>>54150089Yeah, that's a definite possibility. I doubt we'll ever know if Goh (and perhaps Koharu, as well) was intended to carry the anime's torch going forward, but I swear some of the diehard anti-Gohfags back in 2020/2021 were absolutely convinced Goh replacing Ash. Me though, I never really got the feeling that this was the end of the road for Ash up until it was actually confirmed, simply because JN didn't feel like a send-off to him, even after he beat Leon, so I didn't think he was being replaced until it... well, happened. Goh's goal (and Koharu being in school, meaning she could easily transfer to a school in another region), made it feel like from the start, both these characters could pretty easily stick around beyond JN. Some will argue that Goh/Koharu were simply so unpopular that it forced the production staff to scrap whatever future plans they had for the characters (though maybe just Goh's, since if the contract theory is true, Koharu's VA must not have had the same type of one as Goh's), but again, that's something we'll likely never know. I've said before, I would love to see an official (or even unofficial) tell-all book about JN's production from start to finish, because I believe between the staff changes, covid, and sudden shifts in direction, there has to be a treasure trove of juicy details concerning the original vision of the series, its characters, and where it was all to lead to, vs. what we got. Sure, we got hints of some of this stuff in an interview last year, where there was some talk about the original plan for Goh's character to more heavily be influenced by PoGo and PoGo elements being more heavily implemented in the anime, but you just know there have to be lots of meaty details that were never cleared to be publicly said.
But yeah, it could be that OLM/TPCi were so confident that Goh would successfully replace Ash that back in 2019, they did what they felt they needed to do to secure his VA's participation for years to come.
