Japanese Poll for Ash's Favourite Companion

[DatsRight]

https://s.animeanime.jp/article/2017/05/11/33827.html

The anime TV series Pocket Monsters, which started airing in 1997, reaches its 20th anniversary this year. It has been on air for a long time, starting with the original, subtitle-less series, then moving through "Advanced Generation", "Diamond & Pearl", "Best Wishes", XY", "XY&Z" and "Sun & Moon".
The protagonist Satoshi continues his journey aiming to become a Pokémon Master, but what keeps him going is the presence of his companions. And every time a new series starts, the companions that travel with him change. This led Anime Anime to hold a poll where we asked "Who do you want Satoshi to travel with again?". Since the travel groups up to this point has had a maximum of 3 members excluding Satoshi himself, we let people give up to three answers, so that they'd be able choose every companion from a specific series.
The poll was held between April 23rd and April 30th, and received 851 responses. We got slightly more responses from males, with 60% of them coming from males and 40% from females. Roughly 40% of the responses came from people between 10 and 19 years old, while over 50% of them came from people in their twenties, so more that 90% of the responses came from 10-29-year-olds.

In first place we have Takeshi, Satoshi's first companion, who made it to more than 70% of the voters' lists. Takeshi first appeared in the 5th episode of the series, where he served as an obstacle to Satoshi, being the Gym Leader of the Nibi Gym. But after their battle, Takeshi joined him, and was a principal cast member for three series; the original subtitle-less series, "Advanced Generation" and "Diamond & Pearl". What happened to him afterwards was then depicted in a special episode of "Best Wishes". His original aim was to be a Pokémon Breeder, but he's currently a student at a training institute for Pokémon Doctors.
In second place we have Serena, who first appeared in "XY". At first she just followed Satoshi without a specific goal as a Trainer, but a certain encounter led to her aiming to be a Pokémon Performer. Among the female leads so far, she's the one who's skilled in girly fields; she likes fashion, is good at making sweets, etc. She has been in love with Satoshi, "someone she admires", ever since he helped her long ago. Her confession in the final episode of "XY&Z" was massively popular and heavily talked about.
In third place, we have Kasumi, one his early companions. She chased after Satoshi to make him pay her back for her bicycle that Pikachu destroyed in episode 1, but over time she started forgetting about the bicycle and ended up just traveling with him. She loves Water Pokémon more than anything else, and is the highly masculine one among the past female leads. After traveling with Satoshi, she decided to return to the Hanada Gym, where her three older sisters served as Gym Leaders, in order to be a Gym Leader herself.

If we look at the results, we see that characters that served as the female lead, like Serena who got second place and Haruka who got fourth, occupy the top positions. However, Takeshi got absolutely overwhelming support and made it into first place with twice as many votes as the runner-up.

Results:
"Who do you want Satoshi to travel with again?"
1) Takeshi
2) Serena
3) Kasumi
4) Haruka
5) Hikari
6) Citron
7) Dent
8) Kenji
9) Eureka
10) Iris

 

[Pokegirl Fan~]

I think it's irrelevant tbh, since it seems that everyone that was polled is out of the target audience age group with them being in their teens or twenties.

 

[SinnohEevee]

I think it's irrelevant tbh, since it seems that everyone that was polled is out of the target audience age group with them being in their teens or twenties.

The sample is small too.

EDIT: Let's not forget that this anime can still do well without older fans.

 

[TheWanderingMist]

Small sample size and skewed toward the older fan base but still interesting that Brock managed to place first. Serena is obviously second because the Amour faction is still rather prominent. Misty, May, Dawn follow nostalgia in order. The rest were really a toss up and Iris is last because of the skewed sample.

 

[SinnohEevee]

I don't see Serena coming back. This is a show for little kids, they don't want romance.

 

[TheWanderingMist]

I don't see Serena coming back. This is a show for little kids, they don't want romance.

