Thread: Should Ash age or not ?

It's not an obsession so much as it's a frustration. As I said before, people get annoyed simply because the anime acknowledges the holes it creates in its continuity.

The main reason why Ash never ages is so that he remains relatable to the show's target audience. That'll probably never change because Pokémon is meant for children, always has, always will.

Yes, because of what him being eternally 10 means for the future of the show and what it does to his personal continuity.

Originally Posted by PDL

The main reason why Ash never ages is so that he remains relatable to the show's target audience. That'll probably never change because Pokémon is meant for children, always has, always will.

U Know, One day I was watching pokemon & one of my cousin who is arround 8 or 9 year old tell me ''U still watch pokemon'' He also says ''I don't watch pokemon cause I'm too old for it ''
Now think , If A 9 or 8 year old kid says he too old for pokemon then whom does the anime aims at ? BADIES
Writer paying so much attention in making pokemon a Kids anime that a Little Kid doesn't even watch pokemon. Thats writer Weakness
Now there are more interested in ''Inazuma Eleven'' or ''Prince of Tennis'' or ''Bey Blade Metal Fushion''
Rather Then trying to Make Pokemon A Kids anime, Writer should try to Make pokemon A anime that can be enjoyed by people of all Age, not only Kids
So Ash should age

Originally Posted by Kishore

U Know, One day I was watching pokemon & one of my cousin who is arround 8 or 9 year old tell me ''U still watch pokemon'' He also says ''I don't watch pokemon cause I'm too old for it ''
Now think , If A 9 or 8 year old kid says he too old for pokemon then whom does the anime aims at ? BADIES
Writer paying so much attention in making pokemon a Kids anime that a Little Kid doesn't even watch pokemon. Thats writer Weakness
Now there are more interested in ''Inazuma Eleven'' or ''Prince of Tennis'' or ''Bey Blade Metal Fushion''
Rather Then trying to Make Pokemon A Kids anime, Writer should try to Make pokemon A anime that can be enjoyed by people of all Age, not only Kids
So Ash should age

Except, it's targeted at children, and will more then likely continue in the same vain.

Originally Posted by gotpika

Except, it's targeted at children, and will more then likely continue in the same vain.

If Pokemon has always been targeted at children, then I feel that the writers of the show made a terrible mistake in giving Ash's story continuity and development as this inevitably kept the interest of some young adults who had been tuned in to his adventure since Pokemon! I Choose You! Ash's age was completely ambiguous after that episode right up until they mentioned it again in the first episode of Best Wishes which, coupled with his very clear maturity in AG and DP as well as his improving stature as a Pokemon trainer, gave viewers like me the impression that Ash was growing up with his fans and closing in on his first proper regional championship. All that mentioning his age in Best Wishes has done is that it has given older fans the impression that Ash's character development from the OS until DP has all been in vain.

As it turns out, I don't have anything against a character that the main target audience can relate to. However, if the storyline of the past 10+ years was to be so unceremoniously dumped as it has been in BW, surely it would have made more sense if the writers:

a) rebooted Ash's character for every regional saga;
b) resolved Ash's goal back in the Indigo League/Orange Islands and brought in a new protagonist at the start of each new saga.

Using one of these formulas, each saga could introduce a new audience while phasing out the older generations of fans. It is evident that there is still a hardcore of older fans who stuck around to watch Ash grow and eventually reach his goal, only to have become bitterly annoyed at the revelation that Ash is rebooted to/has always been 10 years old and has resorted to past mistakes and old immature character quirks since reaching Unova. This may be in order to appeal to the show's target audience, but I personally believe that the writers left Ash's age ambiguous and all continuity in tact until the end of DP so as to keep the older fans on board with the series too. Due to this, I find the decision to devamp Ash's character to the extent that it has been before he even wins a major regional tournament both puzzling and very jarring.

You can still have a show for kids and you can still have the character age slowly. This way it shows how kids grow. Which they do.

I have a simple philosophy about this: age him up, or tear him down. Especially since there was an episode in Johto(?) that celebrated his meeting with Pikachu, which is also his birthday. Which would make him at least eleven. Which means everything past that date is noncanonical thanks to BW's age reboot. So, I will explain what really happened.

Once upon a time, there was a little boy, age ambiguous, with a pet electric rodent and his own team of personal stalkers. This little boy, named Ash, had just lost a battle to Tobias the trollish Darkrai and his friend Latios, and as such was so sad about his loss that he promptly forgot about the League and bid his friends farewell.

