What's next in store for Ash?

[Moonlight Starlight]

For me I would like for generation 9th be for Ash go on a school field trip journey do some tournament battles again like in the BW. Keeping things fresh on new series breaking some formulas which I do like the whole slice of life on Pokemon. I wish the 10th generation would be Ash's final end than the 8th or 9th.

 

[Zweilous]

Maybe his next thing won't be about advancing? He could get a sponsor and do some professional battling for crowds. Battling in exhibition matches and special events, participating in team battles, engaging in battles with different gimmicks, and earning a name for himself in the pro battling world. Basically take the wrestler approach.

 

[BabaVanga]

He willl go on a quest to finally find his missing father. 100%
Tbh, this series does look like an endgame for Ash, so if they decide to keep him I hope they'll give him some interesting goal. As long as it's not what player character does in the newest games I'm content.

 

[Leonhart]

Maybe his next thing won't be about advancing? He could ger a sponsor and do some professional battling for crowds. Battling in exhibition matches and special events, participating in team battles, engaging in battles with different gimmicks, and earning a name for himself in the pro battling world. Basically take the wrestler approach.

That could work, but I think that the formula of the series would remain generally the same: that is to say, we'd probably still get filler episodes in between important moments and there would likely be another cast member who shares the screen-time with Satoshi, either Gou or someone new who'll replace him.

 

[blizzardblaze]

With how Journeys has been going so far, with the main direction of the series being Ash and Goh exploring the world around them and finding out new things about how Pokemon behave as well as meeting new people, I bet he's just going to be exploring the region
and possibly gaining new gym badges as a hobby this time instead of being serious

Or he finally gets a break and someone else takes up his role as protagonist.

 

[ash&charizardfan]

If Ash does end up defeating Leon I predict either two things will happen

1. His story ends and he is replaced with a new lead
2. He continues on to the ninth region and does something different there as well. Either he stays in the ninth region full time or they continue with the world tour aspect introduced in Gen 8.


I hope they never go back to the typical badge quest as well

I dont think they can ever replace him, he is basically the poster boy pof franchise, what i think could happen is he could become a supporting main character to the new lead, kind of role what naruto took in new boruto series, where he takes in one beginner like he started and become his instructor and travels with him meanwhile he competes and defends his crown against top opponents from time to time. That can happen granted he defeats leon in first place and before that i would like him defeating other champions.

 

[Rohanator]

I could see Pokemon just kinda taking on a more generic formula like Beyblade or Dragon Ball where even though the main character gets crowned as officially world's strongest at the end of one season it doesn't really matter cause new strong competitors and villains are always gonna keep coming out of the wood works. Satoshi can grab Dande's title and then meet the champion of the gen 9 region who's "EVEN STRONGER" (but didn't take part in this competition for X reason), get excited and do yet another challenge over there, whether it be gyms or a championship or whatever.

It seems more wild when you only look at it from the context of Pokemon itself, but it's a pretty normal set up for a sport/fighting series. Pokemon used to have such realistically slow proggression for Satoshi that the world seemed very unified in terms of scale, but let's not forget about shows like Dragon Ball that are perfectly successful by just pulling new challenges out of their behinds one after another, they CAN just make Satoshi Goku and keep going as endlessly as ever if they want.

 

[SerGoldenhandtheJust]

It still baffles me that people believe Ash will leave at all this series no matter if it's Ash's "endgame" or not. LOL. People still don't understand that anime finishes when Ash becomes Pokemon Master. People don't understand that Ash's Pikachu is a mascot of Pokemon anime at least. Why would new protag in Gen 8 or 10 have Ash's Pikachu? LOL. People don't understand marketing power behind Ash and his Pikachu. Even TRio are marketable that's why they're still here. No Ash and his Pikachu = no Trio.
So only logical conclusions here are: 1. Reboot like BW where Ash goes for gyms, 2. Continuation of PWC or something like that where Gen 9 trainers are even stronger, then Gen 10 trainers which are stronger than Gen 9 etc etc. So it can go indefinitely until Pokemon games stop making money or stop but we won't see that anytime soon.

Why people can't just base the facts that there have been like 3-4 times now that "ASH WILL LEAVE" and he never did. Ash will be with us until end of anime, if you don't like it don't watch.
Imagine thinking Goku is not face of DB anymore lol, yet what Goku or what DB does is make characters even stronger and stronger. Same will happen in Pokemon.

