The Pokemon television series has been around for a while now — long enough that Ash Ketchum’s character design has changed a number of times over the years (sometimes, not so subtly — the same goes for Pikachu).
Now that there’s a new game coming, there’s also a new anime series to go along with it. Said season starts airing in Japan on October 17th, but we can already see Ash’s new design — it’s the last Ash on the right in the image above, which was posted to Reddit by 009reloaded.
Overall, the design changes continue to make Ash more and more svelte. A sign of different fashion and beauty standards over the years? Either way, I don’t know about you, but the latest Ash looks cooler, if not classier, than earlier designs. His clothes are fitted, making him seem less like a kid. And the hat’s minimalism may not be as iconic as original Ashs’ hat, but it manages to convey the idea of a Pokeball effortlessly.
I like the new Ash, although I appreciated Pikachu better when he was chubbier. Cuter that way and all.
What do you think?
Evolution of Ash (His hat looks like Red’s now, don’t you think?)[009reloded]
Comments
9 responses to “How Ash Ketchum’s Character Design Has Evolved Over The Years”
And he never ages
Ash is still a noob..
I’m still waiting for the anime to take a new direction, like this
Agreed, scrapping Ash from pokemon would be the best thing possible imo. Ash has been played out in to many seasons, just look at the manga how they have different characters and the reuse of old characters are skill-fully played out.
Lies… only the first one exists!
The latest one is way too skinny.
Actually I don’t mind the newest, looks like he’s actually aged
Yeah that’s true I guess!
I will still never get over the fact that he was so obsessed with his limited-edition hat he went batshit whenever someone took it off him, then a few months later he just throws it out and buys a new one… Between the hat and the whole GS-Ball bullshit, I don’t think I could ever watch pokemon again…so many childhood memories ruined 😛
I think specifically what happened was that Ash’s mum gave him his first new outfit while at Professor Oak’s before heading to Hoenn. It’s perfectly reasonable to assume then that Delila has kept his hat, maybe on a small stand on his desk and dusts it every morning.
As for the GS Ball, the writers were basically told to do things different by the execs, so they had to shelve that storyline.
I never realised before, but he seems to always have a very sadistic smile on his face. The last one is the only one that seems a little different to me. Like his soul has been whethered away by the years of pokenslavement….
I thought in the new series he is going to be called “RED” and its supposed to follow the Manga?