#I'm curious to see how a Pokemon Series without Ash will go tbh

[pokeworldrevisited]

I've been meaning to get back here but I've been rather focused on Fire Emblem these past few months so that's why I was absent. I will try to be on here more often, especially since I want to write about the Double Sun/Moon AU as someone asked. So I'll get to that once I find the right words for it.

However a new announcement just came out and I feel like I should talk about it. It's something I and a lot of people were wondering about since Journeys started and it's finally been confirmed:

Ash is leaving the series.

I'm both parts happy, and worried about this. Happy because I do feel like this is the best point to end Ash's journey in the anime. Mainly since the anime put him in a fairly 'dangerous' position by making him world champion. They can't have Ash go back to his usual formula without backlash but they also can't really write anymore challenges for him that he can't overcome.

Another reason I'm happy is because while I do like Ash's character, I kinda stopped watching the anime as much after gen 5 because I wasn't a fan of how he seems to reset between regions. New team, new allies, new everything. Hell it also seemed like his knowledge in Pokemon would reset too. I always felt like if they did that, wouldn't it have been easier to make a new protag per gen to follow?

Now for why I'm worried... I'm less worried about the new Pokemon protagonists as a whole, but the fan reaction to them. We saw a bunch of negativity every time Goh had even a bit of spotlight. There was controversy where he caught all the Galar Starters instead of Ash, and HUGE controversy when Goh caught Suicune. Sure he started off as a bit of a dick at first but he learned to grow during Journeys. Yet by that point a lot of people already disliked him.

And now there's not one but two new protagonists? I can already hear people going 'I wish Ash was here' or 'Ash wouldn't have done that, these characters suck' at the slightest rookie mistake these two make. Which makes sense. Ash has been the Pokemon protagonist since the beginning, everyone grew up watching Ash journey through the regions on the quest to become a Pokemon master. hell for a lot of us Ash has been around before we were even born. These two will naturally have some rather large shoes to fill if they want to stick around.

So I guess I should ask y'all to not do what a lot of you did with Goh and at least try to give the new characters a chance. Let them make mistakes if their new trainers, wait to see if their character arcs cause them to change. Don't compare every little thing these two new protagonists do to what Ash did.

Personally, I feel like as long as they don't give these two protags the exact same goal as Ash/give them Ash's exact personality, things will be fine. Will be hard to adjust to the change, can't deny that, but if the writings good enough then these two could be great new protags.