The Elephant in the Room: Go and Koharu's Backstory

[Silktree]

Go is the third companion (let alone a co-star) that lacks any family. The first one would be Tracey, but that character was an anomaly altogether, and then there's Iris who only got a faux grandmother (essentially a primitive professor) and an unlikable mentor. In Go's case, it seems that the Sakuragis are meant to be his substitute family, but what about his real mom? He only moved into the lab recently with Ash. Compare how Delia gave Ash permission to become a research fellow and even made Mimey look after him. It's par for the course for fathers to be absent with zero explanation, but again, only Go, Tracey and Iris have no one. What makes Go even more different is that, well, he's socially awkward and only seems to get along with professors and Ash.

I don't know if Go's mom is going to be out of the picture for good, but the more relevant character is Koharu. She is the one who shows the most concern for him; even as a 6-year old she tried to teach him manners so that he could get along with other people. But it's clear that he hasn't been cooperative, and by now she's rather fed up with his antics and has little patience for people who enable him, namely Ash and arguably her own dad. While she has a pet Pokemon, she is clearly keeping her distance from Pokemon activities and sticking to school. In a way, Go and Koharu's could have been lifted straight from real life, except with Pokemon existing for real rather than as data. Sakuragi is like the friendly neighbor who enjoys watching kids play Pokemon Go (not in a creepy way), while his daughter finds it annoying and nerdy. Above all, Koharu is probably hurt that everyone in her own house doesn't seem to care about her very much. Wouldn't you feel miffed, too?

Something needs to happen to make Koharu accept Go for who he is and take an interest in his journey, but also for him to understand that his worldview is limited. I don't think that Ash is the key to that happening unless he wises up.

 

[MarshiyanMisutaa]

Why does she needs to accept him though?

 

[Nicolas721]

No Poképun in the title? 0/10 Please change it.

In one hand, we've just come of a series where all parents existed in some capacity, but on the other hand the only one that did something noteworthy was Lusamine. Also, they avoided any mention of Iris' parents despite her past being vital for her story. Also, Go has been explicity said to be from Vermilion, so it would be weird if he moved to a different place within the same city. I think chances of seeing Go's mom and dad in the near future is small.

I agree that we're bound to see more of Go and Koharu's school days, and that eventually they'll get to love Pokemon in different ways and will come to an understanding of each other.

 

[MarshiyanMisutaa]

Based on what we seen so far, Gou is the only person Koharu actually interacted. So I don't think there is a big problem between them.

 

[Silktree]

Based on what we seen so far, Gou is the only person Koharu actually interacted. So I don't think there is a big problem between them.

She clearly isn't too happy with him and has been less eager to approach him ever since Ash showed up.

 

[Almonds]

Just because they are childhood friends doesn't mean they have to be best friends. It could be a situation where Professor Sakuragi just accepted Gou's enthusiasm for pokemon research and exploration and Koharu just turned out to interact with him more than anyone else because Gou is visiting Sakuragi a lot.

Just classic anime trope about childhood friends where one friend is exasperated about another's antics.

 

[Henry Suarez]

I hope Koharu changes her attitude towards Ash, with time I think she will be friends with him but they need to start developing her now, she barely appears, in the first 9 episodes there's no single episode focused on her.

 

[Daenerys]

Am I supposed to care about Koharu at this point? Seriously, it's hard to even have empathy for her character. It's like she was a last minute addition that the writing team put together when they realized that they needed a female character to balance out the cast, only they forgot to give her any decent screentime and she has as much personality as my wallpaper.

 

[Silktree]

Treating Ash as a creep and leaving him electrocuted isn't what I'd call boring.

 

[Gabo2oo]

I think her perceived lack of personality is directly tied to her screentime. We're like, 4 episodes in anyways.

 

[Dogasu]

It's just a shame she can't get any screentime due to the show cramming the Rocket trio down our throats week after week.

 

[P_S_B]

It's just a shame she can't get any screentime due to the show cramming the Rocket trio down our throats week after week.

