Well, I guess it’s finally time to say goodbye Wow. I can't really believe it. We've been
through so much together! Trying to figure out how old you are, who your father is,
even what level your Pikachu is. It’s weird to think that it's all over. :`( No No,
it can't be over! I know you finally achieved your dream, but I'm not ready to let you go ;-;
Hey, I’m sure we’ll still be able to see each other. I mean,
if anyone’s going to be able to figure out a way to keep talking about me it’s gonna be you.
You really mean that? *sniff* Wait, what…What is this? That's it. I know
how I can keep theorizing about you! Well, that didn’t take long at all,
aye Pikachu? PIKA
Hello Internet! Welcome to Game Theory, the show that knows that the truest to Pokemon
Masters are the ones that catch the subscribe button. Speaking of catching, Whoa boy, was
I not ready to catch all the feels when Pokemon released their newest trailer. After nine regions,
52 badges, 83 Pokemon (so long as you count 30 Tauros) and 25 years (of being ten years old),
Ash Ketchum is finally retiring as the protagonist of the Pokemon anime. Last year,
Ash finally achieved his dream and became the Pokemon World Champion at the end of Pokemon
Ultimate Journeys, which meant that realistically, there really wasn't anything left for Ash to do as
a character. He is literally the best like no one ever was. But it's not like the anime can
just end. That machine needs to keep on printing money. In other words, it needs some fresh blood,
new faces, new heroes to learn the same lessons that Ash did along his journey.
And in the latest trailer, we got exactly that. We were teased. A new
series set in the Paldea region from the newly released Pokemon Scarlet
and Violet Games. But instead of Ash, we get two new protagonists, Roy and Riko.
Immediately after the release of this singular image, the fanbase exploded with speculation about
these characters. “They're going to be mentored by Ash.” “They're going to be introduced in the
final episode of Ashes Season.” “Ash is going to be their rival.” But of all the speculation,
one theory seemed to rise above the rest: that Riko, the new female protagonist,
is going to be revealed as Ash’s daughter. And this isn't just the fanbase wildly speculating to
keep Ash a part of the series. The evidence they cite is actually pretty compelling. First of all,
Riko has black hair, at least partially, which obviously matches Ashes hair.
But more importantly, she's wearing a hair clip that bears a striking resemblance
to the L symbol from Ashes Original cap when he began his Pokemon journey. Also,
careful eyed fans notice the necklace that she's wearing looks remarkably similar to
the Thunder Stone that Pikachu refused to evolve with back during the original anime.
Could it be that her pops, Ash Ketchum, gave her this memento as a symbol of overcoming
struggles and not taking the easy way out? Even the name Riko has been pointed out by
some to be a nod to Rika Matsumoto, the longtime Japanese voice actress for Ash.
And the theories didn't stop there either. Once everyone was done pinning Ash as Riko's dad,
the Internet did what it loves to do, good old fashioned shipping. If Ash is the father,
who then is the mother? Each corner of the fandom started throwing out
ideas to prove that their favorite companion was the true Mrs. Ketchum.
But looking around, it seemed pretty clear that people are just being blinded by the waifu goggles
rather than the cold, hard facts of science. So you know what that means. It’s time for me to
break out the old paternity test. Ready your eye colors in ear lobes friends, we're settling this
debate today. If Ash is truly the father of Riko, who is the mother? Let's start by figuring out our
complete list of potential matches, shall we? If Ash is going to be Riko's father, then it makes
sense that her mother would be a character that we as fans are already familiar with. Admittedly,
it could just wind up being some random girl named Jennifer that we've never been introduced
to before, but that’d be pretty lame. So instead we naturally turn to the roster of Ash’s many,
many female companions over the course of the series to find his special romance. I compiled
a comprehensive list of maybe-mommies to find the perfect OTP for Ash and wound up with 15
candidates in total. Obviously we have Misty from the original series, May from the Advanced
Generation, Dawn from Diamond and Pearl, Iris from Black and White, Serena from XY,
Lillie Mallow and Lana from Sun and Moon and Chloe from the newest Pokemon Journey series.
But to be extra thorough here, I also tossed in a few long shots. These are one-off or side
characters who showed some passing romantic interest in Ash during some point of the series.
This list includes Melody from Pokemon: The Movie 2000, as well as Macy and Angie from Johto in
Sinnoh, one-off characters that developed crushes on Ash, usually after he saved their lives.
We also have Lyra from Diamond and Pearl and Miette from XY,
rival characters who outright tell Ash's Female Companion for each series
that if they don't make a move on Ash, they're just going to steal him away.
Finally, we of course have Latias. Yep, the Pokemon. If you're not familiar with
this particular nugget of lore at the end of the Pokemon Heroes: Latios and Latias movie,
The Pokemon Latias in the form of a girl named Bianca gives Ash a kiss, a move that shocks the
whole gang as well as everyone in the audience. And yeah, the Pokemon movies up to that point
were considered canon. So with our complete list of 15 assembled or 14 and one Pokemon, it's time
to use our greatest companion science, to narrow down this list of ladies and find the mother.
