(triumphant music)
- Hey, Pokemon Masters,
Bird Keeper Toby here,
and something big has happened,
something very, very big.
We have our Silver Play Button.
Just after this YouTube
channel's second birthday,
we have received the Silver Play Button
for 100,000 subscribers.
We're actually nearly
at 150,000 subscribers,
which is absolutely incredible.
Also, I'm recovering from a cold
if you can't tell by why
my voice sounds weird.
But before I began this channel,
I had a vlogging channel.
I was on YouTube for just over two years,
and just after its second birthday,
this vlogging channel, that,
as I said, doesn't exist,
had just reached 1,200
subscribers, and I was ecstatic.
There was no way I was ever going
to be able to top that
with a Pokemon channel.
In my mind, I had done the most
that I would ever do on YouTube.
I actually do have a
vlogging channel right now.
I'm trying to promote it quite a lot.
The link is in the top of the description,
if you're interested.
I do advice videos, stuff
about relationships,
things about my personal life.
But it's just absolutely incredible to me
that in the same amount of
time, we have achieved this.
And I say we because this here,
it wouldn't exist without you,
you who have made this happen,
over 100,000 of you.
Well, actually, maybe there's
not over 100,000 of you.
Maybe there's just, like, 10 of you.
Because it's not for 100,000 people,
it's for 100,000 accounts on YouTube,
and people can have multiple accounts.
And that kind of got me thinking
about today's video topic,
characters in the Pokemon world
who have multiple versions of themselves.
I also got thinking about
this because of my last video
about shipping and relationships
and how some characters
are essentially the same.
For example, when you start
a playthrough of a game,
you have the male and female counterpart,
and sometimes, like, you've
got anime and manga versions.
So today, I wanna focus
on the main character
of the TV show, Ash, and how
many different counterparts,
or clones, does he have.
And a great place to start
this topic is his name, Ash,
which, in Japan, is Satoshi.
Satoshi, named after the creator
of Pokemon, Satoshi Tajiri,
which kind of makes Satoshi
Tajiri another version of Ash,
but we won't count that
because he doesn't exist
in the Pokemon world.
Ash, however, does have a counterpart
that he is, in fact, based off of,
which is Red from the Pokemon video game.
In Pokemon Red and Blue,
of course, you play as Red,
and Red is the character that Ash Ketchum
from Pallet Town is based off of.
Of course, there are
other versions of Red.
There's not just the video game version,
there's the Pokemon Adventures version,
there's Pokemon Origins,
Pokemon Generations.
There's versions of him in Smash Brothers.
There's younger versions
in SoulSilver and HeartGold
and then there's an older
version in Sun and Moon.
And as for Ash, there's
lookalike characters in the show,
for example, one of his
early rivals, Ritchie,
who also has a Pikachu.
And as well as him, one of the gym leaders
from the Orange Island has
a son, a son called Travis,
who looks an awful lot like
Ash, who has a Pikachu.
All of these could be
considered in-show clones.
And as well as this, there's
spiritual successors to Ash.
For example, his spiritual
ancestor, Sir Aaron,
from the Lucario movie, who
shares the same aura with Ash.
And he does kinda look like an older Ash.
And, in fact, he looks
like another character
from the video games, Riley.
Riley is, in many ways, the
video game version of Sir Aaron.
And, in fact, Mr Buddy did a
whole video about this topic.
And as well as that, there's
Riley's manga counterpart.
And by the way, if you think Ash being,
there being some weird
ancestral version of him
that he's based off of,
and that that's ridiculous, no it's not.
Because, of course, there is Ash-Greninja
and Ash-Greninja isn't the
only Greninja like that.
There was apparently one
thousands of years ago,
this being one that apparently
existed in an ancient tribe.
And because Ash-Greninja
is based off of Ash,
that means that there's
some ancient version
of Ash out there that we haven't met.
Not to mention that Ash-Greninja
was a thing in the games,
meaning there's a version of Ash
in the game universe as well, apparently.
