It's quite fitting that the newest Voice Actor almost forgot about the recording day, just like Ash did for the day of receiving his first pokémon. She was meant to be this character xD

I feel so bad for Sarah Natochenny. I can't imagine dealing with all that hatred at the age of 19. I'm glad that she's doing much better now and I love her voice of Ash as much as Veronica Taylor's.

It would be funny if the voice of Ash also voiced Meowth because then each of the original trios’ voice actors would have also voiced a member of Team Rocket 😂

You left out the fact that Veronica Taylor actually changed her Ash voice about halfway through the Indigo League episodes. For the first half, her Ash voice was really deep and smooth-sounding, while in the second half, she changed her Ash voice to sound higher pitched and way more raspy. She continued to use this changed voice all way the up to the end of her time as Ash, using it in the Orange Islands, Johto, and Hoenn seasons. And it wasn't a gradual change over time, either. One episode Ash's voice is still deep and clear, the next it's pitched higher and raspy. I don't remember in which episode the second voice debuted, but it'd be pretty easy to go through each middle-season Kanto episode and find out (I'd be willing to do so if anyone is curious). *EDIT:* Alrighty, enough people asked, so I went and checked out Veronica Taylor's Ash voice in at least 30 of the midseason Kanto episodes and... it turns out that the change in her voice was a lot more gradual than I thought. While her Ash voice is definitely not the same at the start of the series from how it ended up sounding many episodes later, it seems that she did develop it over time after all, instead of instantly shifting it from sounding one way to another. Her early Ash voice remains mostly unchanged as late as "Primeape Goes Bananas", but has developed more of a rasp that wasn't there at the start of the series, and gradually gets more and more raspy as the series continues. If pressed into absolutely having to pick a single episode in which her voice first shows signs of sounding more like her later Ash voice than her early Ash voice, I'd probably have to pick "The March of the Exeggutor Squad" as the episode where Ash's voice begins its shift away from deep to sounding higher pitched. But the change really is more subtle than I remembered it being. By the time of "Beach Blanket Blastoise", however, her Ash voice has pretty much reached its final stages of development, essentially sounding the way it would sound for the remainder of Veronica Taylor's tenure of voicing Ash in the rest of Kanto, the Orange Islands, Johto, Hoenn, and part of the Battle Frontier.

Even through all of those voice conflicts, Gary still has managed to keep the same English voice actor from the first ever Pokémon episode all the way to his recent appearance in the Journeys series!

honestly sarah showing up late to the audition and barely knowing what job she was in for is probably the most ash thing she couldve done, mad respect

I think the blame falls on "The Pokemon Company". To can all the original voice actors for no good reason while hiring someone with very little voice acting (Sarah did nothing wrong, she just needed more experience) experience to play one of the most iconic characters in pop culture is just crazy!

I think the switching of the actresses was a really jarring. I remember watching the Hoenn anime and finding it fine when Veronica Taylor did it, but when they switched to Sarah Natochenney, it was jarring, not because it sounded bad, but it just didn't hit the same notes that i imagine TPCI wanted to hit by having her mimick Veronica Taylor's voice work. Im glad Sarah is much more comfortable in Ash's role because she, along with Veronica, sounds like she was meant for the role!

In Japanese , ash sounds more confident, strong, and able to catch my ear In English, he sounded more childish (suitable for his age), but he can be savage, put many emotion in certain situations. I love both.

It's amazing herring Veronica's voice still to this day. I've been with the series both games and anime since the start. I just met Veronica Taylor in November and I cried meeting her seeing I was waiting 20 years for that moment. I told her that she made my childhood in a world where it's OK to fail and to get up and keep trying. She told me life is like a Pokémon battle, making the right move and trying to achieve your own personal victory. She truly is my hero. It's gonna be a moment I will never forget and I will never forget how much she was hugging onto me when I told her that I waited 20 years for that moment.

I remember when it went from 4Kids to TPC and there were banners on fansites and signature badges on forums for 'Save the Dub!' to try and show support to get the cast used in 4Kids to be the cast for TPC. It failed, obviously.

Ash’s Japanese voice just hits different and the evolution of the voice over the past 20 years truly feels like an evolution of the character. He sounds deeper, more serious, and badass asf. Veronica Taylor went from a little more low pitch to higher pitch but the voice is way too iconic, plus the higher pitch sounds way better. There was something missing and it was the more badass feeling moments and that’s where Sarah Natochenny comes in. At first she was way too deep in the Battle Frontier but during Diamond & Pearl, Best Wishes, and XY he sounds great and definitely feels more badass. I think he’s after getting a little too high pitch but really it all comes down to preference. I like all the voices

I met Both English voice actors and Japanese voice actor They are all super nice!! Especially Veronica Taylor if you haven’t seen her at a convention yet you definitely should!

