Original Pokémon Voice Actor Retires Character & Theme

If you grew up outside of Japan, you probably have never heard the original Japanese theme song for Pokémon from the first 80 episodes unless you purposely sought it out. And I mean, that’s well and truly fine. The original Pokémon theme song in the United States is an iconic and upbeat pop-rock number that has been covered many, many, many times. In fact, let’s check it out now to refresh our memories.

That there was “Pokémon Theme,” a.k.a. “Gotta catch ’em all!” by Jason Paige. As you can tell, it’s inarguably a good song that captures the competitive spirit of the franchise while also talking about striving to be “the very best, like no one ever was.” This is about as iconic of a song as you can get for fans of the original series. However, fans in Japan remember it differently because their original theme song was almost nothing like this.

Enter the original Japanese voice actor for Satoshi (or Ash as we know him in the west), Rica Matsumoto, who not only performed the lead voice in the franchise from 1997 all the way to the present day (until Satoshi/Ash retires from competing which likely already happened in an episode by the time you read this) but also performed the original Japanese theme song.

In a video, the YouTube channel The First Take caught up with Matsumoto and asked her to perform the iconic song one last time before officially retiring from the character. And she knocked it out of the park.

Titled “Mezase Pokémon Master,” Matsumoto moves into the performance while wearing a flowery dress after starting it with a friendly “OK, let’s have some fun.” While the Japanese version of the song might not have the hard rock edge of its American counterpart, it’s still filled with its own flowery language that describes the journey that Satoshi/Ash has ahead of him.

It’s a worthy send-off for an unsung industry legend (pun intended) who has brought joy to millions of children and adults both in Japan and outside their borders.

Source: SoraNews24

While it’s sad to see old Pokémon characters leave, there are new ones to take their place. Browse the J-List Pokémon section to see if you like figures of the ones we have in the J-List store!