Do you think Ash should finally retire?

signofzeta

Aspiring Trainer
Member
Tai from Digimon passed the torch to Davis

Yugi passed the torch to Jaden.

Ash passes the torch, to himself? What a hog. Ethan should have had all the glory.

Throughout the entire series of pokemon, Ash has always been the number 1 main character, whom the entire series revolves around. The female companion is #2, and the other male companion is #3.

I think for future series, Ash should be demoted to the #3 role, and have the male character and female character in the video games take the #1 and #2 role. That way, the mascot can still be pikachu, but the series is focused more on the video game characters. The male and female character can take one of the 3 starters, while the rival takes the final starter.

Ash is also teaching little kids that they have all the time in the world to achieve their goals. If you want to achieve something, and you fail at it, but never give up, you are sort of wasting resources. If ash doesn't retire, it means he never achieves his goal till the end of time. I think it is about time Ash became a pokemon master. We'd probably see more Ash in the times to come. I'm not really saying that people should give up on their dreams, but I'm saying that people don't live forever, and they don't have infinite amount of tries to do anything they want. Sometimes people have to take what they have and go with the flow.

It doesn't make sense that ash doesn't use his old pokemon, who are at high level, and rather handicap himself by starting from scratch. It seems that ash is in a neverending loop of never ever becoming a pokemon master. Even Gary Oak got the right idea. "Screw becoming the Pokemon champ. It's a waste of time. Why not become an assistant to a professor?"
 
Ash is the star of the show besides Pikachu. This is why they created Pokemon Chronicles as a side quest. I could see one of the characters from that show tagging along with Ash though. If they took out Ash most people would not watch Pokemon anymore. As of now Pokemon is tied with Mario at Nintendo. That would be like taking Mario out and replacing him with Luigi XD. That does not work because even if that happened the franchise would die and the same goes for Mario if that happened. It is a 2 way street XD. If you take out a main character the series will die. If you leave the main character there the series will live on. Ash is an awesome character for many reasons that I can't post here otherwise this thread would be so long.

You can't just do that in any TV series XD Ash's goal is to become a Pokemon Master. Sure he has a long way to go catching Pokemon still but that does not mean it will never happen. It will be a long time before they do any character replacing. They had a hard time replacing the VA's for season 9 onward XD. That was so bad that Pokemon nearly got cancelled for the 2nd time. The first time Pokemon nearly got cancelled was when Episode #38 Electric Soldier Porygon Aired due to the fact that more than 800 Japanese kids had seizures because of Pikachu's Thunder attack that flashed yellow and blue rapidly during the airing and they did cancel the series altogether for about 6 months or so. After it came back on they banned that episode entirely. It only aired once here in the U.S.A. So you see taking out a main character would destroy the series forever XD.:)
 
yeah and still we have many mysteries to face like who is really ashes father etc

but who knows pokemon x and y could be last season then who knows might be world league where u need to compeat in many pokemon leagues who knows but ash is awesome and many people like him
 
They should kill him off and Red should be the new main character, until the Gold & Silver saga.
Gold should then be the protagonist, and once Ruby & Sapphire starts, it should be Ruby.
After that, once Diamond and Pearl starts, Diamond should be the main character, then when the Black & White
anime starts, it should be Black. Finally when that's over and the X & Y anime start, X should be the main character.
So yeah, kill Ash.
 
Well, I would sure hope that Ash never gives up his role, and quite honestly, I don't think that would ever happen. Ultimately, I see Yugi 'passing the torch to Jaden' as being the downfall of the series, and likewise it would be the same with Pokémon if that were to happen. I mean 'GX' wasn't bad, but if Pokémon started out with completely new characters, the Anime would essentially be back at square one. The fan base would deplete tremendously because there is no longer a character (Ash) that connects them to the Pokémon shows that they've known and loved for all these years. And of course, no Ash also means no Pikachu, no Pikachu means GF Pokémon. These two are iconic figures and you couldn't take them out and run the same Anime, they would have to create an entirely new one like they did for the transition from Yu-Gi-Oh to the GX line.

Oh gosh, no! If Ash is no longer the main character, he most DEFINITELY could not stay as one of the side roles; he would have to leave altogether. I can already see the uprising from the fan base if this happened. Plus, they would never produce a show like that, that would be a horrible concept to take the main icons (Ash & Pikachu) of the franchise and put them on lesser roles.

I know what you mean though about the 'never ending dream'. However, I think that as the Anime gets more and more sophisticated as years go by, they will find a way around that little detail that keep the shows going and keep them interesting.
 
One word; YES.

It has been five generations. FIVE. Actually, you know what, he does appears more than five generations (ie, orange saga) lol. I really want a teenage centralized show (kids does look up to teenage/adults, what's wrong with that?), but I don't see that happening. I kept thinking, the company have to be tired of him, seriously. He's boring, stale, stupid, expected and dry. I really like Pokemon Chronicles, it's actually much better than the original show. It's a shame it discontinued. (It did, right? I can't remember.)
 
