Earlier this week, Game Freak was hit by a massive data breach which included several internal meeting minutes from the company.

One of these leaked meetings involved discussing the decision to end Ash’s journey in the Pokemon anime. The meeting notably reveals several reasons for the change, including the following:

• Declining viewership for the anime, despite attempts to add it to more distribution services.
• Inability to continue “resetting” Ash’s character back to “level 1”, making it hard for children to experience growth while watching him.
• Long-time viewers asking “when will Ash become a Pokemon master”
• Concerns regarding Ash’s voice actress Rica Matsumoto (presumably her growing age)

The Pokemon Company believed that a new protagonist would help alleviate these issues, and the meeting goes on to discuss how best to conclude Ash’s journey and communicate this to Pokemon fans properly. This included:

• Avoid using the terms “graduate” and “ending”
• Announce it five months in advance
• Clearly present the new creative direction.

A link to the full meeting is still up via Centro_Leaks here, including more detailed comments from members of the company, discussing their worries about proceeding with this change. It is unknown how long it will be before this file is removed.

What do you think? Let us know in the comments.