The upcoming Pokémon movie is a re-telling of the Indigo League stories, with two glaring omissions.
Warning: This article has spoilers.
Namely, the absence of Brock and Misty, who were two of Ash’s first cohorts in original anime.
Both might be Ash’s most well-known friends, with Misty even appearing in the first episode I Choose You! after which the upcoming film is named.
Yet, in the official site, there are two other random children, Makoto and Souji. Both of them are apparently brand new.
Via the movie’s official site, here is Souji.
And Makoto.
You’ll see that neither Brock nor Misty appear in the list of characters appearing in the main part of the movie. Nurse Joy? Yes, but Ash’s old friends? Nope.
People have noticed this.
Souji and Makoto are even showing up in 20th anniversary images instead of Brock and Misty.
Twenty years of ten-year old Ash!
It’s almost like Brock and Misty never existed. As Pokemon Matome points out, the new movie has a retelling of this old scene with Butterfree.
In the new version, Brock and Misty have been written out.
The characters do have a tacked-on appearance in the closing credits. That’s according to Alex Aniel, who saw the movie at Japan Expo and who provided PokeBeach with a summary, writing, “In the end credits we see brief shots of Ash’s old friends — Brock, Misty, Tracey, May, Max, Dawn, Iris, Cilan, Serena, Bonnie, and Clemont.”
Oh.