I don't understand why they can't find a happy medium where they just appear once every 2 or 3 episodes. As it is now they either put Team Rocket in every episode week after week after week to serve as nothing more than repetitive filler or they go for just as many weeks on end without appearing at all. It shouldn't be that difficult to find a balance where they're still around but without wearing out their welcome.

Anyway I really hope Koharu becomes more relevant soon, because it doesn't matter how good Ash and Go's dynamic is it's going to get stale without a third force to mix it up.

 

[Emelie]

Gou definitely needs more backstory. We got a glimpse of it in the Ivysaur episode but we still don't know what Gou meant. This whole talk about Satoshi being "just like the others" sounds like Gou might have either been bullied or left out in the past.

I also wonder if he was actually talking about himself when he said that "Pokémon might lose their will to live". That is some pretty depressing words coming from a ten year old kid.

Maybe Koharu is just worried that Gou's obsession with Mew is negatively affecting his social life and education. Gou even rejects Scorbunny even though it went through such great lengths to be with him which implies that his obsession isolates him from others.

 

[Almonds]

I think the fans are speculating Koharu to be more important than she actually is. The trailers for Pokemon 2019 said that this will be a dual protagonist series following Ash and Gou. If Koharu really was the third protagonist, they would have introduced her as a trio group.

I would like some backstory about her, but I have a feeling that even her backstory is going to be about her and Gou's childhood, not necessarily about herself. She's shown in the opening to follow the two around, sure, but we don't see her in action.

Also, she doesn't seem to be the kind of person who wants to spend time traveling around when she puts school a priority. I'm cool with the down-to-earth realistic girl in the pokemon world who's not about battles or anything. People in the pokemon world could have just as much a regular life as we do. Maybe she's representing that.

 

[Daenerys]

Gou definitely needs more backstory. We got a glimpse of it in the Ivysaur episode but we still don't know what Gou meant. This whole talk about Satoshi being "just like the others" sounds like Gou might have either been bullied or left out in the past.

I think he definitely needs more backstory because right now he just comes off as a perfect Mary Sue-like character with no notable flaws and it's something that will probably get annoying real fast if he isn't given proper exposition soon.

 

[MarshiyanMisutaa]

he just comes off as a perfect Mary Sue-like character with no notable flaws

Yeah, he has no flaws, other than all the obvious flaws he had...

 

[Silktree]

Go is shy (with Ash at times), physically inactive, stubborn (about Mew) and easily offended. He is not a Mary Sue by any means, and his flaws are more glaring than Ash's (which barely hinder him).

She's shown in the opening to follow the two around, sure, but we don't see her in action.

That's enough to suggest that something needs to happen to get her from point A to point B. I am not expecting her to be more than a Mallow-type character, but that much is still possible.

Edit: According to an interview with producer Tomoya Negishi, Go's backstory will be explored in the "future". He also says that Ash and Go are very close and that, uh, Ash views Go as a "mama" since he's so dependable.

 

[Daren]

You'd think Gou would be the one relying on Ash since he's vastly more experienced.
I sort of suspected something like that would happen to play up the reckless Ash vs analytic Gou thing.

I assume it just means like with Brock where Gou is the one who thinks of preparing lunch and such a head of time.
I thought Ash grew out of that eventually but maybe not.

 

[Silktree]

Brock was definitely the wise "mom" of the group. So far I think that Ash and Go can learn from each other equally well. Maybe the word "mama" has an added connotation in Japanese.

 

[Almonds]

According to an interview with producer Tomoya Negishi, Go's backstory will be explored in the "future". He also says that Ash and Go are very close and that, uh, Ash views Go as a "mama" since he's so dependable.

I assume it just means like with Brock where Gou is the one who thinks of preparing lunch and such a head of time.

Gou fits the "Team Mom" trope?
I'm surprised that they are consistently designing Ash's character to almost always be with a "Team Mom" every region. Didn't he say he didn't want his own Mom babying him? So why would they give him a friend that could also be like a "Mom" to him?