The Pokemon Company excited fans when it announced Pokemon Horizons would have the franchise’s first major time skip. The classic Pokemon anime with Ash Ketchum was notoriously stuck with its floating timeline canon where Ash stayed 10 throughout the show’s 20-plus years on the air. Whereas other media like DC and Marvel comics would have characters slightly age in subtle ways, Ash remained perpetually trapped in a ten-year-old’s body. While there is a comfort in having a character stay the same throughout the decades, Ash’s lack of aging has been a source of anguish among fans. Viewers had grown up, graduated from schools, and had families when the Pokemon anime first aired to when it ended.
Videos by ComicBook.com
Fans wanted to see Ash grow up because they did, but animators decided to keep the anime in a forever summer to give the Pokemon world a freeing and magical feeling. Ash’s lack of aging was part of the growing emblematic nature of the Pokemon anime, with Ash’s story feeling as if it had ended long before the character finally retired. The writers for Pokemon Horizons are not making the same mistake, allowing the protagonists to progress in ways Ash could never. The anime has confirmed the time skip is exactly 1 year after the last episode of The Search for Laqua season.
[RELATED – Pokemon Is Teasing a Big Anime Announcement: Here’s What We Know]
◥◣ポケットモンスター◢◤
— アニメ「ポケットモンスター」公式 (@anipoke_PR) March 14, 2025
◢◤ メガボルテージ ◥◣#アニポケ 新章情報を解禁！
キービジュアルを公開します
4/11(金)は1時間スペシャル！
メガ新しい冒険へ！#メガボルテージ
※一部地域では放送日時・内容が異なります。 pic.twitter.com/11XdW30tZQ
Pokemon Mega Voltage Takes Place 1 Year After Horizons
The Search for Laqua ends with Rising Volt Tacklers escaping from the legendary land of Laqua, but not before seemingly losing Professor Friede. The final episode then skips forward one year with Liko back at her dorm room where she stayed at the beginning of the series. She’s been making a picture book based on her adventures. Meanwhile, Roy is in the middle of nowhere with his new Mega Lucario and the rest of his Pokemon including Captain Pikachu. He has a bracelet with a Mega stone, foreshadowing a bigger focus on Mega Evolutions in Pokemon Mega Voltage, the follow-up to Pokemon Horizons.
The new promo for Mega Voltage also revealed a new member of the main cast, a mysterious boy with a Mega Sableye. He would form a new quartet with the pre-existing trio of Liko, Roy, and Dot. The new series will likely connect with the upcoming Pokemon Legends Z-A video game, releasing later in 2025. With Horizons now canonically moving forward in time by a year, fans now wonder if that means the previous characters from the original anime, like Ash, have also aged a year. Is it possible that we will finally see an 11-year-old Ash Ketchum?
Most Viewed
-
Toei Animation
