Depending on who you ask, thePokemon anime's Ash Ketchum is either someone you love or someone you love to hate. In many ways, he's a great protagonist with a good heart. Aside from being one of the most accomplished Pokemon Trainers in his universe, he's a beacon of optimism and determination. He's changed many people's lives and, in some cases, saved the world.
RELATED: 10 Naruto Characters And Their Perfect Pokemon Partner
On the other hand, he's certainly far from being perfect. While he has grown significantly from the bratty little kid who couldn't get Pikachu to obey him, he's still got a long way to go when it comes to breaking some ofhis worst habits.
10 Not Evolving His Pokemon
This one goes on the bottom of the list because some of Ash's Pokemon have shown that their not-fully-evolved status doesn't matter; they're still strong regardless. Some of them have deliberately chosen not to evolve since they want to prove their strength as they are which is respectable.
The problem is, not everyone is like that, and Ash could've been a much stronger trainer if a few of his Pokemon had just evolved. None of his Johto starters fully evolved despiteChikorita and Cyndaquil likely showing the willingness to by evolving a stage. Pignite could have been Ash's Unova ace if it had evolved into an Emboar. He might have even won the Sinnoh League if he'd evolved his Gible into a Garchomp or at least a Gabite.
9 Not Teaching His Pokemon Better Moves
Maybe moves in the anime work differently from those in the games, but Ash has a tendency of stunting his Pokemon's potential by not teaching them stronger or more useful moves. He's done so before, so it's baffling why he hasn't done it consistently.
RELATED: Pokemon: 10 Counter Attacks That Only Work In The Anime
Perhaps moves like Pikachu's "Quick Attack" have some practical use by the anime's rules of physics, but one can't help but wonder why his full-blown Charizard is still using "Tackle" (which, by the way, it can't learn in the games). Other egregious offenses include Sceptile still using "Pound" by the end of the Battle Frontier and Greninja settling for "Cut" instead of learning "Night Slash".
8 Impatience For Battles
Modern-day Ash Ketchum is much more chill; he is still determined, but more able to just let things come to him. That was not the case in earlier seasons of the anime, where he had such a huge chip on his shoulder that he wanted to prove his worth to Gym Leaders, rivals, or even strangers through Pokemon battles. This only led to frustration, as he had a habit of asking for battles at inopportune times like when Gym Leaders were busy with some other task.
This almost never happens anymore, but back in the day, Ash would constantly ask for battles to the point of irritation. This habit goes back to as recently as the XY seasons of the anime.
7 Not Using His Old Pokemon
It's understandable that Ash would want to catch new Pokemon. In fact, he's been able to build strong friendships with a lot of Pokemon because of his willingness to catch new ones. Still, there are certain situations where it might be better for him to just stick his strongest or at least his most familiar Pokemon.
He finds himself in a lot of situations where something big is at stake (i.e. evil team arcs), so it would be in his best interest to stay strapped with a dream team of his best Pokemon in case something comes up. Not to mention the fact that there are tons of Pokemon he hasn't seen since the Sinnoh League that might want some catching up.
6 Questionable Battling Decisions
Ash works best as an improvisational battler in coming up with tactics on the fly. Unfortunately, that kind of battling philosophy can be somewhat of a mixed bag if you don't have the experience to know what works and what doesn't. For Ash, that habit has resulted in questionable impulse decisions in battle such as the "Thunder Armor" against Tate and Liza, among others.
RELATED: Pokemon: 14 Legitimately Evil Things Gym Leaders Do (That Everyone Ignores)
Of course, when he sits down and formulates a strategy, it doesn't work as shown inhis battle with Elesa. However, said strategy was to use one Pokemon for the whole battle. Fortunately, Ash has honed his unpredictable style enough that he can swing momentum his way out of thin air, not having to worry about some bulletproof strategy.
5 Obliviousness To Love
The fact that Serena went out of her way to look for him has to be some sort of sign, but good luck telling Ash that. Serena spent a considerable amount of the XY anime hinting that she had a thing for Ash, but he never acted on those hints. He didn't do anything even after they literally kissed when Serena left.
Serena might not be the only victim of this. Misty's supposed feelings for Ash are not canon. But it's pretty telling that eight-year-old kids could pick up on something like that while Ash, who spent every day with her, couldn't. Maybe Ash just doesn't want a girlfriend and that's respectable, but if he does, his total blindness to girls' affection towards him isn't helping that cause.
4 Losing In The Pokemon League
This is obviously no longer a problem as Ash now has a League trophy sitting in his room. But the path to get there was rough. The ways he lost some of the Leagues prior to Alola were mindbogglingly bad for one reason or another.
He lost honorably in Johto, Hoenn, and (maybe) Kalos, so there's no shame in how those Leagues went. He also can't really be blamed for losing in Sinnoh either because Tobias probably used a few Action Replay codes to build his team. However, the remaining two, Kanto and Unova, were embarrassing as he lost the former because Charizard wouldn't obey him. He lost the latter to a guy who didn't even have a complete team.
3 Falling For Team Rocket's Schemes
With how often it's occurred (especially in earlier seasons), you'd think that Ash would be looking over his shoulder at every corner, worried that Team Rocket might pop up out of nowhere and steal his Pikachu again. Better yet, you'd expect him to recognize Jessie and James by face when they appear to him in a paper-thin disguise.
RELATED: Pokemon: The D&D Alignments Of Every Villainous Team
But that isn't the case and he's putting himself andhis traveling companions in constant danger for it. It's a good thing they're incompetent at their jobs, easy to defeat, and that they've eased up on their mischievous tendencies. Otherwise, Ash might have gotten a few of his Pokemon completely stolen thanks to his utter lack of street smarts.
2 Forgetting Type Matchups
Even as Ash has gradually become a competent, even Champion-level Pokemon battler, knowledge of the most basic of type matchups still seems to elude him. He's been able to alleviate the other battling-related bad habits mentioned here, but this one problem has persisted at least up to his fight against Professor Kukui. He had Naganadel use a Poison-type move against theSteel-type Lucario. Take note: this was after he won the Alola League.
It isn't just moves either: sometimes he puts himself in situations where his Pokemon clearly have a type disadvantage over his opponent's. Consider when he used Krookodile against Stephan's Sawk or Greninja against Sawyer's Mega Sceptile. He doesn't really get punished for it though as shown by the aforementioned examples; he won both of them.
1 Releasing His Pokemon
Perhaps the writers are more to blame than Ash himself, but how he keeps getting into situations that end with him suddenly releasing a Pokemon is anyone's guess. Every subsequent release is worse than the last for increasingly stupid reasons. It started when he released the first Pokemon he ever caught: Butterfree.
It fell in love with another Butterfree and wanted to be with its partner, so Ash letting it go was reasonable, right? Then, he gave away his Primeape and then his Pidgeot and then his Lapras, and so on. It became a habit and then became a joke when he releasedGreninja, arguably his strongest and closest Pokemon besides Pikachu. Even worse, he promised some of them he would return only to never do so.
