There are few franchises more iconic than Pokémon, and there are certainly none more lucrative; the series currently stands as the highest-grossing franchise of all time, amassing more than $77.1 billion in revenue since its inception in 1996. One key element of the franchise's lasting legacy is its anime, which debuted in Japan in April 1997, before reaching the United States in September of the same year.
Voice actor Sarah Natochenny has been voicing the series' main protagonist Ash Ketchum in its English dubbing since she was a teenager, joining the series in 2006 at the age of 18. Now, as Ash and Pikachu's story finally comes to its conclusion after 25 years, Natochenny shares that she didn't even consider the possibility of the characters leaving the show, confessing on the podcast Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud, she “did not see Ash coming to an end, I didn’t think about it and that was naive on my part, I should’ve thought about that.”
The actor revealed that after reading the scripts for the three season arc leading up to Ash's departure she began to suspect the show was leading up to something, but it wasn't until she engaged with fans at a convention that the possibility came to mind in any serious capacity, saying "I was at a convention when I found out, and people were coming up to me and were like 'what do you think is gonna happen, is Ash done?' and I was like 'what do you mean is Ash done?'... that's not a thing, what do you mean? And then of course it dawned on me, that of course it's a thing."
The character has not only been a constant for the franchise up until this point, but for Natochenny too, who told TV Insider that "It has been sad and odd because I was doing this since I was a teenager... It’s a job I’ve had my entire adult life. Not revisiting Ash every week as an anchor point in my life is going to be strange... I’m not terribly worried I’ll have this deep longing for the work itself because it’s staying alive through the fans. I am mentally preparing for not doing this every week. It’s still challenging."
Over the course of 25 years Ash has been a part of the childhood of multiple generations, and despite any sadness felt in leaving the series, Natochenny particularly cherishes connecting with the show's audience - "the best memories are with the fans."