Did one ever know the reason why the pacing and story development change after Ash was hit by lightning in the beginning episodes? How Ash and his world were relatively normal until after the incident? I have a theory. The accident with the bike put Ash in a coma. Days later he was found and was hurried to the hospital and treated with heavy medications. This is why Team Rocket became less menacing. The medication took effect and stabilized his coma dreams, instead of being terrifying, they became idyllic, and he's able to live out his Pokémon master fantasies.
If one had noticed, the early episodes of Pokémon were of amazing quality. The rest of the series is just the results of his subconscious mind fulfilling his desires, as well as attempting to escape them. Should Ash realize he's in a coma, he would wake up, but suffer brain damage. So he has to take down all his mental barriers one by one until he can come to grips with what he is and escape his coma.
This explains why he doesn't change much physically. Also, the worldwide socialism can be explained if you once again realize that this is a dream world; he thought up a safe system of government that would run smoothly and keeps the world going allowing his adventures to work like they do. It also explains a few other things, such as how a child can go off on his own in a world full of dangerous untamed animals, and why every Pokémon center has the same exact nurse. Joy and Jenny he knew from his hometown, and they act as a safety net or anchor, allowing him to feel safe no matter where he goes. The professors, like the Joy's and Jenny's represent stability, and ash's ideals. This is why Gary became a professor. It's also the reason that every time he enters a new region, virtually no one has heard of him, despite his conquests, and why Giovanni leads Team Rocket. How could Paul, the rival of the Sinnoh area, not know of someone who has placed in at least the top 16 of all three leagues and had destroyed the Orange league and Battle Frontier?
If one recalls, there were real animals early in the show and references to animals in the game and show. For example, a clear case to point out is the aquarium of fish in the Cerulean City Gym or that by the Pokédex that Pikachu is a “rat-like” Pokémon. But they don't matter to Ash's psyche so they don't come into play much. If Ash had loved puppies, everything would be about different breeds of dogs, and a dog fighting circuit. But, as the series goes on longer, we've been seeing less realistic animals and more Pokémon. This could be a sign of Ash’s mind deteriorating. As he's in this coma, he's losing concepts of some animals and machinery and replacing them with Pokémon. It could explain things like electric Pokémon working as power generators. A sign that his memory of the old world is slipping more and more as time goes by. The Pokémon realm will be idealized continuously the longer he has no stimulus from the real world. He may or may not be mentally deteriorating , but he is becoming more accustomed to his fake world's rules. The wild Pokémon are his rationalizations of the functioning of the world. It’s the "A wizard did it" Syndrome. If he doesn't know how it works, his mind says Pokémon. He justifies anything he can't explain with Pokémon, and real animals fall into the background because he has no real interest in them.
Ash’s travelling partners are actually aspects of himself he can enjoy, but doesn't like to associate with himself. Brock is Ash's repressed sexuality. He fell into the coma a virgin and needed an outlet for his growing sexual frustrations. Since he can never experience sex, Brock must never succeed. Brock is a projection of his sexuality, and is constantly shot down because Ash could never “know” sex. Brock isn't just Ash's latent sexuality, he's also his fatherly instincts, neither of which Ash can come to terms with. Brock leaves his siblings to "journey" with Ash. because Ash can't cope with having that much responsibility, much as his foray with a real relationship ends on mysterious terms. Ash just cannot handle commitment at his mental level. Brock's Stay with professor Ivy was an attempt to outright suppress his sexuality. You'll notice that James got much more dialogue in this part of the series, as well as getting more touchy feel-y with his pokemon and getting most of his backstory. Ash didn't enjoy this much, hence the reasons Brock comes back all horrified, and refuses to speak about it. (ash's subconscious was repressing him at the time, so other than a general feeling of dread he has no idea of what went on then.) This is also why brock keeps coming back to the series....Usually AFTER Ash meets a new girl aspect of himself. Misty is an image that Ash had of a girl. This is why she plays so prevalently in the series but is ultimately unattainable because he never really knew her before the coma. Likely the one that helped get him to a hospital. I have a theory in line with this: Since Misty was his initial love interest (if only subconsciously), he needed her to reach a level of womanhood. He felt that people could only have relationships when they've matured. But in practice, it turned out he couldn't cope with it and just wanted the normal, pushy, arrogant Misty he knew, and wouldn't let her keep Togepi anymore.
Team rocket are aspects of Ash's personality that he has deemed "bad" James implied homosexuality, and Jesse’s vanity. You'll remember that Meowth has the potential for rehabilitation, and doesn't want to be evil, so yet again this fits in with the conflicting personalities and demonized self theory. Team rocket started cross-dressing because ash had to come to terms with that part of himself. It was something he was able to allow his gay/vain side to experiment with (and by virtue of that himself) When he found that it wasn't something for him, his "Free" side stopped playing with it. Further, their methods of capture become more and more ludicrous (and physically impossible) because Ash is just a kid dreaming these things up. This is the reason Team Rocket's disguises are always believed. He knows it's them (on some level), but chooses to ignore it, so he can better himself, in a sense the Ash who wants to escape is sabotaging the ash who wants to stay lost in his mind. So that there can be more conflict, and hopefully an eventual escape. The filler episodes that don't focus on Ash and the gang are his mind working through, and humanizing the parts of himself that he demonized. It's a way for him to deal with issues that Ash and crew wouldn't touch, because it involves treading ground he himself had sworn not to go near. As I said, Team Rocket and the episodes they occupy are Ash dealing with ground he feels uncomfortable with tackling on his own. Jessie is Ash's vanity and gullibility, she will trick Ash's submissive homosexuality into doing her bidding so she can please father. James' troubled childhood is his way of justifying his latent homosexuality. Now James is Ash's latent homosexuality, hence why he is constantly punished by Pokémon and attacked by random attractive girls.
