Thursday, November 11, 2010

...Ash Ketchum is the worst Pokemon trainer in history...

MASSIVE SPOILER ALERT: THIS POST WILL EITHER MAKE YOU FEEL LIKE A FUCKING BADASS OR IT WILL DESTROY YOUR ENTIRE GODDAMN CHILDHOOD! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

I want to be the very best, like no one ever was. To catch them was my real test, to train them is my cause.

These words defined my childhood, as I'm sure they did for the vast majority of my readership. I knew that I had a heart so true, and that my courage would pull us through. So when I found out there was a TV show, I knew that the main character would be someone I could look up to. Someone like me. A pokemon master in the making. Enter Ash Ketchum.

He was like me. A boy of 10 or 11, setting out for the first time on what was sure to be an epic adventure, armed only with the single pokemon endowed upon him by the enigmatic Professor Oak. He, like me, set out from Pallet Town, fighting, catching and befriending his way across the land, winning bout after bout and raking in the stakes at every turn.

Years later (read as TODAY), I return to that universe, to see how my animated analog is doing. Turns out....not so well.

So enough with the flowery writing, lets get down to it. I want you all to think of the catch phrase for pokemon. Go ahead. I'll wait.

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Did everyone get "gotta catch 'em all?" Good. If not, you probably shouldn't be reading this. It won't start to make any more sense.

Those three and a half simple words (because "em" is not a goddamn word) defined a generation. A generation that revered that scrappy young boy from Pallet Town. And while my friends and I all raced to catch them all first, we always looked to Ash as our role model. Well as it turns out, he fucking sucks at his own life. Yes you heard me. Ash never caught 'em all. In fact, HE NEVER EVEN GOT CLOSE. In point of fact, he was the WORST POKEMON TRAINER IN EXISTENCE. Lets look at the stats shall we?

According to Bulbapedia.bulbgarden.net (yes such a fucking thing exists) Ash has logged a whopping 49 pokemon (that could technically count as having been "caught"). "But Eric!" You think to yourself, "That's almost 1/3 of the way through all the pokemon...that's not bad at all!". Well you see, that's where you'd be WRONG. He has logged 49 "caught" pokemon ACROSS EVERY SINGLE SEASON TO DATE. That means he has registered 49 out of 649 POKEMON IN TOTAL. That is not EVEN REMOTELY CLOSE. And bearing in mind that of these 49 pokemon, he only managed to RETAIN 29 of them! He released 3, traded 2, GAVE AWAY 1 (I didn't even know that was POSSIBLE), 11 of them he didn't technically catch, but he gave them orders (which would probably trick the pokedex) and 3 apparently straight up just DON'T COUNT. So given that as it stands, he only has 29 in his possession, that means he has caught a WHOPPING 4.5% of all pokemon in existence.

For a game/show whose tagline is "Gotta catch 'em all" the protagonist did a FUCKING TERRIBLE JOB!

In summary, if you ONLY played the first game and managed to catch 7 GODDAMN POKEMON, you will have managed to beat Ash's Career Caught/Uncaught ratio. So all in all, YOU are a better pokemon trainer than ASH GODDAMN KETCHUM. YOU are a fucking BADASS.

And that's what I learned today.

14 comments:

  1. i only ever played red or blue, and managed 100 in each.
    never got them all.....

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  2. Oh gee, I wonder what spurred this entry. This show strongly enforces the "at least you tried" mantra of life. NO. I refuse to accept that. Children's shows are supposed to inspire children to 'go for the gold' and that 'with a little bit of imagination, anything is possible'. Apparently the Japanese disagree. In fact, here are a few morals they chose to instill instead:

    -Dressing like a skank is A-OK, and encouraged
    -Running away at age 10 is A-OK, and encouraged
    -Capturing wild animals, making them fight (like a socially-acceptable cock fight) is A-OK
    -Always accept items from strangers- and if it's candy, AWESOME! Because it's always "rare" candy
    -You can never die, only faint and magically end up in a hospital
    -Bad guys always introduce themselves as bad guys
    -I can't think of more, but let's be real... there's plenty more.

