Pokémon: 10 Storylines That Went Absolutely Nowhere

Pokémon has a massive catalogue of episodes spanning more than two decades, so it makes sense that a few plot threads got lost along the way.

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The Pokémon anime has remained an episodic series, but there a few more serialized stories scattered inside mountains of filler. Given the series has aired just under 1200 episodes across 24 years, it shouldn’t be surprising that some storylines have slipped through the cracks.

Heroes, rivals, and Pokémon alike have been discarded or forgotten. Looking across the series’ massive episode catalogue, here are ten stories or character arcs who simply didn’t get the resolution they’d been building to.

10 The Other Two Pallet Town Trainers Never Appeared

The day Ash Ketchum and Gary left on their Pokémon journeys, two other trainers departed from Pallet Town. The only thing that can be deciphered about these two, indirectly, is that one of them must have started with Bulbasaur and the other with Charmander. The two trainers never put in any appearances or received names. Professor Oak even reveals in “Showdown at the Po-ké Corral” that they didn’t have the mettle to last as trainers like Ash and Gary did.

9 The Fate Of Jessie’s Mother, Miyamoto, Is Unknown

The late Takeshi Shudo, head writer of Pokémon in it’s early days, was most fond of the Team Rocket trio Jessie, James, and Meowth. When writing the radio drama The Birth Of Mewtwo, (a prequel to the first Pokémon movie), he added some backstory by introducing Jessie’s mother, Miyamoto.

A Team Rocket agent like her daughter, Miyamoto was sent to South America to capture Mew. Discovering the Pokémon in the Andes Mountains, Miyamoto seemingly perished in an avalanche, but Team Rocket officially considers her MIA. With Shudo’s departure from Pokémon and later passing, Miyamoto might as well be considered dead.

8 Ash’s Pidgeot Never Returned

In “Pallet Party Panic!” while Ash and co. are journeying to the Orange Islands, they’re accosted by a flock of Spearow. Their leader, a Fearow, is actually the Spearow who Ash tried to catch way back in “Pokemon – I Choose You!” Even after evolving, it holds a grudge.

To defeat Fearow, Ash’s Pidgeotto finally takes the limelight and evolves into Pidgeot. To protect the Viridian Forest from Fearow’s gang, Ash leaves Pidgeot there, promising one day to return for it. He failed to honor this promise, and Pidgeot hasn’t appeared since.

7 The GS Ball Was Never Opened

The most infamous unresolved storyline in Pokémon remains the GS Ball. Professor Oak sent Ash and co. to the Orange Islands to retrieve a mysterious yellow PokéBall from the native Professor Ivy. This “GS Ball,” named for the letters marked on it, couldn’t be opened or teleported like other PokéBalls. Ash carried the ball throughout all 30+ episodes of the Orange Islands arc then brought it to Pallet Town for Professor Oak to examine.

Professor Oak failed to figure out what the ball’s deal was, so he sent Ash to Azalea Town in the Johto Region, home of PokéBall designer Kurt. Not even Kurt could figure out what the GS Ball was, and Ash left it in his possession without getting an answer to its contents. The original plan was for the GS Ball to contain Celebi, who would guest star for an arc in the series. But, after Celebi was to feature in the movie Pokémon: 4Ever, this plan was scrapped and the writers ditched the GS Ball with Kurt in hopes fans would forget about it.

6 Brock Never Used His Heavy Ball, Nor Ash & Misty Their Fast Balls

The one thing the gang got out of their visit to Kurt was some new PokéBalls. Ash and Misty got Lure Balls for catching Water-Types, Brock got a Heavy Ball for large Pokémon, and all three received Fast Balls for speedy Pokémon. Ash used his Lure Ball to capture Totodile while Misty used hers for Corsola, while Brock used his Fast Ball to get himself a Pinceo. However, he never found a chance to use his Heavy Ball, nor Ash & Misty their Fast Balls.

5 Misty’s Crush On Ash Hasn’t Been Resolved

Romance has never been a priority for Pokémon, but the original series hinted many times that Misty had a crush on Ash. Even without her tsundere tendencies, Ash was too thickheaded to notice her interest. This didn’t stop fans from noticing however, especially since the 4Kids English dub, if anything, added hints, whether in altered dialogue or some original songs (“Misty’s Song,” “He Drives Me Crazy,” and her goodbye tune “Misty Most Of All”).

Misty’s departure in “Gotta Catch Ya Later!” was an emotional moment for her and Ash, but neither admitted any feelings outright. The closest was Misty’s vague comment that “Well Ash Ketchum, finally I know how you feel about me,” and in a moment tragically cut from the dub, her telling Ash that her traveling with him was never about a grudge for him destroying her bike. With the anime’s aversion to closure and Misty reduced to an occasional guest character, it’s unlikely a relationship will be blossoming here anytime soon.

4 Ash And Max Still Haven’t Battled

Max was introduced in Pokemon: Advanced Generation and unlike the other main characters, too young to be a Pokémon trainer. However, he studied Pokémon and battle strategies eagerly – when he departed the show, he and Ash made a promise to one day have a battle. Due to the sliding timescale and characters’ agelessness, that day has yet to come. The character of Sawyer in Pokemon XY bears some superficial similarities to Max – book-smart, Hoenn native, and his starter is Treecko, Max’s intended starter. If the anime weren’t so static, Sawyer could’ve been Max.

3 Ash’s Torterra Had Its Development Forestalled

For the first segment of Diamond & Pearl, Turtwig was the star of Ash’s Sinnoh team. That changed when Paul’s Chimchar switched over to Ash’s team. Even worse, Turtwig’s evolution into Grotle deprived it of its speed, previously it’s main battling asset. There were seeds of an arc where Grotle learned to be reorient itself as a defensive battler, but little was done with this.

After evolving again to Torterra, the Pokémon never again won against an opponent who wasn’t Team Rocket. Torterra’s losing track record has become infamous in the fandom; it’s particularly ineffectual Rock Climb attack has been nicknamed “Suicide Mountain.”

2 Ash And Trip’s Rivalry Went Nowhere

Paul, Ash’s stone-faced rival in Diamond & Pearl, was the best antagonist the Pokémon anime had produced. He was a more consistent challenge to Ash than Gary had been, and he didn’t pose just a competitive challenge to Ash, but a philosophical one – Paul treated his Pokémon harshly, but his methods paid off with their fierce power. In the face of such an adversary, was Ash simply too soft to prevail?

While the resolution of their rivalry was a highpoint for the series, Paul’s absence left a vacuum which the next series, Black & White, attempted to fill. Trip, Ash’s Unova rival, was clearly an attempt at replicating Paul, but he simply wasn’t as compelling and fell by the wayside. Indeed, their rivalry had the most anti-climatic end yet when Ash defeated Trip in a one-on-one, preliminary battle at the Unova League.

1 Team Plasma’s Introduction Was Abandoned

In the early episodes of Pokémon Black & White, Team Rocket are assigned by Giovanni to acquire a celestial rock dubbed a “Meteonite.” This was meant to pay off in a two-part story debuting Team Plasma, wherein they would square off against Team Rocket. Giovanni desired the Meteonite’s power to ransom Unova’s business elite, while Team Plasma wanted to use it to “liberate” Pokémon by turning them against their trainers. Ash and Pikachu would have to destroy the Meteonite to stop both plans.

Due to the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami and the consequential Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, the episodes were postponed and ultimately never aired. This had a domino effect – Team Plasma didn’t make their debut until much later in the anime, the original plans for the Team evidently discarded.

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