>>57999563
i think the reason why the anime benefitted from having ash is because the plots were so simple most of the time. ash is so simple and bland that you can do almost anything with him and people will still tune in to see him lose or win. he's also very easy to talk about, good or bad. his pikachu was both very cute and very cool. team rocket were such formulaic villains but they had depth and character and in the same way, they were sort of ash's counterparts. these characters really did make pokemon of the day stand out or whatever gimmick pokemon was introducing at the time

you kinda hit the nail on the head when you say these feel more like digimon world, because there's nothing really to talk about despite them having so much character development for a setting like the pokemon anime thats for young japanese kids it just doesn't really work

i hate to say it but i think the next pokemon anime would ironically enough benefit from having a blank slate like ash again. its sad that there isn't a proper pokemon show that older viewers can get invested in