Pokémon premiered on TV Tokyo on April 1, 1997, and ran for 25 seasons and 1,235 episodes before its final episode aired on March 24, 2023. That is a quarter century of a boy from Pallet Town chasing a title, and it ends with him holding it.
The show is part of The Pokémon Company’s media franchise, and in Japan it is built as eight sequential series, each tied to a main installment of the Pokémon video games. International broadcasts split those eight into 28 seasons. The version most viewers know followed Ash Ketchum, a 10-year-old Pokémon Trainer, joined by his partner Pikachu and a rotating cast of companions, traveling the regions of the Pokémon world and entering the Pokémon League.
It is an anime about a competition, and for most of its run the competition beat him. That is the whole engine of the thing, and it is why the ending lands.
Trailer, via The Official Pokémon YouTube channel.
Ash Ketchum and a Dream That Took 25 Seasons
Ash’s stated goal is to become a “Pokémon Master,” and the League is the measure of it — a tournament of the strongest Pokémon Trainers in whatever region he happens to be in. He loses, mostly. He comes back, mostly. The show was patient with him in a way that television almost never is.
Rica Matsumoto voiced Satoshi, the Japanese name for the character, across the run. Hana Takeda voiced him as a young child in episode JN001. In English, Veronica Taylor voiced him for 4Kids, and Sarah Natochenny took over for TPCI.
Ikue Otani voiced Pikachu. Kenyu Horiuchi voiced the Narrator. Daiki Yamashita voiced Gou.
The patience paid out. Ash became the first Alola Regional Champion, and later defeated Leon in the World Coronation Series Masters Eight Tournament to become the strongest Pokémon Trainer in the world and the new World Champion, a title the show calls “Monarch.” A character introduced as a 10-year-old in 1997 finished as the best in the fictional world. The show earned that.
Jessie, James, and Meowth Earn Their Screen Time
The antagonists are a trio of Team Rocket members: Jessie, James, and Meowth. They are one of the three primary antagonists for the first 25 seasons, and their standing goal is to capture Ash’s Pikachu. They are written primarily as comic relief, though the source notes they have also acted as serious antagonists on several occasions.
Megumi Hayashibara voiced Jessie in Japanese; Rachael Lillis voiced her for 4Kids and Michele Knotz for TPCI in English. Shin-ichiro Miki voiced James in Japanese. Ted Lewis voiced him up to and including episode 8 for 4Kids, Eric Stuart for 4Kids, and James Carter Cathcart for TPCI across seasons 9 through 25. Meowth was voiced by Inuko Inuyama in Japanese, and by Matthew Sussman, Maddie Blaustein, and James Carter Cathcart in English.
Jessie owns a Wobbuffet, which is the source of a running gag in which he pops out of his Poké Ball at the strangest moments. That is the show in miniature: a bit that should have died in a season and instead became furniture.
A Cast of Voices That Changed With the Decades
The voice cast is a record of the show’s institutional history. Ash alone passed through three English performers. James passed through three. Meowth passed through three. A 25-season run outlives contracts, studios, and people, and Pokémon did not hide that.
The Japanese side is steadier. Matsumoto stayed with Satoshi. Otani stayed with Pikachu, a performance built on a single syllable repeated for 25 years. Horiuchi stayed as Narrator.
That continuity is not a small thing. It is the reason the final episodes register as an ending rather than a reboot.
The Regions, the Leagues, and the Rotating Companions
The structure is deliberately repeatable. Ash goes to a region. He meets new friends. He faces new challenges. He enters the League. He usually loses. The show changes the map and keeps the spine.
The regions come from the games, and the anime franchise is organized around them: eight sequential series in Japan, each based on a main installment. The international split into 28 seasons is a packaging decision, not a story one, and it is worth saying plainly that the two counts do not contradict each other. They describe the same run at different levels of slicing.
The companions rotate. That is the design. It gives each region a new set of relationships and lets the show reset its emotional stakes without resetting its lead.
Spin-Offs and the Wider Pokémon Television Machine
The anime did not travel alone. It was accompanied by spin-off programming, including Pokémon Chronicles, a series of side stories, and live-action variety and news shows tied to the franchise: Pocket Monsters Encore, Weekly Pokémon Broadcasting Station, Pokémon Sunday, Pokémon Smash!, Pokémon Get TV, Meet Up at the Pokémon House?, and Where Are We Going with Pokémon!?
That is a lot of television attached to one cartoon. It also explains the show’s persistence. Pokémon was not a program so much as a schedule, and the schedule kept the world warm between game releases.
Wikipedia states that the series played a major role in increasing anime’s worldwide popularity, especially in the United States and Asia, where it says many Pokémon films rank among the highest-grossing.
What Ends and What Starts With Liko and Roy
The Ash era ends at 25 seasons. Starting with the 26th season, the show features a new cast, centering on protagonists Liko and Roy. That is a clean handoff, and it is the right one. A show that spent 25 years telling a boy he would get there eventually has to let him arrive.
Here is the running order as the series stands:
| Era | Lead | Season range | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Original run | Ash Ketchum, Pikachu | Seasons 1–25 | Premiered April 1, 1997; final episode March 24, 2023 |
| New era | Liko and Roy | From season 26 | New cast introduced |
The published audience score for Pokémon sits at 8.0 out of 10 on TMDB across 2,258 votes. That number is not a critical coronation. It is a fan measurement, and it is high for a show with 1,235 episodes, because the people voting are the people who stayed.
Why 8 of 10 Is the Right Score
Pokémon is not a perfect television series. It is a formula that ran for 25 seasons, and formulas generate filler. The League losses that once created tension became a rhythm, and a rhythm can turn into a rut. The rotating companions meant the show repeatedly rebuilt relationships it had already built better.
But the formula is also the achievement. Very few animated series sustain a single protagonist’s arc across 1,235 episodes, and fewer still pay it off. Ash’s run from Pallet Town to World Champion is a complete story told in the least efficient way possible, and the inefficiency is part of the appeal. The show was there every week. That is what a generation remembers.
The Wobbuffet gag is the honest tell. A running bit that outlived its joke is exactly what this series was: durable, silly, and impossible to quit.
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