>>42439800You're asking the wrong question. First of all, why is Ash of all fucking people still around? He's really not a great protagonist, your cliche shounen boy, to be fair though, he always loses the leagues instead of nakama power victory bullshit. One of the reasons why the Ashnime got so popular (aside from the novelty of monster anime genre, new cartoon style, etc.) was the great team dynamics introduced by Brock and Misty archetypes. In fact, Brock was so popular that he stayed till the end of Sinnoh and Misty still gets regular cameos in the actual show. These two characters were crucial to the popularity of the Ashnime. The anime became so popular that the only reason the writers still keep Ash is because they're afraid if they replace him, the ratings will flop.
So on to your question. If Leaf were in the games, either 1) the Ashnime could've ignored her in favour of the Ash/Gary-Red/Blue dynamics, basically what we got. 2)the Ashnime would adapt her, but since she's a protagonist persona, she's either be a companion or a rival. If she were a rival like Gary, nothing really changes. If she were a companion, the Brock/Misty team dynamics that made the Ashnime popular in the first place would not exist, so it wouldn't get that popular and would be a long forgotten cartoon from the 90's.
