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There's basically no way to know if Gou is staying past Gen 8 or not until Gen 8 actually ends and we see it happen. There's 25 years of precedent that says no he won't, but he's also an unprecedented character in his own right and it's been pointed out that he can just swap out Grookey for a Gen 9 starter like he swapped out Raboot for Sobble and Sobble for Grookey in turn. Add in that his Project Mew goal could basically be played with infinitely and Ash's WCS goal could cycle with new seasons starting and ending with Master Class cups and Ash starting over again each season, and this really could just drag on forever without much change. They even gave the token girl character (that they don't seem interested in doing much with, mind) a never evolving Eevee, who is the other money maker Kanto Pokémon that always gets marketed, no matter the generation. So there's a lot of different stuff going on.
But damn if 25 years of precedent isn't hard to overcome. I don't blame anyone for thinking it could go one way or the other. It really feels like, at least for the moment, it could go either way.
