to keep in touch with him post-SM???

Ash's narrative ending here sounds good on paper and on paper only. As soon as you get the context, this is the absolute worst way to end Ash's story, especially given the severe lack of care given to Ash's past and how it has affected him in the future. All we've gotten are flashbacks done for more marketing and nostalgia-when have any of these flashbacks actually emphasized how much Ash has grown as a person?

You can hardly call the PWC "storyline" a proper story. There's a severe lack of proper development, a severe lack of relevancy to the narrative other than giving Ash something to do, and a complete lack of consistency piled on with the director himself literally admitting Ash is going to become more unbeatable as time goes on. Where are the stakes here? The elements of a good narrative are almost completely lacking in regards to pretty much anything related to the PWC and Ash having his narrative ending here would make no logical sense, nor would it benefit the writers or the marketing in any way whatsoever.

This happens every series. Ash’s accomplishments from one saga are usually rarely brought up in the next one besides a small handful of eps. Ash beat the Battle Frontier and then in DP Pikachu ties to Paul’s Elekid and loses to Roark’s Onix. This has always happened so it’s nothing new.

The PWC battles have gotten consistent focus in the series and if you look through the episode list they’re not that far apart. There’s always going to be fillers or Go’s eps in between because that’s how the show works. This narrative that the PWC feels like an afterthought is factually wrong when we’ve gotten consistent battles through the series and will likely have bigger stakes when Ash reaches the top 8.

 

[Jewel the Quaxly]

How is the PWC handled horribly when it’s gotten a ton of focus through the series and we have more frequent battles than Ash’s Gyms in previous series?

...no offense, but the fact that you are ignoring 80% of my post in your reply shows that you didn't properly read it. You've only addressed one issue I brought up and ignored the rest. I'm speaking from a narrative standpoint, you're speaking from an "on paper" standpoint.

 

[Hidden Mew]

How is the PWC handled horribly when it’s gotten a ton of focus through the series and we have more frequent battles than Ash’s Gyms in previous series? The reason he raised ranks fast is because the bottom rank has thousands of people battling at the same time and seeing Ash battle one off trainers all the time isn’t that interesting, which is why we got the battles we saw and we moved on. All the big battles we’ve gotten with Bea twice, Iris, Volkner the Vermilion Gym, Korrina, etc have all been very good.

The fact that so many of Ash's PWC matches have been against one-shot trainers or off screen is still a huge problem for me. I agree that Ash battling a bunch of one shot trainers isn't interesting, but that's the issue. He shouldn't have been battling against one shot trainers in the first place, or at least not having that done so frequently. It's not impressive for him to beat random trainers or make the PWC look like a huge step in Ash's journey. If they wanted to make the PWC look impressive and challenging, we should have gotten more battles against noteworthy trainers. I think that they needed to make better use of the previous and current characters from the games to be Ash's PWC opponents instead of relying primarily on new one off characters.

I agree that most of Ash's big battles have been pretty good, but my issue with that is that those are just the highlights of the PWC rather than the standard kind of battles we get. If all of Ash's PWC matches were on the same level of quality as his big battles, then I'd probably be more into it. As it is, the PWC honestly comes off as much less challenging than a regular Gym badge quest, which it really shouldn't be when it's a world wide tournament to determine the next number one trainer. My first reaction to his match against Bea was wondering why we were wasting time with this PWC instead of doing the Galar Gym Challenge when even the fourth Gym Leader was so strong.

As he rises in ranks the battles have gone from 1 on 1, to 2 on 2, and now to 3 on 3. I fully expect all Master Class to be 5 on 5 or 6 on 6. At least look at the progression we’ve had.

That's not entirely accurate. Ash's first battle in the Normal Class was a two-on-two battle, but then every other match he had in that class, aside from his match against Korrina, was one-on-one. I think most of his Great Class battles, aside from his matches against Bea and Iris, were also one-on-one, but I could be mistaken. It doesn't really feel like a steady progression when they've gone back and forth on what kind of battle Ash has from the start. I know that his match against Volkner was three on three, which is an improvement and I'll give the show credit if it keeps doing that going forward. I think that they needed to have three-on-three matches from the start and I don't think it will fix all of my issues with the PWC if they keep it up, but that would be better than nothing.

 

[vivian20]

That format wouldn't work without him mentoring a newbie (an actual battler). It's hard to root for the strongest trainer.

