The Pokémon Anime's Cancelled Endings Could Have Been Much Darker

The first "Pokémon" TV series, after it had been dubbed and re-edited, first appeared in North America on September 8, 1998. The series followed a 10-year-old boy named Ash Ketchum (Veronica Taylor), who dreams of being a Pokémon Master. He lives in a universe that doesn't only contain ordinary animals like dogs and cats, but a menagerie of Pokémon — pocket monsters — that possess human-like intelligence and eerie superpowers. Thanks to the high-tech wonders of this world, Pokémon can be converted into energy and stored inside baseball-sized stasis containers called Pokéballs. Owners of Pokémon can release them from their Pokéballs and force them to fight in high-stakes cockfighting matches. 

When a kid turns 10 in the world of "Pokémon," they are allowed to adopt one Pokémon of their own, and take to the roads with nothing more than a backpack and a bedroll. They spend their lives wandering the countryside, essentially homeless, challenging other Pokémon owners to duels. Although Pokémon owners force their animals to fight, the relationship between them and their pets is presented as warm and beatific, a glorious collaboration between two beings that inherently understand each other. Ash and his star Pokémon, a three-foot electric mouse called Pikachu (Ikue Otani), are seen as inseparable friends. 

The head writer of the Japanese version of "Pokémon" for its first four seasons was Takeshi Shudo, a longtime anime veteran. In a 2009 blog post (handily translated by LavaCutContent), Shudo reflected on his time working on "Pokémon" and his ideas for the stories. In Shudo's mind, "Pokémon" was never intended to run as long as it has, and he actually had some fun (if bleak) ideas as to how the show might have ended. It seems that one of his ideas was to see Ash die of old age. Another saw a war break out between humans and Pokémon. 

Recall that the initial "Pokémon" TV series ran in Japan from 1997 all the way through 2023 in its original iteration. That's an impressive 26 seasons. Additionally, 25 feature films were released in that time, not to mention multiple theatrical shorts and straight-to-video specials. The "Pokémon" franchise is wildly prolific. Shudo not only wrote for the 1997 through 2000 seasons but also penned "Pokémon: The First Movie" (which was called "Mewtwo Strikes Back" in Japan). Once the movie came out, Shudo had seemingly assumed that the TV franchise had peaked and was going to draw to a close shortly thereafter. As such, he began spitballing ideas as to how the series should end. 

His ideas were pretty wild, especially for fans who are used to the idea of "Pokémon" continuing pretty much indefinitely. In one of Shudo's visions, he imagined a flash-forward to the end of Ash's life, catching up with him in a moment of lucid remembrance. He described his Proust-like idea thus: 

"Months and years pass. Ash grows old, then one day suddenly he looks back on his past. He remembers his childhood fondly. The adventures he had with his amazing Pokémon, the friendship, the coexistence. Maybe Ash wasn't able to experience these things later in life. However, as a kid there was Pikachu and lots of other Pokémon, Jessie and James, and Mewtwo ... And so much more — elderly Ash remembers everything that happened during his adventures as a young boy."

Then Ash was to hear his mother's voice, telling him to go to bed, as his Pokémon journey was to begin in the morning. Ash would awaken as a 10-year-old and get to live his life all over again. Only this time, "He's going on a journey not to catch Pokémon or become a Pokémon Master, but to discover the meaning of existence, to discover how to coexist with others."

That's a sweet and philosophical way to end the "Pokémon" series. It seems that the world of Pokémon is actually peaceful and utopian. Most of the high-tech cities have public services for Pokémon trainers, and they are powered by renewable energy sources. In such an environment, a journey of self-discovery, of betterment, is finally possible. Is "Pokémon" akin to "Star Trek?"

Another idea for the end of "Pokémon" would have finally addressed the "enslaved animals are forced to cockfight" angle of the franchise. There is an injustice lurking underneath "Pokémon," and Shudo wanted to address it in a bleak ending that would have resembled "Conquest of the Planet of the Apes." As he described it: 

"The Pokémon would stage a rebellion, much like Spartacus in ancient Rome. Although at first glance Pokémon appear to be friends with humans, they would realize they're actually being used like slaves, which would lead to an uprising. Pikachu would become the leader of the revolt and end up fighting with Ash. Team Rocket, who are in possession of lots of sinister Pokémon (including Meowth, who can translate the Pokémon language into human speech) would try to mediate the conflict, but they'd do a poor job of interpreting and only make things worse."

Team Rocket — represented by Jessie, James, and Meowth — long served as the comedic villains of the series. Shudo said, though, that if he did write a story about the Pokémon uprising, it would have to be the end of the series. It would have opened up a can of Orthworms that couldn't be resealed. But, he said, when the mandate was declared that the series could continue indefinitely, he put the story aside and left the franchise.

"Pokémon Horizons: The Search for Laqua" debuted in 2024.