Well, obviously. I was just pointing out why she was second. Also, Pokegirls usually get small roles the next saga (except Iris, for some reason)

 

[SinnohEevee]

Well, obviously. I was just pointing out why she was second. Also, Pokegirls usually get small roles the next saga (except Iris, for some reason)

They "forgot" about the past in XY.
I don't believe it was an oversight though.

 

[Pokegirl Fan~]

I don't see Serena coming back. This is a show for little kids, they don't want romance.

Nah they'll bring her back and it'll probably be similar to the first few episodes of Dawn's appearance in BW

 

[Spyro39]

I think it's irrelevant tbh, since it seems that everyone that was polled is out of the target audience age group with them being in their teens or twenties.

This (very small) sample poll may consist of mostly fans that are in their teens and twenties, but it did involve all of Ash's former traveling companions spanning from the very beginning, so they would need those that grew up with the anime to get accurate results from this poll. Kids of this generation may not be familiar with Misty for instance. That being said, I agree with whether or not this poll means anything because of the small sample and skewing towards older audiences.

 

[mystic9899]

interesting poll, but i don't think it means anything. it's cool to see brock still getting love today though lol.

 

[Pikachu979]

Wow I expected Dawn to be higher with the japanese audience but its nice to see Misty and May are still loved. Also poor Iris

 

[UltimateNinja]

Suprised to see Misty that high. She was hated by the japanese audience so much. Dawn that low also was a suprise. Dent should be higher since he also was liked by the japanese and BW not being that old yet. That's really an unpredictibal list and would fit to a poll for the western audience more than to the japanese. What the hell.

 

[Frozocrone]

Was this poll only voted on by people living in Japan or was it a worldwide poll?

Can't say I'm surprised much by results...

 

[satopi]

This is just a fun, harmless poll that is probably skewed. It's a small sample and it would've been handled better if they separated by saga groups or allowing the voters to choose more than one.

 

[SinnohEevee]

TPC can laugh at this poll.

 

[Spyro39]

Was this poll only voted on by people living in Japan or was it a worldwide poll?

Can't say I'm surprised much by results...

It was a poll voted by only people in Japan. This was translated by Dephender, with Ash's traveling companions being mentioned by their Japanese names.

 

[Cat's Eye Draco]

This is just a fun, harmless poll that is probably skewed. It's a small sample and it would've been handled better if they separated by saga groups or allowing the voters to choose more than one.

I might be reading it wrong, but I think it mentions in the second paragraph that they were allowed to choose more than one to vote for:

The protagonist Satoshi continues his journey aiming to become a Pokémon Master, but what keeps him going is the presence of his companions. And every time a new series starts, the companions that travel with him change. This led Anime Anime to hold a poll where we asked "Who do you want Satoshi to travel with again?". Since the travel groups up to this point has had a maximum of 3 members excluding Satoshi himself, we let people give up to three answers, so that they'd be able choose every companion from a specific series.

 

[Wednesdayz]

Brock winning first place makes sense I guess since he was with Ash the longest. I don't like how low Iris ranked, though.

 

[Everything12]

Brock, Misty, and May being so high up is probably because over 50% of them came from people in their twenties meaning they were still the companions when these people were watching and Serena being second is probably because some of this people probably returned to the show around XYZ when it seems like Ash could actually win the league this time and maybe because shipping, probably doesn't help that the sample size is so small so it probably is nowhere close to what the actual results would be with a proper sample size.

 

[Heekful]

Brock, Misty, and May being so high up is probably because over 50% of them came from people in their twenties meaning they were still the companions when these people were watching and Serena being second is probably because some of this people probably returned to the show around XYZ when it seems like Ash could actually win the league this time and maybe because shipping, probably doesn't help that the sample size is so small so it probably is nowhere close to what the actual results would be with a proper sample size.

You seem to forgot that this was actually a three part poll and Infernape has beaten Greninja in the poll about "what is your favorite Ash's Pokemon?" and there was no XY movies at all in the top 10 of "what is your favorite Pokemon movie?" so it has nothing to do with OS Japanese fans who only watched XY&Z especially when Greninja was the biggest hype of XY&Z so he should have won against Infernape if it was really the case.