Pokemon and the Sliding Time-scale

   

     For the longest time one of the biggest complaints about the Pokemon anime was the fact that Ash never ages. Resulting in immortality jokes, or the sucking of life force from side characters, or worst yet the fan theory that Ash is in a coma. Of course this is all because we love this show and want it to be something grand. And for brief moments we see it, but then it dips away with rehashed plots and character development. But what if I told you that a majority of the inconsistencies could be solved with a concept from Marvel Comics. What I am talking about is the sliding time-scale.

     For those who do not know the sliding time-scale in Marvel pertains that the events that happened to characters like Spider-Man, The Fantastic Four, The Hulk, And others back in the sixties still happened in today's more modern continuity. So how do you explain that. Well here comes the sliding time-scale. Ultimately major events stay cannon and are updated periodically, for example Tony Stark was originally injured showing of weapons during the Korean war, in the seventies/eighties this was updated to Vietnam, nineties to the Gulf War, and is now the conflict in Afghanistan. Same event different details, no reboot. Another thing to note is how smaller story arcs are truncated for forgotten completely. This results in more time between major events in the comics.

     So how does this apply to the Pokemon anime. Well when viewed this way, the story lines are not taking years, but more like months, or even weeks. If you also take out fluff and filler stories, that timeline makes a little more sense. with this in mind, here is how i see the events unfolding. All of Kanto, the Orange Islands, And Johto take place in around three months time, when focusing on travel, gym badges, and other major arcs like catching Pokemon. most other regions probably take about a month to a month and a half to complete. This seems reasonable for a hyperactive ten year old child to accomplish in a society dedicated to this lifestyle.

     Does this solve every problem? No. No it does not. But with this thought maybe we can stop complaining about this little continuity problem. Hell under more scrutiny this theory might be full of holes. This is simply my view of the continuity of the series.