>>54430742The show was clearly playing gay chicken, and probably benefitting a lot from it. Starting with XY, each anipoke series has targeted a different audience. XY is shounen, SM is comedic kodomo, HZ is grabbing the shoujo audience, and JN went after the fujos.
Pokemon has no intention of pairing Ash up, OR doing gay shit, but you're blind if you can't see that they were playing around with the concept for the whole series. So much blushing, handholding, hugging, lunch dates, promo art of Ash touching or feeding Goh, their little breakup scene in the woods, I needn't go on.
Doing an explicit Koharu and Goh romance story would cut off the audience that they were trying to cultivate. There were a few teases, but they were more invested in teasing Ash/Goh to bait the homos
