Pokémon‘s professor characters often fade into the background, but two of the most popular and well-known professors actually have one truly bizarre thing in common. Thanks to the Mythical Pokémon Celebi, both Professor Oak and Professor Kukui had the opportunity to meet Ash long before they were supposed to.
Celebi is a Pokémon that’s heavily associated with time travel, flitting back and forth between the past and future as easily as a person might walk across the street. That makes it an exceptionally elusive Pokémon, one which can be found anywhere at any time. Ash has encountered Celebi on a number of occasions (and may have unknowingly carried one with him in the GS Ball), and has even been taken back in time by the Mythical Pokémon.
Professors Oak and Kukui have had their own run-ins with Celebi, and for both of them, it happened when they were still children.
In Pokémon 4Ever, the fourth Pokémon film which is all about Celebi, a young boy by the name of Sammy is accidentally whisked away to the future by the Mythical Pokémon while helping it to evade a poacher, disappearing without a trace from his proper timeline. Sammy meets Ash in the future, who, after an initial conflict, agrees to help Sammy find and protect Celebi.
At the end of the film, it’s revealed that Sammy is actually Samuel Oak, AKA Professor Oak, and that he remembers his adventure with Ash and Celebi quite fondly. While Oak never reveals this to Ash, Sammy’s sketchbook seen in Oak’s possession confirms the connection.
In the Sun & Moon episode “A Timeless Encounter!” Ash is training his Torracat when a Celebi happens to be nearby, pulling Ash back in time with it in its wake. In the past, Ash meets a young boy whom he nicknames “Roarie,” after his Incineroar hat. Ash and Roarie have a battle, which Ash easily wins. Roarie reveals he’s in possession of a rare Firum Z crystal, which he received from a Trevenant.
Ash explains his past experiences with Gyms to Roarie as they wait for rain to pass, getting the young boy excited. Ash, too, receives a Firium Z before being taken back to the present by Celebi.
Roarie, of course, turns out to have been Professor Kukui, although Kukui isn’t aware that Ash had time traveled. It’s certainly interesting that Ash managed to meet the two professors he’s grown closest to as children, and that both times the responsible party was actually a Celebi. The Professors’ experiences with Ash helped to shape them into the men they eventually became, and they in turn helped shape Ash in their own ways. Incidentally, this would make Ash indirectly responsible for the development of the Alola Pokémon League by Kukui, which he would go on to win.
One can only wonder what Oak and Kukui might think if they were aware of this oddly specific experience that they shared, but that’s just one of the wonderful mysteries of the Pokémon world.
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