#i was mourning the wrong thing and that was the goodbye to kukui!!

[sirikyu]

WARNING: this might make you sad (writing it made me sad), it came about from the theory that the next region won’t feature ash and pikachu anymore, and i’m making a thinky post about it. i genuinely hope, and think it’s more than possible that it’s nothing but rumours or even trolling by the marketing peeps, but it still made me think about my relationship with this whole tv show, and what it would mean if it ended here. pls don’t take this as a confirmation though, we don’t need rumours to turn into people definitively declaring it’s the end of ash’s journey.

so everyone’s theorising about the next series and i am definitely hearing the concern that we have been watching ash’s final story for the past 3 years. if the next series means a change in protagonist, i’d love it if they didn’t just suddenly do that, because i need some warning beforehand so i can mourn properly. ending ash’s journey on a month’s (or even a few months’) notice would be just cruel, coldly announcing that we won’t see anymore of ash and expect me to be suddenly happy to see a new main character in his place.. but since we are on the topic...

(i’ve had a half a day to think about this.)

i was thinking about this a little since i saw some twitter theories (everything from the sad to the annoying ones (ash doesn’t “deserve” to have a final season with sun and moon cause it’s not been battle-oriented enough?? eugh)) and here are those thoughs:

there has been a descriptor i’ve seen around tumblr about “comfort characters”.. and when i was thinking about what seeing the end of ash’s journey would mean for me, i came to realize that THAT is what ash and pikachu is to me, a comfort character. i’ve watched their journey since i was barely in school and him and pikachu have been such a constant in the background of my life. i love the world he lives in and i absolutely think ash-pikachu team, by merely existing in a franchise, gives me comfort. every time i checked in with the pokemon tv series, ash’s friendship with pikachu and his journey through the world would be there.

i guess i also thought that since he’s been such a huge comfort to me, having his journey end with such a comforting series as sun and moon has been would be a high note, personally.

(and i think it would somewhat fit with his goals too. i’d rather have this close-knit community of alola be the thing that taught ash most about pokemon, not the battle-oriented life he led in the other regions, i think this feels more thematically better, as opposed to showing the most battle prowess. i don’t think it’s the sport of pokemon battling that makes him a master, it’s seeing the way pokemon and people can live together in every way. even though i’d prefer it if they were a bit more explicit about this being the point of alola, in case this is what ending ash’s journey here means.)

i have been consistently loving sun and moon for 3 years straight. it’s been so good. and i think, if this were the final ash-and-pikachu series, it would be SO, SO sad but i just would never be able to be angry about it ending here, because thematically, yeah, this would be a pretty nice series to end on. i mean, i wish i could learn more about ash, get into some nitty-gritty stuff that the anime hasn’t been able to do before, but since i don’t think that’s what this anime wants to do, i can absolutely live with this. kukui and ash have been such a unit, and i was dreading their goodbye, but if ash’s journey ends here, then maybe the goodbye won’t feel like a long one? and the ending turns bittersweet, because ash has a new goal that we won’t get to see, but we know for sure that he’s happy.

but i think this also hinges on

how the post-league episodes go, what kind of a note we end on, what ash decides to do in case he wins the alola league, what is the “end” of the journey as we will see it

how much time we will have with ash and pikachu before the end, will i be given time to mourn. i wish they’d announce these thing way before!!!

but yeah, were this ash’s final journey or not, the end of sun and moon is going to be SO bittersweet. i am SO thankful that the sumo series exists though.