So already, just from this one character,
we can see how these
things start to spread out.
You've got Ash, you've got Red,
you've got other anime
characters that are similar.
And when it comes to Red, you've got
about half a dozen
different versions of him,
but you don't just have him.
You also have her, as in Leaf.
And yes, when we're talking
about the female player character
from FireRed and
LeafGreen, her name is Leaf
here in the UK where I
am, making this video.
If you are playing FireRed
and LeafGreen as a female,
then you are Leaf,
who serves the exact same function as Red.
Within some version of the Pokemon world,
it's the exact same
character, meaning Leaf
is just another variation of
Red, and by extension, Ash.
Not to mention that, yes, in
the Pokemon Adventures manga,
she was originally called Green,
but then the moment they
created the character of Leaf
for FireRed and LeafGreen, they combined
the two characters together
and sort of merged the two characters
making them one and the same.
Of course, not if you're in Japan
because if you're in Japan,
then Green is Blue and Blue is Green,
and I'm not getting into that
right now, it's ridiculous.
You know who I'm talking about.
All of these characters are
just more variations of Red,
which are just more variations of Ash.
And this isn't the only player
character from the games
that becomes an extension of Ash
because of the Kalos series.
First of all, look at
Ash's costumes in the show.
They tend to be his own
until the X and Y saga,
when he takes up the costume of Calem
doesn't appear in the show,
like so many of the other protagonists do
in little specials here and there,
apart from that one time
in Pokemon Generation.
But again, Pokemon Generations
is a separate canon where Red exists.
So Calem is another variation of Ash.
The Ash that goes on the Kalos journeys
is just the TV show adaptation
of the video game character of Calem.
They are dressed exactly the same.
And, of course, if you play
as a female character in those games,
you take on the role on Serena.
And technically, Serena
is a variation of Ash
because of two reasons.
One because she's the variant of Calem
and Calem is a variant of Ash,
but also because Serena takes
inspiration in her creation
from Leaf, short sleeve
top, red skirt, high socks,
the hair is the same, the
hat is basically the same.
Leaf started off in Pallet
Town and, chronologically,
that's where Serena met
Ash for the first time.
She also has origin basises in Kanto.
So while no, it's not a
direct one-to-one copy,
again, it's just another
variation of the same character.
And these two characters are more alike
than any other female or male
pairing of player characters.
So when you're an Amour shipper
and you're shipping
Serena and Ash together,
remember that you're just
really shipping variations
of the same character together
that are so far removed at this point,
that they've become their own thing.
And we're not done there
because Sun and Moon
just came out with the
characters of Sun and Moon.
And if you take a look at Sun's costume,
yeah, that Ash's costume.
Sun, the character that you play as
when you play Sun and Moon,
is the video game counterpart
to Ash in the TV show.
Doing the Island Trials,
starting with an Alolan starter,
it's the same story.
And again, by extension,
the female player, Moon,
is again, just another variation.
Now, to be clear, what I'm saying is,
across all of the different
various canons of Pokemon,
these characters are not
all the same character.
That's not what I'm saying at all.
What I'm saying is that these
characters are connected
by the same sets of characteristics.
They are the embodiments
of that same spirit
of wanting to catch Pokemon and train them
and be the very best.
And those of you who play
as those player characters,
when you play Sun and Moon
or X and Y or Red and Blue,
you're an extension of that, too.
You are just a variation of Ash.
And so I have to thank you and Ash Ketchum
and all of those that
embody that spirit for this.
Thank you so much for making this happen
and I hope you found
this video interesting.
If there's any variations
you think I've missed,
let me know in the comments.
Soar high, Pokemon Masters.
A special thank you to
my Patreons of the Month,
especially my big Patreons of the Month,
Jon D. Gottlitch and Joey Pals.
Thank you.
- [Ash] This is Ash Ketchum.
You just watched a video
by Bird Keeper Toby.
That makes you a Pokemon Master!