Plenty of other animes have stronger protagonists and weaker rivals that struggle to keep up with them. Like Goku and Vegeta in DBZ.

But Ash mentoring a trainer that aims to beat him in the future will be nice too. They could make ash get older( not actually an adult, but , lets say, a 14 years old), mentoring a 10 years old . That way, we could see things like, Max as a pokemon trainer challenging the newbie , Bonnie also as a pokemon trainer with Squishy challenging ash( she would have a great advantage , since she would have a legendary since the begining). That way, ash greninja could return to Ash. Ash no longer catches new pokemon, or catches them rarely , and instead rotates all the pokemon that he already has . The newbie would basically fill the role that Ash had in the first season, and Ash himself would have a more Brock like role. Maybe they are testing this now, by giving Goh protagonist focus.

 

[Unireon]

I can't see the staff going the mentor route.

Not only Satoshi's iconic status would make it very hard, pushing him more to the sidelines.
There's also the fact that they are struggling at writing characters.

I don't think that the writers could manage to create a good one.

 

[Sai]

...no offense, but the fact that you are ignoring 80% of my post in your reply shows that you didn't properly read it. You've only addressed one issue I brought up and ignored the rest. I'm speaking from a narrative standpoint, you're speaking from an "on paper" standpoint.

I responded to your post, the stuff I didn’t reply to I agreed with like Ash’s Pokémon not getting enough bonding moments outside of battle. If I don’t respond to every aspect of your post it’s because I agree with some things. That still doesn’t make it handled horribly. And yeah I would say the battles we’ve seen have been handled properly.

The fact that so many of Ash's PWC matches have been against one-shot trainers or off screen is still a huge problem for me. I agree that Ash battling a bunch of one shot trainers isn't interesting, but that's the issue. He shouldn't have been battling against one shot trainers in the first place, or at least not having that done so frequently. It's not impressive for him to beat random trainers or make the PWC look like a huge step in Ash's journey. If they wanted to make the PWC look impressive and challenging, we should have gotten more battles against noteworthy trainers. I think that they needed to make better use of the previous and current characters from the games to be Ash's PWC opponents instead of relying primarily on new one off characters.

They showed us enough of Ash battling one off characters at the beginning of a saga because quite frankly those matches are fodder and not that important. We saw them to see how Ash rose to Super rank but seeing Ash battle one off filler characters isn’t that compelling.

I agree that most of Ash's big battles have been pretty good, but my issue with that is that those are just the highlights of the PWC rather than the standard kind of battles we get. If all of Ash's PWC matches were on the same level of quality as his big battles, then I'd probably be more into it. As it is, the PWC honestly comes off as much less challenging than a regular Gym badge quest, which it really shouldn't be when it's a world wide tournament to determine the next number one trainer. My first reaction to his match against Bea was wondering why we were wasting time with this PWC instead of doing the Galar Gym Challenge when even the fourth Gym Leader was so strong.

That's not entirely accurate. Ash's first battle in the Normal Class was a two-on-two battle, but then every other match he had in that class, aside from his match against Korrina, was one-on-one. I think most of his Great Class battles, aside from his matches against Bea and Iris, were also one-on-one, but I could be mistaken. It doesn't really feel like a steady progression when they've gone back and forth on what kind of battle Ash has from the start. I know that his match against Volkner was three on three, which is an improvement and I'll give the show credit if it keeps doing that going forward. I think that they needed to have three-on-three matches from the start and I don't think it will fix all of my issues with the PWC if they keep it up, but that would be better than nothing.

My point was all battles against established Gym leaders or game characters have been 2 on 2 so far, like Korrina, the Bea matches, the Vermilion Gym, Iris, etc. And now in Hyper class we’re getting 3 on 3’s for each match. As he progresses the matches will continue like this.

The people arguing the PWC is an afterthought is disingenuous since we’re seeing a constant stream of battles on a regular basis with Ash rising ranks. The issues with Ash not bonding with his Pokémon much are a flaw with the saga in general but nothing to do with the actual tournament. It’s rather obvious we could get more battles, but for what we have so far the writers are doing a good job.

It’s the best sense of progression Ash has had since the end of DP, since BW had the reset and XY was still mostly going through the moments but still pulled short at the finals. I’m pretty sure the writers are done with the old Gym formula going forward.