    Somehow I feel that if I ran away when I was 10, dressed in short shorts and suspenders, and ran a public cock fight tournament... not only would I be considered "deviant"... social services would remove me from my parents' care and most likely I'd end up in Juvi.

    Pokemon. Fail.

    -Shannon

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  3. @Vinny: Thanks!

    @Brendan: You still did better than Ash :P

    @Shannon: Hahaha yes our time together did have something to do with it, but it was also a discussion I had with my friend today about how if pokemon keep getting created, Ash will never be able to catch 'em all. Which spurred me to try and figure out just HOW many of 'em Ash had caught. Turns out it was next to none :P

    PS Thanks for commenting!

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  4. Technically Ash's goal was never to catch 'em all, it was to become the greatest pokemon master, of which catching 'em all is a part of. And to date, he's never even made it into the semifinals of the Pokemon League in any of the lands he's traveled to. So yeah, Ash is multiple levels of fail.

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  5. Great post.

    I knew Ash sucked when i was a kid though. See, Pikachu is a terrible pokemon to use against onyx...

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  6. ash is not pacient he is dumb he plays around to much and when its time to get serious his starters are still at there first evolution so save me that bull shit about being patient he dosent try hard enough he is weak and face it

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  7. He can't be a pokemon master if he wins NOTHING. Besides the orange league, he's won nothing of note. Losing at the pokemon league EVERYTIME.

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  8. We will wait till your faith in Ash Ketchum breaks.

    "Pikachu is a terrible pokemon to use against onix! BUT WHO CARES? THERE IS MORE TO BATTLES THAN TYPE ADVANTAGES YA KNOW!"

    Wrong. If you played the Pokemon Games (the original Pokemon concepts) TYPE ADVANTAGES ARE EVERYTHING!

    Unless you are looking forward to have your ass handed to you in a battle.

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  9. The games and the anime are two different universes. They don't follow by the same rules. Type advantages are important to know, but what really matters is a Pokemon's true strength and how well they are trained, as if they are real creatures and not grounded by the laws and restrictions of a game.

    Furthermore, Ash is aware that type advantages are important to remember but he probably stopped caring about all of that after his Kingler, a water type, was knocked out by an Arcanine, a fire type. Just shows that skill is more important than type in the end.

    Sure Pikachu wasn't a good idea against Onix but not only was Ash still a rookie, but he also used his surroundings to his advantage. Ash basically invented the move Soak before it existed. Say what you want but I think that was a pretty genius move.

    Furthermore, Ash doesn't just play around, he actually DOES train his Pokemon. Shocking I know. And out of the 12 starters Ash owns (not counting Pikachu or Froakie) only 5 of them are not fully evolved which is not his fault. Evolution in the anime is up to the Pokemon and not the trainer, hence why evolution in the anime is so unpredictable. And even if a trainer could trigger evolution, Ash cares too much about what his Pokemon want instead of what he wants. He treats his Pokemon like friends and not tools of battle.

    Besides, he felt really bad for evolving his Turtwig since he lost all of his speed making him very upset. Charizard was also a pain in the ass to raise as opposed to how easy it was to raise Charmader.

    Also give me the definition of Pokemon Master. Can't? That's because there is no definition. So don't say that Ash isn't a Pokemon master when you don't even know what it is. Ash has also defeated many gym leaders, trainers and was offered to become a Frontier Brain. Loosing all the time isn't a bad thing, in fact he always comes pretty darn close. You know that it is okay to loose.

    Stop hating on Ash because it's cool. Every argument against him is just mindless bashing on a boy who has accomplished a lot more than many of us at just 10 years old. Ash is an inspiration.

    Faith in Ash forever bitches.

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  10. Ash is a retard who forces his pokemon to get up when they are hurt.
    He has never came close to becoming a "pokemon master" because he never wins and the creators will keep making new regions for him to miserably fail in

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  11. Plenty of characters do these things but when Ash does it people just can't keep their pants on? Sheesh guy come on.

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  12. The definition of Pokémon master is anything but ash Ketchum

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