It’s Interesting how He still Remains 10 years old to this day somehow🙂

A few things I want to point out, just for a bit of extra clarity - Eric Stuart was the original voice of Brock, but he wasn't actually the first voice of James. That was actually Ted Lewis (Giovanni from Team Rocket, Tracey, etc.), who Eric Stuart replaced about 8 episodes in. The first 5 seasons were actually recorded at a studio called TAJ Productions before 4Kids dubbed it in-house for S6-8, then with the voice change, The Pokemon Company took the dub back to TAJ for S9-10, before going with DuArt from S11-22, and Iyuno Media S23-present. In terms of the voice replacement, long story short, the majority of the cast was replaced, though there were a few actors who stayed on board, including some who hadn't been on the show in a number of years, but it's a very complicated matter. Kayzie Rogers was also various Pokemon like Cyndaquil, Totodile, Eevee, Mr. Mime and most famously Wobbuffet until her retirement after the XY series.

I was 10 years old when they changed the voice actors and I'll never forget the community outrage on all the web forums (no social media back in 2006). It really alienated a lot of fans from the anime, myself included. Over the years I've began to get in to the series again, but the voice changes were a real kick in the childhood.

Most people knew they changed VAs when I was a kid I thought ash hit puberty I realized it was a different VA by mid Gen 4

Ok that second clip of Sarah Natochenny is WAY better. She sounds way more natural there and it just comes across as more genuine. The quality is so good and her acting is fantastic. She found her version of Ash and it shows much better. Goes to show you don't need to always sound exactly alike someone else.. finding your own style can be better in long run.

Ooh, never thought I'd see you cover Ash and his changing VAs! 🥰

I have so much love and respect for Sarah Natochenny. She was subject to a lot of hate in the beginning but she didn't let it deter her and kept going and since she started as Ash she has hugely improved and has really come into her own with Ash. And her Ash is the Ash I grew up with, so she is MY Ash (as well as Ash to a WHOLE generation I imagine!) though I do have a lot of love and respect for Veronica Taylor who was also fantastic in her own right!

"They reached out to some experts - 4kids entertainment" this caught me off guard

OH MY GOD THE NOSTALGIA HIT ME HARD i love the first pokemon movie its amazing

In the Swedish version. After all these years we still have the same voice actor for Ash and I love him for it!

I love Veronica’s version of Ash the most but Sara has it pretty well! Once she got comfortable being the character, that’s when she really started to sit well in the role. At least, that’s how I feel about it. :)

I still remember that first episode with the new voices back in 2006. I didn’t believe the voice was coming from Ash until the camera showed him talking. Such a jarring, abrupt change. But I’ve come to appreciate the new voices too.

I honestly think that Sarah natochenny’s voice fits the animation style of the newer episodes

Veronica Taylor's Ash: Iconic! Sarah Natochenny's Ash: Less Raspy Ash! Rica Matsumoto's Satoshi (Ash): Japaneseish

13:36 her impression there didn't sound too bad when it was softer and lower there where as her current voice sounds more like a deeper version of dawn.

As much as I love the old dub, it’s no comparison to the any of the Japanese Sub! Rica Matsumoto just fits, such a great singer/actress

In the Finnish dub, Ash had two voice actors, Sari Ann Annika Stolt (formerly Moilanen) from season 1-3 and Hanna Leino (formerly Savikko) from season 4 and onwards.

Dude I love these videos so much, keep up the great work!

In Poland (which wasn't even shown in 0:59, btw.) retains for the most part the same voice actors for main characters since the beginning. One time after two-year hiatus (which happened after airing of Advanced in 2006), TPCi took the care over the Polish dub and the Diamond and Pearl's first season had a new voice cast, which was also critically received by fans, often mentioning casting a voice actor for Ash instead of retaining his first voice actress. However, with some fan output, Battle Dimension brought back almost the first cast (with exception of Jessie and Oak - they kept their voices from the second cast) and they're voicing to this day (sadly the first narrator, who his VA was voicing him for 20+ years passed away in 2020 and instead of getting the second narrator from S10 back, they took another va instead.) Despite making an uproar after changing the first cast, something good happened. Mainly with locations, moves and people names in Polish. Before then there was no naming list, which it would let keep naming scheme consistently, the lack of it created an enormous pool of names that were giving over the first six seasons (like the move Tackle had 38 (!) different names before the new va recast, which the new dub still uses one name for this move after many years.) So in Poland, despite not having games in native language, this makes the dub of anime (from S10 onward) the official source of official names.

