People’s reasoning for Ash remaining ten usually claim that show needs to be repetitive because it is meant to continue to bring in younger audiences into the fandom. You guys claim that Ash doesn’t need to grow up because he need to appealing to new generation of young Pokemon fans. However, here is where the problems arise.
I understand that children need to have protagonist who’s around their age so that they can relate to him more as character. What I don’t understand is why does it need to be Ash? If the producers are so hung up on the fact that those watching the current season of the anime will just up and leave when a new season rolls around then why Ash? Why not let Ash have his journey to grow and develop as character and then end and the have a new character to take up his mantle. Why do they insist on keeping Ash as the main character throughout all the regions. It would make sense if they had him grow over the course his journey not only physically but mentally.
However the anime insists on keeping his the same age and always “resetting” him at the beginning of each new season. What they are doing is counterproductive. The only reason why you would keep Ash is that you assume that older audiences will come back. Then you spit over those audience’s intelligence by make writing character that they can’t sympathize with. You could argue that they are making money regardless however they would make probably the same amount of money if the let as Ash have a break for once and sprout some new ideas.
The reason why I bring this up is the franchise’s creator, Satoshi Tajiri, has originally had pitched this idea of a child on journey using this fantastical creatures as sort of tool of justice to fight against those who use them for nefarious purposes. He wanted the child to not only grow but to gain experience through his interaction with these creatures. This character is what would be known as Ash or Satoshi as is his Japanse name. Too bad this original idea never truly came to be.
However, the Pokemon Adventures manga is what came closest to this ideal if the quote on the back of the first volume rings true.
So this is just something hat I had on the my mind for a while so hopefully I enlighten at least one or two of you reading this.
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