When I was 11, I was racing through Mt. Silver’s seemingly endless corridors in Pokémon Gold & Silver, trying to reach the end before a family outing. Already dressed, I played while everyone else grabbed their coats, determined to see what awaited me at the peak. The path narrowed. A lone sprite stood at the summit — familiar, but uncanny. I’d spent hours controlling this very figure years earlier in Pokémon Red & Blue, yet at that moment I couldn’t quite process it.
My dad called out that it was time to go. I saved, and then pressed A anyway. The ellipses appeared. That’s when it clicked.
The battle screen flashed. His sprite centered, Red’s name appeared. And then, “Level 81 Pikachu.”
A shock ran through me. I shut off the game, jaw on the floor, and blurted out to my gamer dad that the hero from the first game was the final boss of this one. He looked at me like a chip off the ole’ block.
Red’s appearance at the end of Pokémon Gold & Silver is a peak moment in the franchise in which the game’s protagonist, Gold (later renamed Ethan), comes face-to-face with the hero of Red & Blue. For young Pokémon fans, it’s an unforgettable twist on par with Darth Vader being Luke Skywalker’s father. For me, it’s a core childhood memory.
The fact that it hasn’t been replicated in the anime, 27 years after the game’s initial release, is a travesty.
Red and Gold do eventually cross paths and battle in the manga Pokémon Adventures, but it plays less like a climactic battle and more like a symbolic handoff. In the manga, their meeting is framed as the legendary Red training and ultimately passing the torch to his successor. They have a mentor/protégé relationship in the manga, whereas in the games, this is their first time meeting, and it’s defined as a no-holds-barred battle. Although it’s a cool twist, the interpretation removes the shock value and mystique of the encounter.
While the anime never gave us a true Red, Ash Ketchum serves as the closest stand-in. Though his early win/loss record pales in comparison to Red’s legendary feats, Ash steadily grew into a far more capable trainer over the years and decades. He even defeated Leon, who is canonically considered to be the strongest trainer in the world, in Pokémon Journeys. That achievement places Ash on par with Red. Now, with Ash having been absent since being replaced by Liko as the anime’s lead in 2022, his eventual return could be shrouded in mystery, potentially kicking off with a showdown against his replacement. It could be a climactic Pokémon battle, like in Gold & Silver, as well as a passing of the torch moment like we saw in the manga.
An even better option, however, would be a follow-up to the 2013 special Pokémon Origins, a tribute to 1996’s Pokémon Red & Green starring Red. While Origins adapted the story of those games into anime, a follow-up miniseries could do the same thing for Gold & Silver. Rather than ending with Mewtwo or a Mega Evolved Charizard, the climax could place Gold atop Mt. Silver where Gold finally faces Red. Much like Jaden vs. Yugi in Yu-Gi-Oh! GX, the battle could conclude just before a winner is decided, preserving the same ambiguous ending as the games.
Pokémon has been around for three decades, yet it has never adapted one of the video game franchise’s most iconic moments into anime. Why The Pokémon Company is still waiting is anyone’s guess, but there’s never been a better time to show us Gold and Red’s Pokémon battle in beautiful animation — inspiring a whole new generation of Youngster Trainers, just like it did for me.