Let's start with eye color, shall we? We've discussed eye color plenty of
times on this show. So to quickly summarize, every single person has
two copies of each of their genes. One comes from mom and one comes from dad.
These genes come in different flavors called alleles, dominant alleles,
or for the traits that are stronger and cover up the weaker recessive alleled traits. When
it comes to eye color, there are actually three possible alleles: brown, green and blue.
If you inherit a blue allele from your mom and a blue allele from your dad,
well, congratulations. You got yourself blue eyes. Two brown alleles give you brown eyes
and two green give you green. Super simple. But what happens when you get to different alleles?
Well, in the case of eye color, Brown is going to be the dominant gene. Blue is recessive and
green is just somewhere in the middle. So if you get yourself one brown allele,
it's going to butt in in like Jessie's Wobbuffet.
It means you're likely going to have yourself brown eyes. If someone gets
one green Allele and one blue, they're going to have green eyes because green
is dominant over blue. The only way to get blue eyes is with two recessive blue alleles.
Knowing that, let's then apply it to Riko. Since Riko has blue eyes, we know for sure that she has
two recessive blue alleles. Except, that already presents us with a problem. Ash has brown eyes,
just like his mom. Sure, Ash may have brown eyes and still pass on a recessive blue allele to his
children, but it makes the odds of him having a blue eyed child much, much lower. Now, while it's
true that Riko's mother could also have herself a secret blue allele. It is much more likely if
Ash is the father, that the mom has to have blue eyes, so she's guaranteed to pass that trait on.
As such, we're going to eliminate all the candidates who don't have blue eyes. That
eliminates Iris, Lillie, Mallow, Chloe, Angie, Miette, and Latias, which I am glad that we
knocked Latias out right away because the idea of Pokemon and humans having romantic feelings for
each other would definitely be… uncomfortable. Markiplier: Smash
Okay. The heart wants what the heart wants. It’s Mark after all,
who am I to deny this man his happiness? The blue eye criteria also puts Macy
and Misty on the bubble because their eye color is annoyingly inconsistent.
Sometimes it's blue, sometimes it's green. On the wiki, Misty's eye color
is actually labeled as Viridian, which is both blue and green. So we're just going
to keep them both in the running for now. So with our potential mom list cut in half,
it's time to look at our second favorite genetic trait: Hair color. Hair color is predominantly
determined by the presence or absence of two pigments in your hair, eumelanin; a black
brown pigment. And pheomelanin; a yellowish red pigment. You can actually think of these
two as dials that can be turned up and down to generate a whole different range of hair colors.
If your hair contains high levels of eumelanin and lower levels of pheomelanin, then your hair
is going to be a dark color such as black or brown. If your hair has low levels of eumelanin
and high levels of pheomelanin, then your hair is going to be lighter, like a blond or a redhead.
And in between those is just a whole other spectrum of color. Now, in the main image
that we've seen for Rico, it's kind of hard to tell what her exact hair color is, thanks to the
lighting. However, looking at this brief scene from the announcement trailer, it makes it a lot
clearer that her hair is black with blue under lights. That's the official term for highlights
that are hidden underneath the top layer of hair. Now, blue is, of course, not a natural hair color
in our world, but this is an anime, weird colored hair just kind of comes with the territory.
So we're going to have to make some assumptions about the genetics of
non-natural colors. Since more hair colors are possible in the anime world,
that most likely means that there just must be more pigments besides eumelanin and pheomelanin.
Therefore, there are more dials that we can play with when deciding hair color. There's probably
a dial for green hair, purple hair, and most importantly for us, blue hair. Since Riko's hair
is both black and blue, that means that the genes for both are going to be cranked up to the max.
If Ash is the father, that then explains the black hair, meaning that we need ourselves a
mom that has blue hair to contribute that half of the genes. My deepest condolences to all the
Serena and Misty shippers out there, because there are only two girls left in our list that
have both blue eyes and blue hair. Dawn from diamond and pearl. And Lana from sun and moon.
So now that we've narrowed it down to two, we need to find some feature to distinguish
between our two female finalists. How do we decide between Dawn and Lana?
Well, normally I'd go to earlobes or face shape, but honestly,
it isn't nearly that complicated. All we really need to do is take a closer look
at their eyes. If you look at Dawn’s eyes there are three different visible colors:
the whites of her eyes known as the sclera, the blue irises and her black pupils.
Now take a look at Lana. Notice anything strange? Her sclera is non-existent. What's
even weirder is the fact that her pupils aren't black. They're actually white.
And this isn't just part of the weird redesign that all the characters got for the Alola arc.
Every other lead character has themselves normal eyes. And we know it's a genetic
trait here because the only other characters in the show to have the
same quirky look are Lana's parents and her two little sisters, Harper and Sarah.
It is a trait that is passed between generations. And when we look at Riko,
she's lacking that crucial family feature, meaning that Lana cannot
be the mother. And so we come to the end of our investigation. Riko's mother and Ash's
true shipping partner is, in fact, Dawn from diamond and pearls.
