Retiring Ash (& Pikachu?)/My Quick Thoughts:
Well, I'm in utter shock. My first real exposure to Pokemon was the anime, it was way back in elementary school when Pokemon came out, and I first heard about it from classmates and out-of-school friends. I knew about the games but wasn't sure if I wanted them until I got more familiar with this new craze. In enters the anime. I'd watch the repeats during the weekdays when I got home and new episodes every Saturday morning. That Hannakah my mom & dad bought me and my brother Gameboys (Color, I got the teal, brother got the tranparent) and copies of Red & Blue (I got Blue, brother got Red; funny enough I would pick Charmander/Charizard and my brother would pick Squirtle/Blastoise). From then on I was a fan.
My only really other big memory of the early days of the anime was the 1st Movie & 2000, both which I saw in theaters (and I remember the Burger King promotion for the first one).
Even when I got older I always made sure to see the new episode, whether on Saturday morning or when they ran the re-run of the new episode. I don't think I saw anymore movies in the theaters but I would catch it when it aired on TV. Also true for any specials they did like Pokemon Chronicles or Master of Mirage. Though at this point my interest was more in the games than the show, the show was still an important part of the experience. Even when Ash's (or Team Rocket's) shenanigans began to fall on the childish side, I was still more in it just for the world of Pokemon and the battles (as well as seeing what other activities they did with Pokemon).
I was able to stick with it... up until the middle of Sun & Moon. Looking back I can now see the merits of Sun & Moon, but even now I feel it was a major departure going from showing the game experience to doing a slice of life (and even when they did some of the game stuff it sometimes felt off, don't get me started on how they handled the Alola League). I pretty much stopped watching it, BUT I kind of didn't need to as I had Serebii and online forums (like here on Smogon) that would tell & show me all I really needed to know (and if there was any clips I wanted to see they were usually clipped and put on Youtube).
To wrap up these general thoughts, I'm glad to be here to see Ash's story (as protag at least) comes to a close with him on top. Those 11 specials look like they'll be some fanservice filled good times.
Out With The Old, In With The New:
And I'm also glad we're FINALLY moving on from Ash. As
Celticpride said, it felt like they should have gone away from Ash's journey after DP (also not have him battle Tobias, instead just have him maybe defeat the Sinnoh Elite Four, have a close battle with Cynthia but lose, then face the Sinnoh Battle Frontier and win that, and have Ash end on that high note). BW should have been a time we moved on to new protags, maybe have specials where we check in on Ash, but otherwise do the Special/Adventure manga formula.
Going to wait to hear what they have planned for the Gen IX Arc. I hope they stick to Paldea, it's already set up to use the slice of life setting they've recently fallen into but also blueprints with 3 stories they can have the characters pop in and out of as the plot demands. Will I get back into the anime and start watching it again. Eh, we'll see, though admittedly probably not; not needing to watch a 20~ minute episode and just seeing the highlights in a few minutes much more fits into my schedule.
I wonder if the only reason Haunter isn't here or the flashback is beacuse he has Gengar and they dont want to double up lol.
Makes sense Pokemon like Haunter, Raticate, & Beedrill aren't there as Ash didn't really spend any significant time with them. Haunter wasn't really "with" Ash but more agreed to follow him but as soon as it felt like it it left to do its own thing (and came back when it felt like it but not to really help Ash but more cause mischief; luckily Sabrina found it funny). Ash regretted trading Butterfree for Raticate and had it reversed (even when on a sinking ship) so probably not good memories there. And Ash just gave Beedrill to Casey cause it fit her team better than his.
The Pokemon I'm surprised to see though is Ambipom. I guess it makes sense why it would be there, even though it ultimately decided to go with Dawn (trading places with Buizel who was more into battling), when it first appeared they built up to Ash catching it and it did help Ash win in the early Sinnoh Gyms. And unlike the Raticate trade, it was a trade with one of Ash's companions and in the best interest of both Aipom & Buizel, so had plenty of good memories.
Curious if we'll be seeing any of Team Rocket's old Pokemon.
All that said, I can't help but wonder what has compelled them to take this gamble.
Probably to shake things up. Back in Best Wishes you can begin to tell the anime team were starting to get a bit tired. It's why XY felt more like a shonen series at times, Sun & Moon was a slice of life (mixed with other things on whatever the writers whims were), and finally Galar just tossing the region idea out and having a world tour. Wouldn't surprise me this was all planned sometime during Sun & Moon, liking not being restricted so decided to make Ash Champion so that he could next gen then compete in a Champion League to become the Top Champion to finally end his story (and it just so happened Gen VIII gave them the perfect story & character(s) to do that with).
Now the anime team can pretty much do anything they want. New characters, no "baggage" from previous gens, just gotta include stuff from the current gen which is no problem as that provides plenty of story potential.
This might be a supremely hot take, but I'm super glad this also likely means the retirement of the Team Rocket Trio.
Especially as this now means we can give more focus on the actual villain teams of that gen. I'm not as sour on the Rocket Trio, they mean as much to the anime as Ash did, and hopefully in those 11 specials they also give them a nice send off (apparently you can comfortably retire from Team Rocket as the recent appearance of Cassidy & Butch showed; Infact I'm surprised Giovanni never tried forcing the Rocket Trio into an early retirement just to get them off his back).
What I'm shocked about is Pikachu is also being retired
I'm just going to assume they're just going to give one of the new characters a Pikachu anyway
Place your bets, PLACE YOUR BETS!
I'm betting they're going to announce a new side series of Pikachu Shorts!
As for the main anime, they could maybe have a recurring Pikachu character appear once an episode or every so often, not being part of the main cast but certainly at least witnessing what's going on (maybe even act as audience surrogate at times).