Even if you don’t know her name, Sarah Natochenny was probably a big part of your childhood. Taking over the iconic role of Ash Ketchum from Veronica Taylor in 2006, Natochenny grew up with Pokemon before becoming an ind🔯elible part of its history. Her love for the series runs deep, and she even has a Pikachu of her own in the form of a pet cat who stalks a🥀round in the background of our online interview. Despite Ash hanging up his trusty baseball cap last year, Natochenny is coming back to Pokemon as Caterpie in Horizons. Although to hear her tell it, she never left.

"It's odd going into the studio so infrequently, and it's odd to go in and not have any Ash to do. The last time I wa♋lked in there, I was like, 'Oh, yeah'. And then I hear Liko and Roy. It's different, but it's great, change is good. It's good to get shaken in your boots a little bit and figure out what you want to do. I've had the luxury of having a job for so long and been a part of such a legacy for so long. I mean, I'm still part of 🌌it. But now it's time to really consider my position, right?"

After such a long time as the character, there's an easy professionalism to Natochenny's answers. But it's very clear, and not just from the cat or the Pokemon plushie she has on her desk, that her love for the series is on more than just on the career side of things. "Pokemon means a lot to me. I was ten years old when the show came out, so that's Ash Ketchum's age," she says. "It was a wonderful thing to grow up with, and then I became a part of it when I was 18 years old. It's been my job my entire adult life, and I just love the messaging. I love that Ash is such a tenacious kid who loves his Pokemon, loves everybody he's working with and travelling wiওth. I think these are really great messages for young people, especially to grow up with."

Throughout the series, Natochenny played several Pokemon alongside being Ash, so Caterpie is nothing new - even if it is a nice piece of symbolism to represent the first Pokemon Ash ever caught. She's played Chansey, Buneary, Wigglytuff,💛 Roselia, Diglett, plus several more, and explains how exactly those iconic squawks are devised. "We hear the Japanese [version], and then I just play around and come up with different voices for it. And the director is like, 'oh this works, that works, oh we'll send this to producers'. So i𒀰t's definitely a collaborative effort."

Naturally, voicing a Pokemon presents a challenge. When just repeating a single nonsensical sound over and over, it's harder to carry the range of emotions that Ash can portray across several lines of dialogue. But it's also a mechanical struggle - Pokemon sound highly animalistic. None more so, apparently, than Wingull. "I did it on an inhale," Natochenny says, croaking through air to rasp out a 'wingull'. "🐼To get very loud is tough. Should have thought about that. You live and learn."

Despite having also voiced for several of the games, Natochenny says she's not much of a gamer, which she attributes to growing up in a house where she didn't watch much TV. I tried to get her to sign my petition (current number of signatories: one) to 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:bring back PokePark, since this is the game in which Natochenny voices the most individual characters. While she says the game she's most familiar with is Pokemon Go, m🌳y mention of PokePark does stir a memory of an encounter with a fan. "I remember a couple came to me at a convention and they were freaking out. They wen🌱t 'you were so amazing in PokePark!' and I laughed. I thought they were joking. They said 'We're serious. That's like the best game. Nobody talks about it. It's such a great game and you were so amazing at it.' So you're not alone."

Maybe I can find that couple and raise my petition to three members. Pokemon Horizons, featuring Natochenny as Caterpie, is airing in the US on Netflix now, and on other platforms all 🌺around the world.