Image: The Pokemon Company
Ash might be gone, but Pokemon’s iconic mascot Pikachu is here to stay. Kind of.
Ash and Pikachu are leaving the Pokemon anime after decades spent as its main protagonists, and we now have our first look at their replacements. The Pokemon Company has put out its first proper trailer for the next Pokemon anime, which kicks off in March with all-new dual protagonists and a fresh cast of characters to accompany their adventures.
Watch the trailer below:
The new, still untitled anime will feature two protagonists: Liko and Roy, who each embark on a journey to uncover a mystery of their own and meet as many Pokemon as possible along the way. While the last Pokemon anime featuring Ash Ketchum opted out of exploring the Paldean region introduced in Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, this series will be a lot more Paldea-focused.
In the trailer, we see Liko in school before she chooses her first Pokemon companion: Sprigatito. She wears a mysterious pendant around her neck that we’ll apparently find out more about over the course of the series. Roy on the other hand, wields a strange-looking Pokeball and wants to, “challenge the Pokemon from the legends,” so we can assume his story revolves around the Shiny Rayquaza seen in this anime’s promotional material.
While it’s true that Ash and Pikachu are retiring from the anime, the latter Pokemon will still be represented in this series via ‘Captain Pikachu’, the loyal companion of this series’ new Pokemon Professor Friede, who is seen in the trailer riding a Charizard. The Pokemon Company isn’t about to throw a mascot like Pikachu away, but it remains to be seen if this new one has anything more going for it than a cute little hat.
The new Pokemon series starts airing in Japan on April 14 with an hour-long special episode. The current anime featuring Ash is set to end on March 24 with a series finale that brings back his original rival Gary. A recent Pokemon Direct also shed light on the future of the gaming franchise, which includes a sleeping app, expansions to Pokemon Scarlet and Violet and a Netflix series.
