Twenty years ago, a young boy from the Kanto region suburb of Pallet Town left home with a disgruntled Pikachu and a dream: one day, Ash Ketchum would become a Pokémon Master!
Through thousands of anime episodes, dozens of narrative arcs, and several actual games’ worth of Pokémon battling, Ash Ketchum finally realized his dream in the Alola region’s Pokémon League this week. He and his Pikachu (now his best friend in the world) finally did it — so maybe now is the best time to put his journey as a literal ten year old to rest (or, as one strange blog I found said, show him for how old he “really” is — 17!).
Ash never growing up is a recurring commented-upon meme among fans and interested passersby of the Pokémon anime franchise. After all, the only show that has gone on for longer with a similar situation is The Simpsons, but even that show gives us brief glimpses into our characters’ possible futures. Some people speculate that Ash is actually in a coma, one suffered when he crashed his bike trying to get Pikachu to the Viridian City Pokémon Center in one of the anime’s first episodes.
That would be pretty dark for a kid’s anime, especially one airing on Saturday mornings in the United States. But oddly, other aspects of the Pokémon franchise — including the recent Detective Pikachu movie — acknowledge that decades have passed since certain events occurred in the Pokémon anime. Of course, that movie also acknowledges the existence of the card game and the handheld games as part of the continuity, but since it focuses on basically none of them for very long it’s hard to say whether the references are just for the fans or if they’re actually going on about something.
Stranger still — Gary Oak (aka Blue) shows up as basically a young adult in the new mobile game Pokémon Masters. There’s no telling where in the timeline that game sits, though you meet and battle with other principal anime characters, like Brock and Misty (who were also gym leaders in the games, to be fair). All of this temporal confusion misses the point, however, which is this:
Ash Ketchum has been the Pokémon franchise’s lead star for over two decades. He is rarely the most interesting character in the show anymore. Sun and Moon, the most recent iteration of the anime (and the one where Ash won his League championship), gives us time with a bunch of other equally interesting — if not more so — characters. Ash merely seems to act as an anchor, to remind us that this is a Pokémon anime. I think, at this point, change would be good for everyone — including the forever-young Ash Ketchum.
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