In Sweden the same guy has been voicing ash since the start, he’s 61 years old and is still doing the voice Edit: considering I have no one else to share this with, here are some more fun facts about the Swedish dubbed Pokémon anime if anyone is interested: - Misty is tied with nurse joy for most amount of voice actors, both with five. I think the one in second is meowth - Iirc Swedish Brock is voiced by the same guy that does Batman in Swedish - Misty’s first voice was Anna Book, who is a pretty well known Swedish signer - James va has also been around since the start and apparently he originally didn’t want to audition but was pressured to and deliberately made a stupid voice not to get picked, turns out he got picked for the voice anyway and James voice has stayed the same since - in os and johto moves names where translated and the Pokémon names where pronounced like they would be in Swedish (for example: Squirtle was pronounced Skveertel) - the only Pokémon name that is still being pronounced with the os and johto pronouncation is Pikachu, and that’s just how most Swedes say that Pokémons name nowadays (the way we say it is similar to how pikachu says it itself)

I like Sarah's Ash. She made him sound more confident and mature in the advanced, DP, BW and XY series. Ash's voice was redirected to sound more childish in SM and Journeys but it's still fine.

Sarah's Ash is the one I grew up (literary the first season she started to voice Ash, Battle Frontier) so much respect to for continuing to this day

Great video! I enjoyed it!

Wow ash can do a great Bart Simpson impressions

After starting to watch the Diamond and Pearl Sinnoh League in Japanese and realizing I just couldn’t go back. Veronica has the nostalgia aspect and Sarah Natocheny isn’t bad in her own right, but Rica is my favorite Ash VA

This is a detailed video covering all angles. Thank u!

Your content is pretty good dude

Dear Natochnny… I grew up watching Pokémon Sun and Moon so you were my childhood I really love your voice for Ash keep on doing what you love I’ll be here waiting your every move ((in a good way I’m not trying to sound like a weirdo)) Again I love your voice thank you for all you’ve done -signed dearly Galixy…

Sarah's version of Ash is amazing and I'm super glad she never let that hate get to her.

I remember being one of the many who was very confused and unhappy when the voice actors all changed, by this point those people have been playing the voice longer than the originals

As a big fan of Veronica Taylor imagine how excited I was to see her voice one of my favorite Fire Emblem characters after voicing a character from my favorite anime

6:41 that's not entirely true. Along with Kayzie Rogers who you mention later in the video, one other voice actor remained with the series after the dub change: James Carter Cathcart. Like Kayzie, Carter also voiced many minor/recurring characters (with Gary Oak being his most prominent one); he took over as the voice of James, Meowth and Professor Oak in the TPCi era. Like many others, I was definitely disappointed when TPCi made the decision to recast Ash (and almost everyone else). As time went on though, I grew to really like Sarah’s portrayal of the character. I think she really improved once she stopped trying to imitate Veronica Taylor. Of course I’ll always appreciate Veronica for bringing Ash to life in the beginning

Had ash simply been allowed to finish his story & age. The actors voices would be more fitting with time

Thank you, you blessed me Tomas.

Congratulations on 500,000

I love these videos where we get to learn about the differences and evolution of the voices!

The real crime is what happened to James

I’m Early and Good Job Thomas Game Docs I Love Your Videos So Much

Great video!

Fun fact: Cartoon Network's MAD did a sketch called "Pokémonsters Inc." where Ash Ketchum tried to catch the monsters from the Pixar film. In the Spanish dub, they used the actual Spanish voice actor for Ash, making it even funnier.

I see people in the comments who talk about the voice actor for Ash of their country, so I guess I can do that too In Denmark, we've had Mathias Klenske as the sole voice of Ash ever since the first episode, and I still watch the Danish dub to this day because I really love his take on Ash (even if he made Ash's voice gradually higher pitched because his own normal voice became deeper as he grew older)

I Gotta Say, I fall in Love with The New voice For ash! It's So Good and unique! Sarah Is Doing an AMAIZING job! And Thank You for Making this Video, I Learnd Alot :)

fun fact:in Polish dubbing it is dubbed for all these years by one person (actually it was from what I remember that someone else started dubbing it but the one who dubbed it came back)

