Goodbye to Pokémon and its voice actors after 25 years: “If I didn’t retire Ash, he was going to retire me”

“I will become the best, the best there will ever be.” 25 years later Ash Ketchum fulfilled his dream, that of being crowned the best Pokémon trainer in the world. He has taken 1223 episodes (1234 in Japan), 23 movies and a quarter century. Although he, who is still ten years old, has not been affected that much by the passage of time.

During this long-lasting stage, the series has shown some of the qualities that are at the essence of what the Pokémon phenomenon is, whether in video games, the series itself or any related work and product.

It is a series focused on all audiences and especially enjoyable for the little ones. There are viewers who began this journey in 1998 at an early age and who now, with the broadcast of the last episode this November 15 and being adults, they must say goodbye to Pikachu and company.

A quarter of a century with Pikachu and company

In Spain specifically, it is an iconic series. This has contributed its dubbing team, whose core has been the same during these 25 years. they are Adolfo Morenowho voices Ash, and the three members of Team Rocket who will never take off again: Jose Escobosa plays Meowth, Ivan Jara plays James and Amparo Valencia acts as Jessie and directs the team of actors.

EL ESPAÑOL has been able to speak with them to review a job that has been a fixture for them for 25 years. Valencia tells how he knew that the series was already important from Japan: “They gave it a lot of hype.” He got meetings with Nintendo but he did not think that “it would have this impact or that it would last so many years.” Escobosa remembers that the original broadcast was on the Jetix channel before making the jump to Telecinco and that they were chosen through a casting.

For them, explaining why the series has triumphed in this way is a real challenge. “Many kids who are now even 30 years old are still hooked on Pokemon, so there’s something to it,” says Valencia. More concrete, highlighting the importance of “friendship” in the series and in how attractive it is visually”, in addition to the message of “taking care of the things around you and nature”. Moreno attributes it to the creation of a “parallel world” with creatures that are “to take home.”

The four report that When they started working on it they already had 150 episodes to dub at once, a very high amount, which is “very rare.” There was confidence in the series.

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“You feel like you’ve been part of something special,” says the Meowth actor. Jara, for his part, believes that “Pokémon was a before and after compared to cartoons“. He, in his town in Cantabria where he works at a surf school, is not known as Iván, but as “el Poké.”

The work during this period did not go unnoticed by ‘The Pokémon Company’, which controls the license. The dubbing director assures that she had contact with them and that Your opinion was highly valued. since they were the only actors who had been there for so long and she was the only person responsible who had remained in that period. “We are going to give ourselves a little bit of merit,” says Moreno about the feat of lasting so long giving life to these characters.

Moreno explains that when they were working on it “many times they were not aware” of what their work meant but that he fell into it “when you receive the affection of a lot of people.”

“A 1.95 meter tall guy has stood in front of me, giving me capons with his ears, with a beard, saying that Pokémon are up and down,” he says. And he adds: “Perhaps it was the first time that I became aware that our work was useful for something. “I’m not going to tell you that it was important, but that it served a purpose and it was good.”

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Valencia admits that at first she was “a little lost” because it was animation and because she came from Japanese because her way of speaking “is very hard, very strong and we.” But they were creating their own characters.

Throughout these 25 years, dubbing “has changed a lot” since before it was a “very anonymous profession” and now “they have more visibility”. Thanks to “social networks,” Escobosa says, her relationship with the public is closer now. Jara explains that before they didn’t appear “not even in the credits.”

An ending between tears

He refers to James, his character, as “one of those bad guys without evil”. He especially remembers those times he shows his “good heart” between his failed attempt to capture Pikachu and his classic takeoffs toward the horizon. And he also mentions how the Team Rocket member gets emotional when remembering his childhood.

When they found out about the ending, according to Valencia, “it was a disappointment” since these characters are “like family.” On the other hand, they lose the deal between the dubbing team. Recently they were no longer recording together, since the work is done “in double band” but for many years they were together. She, in fact, “teared” when recording the ending.

Furthermore, from now on they will no longer receive income that has been fixed. “Pokemon has paid many bills over all these years“says Escobosa, who says that despite this the most important thing is what they lose emotionally.

25 years go a long way and each one has a different memory that comes to mind when looking back. Valencia speaks in this sense of an episode prior to the finale in which Team Rocket separated. When he saw it he thought that “it can’t be.”

The best memories

Escobosa, for his part, mentions the day that his son Jairo, “when he was barely four years old, went to the dubbing room.” Valencia decided to use that name for a Pokémon trainer who challenges Ash in the episode they were going to record, so in Spain it is called differently from the rest. “That chapter has already remained there for history with my son’s name”he asserts.

Jara points out especially when His characters dressed up to try to fool the children: “We were upset”. “But come on, in each episode I tell you that some scene would have taken me home,” she adds. He recounts moments in which Jesús Alberto Pinillos, who voiced Gary, had to put his knuckles in his mouth to prevent his laughter from being heard.

Now it only remains “satisfaction” and the feeling of “closing the circle all together”According to Moreno: “Everything has a beginning and everything has to have an end and 25 years is a long time. I’m going to turn 50. If I didn’t retire Ash, he was going to retire me.”

He is left with many personal moments during the recording but especially one that Ash experiences. It happens in the first chapter when his character falls off a bicycle and faces some Spearows that are going to attack Pikachu. The other memory of him is “the frustration of never winning”, at least until the end and with some “minor” victories along the way: “Supporting a protagonist without gaining anything also has a lot, a lot of merit”.

“We were joking in the dubbing room about it. That they are going to fire us, that if 25 years of work for this, that if I was going to sue them for child exploitation,” he comments in reference to the age of his character and the time he spent He has dedicated his career to this. He will be the voice of Ash Ketchum forever and “he thinks it’s great.”