Last year, Ash Ketchum won a Pokémon League tournament for the first time, making him a certified Pokémon champion. The internet loved it. There were a lot of fans celebrating his victory, and articles commenting on how deserved the victory was. As fun as it was to see so many people celebrating his big win, Ash wasn’t exactly winning a lot of praise. If anything, the poor kid has been mocked more often than not. His previous failure to win Pokémon Leagues has been brought up constantly, and he’s been unfavorably compared to Red, who of course won his own league challenge.
In the show’s early days, Ash managed to beat eight gym leaders, get to the Pokémon League, and even place among the top sixteen trainers in the country. That feat has never been given the recognition by fans it deserves. Ash had never battled in a national, competitive setting before, he was a child competing with professionals, and top sixteen is still pretty good. Sure, he wasn’t literally the best competitor that year, but that doesn’t make all other rankings bad. There’s a reason why bronze and silver medals exist in sports competitions. Also, despite how things play out in the Pokémon games, or in Pokémon Origins, what are the odds of a child beating a bunch of professionals to claim the top spot on their first try?
It’s fun to watch when it happens, but it’s also an unfair standard to set for other characters. It worked for Red because Pokémon Origins was a mini-series with a complete story, and fans didn’t know if they were ever going to see that version of the character again. Ash, on the other hand, has been at the head of his anime for over two decades. If he had won at the Indigo Plateau, it would have taken a lot of the anticipation away. His victory in the Alola region certainly wouldn’t have been the event that it was.
Also, consider everything Ash accomplished between that first defeat and his win at the Alola League. The character made it all the way to the top eight in the Silver Conference, a rank he never slipped below. He also reached the top four in the Lily of the Valley Conference, and was the runner up in the Lumiose Conference. That’s not to mention his victory in the Orange League. Yes, it took Ash roughly twenty years to become a Pokémon champion, outside of the one that didn’t appear in the games, but he also learned from his defeats. He kept coming back after every loss, and he became a better trainer. As much fun as it is to see an instantly talented whizz kid, it’s also satisfying to see someone work hard and finally get the win after so much disappointment.
Ash didn’t just learn from his defeats in the leagues either. Whitney’s Miltank has taken down many players in the Johto Pokémon games, and Ash didn’t fare any better on his first attempt; Miltank’s Rollout creamed his entire team. He didn’t give up though. While battling Team Rocket after his gym challenge, Ash noticed a few things about their latest gadget which he knew he could use to beat Whitney, and he did. His win showed that Ash was able to get better, and he did it with what he learned outside of Pokémon battling; he’s always thinking.
That being said, there’s more to how good a trainer is than how well they do in competitions, and Ash’s record as a Pokémon trainer speaks for itself. Think of all the times one of his Pokémon refused to listen to anything he said. Pikachu hated Ash at first sight, Primeape used to attack him, and Charizard started to ignore him the moment he evolved from Charmander into Charmeleon. Ash was able to win each of them over. He did it with Pikachu and Primeape by putting their needs first, but what was really impressive was how he finally got Charizard to respect him.
After the fire/flying type Pokémon was almost killed in fight with a Poliwrath, Ash and his friends spent the whole night taking care of him. Ash even rubbed his hands raw keeping his Pokémon’s body temperature up. It was similar to how Ash worked so hard to keep Charizard alive when he was just a Charmander who had been abandoned in the rain by his abusive first trainer. Ash truly cares about his Pokémon, and he has shown time and time again that being a good trainer is about learning to look after them as living beings with their own needs. There may be the occasional slip, but in the end, all of the creatures he takes on come to respect him, and he earned that.
The Pokémon games have a lot going for them, and there are many reasons fans have become attached to them over the years. There’s the thrill of catching cool new Pokémon and bonding with them. There’s the fun challenge of working towards being the very best, and there’s the satisfaction that comes with raising a team. Players don’t just start out as champions with level 100 super Pokémon and everyone telling them they are the best. They have to spend hours battling, learning the best strategies, and figuring out why they lost when a tough trainer occasionally beats them.
Those qualities are Ash Ketchum in a nutshell. He took every single lesson he learned over his time as a trainer and used it to become a Pokémon champion. More importantly, he always did his best, achieved feats that were still remarkably impressive for someone his age. At the end of that day, a protagonist like Ash is way more interesting than someone who just manages to win it all the first time.
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