I think ash’s different voices suit where he stood as a trainer Veronica as ash fit the more short tempered immaturity and that he didn’t know what he was doing While his new voice has occasional immaturity it’s more fitting to his more laid back style and maturity when it comes to training Pokémon Why does there have to be a war over who’s better Can’t we appreciate both interpretations And what they bring It’s been 20 years people get over it Chances are more kids probably grew up with Sarah as ash since she was around longer People just need to come around to Sarah already she does her best and her take on his voice is unique Better than when she originally tried to impersonate Veronica

I remember the time when the voice actors were replaced so clearly, there was such a big outrage from the community. Like I remember going to a convention in like, 2007 and someone handing me a flyer for SOVA and being like :o i can't believe they'd do this to the the VAs. I probs still have the flyer somewhere actually, I kept a lot of that old con stuff because they're cool relics to the ye olde times of anime. But anyway, it's dumb in hindsight. It wasn't the VAs fault and no one deserves hate or death threats over it. Sarah Natochenny actually plays Ash really well!

I love learning from you

I loooove Rica Matsumoto ❤️ Her Satoshi and Bakura are spectacular

I may have had a small crush as a very young kid on vetonnica Taylor's version of ash Ketchum when I saw him sitting around a campfire having a serious talk about Pokemon and friendship...... But I feel Sara Natochenny's voice is the improved version of Veronica's ! Honestly ! It sounds almost the exact same but without the slight weird and crisp audio sound the 90's and 3000's ash had to his voice Almost like the - not raspy ness, but it sounds clearer than the original. It was such a weird culture shock the first time when I was older and realized I could tell a difference in his voice and how I never noticed it as a kid haha tbh probably because I never had anything to compare it to, Both hold a special place in my heart now

Nothing beats his original voice!

i really enjoy these why doesn't ____ sound like they used to videos a lot i love seeing who was voiceing our favourite charathers

the strange thing is, Sarah Natochenny sounds more like Veronica's Ash in the more recent stuff, than when she was trying to copy Veronica's voice.

Love your content

My sister and I have been watching the current anime run on netflix and recently went back to watch a gen 4 episode because it was her favorite and found Ash's voice then verses now jarring even though that was also Natochenneny. I also watch a lot of pokemon related videos that often have clips of Taylor's Ash and feel Sarah Natochenneny sounds more like Taylor now then she did when she was trying too. I find the differince between Natochenneny's current Ash voice and Taylor's Ash voice less jarring than Natochenny early on verses now.

12:23 Yeahhh I think she embodies Ash pretty well.

Grew with latinamerican dub, learned like 2 years ago about the big backlash regarding the change of the voice actors in the English dub, starting with that honestly painful to listen to Mirage Island special. I like Sarah as Ash but not so much in the last seasons where the pitch has just gone too high. In the latinamerican dub, Ash had his voice changed from the first guy to the current one in season 13, and both voices are great. I love both, the recent one is excellent and the old one too. Of course some people on the internet don't like the recent one but that's not a generalized thing, there wasn't a backlash or anything because of the change. Just something that happened and everyone just accepted it I guess. The rocket trio has always had the same voice (except for a few episodes when actors become sick or whatever, and less than 5 movies because of distribution and dub rights), though Jessie's voice actress, Diana Pérez, sadly died last year, cause of death not revealed yet. And she did an amazing work, the role of a lifetime, it can be either an episode from 1999, 2012 or from 2019 and you'll hear her voice in it.

Honestly; Sarah's depiction of Ash is really good! I don't have any issue with it.

Veronica will always be my favorite Ash voice. Indigo League was my childhood so I have a soft spot for Kanto/Johto Ash.

In Denmark. We always had the same voice actor for Ash Ketchum since the beginning, but he had changed his voice for Ash during the Best Wishes saga (Black and White anime) and has used that voice ever since

Thanks!

I love the “new” Ash Sara fits him sm it’s great!!

It's character development. In the early episodes ash was brash and inexperienced, hence he sounds so gruff. Later, after all his adventures, he became more laid back and less judgemental, thus more soft spoken and humble

IVE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS ONE!

I get to meet Veronica this weekend at Alaska comic con. I am so excited!

To me they sound very similar and I feel the new voice actor does an amazing job at capturing the character

Amazing job with the different voices of Ash Ketchum.

