How did Ash See Ho-oh in Season 1 when Ho-oh is from Johto?

Question

Does that even make sense?

Comments

The anime probably makes pokemon for the future gens.

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Do you mean why Ho-Oh is in the wrong region or why they saw it when the Johto games weren't released?

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Ho-Oh could have EASILY just been flying over...

Answer 1

There were originally 170 or so Pokemon planned for red and blue but were taken out and the extra space was taken up by missing no, and ho-oh was one of them. A way to prove this is sometimes when you trade a missing no to gold/silver/crystal it turns into a Pokemon.

Source: Bulbapedia (can't find the damn article)

Comments

To add to this, the pokemon isn't limited to staying in its native region.

Answer 2

It's possible that GameFreak already have new Pokemon lined up when Generations comes out. Also remember that the anime started a few years after the first release of the video games, so that also gave them some time to think of new designs.

Also it might be possible, that it was just intended to be a golden bird in the anime, just there to show that not all Pokemon have been discovered. When they were making the Gen II Pokemon, they decided to include the bird Ash saw as Ho-oh, so Ho-oh could have been based of the anime, rather than the other way around as well.

I don't know the actual answer, but those are my best guesses.