Pokémon Will End Ash and Pikachu’s Journey Next Year

The finish of an period is upon us. The Pokémon Company has introduced that January will see the start of the top for its long-running Pokémon anime as we all know it, with the legendary hero and perpetual 10-year-old Satoshi, higher identified the world over as Ash Ketchum, bowing out because the protagonist of the collection.

Many followers anticipated this within the wake of the current growth within the newest iteration of the long-running collection noticed Ash lastly develop into a World Champion Pokémon Trainer, defeating Pokémon Sword and Shield’s Leon within the Pokémon World Coronation Series, incomes his first worldwide title win in your complete 25-year run of the collection. Where else might Ash go from right here in his lengthy quest to develop into the perfect, like nobody ever was?

The reply is dwelling. Beginning on January 13 in Japan, an 11-episode epilogue collection to the present run of the anime—merely titled Pocket Monsters in Japan however referred to as Pokémon Journeys within the West—will inform the ultimate chapter in Ash and Pikachu’s story, because the younger hero contemplates what his quest to develop into a Pokémon Master means within the wake of his victory. In April, a model new Pokémon collection will start, introducing two new protagonists for the franchise. 

Accompanied by the three starter Pokémon of the Paldea area, launched within the current Pokémon Scarlet and Pokémon Violet video games—grass sort Sprigatito, fireplace sort Fuecoco, and water sort Quaxly—the 2 new protagonists of the as-yet-untitled collection will likely be a younger woman named Liko and a boy named Roy in Japan. The indisputable fact that it’s explicitly acknowledged that these will likely be their names within the anime appears to recommend that, similar to Ash, they may doubtlessly obtain new names when the collection is dubbed.

“It’s been an extraordinary privilege to have been the English voice of Ash Ketchum for what will be 17 years,” Sarah Natochenny, the present English voice actress for Ash, mentioned in a press release launched on social media. “No matter what lies beyond his final chapter, he’ll live forever in the hearts of many generations to come.”

It’s a significant sea change for a franchise that has, for almost two-and-a-half many years, been outlined by its reluctance to embrace change throughout all of its iterations, whether or not it’s the video and card video games or certainly the truth that Ash has been the face of Pokémon’s animated adventures since its inception. The card sport has advanced in suits and begins over time, including layers of mechanical complexion, and Scarlet, Violet, and this 12 months’s spinoff Legends: Arceus all represented massive steps ahead for Pokémon’s strategy to its conventional sport constructions. Now it’s time for the anime department of the collection to affix them in attempting one thing new—however not earlier than we bid farewell to a younger hero from Pallet Town.

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