Although he's been 10 for the twenty-five years he's been journeying in the Pokemon anime, Ash has plenty of battles and captures under his belt. The Pokemon trainer has been trying to be the very best since his first step out of Pallet Town in 1997, and that journey continues to this day.
The Pokemon anime has recently seen Ash's journey to the Galar region's Pokemon Masters Tournament, giving him another opportunity to take the title of the very best. While fans wait to see what the outcome of Ash's fight with Cynthia will be, a new chart is demonstrating Ash and others' capabilities in battle.
The chart originated in a promo for the Pokemon anime, with Ash, Cynthia, Leon, and Diantha's battle statistics. Each character's skills and fighting party are divided up into Attack, Defense, Speed, Strategy, Experience, and Unpredictability. Ash has an interesting match-up with the others, as while he's somewhat lacking in Defense, Strategy, and Experience, he makes up for it in Speed, Unpredictability, and Attack.
The other characters all seem to have more skill in general than Ash, as they're better-balanced. Cynthia, for example, is fairly weak in Unpredictability and Speed, but is considerably more skilled in those stats than Ash is in Experience or Strategy. Leon is extremely skilled and well-balanced, with his only real weaknesses being in Unpredictability, Strategy, and Experience, but even those skills are nearly maxed out. Lastly, Diantha primarily focuses in Defense and Strategy, with only slight weaknesses in the other statistics.
If these statistics were all that were taken into consideration, it'd be an interesting to see if Ash could overcome any of these trainers with his considerable shortcomings. However, fans of the Pokemon anime know that Ash has a way of surviving tournaments and battles seemingly based purely in gumption and his bond with his Pokemon. Some have also questioned the veracity of the statistics, pointing to Ash's Experience stat. It's surprisingly low, considering how many fights Ash has been in and how many tournaments he's participated in over the years. Some fans wondered what the other trainers have gone through in order to beat him so significantly in Experience.
The odd way time works in the Pokemon anime likely plays a role in Ash's low Experience. Even though he's gone through all of those events, canonically he's still a 10-year-old, making him younger than many of his competitors. In any case, levels play less of a role in the anime than the games, and Ash's best skills in battling have never been based on by-the-books strategy. While this sometimes backfires and leads to humiliation like when Charizard wouldn't fight for Ash, it's also led to plenty of successes. Fans will have to see if Ash's luck holds up in his upcoming fights.