Pokémon Anime Early Plans for the Anime

When creating a series like Pokémon, it is only natural that many ideas never make it into the final product. In the case of the Pokémon anime, there are a lot of ideas that didn't make it into the show, especially ideas created by the series' head writer, Takeshi Shudō. Shudō shared a lot of his ideas for Pokémon before he passed away back in 2010, which shows that the anime could have been very different than what we got. Keep in mind that I'm getting all of my information from secondary sources going off of fan-translations of Shudō's old blog, so I may be getting some details wrong. With that being said, let's go over some of the major deviations that Shudō's original concepts would have had compared to the anime we ended up getting.

First up is a relatively minor one, Shudō created the Team Rocket trio with the intent of having them actually remain fairly credible threats throughout the series. Apparently he was devastated with how they ended up being degraded into nothing more but harmless comic relief as the series went on. I haven't really found much detail on what he would have done with Jessie and James, however. I have learned a bit about what the intent for Meowth's character would have been, which I'll get to later.

Another interesting detail is that we would have actually learned about Ash's father. I don't know much about what was planned for this, if we go by Shudō's short-lived novel adaptation of the anime then we can assume that Ash's father would have been a failed Pokémon trainer who left his family, similar to what happened with Brock's father (whether or not this would have had a similar resolution to what happened with Brock's father is, to my knowledge, unknown).

Of course, the main part that I'm sure most of you have heard at least about and came here expecting to hear is about the Shudō's intended ending for the series. In the anime that was, Ash lost the Pokémon League and decided to explore the Orange Islands before heading to Johto (he actually would have won the League if Gold and Silver hadn't been announced, and the Orange Islands were introduced because the games were delayed). This is not the ending that Shudō came up with.
You remember how Pikachu didn't really get along with Ash at first, and how he hates being in a Pokéball? How about how Meowth sacrificed his ability to learn any real attacks or standard Pokémon traits in favor of learning how to walk and talk like a human? Or maybe you remember how a lot of trainers in the early episodes seemed to abuse their Pokémon? What if I told you that these were not random choices, but tied into the overarching plot of what the anime could have been?
Pikachu was going to leave Ash and start up a rebellion to free Pokémon from human control. It turns out that Pokémon really didn't like being enslaved and forced to fight for entertainment. Who would have thought? Meowth ends up caught in the middle of the two sides and uses his skills as a Pokémon that communicate directly with humans to serve as a mediator between the two sides. This would have culminated with humans and Pokémon parting ways for good. Yeah.
Oh, and if that ending wasn't already depressing enough for you, apparently Shudō also had the idea of ending the series with the reveal that the whole thing was just a dream that and old Ash had about his youth, and none of it was real. Basically it would have been like the old "Ash is in a coma" theory that used to plague the fanbase, only official.

And of course these are just some of the ideas that one writer happened to have which didn't get used. There are plenty of other things that could have happened in the anime but didn't such as Ash originally having a Clefairy as his first Pokémon (Clefairy was the franchise's original mascot before Pikachu took over) or even a Jigglypuff that couldn't sing. There's also the fact that the third movie, which ended up as Mystery of the Unown, was originally going to have been about explaining what happened to animals in the Pokémon world and involved a reanimated T-Rex skeleton going on a rampage. And then there's that mysterious first trailer for Mewtwo Strikes Back, which depicts and older Misty sporting her haircut from the Gen II games and Miranda (the blue haired lady that warns them about the storm), in a large grassy field with a young pink-haired girl that looks kind of like a child version of Nurse Joy. What?

What are your thoughts on some of these ideas? Do you think any of them should have been used in the actual anime or are you glad they didn't? Do you know any other tidbits of what could have happened in the anime but didn't? How awesome would it have been to see that undead T-Rex fight?