Summary
- Ash's father has remained a mystery throughout the series, with only occasional mentions and no concrete information about him.
- In the special episode "Pokémon: The Distant, Blue Sky," Ash is offered a chance to meet his father but ultimately misses him due to timing.
- The identity of Ash's father remains one of the biggest unanswered questions in the Pokémon series, and it is unclear if fans will ever learn more about him.
While Ash's mother in Pokémon has become a bigger character in recent years, Ash's father has been nothing but mysterious, his existence only occasionally referenced. Right before he received his Pokémon ending, Ash was offered a chance to meet his father once again, but when it comes to Ash, things rarely go according to plan.
Ash's father was first mentioned in the second episode of the series by his mother, in the context of a statement about how it took him four days to travel from Pallet Town to Viridian City when on his own Pokémon journey.
Ash's father has also been invoked in recent movies (I Choose You! and Secrets of the Jungle), but since those take place in a separate continuity from the main anime, there's not much that can be drawn from that. Beyond these handful of mentions though, almost nothing is known about Ash's father, from his work to his interests or even his appearance.
Ash Just Barely Misses Seeing His Father
The special episode "Pokémon: The Distant, Blue Sky" starts off with Ash doing a little swimming and having a Pokémon battle with a new friend before getting to the nearest Pokémon Center and receiving a call from his mother, Delia, asking if he can meet in a place called Tonari Town which seems to be in Kanto. She'll be there to meet his father the next day, and Ash excitedly takes off. While traveling there, Ash meets an unusual boy, who asks questions about Pokémon and eventually leads Ash to a house in the middle of a mysterious forest.
This special episode is actually set in the I Choose You! timeline, and is thus technically a separate continuity from the main anime. Ash's backstory is the same in both, however, so it may still be relevant.
Through the giant windows, Ash can see a man painting sky scenes inside, but is then spotted by his wife. Ash's new friend, Sunny, suddenly disappears, however. Sunny turns out to have been the couple's deceased child who never got to go on a Pokémon journey of his own. Ash uses his Aura powers to allow the ghostly Sunny to pet Pikachu, before finally getting on with his travels.
Unfortunately, when Ash arrives at the Pokémon Center, his father has already had to leave, so they don't get to meet, and the audience never sees him. Ash's father does leave a gift, though: a new Pokémon League hat, identical to his original one.
Why Pokémon Still Hasn't Shown Ash's Father
There are a few likely reasons why Ash's father never appeared in the series. Most likely is that Ash doesn't have a father because his counterpart from the games, Red, didn't have one either. This is a common trend among Pokémon protagonists, with only Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald bucking the trend by making the player's father a Gym Leader, Norman. Sometimes the father's existence is alluded to, but they never actually appear in the games.
This also happens to be a reflection of the society that Pokémon comes from. With the "Salaryman" culture in Japan, which encourages lots of overtime and effectively mandatory socializing with coworkers, many children in Japan don't get to see their fathers all that often. Ash's father in particular seems to have a job that requires him to travel a lot, further cutting down the opportunities for father and son to meet. With Ash setting out on his own journey at such a young age, it's not really a surprise that their paths never crossed.
Ash's Father Remains Pokémon's Biggest Mystery
The final stretch of episodes ultimately didn't deal with Ash's father any further, leaving his identity as one of the biggest unanswered questions of Ash's entire era. Fan theories about Ash's father can be quite wild; one popular theory in times past was that Giovanni, the leader of Team Rocket, was actually Ash's father, an idea that sprouted from the Pokémon Live! stage show. In the stage show, Delia reveals that she and Giovanni once dated when they were younger.
This gained popularity largely based on the fact that the two were kept from seeing each other for a very long time, only meeting face to face in the Black and White era, over ten years after the anime debuted. However, when the two finally met, there was no recognition or reunion, and Giovanni obviously would not visit so casually, as Ash's father does here.
Those involved in the production of the series have occasionally commented on Ash's father. The original creator of the anime, Takeshi Shudo, wrote in a novelization that Ash's father left on a journey not long after he was born, and never returned, leaving his fate up in the air. Storyboard artist Masamitsu Hidaka once stated that Ash's father was also a Pokémon Trainer, off on a journey, and that he was definitively still alive. Neither of these were ever corroborated in the anime, and even whether his father was alive was left up in the air until this very special.
With the book now closed on Ash's era of the anime, it seems like fans may never learn who Ash's father was, which mostly means that his identity doesn't really matter. It's a trend in the franchise that's much larger than Ash, but with Pokémon Horizons introducing Liko's father early, it may be one that's finally dying off. Unless there ends up being another movie starring Ash in the I Choose You! continuity, Ash's father will just have to remain a Pokémon mystery.
Pokemon
- Created by
- Satoshi Taijiri , Ken Sugimori , Junichi Masuda
- First Film
- Pokemon: The First Movie
- Latest Film
- Pokémon the Movie: Secrets of the Jungle
- First TV Show
- Pokémon (1997)
- First Episode Air Date
- April 1, 1997
- TV Show(s)
- Pokémon (1997)
- Video Game(s)
- Pokemon Scarlet and Violet , Pokémon Legends: Arceus , Pokemon Snap , Pokémon GO
Summary
Spanning over twenty-five years, Pokemon, known as Pocket Monsters in Japan, is the multimedia franchise created jointly by Nintendo, Game Freak, and Creatures. Conceptualized by Satoshi Tajiri in association with Ken Sugimori and Junichi Masuda, Pokemon is set in fictional worlds where people live together with tamable creatures known as Pokemon. Humans who catch, raise, and battle the creatures are known as Pokemon Trainers. They head out on extensive journeys across their continents to raise their Pokemon with the ultimate goal of competing in tournaments to become the champion. Pokemon spans several massive properties, from a long-running animated series to a successful trading card game, to the medium that started it all, video games. In addition, Pokemon began the "two-game" trend where two versions of a game would release and include different Pokemon/features between the versions, encouraging players to meet up with others and trade so they could "catch 'em all."
