New Pokemon Anime Introduces New Female Lead Character

Pokemon‘s anime will soon be entering a new era to celebrate the release of the next generation of the video games, Sword and Shield. But the new anime is a more exciting affair than the last few seasons as it seems to be a massive shift from what fans have come to expect from the anime’s releases. While previous eras of the anime have seen Ash explore a single region from the new generation, this next generation will feature Ash and new protagonist, Gou, venturing forth through every region of the franchise thus far.

But some thing will be a bit familiar such as the main female companion that will follow along with Ash and Gou, and the official Twitter account for the Pokemon anime revealed the new character in full. Her name’s Koharu, and she’s the daughter of the new professor.

Koharu (whose English name has yet to be confirmed) is the 10 year old daughter of the new Kanto region professor, Sakuragi. She’s the childhood friend of new protagonist Gou, and has a Yamper as her partner Pokemon. She’ll be voiced by Kana Hanazawa, who anime fans might recognize as Mayuri Shiina in Steins;Gate and Rize Kamishiro in Tokyo Ghoul. But since it’s currently unclear just how the series will split the time between the two protagonist, it’s unclear as to Koharu’s role as well.

Although she might serve as the female companion, she could also serve as a new rival to the two already introduced trainers. Her past as Gou’s childhood friend suggests the former, but we’ll find out for sure soon as Pokemon: The Series is currently scheduled to premiere November 17th in Japan.

For those who might have wanted this new series to move beyond Ash, they’ll sort of get their wish as the next series will be featuring dual protagonists. The new series will introduce Gou, designed by Pokemon character designer Ken Sugimori, who has a Scorbunny as his partner Pokemon and is also out to catch ’em all.

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, Masafumi Mima as sound director, Yuki Hayashi as series composer, and Daiki Yamashita has been confirmed as the voice of Gou.