I wouldn't have minded Ash if he hadn't been so literally dumbed down right from the beginning. I understand that they wanted the anime to be kid friendly, but that doesn't mean the main character has to stay the same way forever. Even young children understand what character development is and it doesn't have to be drastic development either. Lack of character change is what ruins any potentially good story. If Ash were to be retired, I'd think there would be a lot of room for a new character to come in and improve the quality of the anime by going on a quest in which he/she could grow-up and mature as a person/trainer.
 
Ash is never going away, suck it up kiddies
 
Matty said:
One word; YES.

It has been five generations. FIVE. Actually, you know what, he does appears more than five generations (ie, orange saga) lol. I really want a teenage centralized show (kids does look up to teenage/adults, what's wrong with that?), but I don't see that happening. I kept thinking, the company have to be tired of him, seriously. He's boring, stale, stupid, expected and dry. I really like Pokemon Chronicles, it's actually much better than the original show. It's a shame it discontinued. (It did, right? I can't remember.)

I completely agree with you that the show has some room to grow further towards the teenage side of the scale, but why would you want to completely discard Ash? It's easy enough to simply send his character down a different path, if you will. Develop him differently and you've taken care of the stale/expected/stupidness of it. (For the record I don't think he's stupid, just some of the things he says sometimes is stupid.)

My opinion on Chronicles is basically the same reason why Ash can't be replaced in my mind. They are absolutely wonderful side stories, but if the main series centered around alternate characters, it just wouldn't feel right. Plus, I would think that basing a show off of your VG characters would become stale far quicker. I think the fact that Ash's companions usually switch out every generation provide enough 'freshness' to keep it interesting on that front.

Btw, Orange Islands isn't a generation, hehe. :p
 
its fine with me that they dont take ash away, but at least make him grow up into a proper bad-ass teenager/young adult pokemon trainer and take away those annoying team rocket who destroy the watching experience(at least on my case)
 
Incinermyn said:
I wouldn't have minded Ash if he hadn't been so literally dumbed down right from the beginning. I understand that they wanted the anime to be kid friendly, but that doesn't mean the main character has to stay the same way forever. Even young children understand what character development is and it doesn't have to be drastic development either.
I agree. I have some problems with Ash acting so naïve . The fact he still hasn't matured a lot and grown really took away from watchers that want to see the series develop, and Ash become a full feldged Master. He has gone to 5 different regions, and is still oblivious to certian things about Pokemon and acts very inexperienced. And then you see people around him that have matured when leaving, such as Brock, when he left to work with Professer Ivy and came back experienced at what he does. I love the show the way it is, but some improvments could always make it better.
 
No way ! For me, Ash totally belongs there ! If they would 'remove' him it will beat all the nostalgia out of the show for me !
Ash & Pikachu are just such a big trademark for Pokémon. In my opinion, it would be all wrong without him.
 
I definitely think Ash should retire as the main character from the anime series. At this point, he does not ever develop himself in the anime, he just starts over from scratch every time he enters a new region. If the developers would finally allow the other playable characters to be the main characters in the anime for their own region, we can finally see them grow and develop and they can finally achieve their goals. Up until now, I assume the only thing holding Ash back from achieving his goal is that it would end his journey, making the current anime a never ending cycle, where he never progresses.

If a new character appears for each generation, we get to follow their progress and even watch them achieve their goals.
 
I always wanted to watch the anime from May, Ethan, or Richie's perspective. So yeah Ash should pass that baton.
 
I think I would have liked to have seen this happen a lot more if it were done at the end of the Indigo or Orange Island League episodes rather than now. We could have followed the game's main characters throughout their own region and storyline. However, now... I'm not sure. I think I would like it if Pokémon gave a fresh start, but I would want a good closure with Ash first.

Regardless, I don't think it will happen. If it were going to happen, it probably would have happened at the start of the BW season since BW was supposed to be a "fresh start" and all. I don't think a worldwide shared release is enough of a change to make Pokémon toss out Ash for someone else.
 
Bolt the Cat said:
I don't think it matters. The bad writing is the problem, not Ash himself.

That is a very valid point. They could completely change around the system and still let Ash keep the leading role. I would also be content with that. I hope to see improvement and progress in Ash in the newer generations rather than watch him start over in each region. But if he achieves his goal it would mean he needs a new goal for the anime to continue.

Creating more spin-off series would be a good solution to see more of the playable game characters (as done with The Legend of Thunder).
 
Bolt the Cat said:
I don't think it matters. The bad writing is the problem, not Ash himself.

Agree. I think if Pokemon was a little more funny and reminiscent of the Kanto/Johto episodes I would be willing to watch it more often. Ash used to be a lot better character before IMO. Over the years I feel like he's been dumbed down.
 
Back
Top