>>58224293
It doesn’t even make sense when Pokemon has actively tried moving away from the standard league format.
>SM
Trial Captains. Ultra Beasts. The league is just pushed in at the last moment.
>SS
League, sure but no Elite Four. The format completely differs in structure indicating further experimentation.
>Arceus
No league. Focused on researching and catching pokemon and solving mysteries.
>SV
Has a league, sure, but blends it with the entire school environment and a more bizarre plot.
>Z-A
No league to my knowledge. More about solving mysteries and a crisis.
Pokemon games are essentially becoming more and more like the movies in structure so Ash would work perfectly fine. We have had those AU movies with him just going around cities and getting involved in major events. No reason to not do that.
The natural purpose behind swapping MCs, which I agree with, is being able to change your character focus and explore different storylines. By having a different MC you open up story possibilities, themes, developments, etc that would otherwise never occur with someone like Ash. Issue is that Horizons doesn’t seem to do anything with Liko or Roy that actually makes them stand out so it makes them uninteresting beyond Liko being a girl.
Classical comparisons would be Digimon and Yugioh. Later protagonists aren’t like Taichi or Yugi and that means exploring new ideas with character writing. This is especially clear in Yugioh. Yugi, Judai, Yusei, Yuma, Yuya, Yusaku are all very distinct in what they experience and develop as MCs.
If Pokemon was going to go the route it has (Both games storylines/structure and Horizons) then there really wasn’t a point to changing MCs. They clearly had no actual ideas for something new.
