Pokemon: Will a Time Skip Arrive in The Anime's Future?

Pokemon is preparing to say goodbye to both Ash Ketchum and Pikachu, and while the new trainers have been confirmed in Liko and Roy, there are still plenty of questions surrounding the anime's future. While Ash still has a handful of episodes before he ends his rein as the star of the series, the anime adaptation might be aiming to do what it hasn't done before in instituting a time skip. While nothing has been confirmed, this might be the best route for the series to take.      

Time skips are nothing new to the anime world, as series such as Dragon Ball, One Piece, Naruto, and Attack on Titan are just a few examples. For the most part, Pokemon has bucked this trend in that Ash Ketchum has remained ten years old for over twenty-plus years at this point. What this means is that, somehow, all of Ash and Pikachu's adventures have taken place within a year, which is quite staggering considering that even if you were to break down each episode into its own day, the thousand-plus installments would far surpass one year's time. 

Pokemon Time Skip

Introducing a time skip from the end of Ash's journey to the beginning of Liko and Roy's would work well in still maintaining the events following Ketchum while also giving us not just a new take on Ash, should he actually be revealed to be Liko's dad, but the countless and enemies that populated the anime series over the decades. It would also add a nice mystery in terms of what might have happened in the lives of characters such as Brock, Misty, and Team Rocket, instead of completely leaving them in the past.

This isn't to say that we wouldn't get plenty of new characters, though the added carrot of eventually seeing returning characters as adults, or perhaps decades older, would help reel in Pokemon fans who might miss Ash and Pikachu as the leads. Seeing Ash as a parent while sticking to the background would be a fantastic way to continue his story, while still potentially making him the main challenge that Liko and Roy are looking to overcome.

Time skips will remain an essential part of anime tradition so it would come as no surprise to see Pokemon finally diving into this trope.

Do you want to see the new Pokemon season perform a time skip following Ash Ketchum's departure? Feel free to let us know in the comments or hit me up directly on Twitter @EVComedy to talk all things comics, anime, and the world of Pokemon.