Ash and TR have marketability yet but they also can't go on forever with him else it becomes stale. Considering the direction of the anime I won't be surprised if gen 10 anime does have a new protagonist, a new story. They could still have another Pikachu on the cast. I don't think they will be afraid to do it. And yes, TR will probably be retired if ash's journey comes to an end. So yeah, I personally believe ash's journey will someday have to end, and gen 10 is a nice spot for that to happen with Gen 8 ending with him being the strongest trainer and Gen 9 further reflecting on that. Again, my theory

 

[Master Pikachu 11]

Ash is not leaving until he becomes a Pokémon Master and him potentially defeating Leon will not make him one as it is only one step to becoming a Pokémon Master. The writers are going to continue to leave it vague in regards to what one has to do to become a Pokémon Master. But until he becomes one then this anime will continue with him as the main protagonist.

 

[Ubermuk]

Ash will prolly lose to Leon and make a vow to try again later, but then in the next series there will be a new reigning character who Ash will decide to battle in place of Leon or something like that.

 

[Red and Blue]

I dont think they can ever replace him, he is basically the poster boy pof franchise, what i think could happen is he could become a supporting main character to the new lead, kind of role what naruto took in new boruto series, where he takes in one beginner like he started and become his instructor and travels with him meanwhile he competes and defends his crown against top opponents from time to time. That can happen granted he defeats leon in first place and before that i would like him defeating other champions.

I think Pikachu is more marketable then Ash himself. If Pikachu is once again the starter of the new lead it could work.

 

[Zoruagible]

Whatever it is I honestly hope he wins the PWC and that they don't make him lose and rehash it next saga with gen 9 champion, people constantly ***** and moan about the gym quest being 'repetitive and boring' but this? It's the literal definition of it! Ash constantly stomping random no-name trainers and you can only have him fight trainers who he's beaten in the past so many times before it gets boring. Either let Ash win or let Cynthia take the title like she should while Ash ventures off to grow more before trying again, cue gen 9's challenge

At least with badges you had a sense of progression, Ash advancing in rank is honestly boring and hard to give a damn about. He's not getting anything physical for it and they shot his rank super fast! He shouldn't even be in the top 1,000 right now! Speaking of which if he doesn't win the PWC, he's coming home with literally nothing to add to his room. No badges, no frontier symbols, nothing!

And winning the PWC isn't automatically "Ash is out lul" based on what Ash said about it. It's merely a 'step towards becoming a Pokemon Master!' which they still won't say what exactly makes one a 'Pokemon Master'!

 

[Flypikachu]

They're keeping what a "Pokemon Master" vague is for a reason. Gives them an excuse to keep Satoshi's journey going. It would be interesting if they did make a new protagonist, but I still don't see why a new protagonist would be needed unless the new protagonist ends up having a different goal besides battling. Otherwise it's just yet another trainer who would be undergoing gym battles or other battle-related challenges, pretty much what Satoshi is already doing. Unless they make it unique, I don't think it's necessary.

I would be all for it if they execute the replacement properly, but again, if it's back to a rookie trainer I don't know how I would feel about it. Already spent many years waiting for Satoshi to win a league, I don't want to wait many more years for a new protagonist to accomplish a similar feat.

One thing I would like to see, despite Dande being the "world's strongest trainer" is Satoshi battling more elite four and champions from other regions. My main gripe is that he hasn't really battled elite four members/champions, such as the Sinnoh Elite Four despite them making prominent appearances in that respective series, and so on.

 

[HolyNova Lucario]

People keep forgetting, Being the Strongest Trainer =/= Pokemon Master as stated by Ash.
Ash's journey will NOT end once he beats Leon, but it's hard to imagine what the next step Ash will take IF he beats him.

 

[Jibanyan]

Next game could use a different formula kinda like SM did (but more since at the end SM was still the same as the other games), there are many ways a Pokemon game can work without the same stale formula and still feel like a Pokemon game and that could be used in the anime.

 

[CMButch]

Ash and TR have marketability yet but they also can't go on forever with him else it becomes stale. Considering the direction of the anime I won't be surprised if gen 10 anime does have a new protagonist, a new story. They could still have another Pikachu on the cast. I don't think they will be afraid to do it. And yes, TR will probably be retired if ash's journey comes to an end. So yeah, I personally believe ash's journey will someday have to end, and gen 10 is a nice spot for that to happen with Gen 8 ending with him being the strongest trainer and Gen 9 further reflecting on that. Again, my theory

Becoming stale? Dude, they already run for like 22-23 years, if that's not stale, I don't know what it is XD. They run with James Bond for like 60 years. Godzilla with also 60-70 years, Mickey Mouse for 90 years. Tom and Jerry etc etc etc, and yet they're not stale. If you're true Ash or TR fan, they wouldn't be stale. For me Ash is not stale. If he becomes Pokemon Master and anime continues with him then I can say: Yeah, there's nothing beyond that for Ash, it's stale "but it makes no sense for me that anime continues after Ash becomes Pokemon Master". Not to mention that for writers : marketing = money >> stale.