Ash was walking along the road to Pallet Town, after parting with Brock, when all of a sudden Primal Dialga appeared. Primal Dialga was attempting to "restore" time to its proper flow- that of Primal Dialga's time. Ash stupidly agreed to help Primal Dialga. To make the long story short, Ash was accidentally eaten by Kyurem, and Palkia, in a fit of panic about Lugia's reaction, warped Ash's stuff into a world where Ash Ketchum had never met May, Max, Dawn, Paul, or COTD #1001, amongst others. And that's why Ash is still 10.

tl;dr: Ash should either age up or be given closure. It's time for the writers to let go of their sickly golden goose, and allow it to either grow old and happy, or let it fly off to better lands.

One thing I also liked is how when AG and DP started, Ash's age was left ambiguous. He looked older, but they never said he was older, but at the same time never said he was still 10 either.

The fact that at BW's start for the first time in 14 years, the writers actually had to re-instate the fact that Ash was 10, said a lot in itself. Its almost as if the writers did originally want him to age and mature.....but then came Best Wishes to reset everything.

I don't mind that Ash hasn't aged. I can definitely understand why it bothers a lot of people, especially when how he has been received in BW, but it doesn't really matter to me that much if they age him or not. Personally, I liked how they did keep Ash's age vague in the previous series since that allowed the audience to guess as to how old he was. That's what I did for the most part since I imagined Ash to be around thirteen in AG and around fourteen or so during DP and the way that he acted generally more mature in those series most of the time helped with that. While I kind of miss having my own fan speculation as to how old Ash really is, it doesn't bother me too much that he's been ten all of this time. I just imagine that his age has been frozen at ten, even though years have gone by in the anime's universe since I definitely can't see all of Ash's previous journeys taking place combined to be less than a year, and go along with that. Though, I can still see why people are bothered that he hasn't aged and I definitely would have preferred the writers to still keep his age unclear to the audience instead of confirming that he is still ten years old.

Not to mention, we can't really understand other people Age like
Like Maylean's Age, Is She same age as Ash or Dawn or May ?
I wonder if Ash win a league then he should be called youngest trainer to become a chapion in 10 but it also seem both true & untrue
Because Ash 10 year old but he wasn't suppose to be 10 year old now

I told myself that I shouldn't do this....

I don't think Satoshi should age, because it would be pointless.

Nothing would fundamentally change about Satoshi if he aged. I doubt he'll ever be interested in girls because him being oblivious to their advances/feelings is a) a source of comedy and b) too much romance would take away from the point of the show (hello there Shudo!). He also wouldn't necessarily be mature if he aged. We've already had the mature Satoshi in DP become the idiot in BW. The writers will bend his personality to suit their means. So what's there to gain from Satoshi aging? In my opinion nothing.

Quite honestly, if he aged I think more people would be upset that nothing arose of it, because it would be seen as a wasted opportunity.

The best option in my opinion is the previously mentioned ambiguity over his age, where the fans could individually picture him at the age that they wanted.

I completely agree with this. I don't mind the writers only slightly aging Ash like they did from Kanto to DP where Ash looked a bit taller and less kiddish, but I think they should just have left the matter ambiguous, because him being 10 at the beginning and the writers kinda making him out to be similar to early Ash kinda messes everything up. XD

I don't want the writers to do a time skip or actually show a 16 years old Ash or anything. Just, keep him around 10-13 and make it ambiguous XD

I preferred how it was in AG and DP, where it was clear he'd grown and matured but never outright stated what age he was. To me that's really the best way to handle the situation. Its the writers who messed everything up at the start of BW by stating he's 10.

At the start of AG I had convinced myself that Ash was 12-13 lol He not only looked more mature and acted it but the way his voice was handled was different. I only watched the dub, but his voice actor gave him a deeper and more mature sounding voice than in Kanto/Johto.

The fact that May was 10 herself and just a beginner while Ash was the mentor figure in her situation sealed the deal for me. There was no longer any need for him to be 10 anymore with another one in the group who took that place as a beginner.

I'm also glad that people remember his 11th birthday and I wasn't the only one. Also the fact that Ash competes in regional/yearly tournaments means that a bit of time should have gone by.

The whole "age target" excuse makes no sense to me. If that were the issue then why raise the ages of the game protagonist to 16? Ash logically should also be nearing that age himself in the anime so the time for him to actually near be that age is perfect. B/W resetting his age to ten is arguably one of the worst things in the entire anime to date. It would be fine if this were a real reboot of the series where this is set in an alternate reality or is simply a different take on his first journey in Kanto, but its not and thats what makes it ridiculous.