>>55368780That's because it WAS meant to be the end of his anime.
look at it from a writing standpoint. The entire Sinnoh series was written as if it was going to end there. from the very start of the series until around the final few eps, it was completely designed to be the end of the Ash anime.
Ash was meant to win the league and fight Cynthia (win or lose from there is does not matter he's a champ)
Cynthia was built up to be the final challenge but it was never capitalized on.
Paul was Ashs biggest mental and physical challenge to this day
Brock found his calling
Dawn was ready to go home with Ash, and their relationship was moving forward very quickly.
Dawns reason for leave was so terrible it had to have been deliberate to spit in the faces of the people in charge
they made a literally mary sue(tobias) to beat Ash
BW was a series reset, they had on reason to keep Ash but for whatever reason just wanted Ash there.
given the pacing of the final few eps it seems like they were stumbling over themselves as if they already had an ending but were made to change it.
After DP all the love and soul of the anime was gone. it seems like whoever made the staff keep Ash around made them also realize that Ash was never leave and would be "rest" each gen giving them no reason to do anything character-defining again.
DP had the last good movies.
Tomioka was the writer for DP and he was also the writer for the finals of JN, we see that Dawn was the only one there in the end for Ash so its safe to assume that he got the ending he wanted with Dawn winning.
comparing the two endings we can see part of his original vision in JN.
Its very sad seeing what happen to the anime after DP. to only think that the fires of BW-JN could have been avoided.