They could have another Pikachu yeah but that would be pretty bad or "stale", look this is ???(insert protag name) his first Pokemon is ... Pikachu! I find it bad. In this case I would've liked more if it's Alain like guy instead of being carbon copy of Ash.

Well, it's a fact that Ash's journey will end. Like everything ends, it's just matter of time. But based on all things considered and how things go: Ash's journey will finish and anime will end. Anime will end when writers stop making money and that would mean Pokemon is in decline. Again; look at Mickey Mouse, 90 years and still running and there are still Mickey's cartoons since Disney is making money. Don't be surprised if you're like 80 and Ash's still on his journey, yeah that sound bizzare but again: Tom and Jerry, Mickey Mouse, James Bond ,Godzilla etc. Not to mention that's it would be too risky to remove Ash,TR and Pikachu because they generate money. I mean look at Yugioh; they change protags and later series don't preform very well. And last thing no one knows what is Pokemon Master. Writers can literally pull anything about of fart machine lol... Maybe they would say to become PM you need to catch all Pokemon, basically Ash does Go's job if Go leaves.Maybe it's that, maybe it's that.. or maybe it's all those things: get all Pokemon and be the strongest idk.

 

[Ignition]

I know everyone is tired of Gyms but I still prefer the old formula over what we have now so him going back to a typical badge quest would be great.

I think his next goal should be something that’s not just “fight to be the best”. It can involve competition and progression through some type of tournament, but I feel like he could do more than that.

I still want Ash’s final opponent to be either his dad, Oak, or Ho-oh.

 

[Leonhart]

Ash will prolly lose to Leon and make a vow to try again later, but then in the next series there will be a new reigning character who Ash will decide to battle in place of Leon or something like that.

I do think that Dande will lose relevance in the next saga since it's doubtful that he'll be a major character in the next generation of games. So there would almost certainly be a new trainer that Satoshi would want to defeat after Dande, whether or not he defeats Dande in this saga.

 

[Rohanator]

The fact that Satoshi literally said that beating Dande will be "one step" towards Pokemon Master and that this series' director Daiki Tomiyasu said that he only gave Satoshi Dande as a goal because he felt that Pokemon Master was too vague by itself and that he doesn't even know if they'll actually battle at the end tells me that there's at least no "grand plan" for Satoshi, they gotta keep this show about the world of Pokemon running and Satoshi and Pikachu are its face and that's that, they'll do their best to make each series have its own satisfying arc but I don't think any amount of progression will "force" them to end Satoshi's run.

(After SM I'm at least somewhat comfident that they'll follow through with the set up and have Satoshi beat Dande in the end, not like the director can just spoil it outright)

 

[Spider-Phoenix]

They're keeping what a "Pokemon Master" vague is for a reason. Gives them an excuse to keep Satoshi's journey going. It would be interesting if they did make a new protagonist, but I still don't see why a new protagonist would be needed unless the new protagonist ends up having a different goal besides battling. Otherwise it's just yet another trainer who would be undergoing gym battles or other battle-related challenges, pretty much what Satoshi is already doing. Unless they make it unique, I don't think it's necessary.

This.

A friend from another board put it best: why replace Ash? For the next guy to do the same thing? We've gotten Ash for that already.

Also as some sister franchises have shown change the protagonist will not garantee an increase in the fandom. Just see Digimon which is going back to the Adventure cast.

this series' director Daiki Tomiyasu said that he only gave Satoshi Dande as a goal because he felt that Pokemon Master was too vague by itself and that he doesn't even know if they'll actually battle

I still feel like they do have a long-term plan for the series and this statement is basically some PR move they are using to keep the audience curious enough to check how things are going to unfold from present to future. It's also a good way to save face just in case they have to change things mid-way.

If people ask "why did Leon lost to that Magikarp trainer and Ash is going to play ping-pong next generation?" Tomiyasu will just answer "well, we never told you he was going to battle Leon. Check out the new series. I'll be cheering pro ping pong player Ash!"