Why is Ash an inexperienced trainer?

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Srebak

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As the title implies, i find this aspect of Ash's character a bit jarring.

Why is it that the show made Ash so inexperienced, naive and immature compared to every other trainer he meets? He obviously loves Pokemon, as apparent by all the merchandise that was in his room, so why doesn't he know a lot about them? What was stopping him from learning everything he needed to know about Pokemon before starting his journey?

What's more, every trainer that could be considered at the same level as him (just starting on their journey) always seems to know something that makes them superior to Ash in some way, why is that? The only reason that i can fathom why Gary knows more than Ash is because his grandfather is Prof. Oak, who is also a good friend of Ash's family, why didn't he learn from Oak prior to his journey? And why is Ritchie smarter than Ash, why is every trainer smarter than Ash in some way?


I could more or less understand why Misty and Brock are smarter, they are Gym leaders after all, but why make Ash so inexperienced? And while we're on the subject, what did Ash do to lose Charmeleon's respect?
 
Because it's more exciting to follow a beginning trainer rather than someone who's good at everything.
 
Think of the Marvels comic, the superheroes are sooo strong but they always meet an enemy who is stronger.

When a number of superheroes combine together as a team, they will always face an enemy which as strong as all of them combined (referring to Avengers)

They can make Ash a good trainer, all they need to do is make his rival even stronger.

So I can't really get the point that why the writers decided to make him inexperienced.
 
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Because the writers just care the about money and don't give a shit about the anime.
 
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He was decently strategic in the Sinnoh seasons.

I thought they set up Sinnoh to be the last generation in both anime and games. Ash wasn't an idiot in this generation, and went far in the tournament, only losing because of a random trainer with legendaries. In terms of games, they made Pokemon representing the time-space continuum and God. Come on, now.
 
I wouldn't say inexperienced, but as a way to develop his character. He's not perfect, after all.

Let's just say the writers went too far this time :T
 
But it's jarring to see how inept he was back in the OS, forgetting or not knowing basic Pokemon care...
 
I will concur that the original reason was that it creates better conflict when you have to overcome near impossible odds. Why it was done in BW was that they wanted to recall the essence of the first gen, but they sacrificed continuity to do so. Even if I were to take it at face value, it still isn't the same, so it failed in every aspect. There could be a number of other reasons, though. After Tobias, it would be difficult to get worse than that to delay Ash further. The problem becomes that they could not delay it forever, no matter how far they wanted to stretch it. If they wanted Ash to continue to progress, they would eventually run out of ways for him to lose to something. It would not be soon, but it would still happen somewhere down the line. Not unless they had him continually run smack dab into a brick wall like a really powerful legend that's too strong for ANY human to rightfully defeat. The problem with that would become why that keeps happening, but if you're a good storyteller, you cannot use the same device twice in a row. It becomes predictable and no longer interesting. Even if you do, it has to be done in a different way. BW's way, they can reset Ash to zero forever and no consequence is had.

All of this keeps Ash going. Why keep Ash then? Well, we have already established many times that it would be too risky to change the face of the anime, even though it could be done with no issues except familiarity right now. Pikachu likewise cannot be replace even though new starters and pokes often pull double duty with him as the representatives of their gen. Pika stands for the franchise in general, and it would be even harder to not have him. His association with Ash is also unbreakable. Giving him to a new trainer would seem like cheating, even if it was a different Pikachu. I also fear that marketing has too strong of a hold on the anime now. They love their devices, and thus I don't think they're going anywhere any time soon. I don't like it, either, and yes, it does make me want to leave, but I still hold on to the foolish hope that things will return to the way they were in a new saga. It would not take that much to break this resolve, though.
 
I think part of the reason they portray Ash as still relatively inexperienced is because he's acting as the audience, almost. He's meeting all these new Pokemon at the same time as you; even if he has seen them before he's still gotta use his Pokedex so that it clarifies what's what and who's who.

At least, this is what I keep telling myself to justify why Ash would stare at a Koffing in the recent series and wonder what it is, despite the fact that in the earlier seasons, for almost every episode, Team Rocket would pop up with James being all, "HERE HAVE A KOFFING!"
 
i dont think ash is inexperienced, he is just a little behind in how people use pokemon. give him a tyranitar and he should be fine :p
 
I've give up worrying about the continuity because there simply never is any. Sometimes he's knowledgable and his Pokemon are super powerful, other times he's completely amateurish and his Pokemon lose to far less experienced trainers. Ash is only as dumb or as experienced as the writers want him to be in that given moment.
 
Uh, because then he wouldn't have any real challenges, and that'd be boring.

And yes, it might be boring to see Satoshi make such little progress over the course of 15 years, but the writers don't intend to keep the same audience for 15 years. Sure, they must know there are crazy teenage and adult fans like us watching the show (yay!), but the target audience of the anime is undeniably children, so they get to sacrifice continuity without many fans getting angry.
 
I just don't understand why he actually got good and then went backwards again. There was a logical progression from Johto to AG to DP of Ash's strength and growth of a trainer. Now with BW it feels like Ash went down to Johto levels again.

Hell, even when Dawn showed up in BW it felt like she regressed too. lol.
 
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