On November 12th,
Ash Ketchum defeated Leon to win the Masters Eight Tournament and be crowned world champion. With Ash having seemingly finally achieved his dream of becoming a Pokémon Master, many fans have been understandably concerned about the future of the Pokémon Anime and of their favourite characters. During a regular monthly press conference held earlier today, by TV Tokyo President Ishihara Ichiro (石川一郎), we now finally have confirmation that Ash's anime adventures will be continuing into the future.
This confirmation comes via a couple of brief statements made at the conference by Hiraoka Toshiyuki (平岡利介), the General Manager of TV Tokyo's Anime Business Division.
HIRAOKA Toshiyuki - Anime Business Division General Manager said:
「今後が注目されていますが、サトシの冒険はまだまだ続きます」
"What will happen from now on is attracting attention, but Satoshi's adventures will continue."
「冒険がどうなっていくのか、今後のアニメで情報発信していきたい」
"As to what these adventures will go, we will release information in a future anime broadcast."
President Ishihara meanwhile made several comments about the worldwide reaction to Ash's Masters Eight victory.
ISHIHARA Ichiro - CEO and President said:
「アニメのキャラクターへのお祝いのことばというのは初めてですが…」
"It's the first time I've ever congratulated an anime character"
「うちの孫もポケモンが大好きで、たまに放送がないと涙して(社長に対し)怒ってきたりする」
"My grandchildren love Pokémon too, and sometimes cry and get angry with me when there's no broadcast"
「サトシさんがチャンピオンになったことで、世界中からお祝いのことばが贈られたと聞いている。われわれは『ポケモン』の放送をずっと続けておりますので(世界一は)大変うれしいですし、我々としてもサトシさんを祝福したい」
"About Satoshi becoming the Champion, I heard people around the world had sent their congratulations. We've been continuing to broadcast Pokémon for a very long time, so we're extremely happy this has happened, and want to congratulate Satoshi as well."
At this stage, no explicit statement has been made about what form this continuation might take, which has led to concerns being raised by some long time members of the Pokémon anime fandom.
President Ishihara's quote regarding his grandchildren's feelings when there's no broadcast does at least give us some hope that Pokémon will continue as a weekly anime series. We should hopefully have more information once the next episode of Pokémon airs in Japan tomorrow, December 2nd.
Comments
A Paldea series wouldn't warrant all this secrecy, especially so late.
a) COVID related disruptions at studios across the entire anime industry, meaning a lot of work is very behind schedule
b) A need to withhold information about the new series to avoid spoiling plot related information for the current anime series (e.g. if something about the plot of the new series would spoil the results of the Masters Eight tournament and Project Mew, this would necessitate holding that info back) and/or late game plot elements of the Scarlet and Violet games.
a) In what sense are they "very" behind schedule? They seemingly needed 3 more episodes to wrap up the series beyond SV's release date. If the current series doesn't end next week, that is entirely by choice.
b) Since a lot of people expected Ash to continue regardless of the Master 8, what exactly would an announcement have spoiled back in September? Or 3 weeks ago right after the victory? It could have been a simple poster with Ash, Pikachu and the starters. There have been so many precedents since OS was about to end in 2002.
c) There are reasons to believe that OLM can't afford to keep Pokemon as a weekly show anymore. A delay wouldn't fix that.
d) This isn't just about logistics. I genuinely don't see what long-term goal Ash would have in Paldea that wouldn't make his celebrated victory feel pointless.
f) I'm more skeptical about a typical weekly series than anything else. If it's a seasonal series (26 episodes at most), then part of it could be about Ash doing something in Paldea.
Looking specifically at OLM and Pokémon, while OLM would've absolutely had some budget concerns with this most recent arc, I don't believe these are indicative of a long term problem. When you're wanting to blow the entire budget on a massive spectacle of a tournament and championship match to celebrate a major milestone of the franchise, budgetary constraints are simply to be expected. But this was clearly a one-off event that isn't going to be happening again any time soon, so the impact on the next arc may be more limited (though it's not impossible they dipped into the budget for the next arc to get this one finalised, which could be another short term setback).
A lot of people expected it, but a lot of people also thought that Ash could fail, so it absolutely would have been a spoiler. And while we now know that Ash won, we still don't know how Goh's story might conclude (or if they could be continuing on to the next arc, which is still a distinct possibility). It's not difficult to think of a scenario where even a simple poster of Ash, Pikachu and the starters could be a massive spoiler either (e.g. if they're doing something like finally aging Ash up).
If you can't think of what goal Ash might have in Paldea, then doesn't that suggest whatever goal he has isn't obvious, and so might be worth them going out of their way to not spoil?
Shows aimed at the kind of target demographic that Pokémon is typically aren't done in that seasonal format. When they are, such as with something like My Hero Academia, it's due to the series being an adaptation rather than an a (semi-)original story like Pokémon. Even then, it often only happens when you've got an author who's against "filler" arcs, or when the studio judges that it'd be too difficult and/or costly to come up with appropriate stories for those filler arcs that wouldn't interfere with the overarching plot.