Here’s What We Know About Pokemon’s New Hero, Gou

When Pokemon Sun and Moon had Ash Ketchum finally win at a Pokemon League Championship after 20 long years of watching him fail in the anime, long time fans of the anime had wondered whether or not this was going to signal the end of Ash’s journey. The next era of the anime celebrating Pokemon Sword and Shield’s imminent release on Nintendo Switch has officially been revealed, and it’s kind of a send off for Ash as the new series will be the very first to feature two protagonists at its center.

Ash will be along for the ride, of course, with a brand new design in tow, but the most interesting addition was the announcement of Pokemon: The Series‘ new central character, Gou. Here’s what we know about the new Pokemon master in the making so far.

Just like when Ash was first introduced into the series, Gou (sometimes romanized as “Go,” a play on the popular Pokemon Go mobile game) is ten years old according to the official Pokemon website. Just starting off on his journey, Gou’s main goal is to find and catch the mythical Pokemon Mew after meeting it when he was a young child. With a calm personality and “hot heart,” Gou’s main goal is to catch ’em all.

His partner is one of the Shield and Sword starters, the fire-type bunny Pokemon Scorbunny. Scorbunny has a fiery personality, and hates losing when it’s trying to battle for its friends. After a sudden, but fateful meeting with Gou, the two team up for their journey. Designed by long time character designer and art director for the Pokemon franchise, Ken Sugimori, Gou will be voiced by Daiki Yamashita, who’s known for his roles in huge series like My Hero Academia and JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind.

The English dub for the new series has not yet been confirmed as of this writing, so the English voice actor for Gou is not set in stone quite yet. There are also no concrete details as to how the time in the new series will be divided between Gou and Ash, nor if Gou will serve as one of Ash’s many travel companions throughout the series but fulfill his own goals in the process.

But it won’t be long until we find out more about Gou in a fuller capacity as Pokemon: The Series is currently scheduled to premiere November 17th in Japan. This groundbreaking shake-up for the series will not only feature the Galar region from Pokemon Sword and Shield, but will see Ash and Gou journey through previous regions in the franchise once more. Staff confirmed for the new series include Daiki Tomiyasu serving as chief director for OLM, Maki Odaira as series director, Kunihiko Yuyama as creative supervisor, Shoji Yonemura overseeing series construction, Shuhei Yasuda serving as character designer, and Masafumi Mima as sound director.