My my, how time flies.
Its been nearly 13 years since Misty was written off the anime way back in November of 2002. And in that timeframe she stayed gone permanently for the entire duration of the anime, never returning to the cast in any of the following arcs. Even her cameos/guest appearances stopped a decade ago back in 2005, since not counting flashbacks, Misty hasn't physically shown up in an episode since Ash came home from the Hoenn league back in 2005.
As someone who was part of the fandom when Misty originally left, its both rather funny and kind of ironic that all the people who sat there raging about Misty leaving did it all for nothing. Because as we can see, Misty never returned to the anime after 13 long years, and her character was essentially dropped at the very beginning of the series. Looking back at this now a decade later, it really puts into perspective how irrelevant Misty actually was to the overall series. She turned out to be nothing more than a short-lived sidekick character who was only around for the first 5 years of the show, and the anime is currently in its 18th year.
The writers really did turn the series against Misty in virtually every way possible, completely burying her character in almost the same manner as Tracey and promoting the hell out of all the female companions who came after her. Also now entire generations of kids have grown up watching the anime without her for a decade, so she's practically irrelevant to 70% of the animes run now. How time flies.
Its been nearly 13 years since Misty was written off the anime way back in November of 2002. And in that timeframe she stayed gone permanently for the entire duration of the anime, never returning to the cast in any of the following arcs. Even her cameos/guest appearances stopped a decade ago back in 2005, since not counting flashbacks, Misty hasn't physically shown up in an episode since Ash came home from the Hoenn league back in 2005.
As someone who was part of the fandom when Misty originally left, its both rather funny and kind of ironic that all the people who sat there raging about Misty leaving did it all for nothing. Because as we can see, Misty never returned to the anime after 13 long years, and her character was essentially dropped at the very beginning of the series. Looking back at this now a decade later, it really puts into perspective how irrelevant Misty actually was to the overall series. She turned out to be nothing more than a short-lived sidekick character who was only around for the first 5 years of the show, and the anime is currently in its 18th year.
The writers really did turn the series against Misty in virtually every way possible, completely burying her character in almost the same manner as Tracey and promoting the hell out of all the female companions who came after her. Also now entire generations of kids have grown up watching the anime without her for a decade, so she's practically irrelevant to 70% of the animes run now. How time flies.