Mr. Mime is actually a stand in for Ash's father, one that can't emotionally abuse him or his mom. He is a Pokémon, a peace loving creature that's oddly humanoid, but that can never hurt a human. Ash's was never really hurt by a Pokémon, so he sees them all as harmless; whereas, in the real world they may be quite feral or vicious (as seen in the early episodes). Again falling back to the theory that the only real Pokémon are the ones from the first season, and everything else is just further speculation coming from his mind on what new species would look like.
The Pokémon in Ash's team are his issues, for example Charmander represents his sex drive (not his sexuality like Brock) at first it's a cute easy to control thing, but eventually becomes a raging inferno of disobedience. Acquiring his team means getting at his issues, but as he trains them, he works said issues out. Other trainers are more direct forms of his issues, ones that he must either come to terms with or outright suppress. Gym leaders are more primary aspects of his personality with each Pokémon being stronger than the last, to display a level of skill he could be capable of if only he gave into it. In effect, he is doing battle with a part of him that he would rather not have in control. Bulbasaur was Ash's unwillingness to change, this is reflected when it declines to evolve and how it almost decided to stay behind unless he battled it. Squirtle was his willingness to follow the lead of others, as evidenced by the gang it ran with, even though he ran the gang, they were viewed as one group, and ash's subconscious just gave him the strongest one. Butterfree was his crushing loneliness, which he dealt with when he released it to join a flock. His bird types are his recklessness, always willing to sacrifice something at a moment's notice for the win.
As one could see, it is very likely that Ash is trapped in his world. But like every dream, everything, there is a beginning and an end. What would happen if Ash could fully recover? What would happen if he never does? There are infinite branches of possibilities that spiral upwards and intertwine towards the top at a single point, both in his “world” and the real world. In his hospital room, we see Delia, obviously distraught talking to a doctor with a grim look in his eye. He's saying that their insurance is up, and the boy has had no change in brain activity for seven years. That a shock like this may awaken him. She tearfully agrees.
Professor Oak is there to comfort her as they take Ash off life support.
In Ash’s “world”...
Ash has finally defeated the elite four, and one by one the people around him start disappearing. eventually everything is black. Pikachu comes dashing towards him glowing brighter and brighter in the darkness. Eventually Pikachu reaches ash and the two embrace one last time.
Back in his room, as his life signs fade, Ash mutters his genuine, final words.
I...Want...To...Be,
The...Very...Best.
The image of his gaunt, tube-fed, ten-some-year bed ridden body on the bed. His head appears bulbous from atrophy. As he utters his last words, he barely opens his eyes, seeing a silhouette of the figure at the center of his turbulent emotions, his mother, her face obstructed by her hands wiping away tears. He makes contact with her eyes and lets out one last tear before losing all strength. She breaks down in hysterics.
The worst part of all this is that Ash will die, never having experienced actual love. Imagine if you will, having lived in a world like his, completely shut off from all things but yourself, and your perception of yourself, with nothing but better yourself. No other people to interact with and issues to solve with no guiding hand.
The boy will die, never having known his dream, except as naught but a dream. The second he gets out into reality for that last moment, part of him knows it was all a lie. His faithful Pikachu? His friends? All his imagination, and maybe, he could have fought and clung to life, maybe even made a full recovery. But knowing that his efforts and ambitions had all been for naught, he just gave up and let the motion carry him away, just so he could be with Pikachu, in a place where his friends were waiting.
I would like to think that he'll realize that his mother loved him and was holding out hope that he'd recover all that time. On the flip side, though, when he sees her he knows that the hope she had is totally broken and she'd come to the crushing realization that the worst thing that can befall a parent has happened to her: outliving her only child. At once he knows he is loved and that it means that the one closest to him is utterly crushed.
Still, there are other possibilities. The fountain of time flows in mysterious ways. One could not go back, against the current such as Gatsby; but, one could never see what is waiting for him downstream. Ash finally defeats Lance, only to be confronted by not Gary Oak, but a mute, mirror image of himself.
The voice of the narrator speaks to him, telling him that now he can finally escape the prison of his own mind. One by one, his friends appear and melt away into more copies of him, all cheering him on. After a long tough battle against himself with the assistance of all of his Pokémon he had ever befriended, he jolts awake.
In his hospital room he sees his parents asleep; he finds himself unable to speak.
Ash pushes forward towards his recovery. Going through physical therapy, training harder and harder with rehabilitative Pokémon, until he can walk on his own again. This time, an older and wiser ash sets out on a journey. Just like last time, he's late getting to Professor Oak's laboratory. And when there's only one Pokémon left....He suddenly recalls all his memories of his "life" and realizes that all his friends are gone forever. As he sets out with his new companion, he finds the world is darker than he imagined. More “real”, Pokémon and people die; he too has aged.
He vows to become the Master he dreamed he was. He vows to himself.
He vows to “them”.
He WILL be the very best.