Pokemon Lets Goh Make One Thing Clear About His Relationship with Ash

Pokemon Journeys: The Series introduced fans to a new hero, Goh, and the newest episode of the series let Goh make one thing clear to everyone about his relationship with Ash. He wants everyone to realize that he’s an equal rather than just a bystander looking onto Ash’s journey much like the companions of series’ past. Pokemon Journeys has shaken up things from the rest of the franchise in a number of ways, but the biggest had to have been the debut of a deuteragonist for the first real time in the anime franchise.

Ash Ketchum has had travelling partners with their own goals and missions before, but Goh has been established much differently. Coming along with Ash on his return trip to Alola, Goh was pretty uncomfortable around most of his old Alolan friends at first because of how attached they were to Ash. Treating him as almost a secondary person, even Kiawe got the idea into his head that Goh saw himself as Ash’s rival.

Kiawe even challenges Goh to a battle to see if he’s a “worthy” rival, and Goh gets so irritated at this that he set the record straight almost immediately. Declaring to Kiawe and the others in Alola, Goh states that Ash isn’t his rival. He’s his friend and fellow research partner. He’s not there to help Ash on his journey, but the two of them are travelling together for their own goals.

Goh stating this definitely puts him more into the main character spot than any other companion in franchise past (even getting his own episode completely free of Ash), and he definitely makes an even bigger impact with the Alolan crowd as they were more of the hangers on that usually fill the roster. Goh just might have taken a major step toward taking over that main character role in the future, but what do you think?

What did you think of Goh’s declaration in Pokemon Journeys: The Series? Surprised to see Goh declare that he and Ash Ketchum are equals? Did you expect to see him declare that he was Ash’s rival or best friend? Let us know your thoughts in the comments or you can even reach out to me directly about all things animated and other cool stuff @Valdezology on Twitter!