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 mysteries, his existence only occasionally alluded to. Now for the first time in the series’ history, Ash is offered a chance to meet him 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 this handful of mentions, almost nothing is known about him, 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.
Through the giant windows, Ash can see a man painting sky scenes inside, but is then spotted by his wife. Ash’s new friend, Haruto, suddenly disappears, however. Haruto 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 Haruto 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.
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. 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 production of the series have occasionally commented on Ash’s father. 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. Another creative involved the series, 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. He doesn’t have a father because his counterpart from the games, Red, didn’t have one either, and that’s been true of nearly every Pokémon game protagonist since. 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.