Late to this video, but I have to say that I love what you discussed! Of course it makes sense to change voice actors from time to time, but the responses the original cast got as to why they were replaced... I feel so bad for them. I myself grew up with the later seasons, the Black and White seasons to be more exact, and so I grew up with hearing Sarah Natochenny. I always thought that she sounded good! But I will agree that it is weird that they got Natochenny when she hadn't done many roles before... cuz like, for me personally I had never heard of her before. I also wanna mention that in the dubbing of Pokémon from my country, in the Norwegian dub, Ash has had the same voice actor since the first Pokémon season (they actually had a guy play Ash, which is different from the English and Japanese version), and that is Nils-Martin Crawfurd!

oh dang i just realized u really like phantom troupe theme song (requiem aranea) such man of culture

Would love to see Thomas do one do these for the Sonic series or even just Sonic himself, especially with the news Ryan gave in a 2019 interview that Sega basically told 4Kids to not consider using their original game cast for Sonic X in 2003.

What I miss about the original VA was *team rocket's* voice and their puns

It was a bumpy start in the beginning but ever loved her and how she is doing the voice acting of ash today is amazing and how it became her own ash as she did it And Thomas did a great job this something he should be celebrating because I hope he gets a lot of likes and subscribers

Ash:(battles a powerful trainer) Everyone nearby: prepares for apocalypse.

I grew up with Sarah’s ash in Black and white and I honestly love her version. Veronica’s Will forever be absolutely iconic, but personally I think I favor Sarah’s Ash. That might just be because of nostalgia… but I feel like his newer voice is more versatile and expressive

I'm more curious as to why Ash looks different than he used to. He used to look cool, but now he's too cartoon-y in my opinion.

love the video! one tiny thing that kinda bothered me which also doesn't matter that much, (but still like to point out) is that when you talk about Ash sounding different, you put up Diamond & Pearl Ash and Journeys Ash, but those are voiced by the same person,

LOL Why do you remind me of Pokemon Researcher Bill from Mystery at the lighthouse? Great video !

In the German version there were also three different voices: First Caroline Combrinck had the role. Since she moved to the USA in 2001, Veronika Neugebauer got the role. Even though unpopular at first, fans got used to her voice. She voiced the role until her untimely death in 2009. From then on, Caroline Combrinck took over again. With season 19, the dubbing studio changed for cost reasons, and almost all Pokémon got new voices (before, each Pokemon had its own voice actor, now a few took over all Pokemon). Due to disagreements between Caroline Combrinck and the dubbing studio, Felix Mayer took over the role from movie 19/season 20. As I understand it, he is not very popular. Team Rocket, Misty and Brock have kept their voices, though.

Honestly I was and still am mad that Pokemon USA decided to cut 4kids off because the original voice actors were and are my favorites.

Ash:no I just hit puberty before I reset my age

These vids are always so interesting

This has got to be my favorite video from you, so far. Veronica Taylor has always been my favorite version of Ash, but I do respect Sarah Natochenny for pushing on with her current Ash role. I had my criticism of the new voice in the past, though it's not as harsh as the Twitter quote you showed. But I back peddled on it and I have new found appreciation for Sarah's version of Ash, especially now since I watch the new episodes with my niece.

Even tho I still don't like the new voice for Ash, I don't think she deserves any of the death threats or hate since all of this is out of her control. If anyone is going to complain, they should've taken it straight to the Pokemon USA company

I remember the first voice actor switch. I would watch the pokemon anime as these reuploads on youtube- Generally much, much lower quality than the original show. And the episode where they switched the actors was just a random mid season episode, and ALL of the comments were people talking about how weird their voices were. Nobody even knew the plot of the episode because we were all just so distracted by the change. I don't even remember the plot to this day!

voice acting seems like so much fun!

Yeah, I grew up in the old days of Ash being voiced by Veronica Taylor. By the time Sarah came on to the scene in 2006, I was already 3 years off pokemon due to it not being cool in High School. So While I was sad that Veronica Taylor was no longer voicing Ash, I really didn't get angry at all. I'm glad the new group stuck with it and made it their own. For many children, Sarah Natocheny is their Ash Ketchum, and I do not want to ruin that just for my own nostalgia. Besides, isn't pokemon all about change and evolution?

Veronica Taylor is the best and will always be the original ash

Love this series. Please do Princess Zelda or Samus next!

i agree it still sounds dang near close tho, i grew up on pokemon ❤ im 28 and haven't kept up with the franchise over the past 10 years when i tuned in i had to google is this still the same voice actress that voiced him when i was kid🙏🤘Also the timeline, did they ever reboot him or has this been an actual continuation from the OG anime when i was a kid? I watched it a lot in the early 2000s, i plan on going back and fully re experiencing the whole series as an adult, and i just recently saw one of the newer movies "i choose you" and the scene with Ash and Pikachu made this grown man cry😂 😔 it was like seeing my whole childhood flash before my eyes😢 tue series still hits, hits even harder all grown up🙏