Professor Oak (anime)/Past



Oak appeared as a young boy, Sam (Japanese: ユキナリ Yukinari) in Celebi: The Voice of the Forest. Ash befriended the young Oak, who, because he time-traveled from 40 years in the past, was around the same age as Ash. The revelation that Sam is Oak, while inferred thanks to disclosure of Oak's first name in The Power of One, comes only at the end of the movie when Oak implicitly confirmed the connection through his knowledge of Sam's name despite Ash having never told him of it. Additionally, Tracey discovered the sketchbook in which young Sam drew Pikachu sleeping with Celebi in Oak's closet.

In the main series, Oak never revealed or discussed, though his past as a Trainer was vaguely mentioned by Agatha in The Scheme Team.

Despite the fact that Sam saw many throughout the movie (notably the   and the  ), the Pokédex he gifts Ash in the Kanto arc only catalogs, claiming that they were all the Pokémon that the world knows. This discrepancy is likely no longer canon, instead representing a silent that occurred due to the ever-increasing number of Pokémon; indeed, Pokémon from Generation II, Generation III, and Generation IV are able to be trained in Kanto during the Generation I remakes FireRed and LeafGreen, as well as during the Generation II remakes HeartGold and SoulSilver. Perhaps to avoid a similar plothole, the number of Pokémon as of the current generation is no longer explicitly mentioned in anime-related media.