She's got blue eyes to pass on the blue allele, blue hair to match with Riko's
underlights and actual pupils that her daughter can inherit. So there you have
it. Ash and Dawn together forever. Unless that's not actually the full story here.
I did a lot of research for this episode, and the more I looked, the more I realized
that the initial premise this entire online theory is based on is shakier than Groundon’s
earthquake. This whole time we've been working with the assumption that Ash is the father.
But no, it just doesn't make sense. Let's start with the hair clip, shall we? Well,
the design is undeniably a reference to Ash’s iconic cap. It's a hair clip. It’s not a paternity
test. Riko is just as likely to have gotten that clip the same way Ash got his first ever cap.
You know what else that hair clip looks like? The antenna of an Orbeetle. Maybe that's who
the real father is. Markiplier: Pass
No accounting for taste, I suppose. And what about that
thunder stone necklace that supposedly came from the enemy's original season?
While it would make for a great story to say that Ash held on to
that Thunder Stone all these years and eventually gave it to his daughter as
a symbol of how Pikachu and Ash got stronger through hard work.
It would be a complete retcon of what we see happen in the story. We know what happens
to that Thunder Stone. It was originally featured all the way back in episode 14,
and after Pikachu rejects it, the fate of the stone is left as an open mystery. However,
it does finally show up again in episode 540 during the Diamond and
Pearl Arc. In this episode, Ash reveals that he's kept the stone the entire time.
In the episode the pair has to face off against another strong Raichu. meaning
Ash and Pikachu must once again contemplate whether or not to use the stone to evolve. I
love that it's not just enough to recycle the same plot theme, but even doing it against
the same Pokemon. Like why not a dragon Pokemon or a God Pokemon or something?
Nope. Those darn Raichu just always causing you to have that real existential crisis. Anyway,
as you can probably guess, they decide not to evolve Pikachu again. But this
time there's a twist. Team Rocket shows up, steals the thunder stone,
and at the end of the episode reveal that they plan on selling it.
In short, the thunder stone is long gone before Ash ever thinks about having kids.
And before you say it, no. Riko is not the child of Team Rocket. Trust me,
I checked. Even the genetics are against Ash.
Sure, Ash could have a recessive blue allele but that's a big “if”. And the whole black
hair thing. Characters with black hair and blue eyes in the series are a dime
a dozen. Just take Goh from Journeys or even Riley from Pokemon Diamond and Pearl.
For completeness I also ran an analysis on their faces and found that again,
the likelihood of it being Ash was minimal. If you watch the episode where I revealed that Bo
Burnham is secretly Dream's father. You'll know that face shape can be a big tell in genetics.
So I found the best shots of all the characters facing forwards,
did some pixel measurements, put them into an online face shape calculator,
and the results were surprising. Most of the women ended up having the same or very similar ratios.
Basically, all of them were categorized as a heart shaped face. Rijo also has a heart shaped face,
so it doesn't really help me narrow the field any. Now, scientifically speaking,
daughters are supposed to get a balanced mix of their moms and their dads face
shapes. And while Ash's measurements do lead to a heart shaped face. All his
other proportions are too big to match with Riko's. His jaw is much longer,
his cheeks are wider and his forehead is far too bulbous… saur couldn't help myself
on that one. All of this means that Ash's head is simply too large to be paired with
any of the companions on the show in order to produce a daughter with the face shape of Riko.
The science just doesn't add up. I don't think Riko's parents are
going to end up having some significant lore implication. And you know what? I
am more than happy with that. While yeah, it'd be cool to see the daughter of the
legendary Ash Ketchum go on her own journey to become a Pokemon master like her father.
I also think it would kind of defeat the purpose of bringing in a new protagonist in the first
place. Pokemon is a story about how anyone can rise to greatness through hard work and
determination. Ash started off as a derpy screw up from a small town in the middle of nowhere.
He had good intentions and a great heart, but not a lot of skill. Honestly,
he still doesn't have a lot of skill. Using thunder shock for
everything does not a strategy make. But he has matured. He's learned, he's grown.
He's gone through more than his fair share of failures. And now
he's achieved his childhood dream. To just hand the torchic off to his daughter is
falling into the trap that so many other franchises have fallen into recently,
that you have to be one of the chosen ones in order to win.
It undermines that core idea that this trainer could be anyone, it could be you. It's scary for
things to change, but it's also okay. I also know that eventually Ash is going to show up
as a surprise battle for Riko towards the end of her journey, because that's how Pokemon do. So,
while yes, I am loath to see Ash go. I'm also okay moving on. Because let's be honest,
he really should have gotten with Serena or Misty the entire time. But hey! That's just an opinion,
MY GAME GAMER OPINION! Thanks for listening.
And hey, if you're still not ready to say goodbye to Ash, why not check out our other
episode where we figured out how old he really is. Maybe I'll make you rethink all the shipping
we've been talking about in this episode. That video is over on the left. Or why not
take a look at the video on the right to see our other massive Pokemon episode where we
calculated Pikachu's actual level. For both of these, we had to watch a lot of anime to come
up with accurate conclusions, so if you could hit that subscribe button, it would definitely
make it worth all the hard work. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm blasting off again.