Double question about anime.

Question

First: Is it just me or is Ash catching less pokemon with each succesive region?

Second: Why is it that Ash always winds up catching the Grass-type starter from each region (e.g. Bulbasuar-Kanto, Chikorita-Johto, Treecko-Hoenn)?

Answer 1

Actually, Ash has caught more Pokemon in a shorter amount of time than ever before with the Best Wishes series.

As for Ash catching all the Grass type starters, Bulbasaur and Chikorita were just given because they are starter Pokemon, not because they are of the Grass type. He caught all the starters in Gens I, II, and V. While the reason why Treecko was chosen to be given to Ash over the other starters cannot be said for sure, the most likely explanation is that it is because it is more human-like than the other Hoenn starters, which leads to a better character development, important for a primary Pokemon on the main character's team.

Comments

What I meant about the catching less pokemon is that it seems like he only catches enough pokemon to fill his team and it seems like this has been happening since the hoenn region at least.

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Nope. In the Best Wishes series he's caught more Pokemon than six, and has started to rotate out his Pokemon.

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Max said he preferred treeko to may's torchic in an early episode. That might have something to do with it.