Ash Ketchum (seasons 1-13, 17-25)

Ash Ketchum (Japanese: サトシ Satoshi) is the main protagonist of the Pokémon series, mostly the anime. His signature Pokémon was always a Pikachu. He is also the anime counterpart of Red, the player character of the Gen I games.

Why He Rocks

 * 1) Ash made a lot of really good friends in the past seasons; especially in the original series.
 * 2) His Pikachu was iconic to the point it became the Pokémon franchise's mascot, he however became the anime's mascot.
 * 3) Ash's Pokémon, such as Pikachu, Charizard, Heracross, and Greninja are awesome (especially Charizard and Greninja).
 * 4) He only got more mature as the episodes went on.
 * 5) He has saved many lives and many legendaries. He has such a big heart for Pokémon, he even carried Mewtwo's dying body in "Mewtwo Returns".
 * 6) He won the Battle Frontier and was wanted for Frontier Brain, but he turned it down so he could keep travelling the world, which was a great and adventurous choice.
 * 7) He believes in treating Pokemon with respect and has every right to get angry at anyone who abuses their Pokemon.
 * 8) He starts fresh each time he goes to a new region with brand new Pokemon (with the exceptions of Pikachu, Aipom and possibly any others), which shows that he likes to play fair.
 * 9) His relationship with Serena is extremely heartwarming, and his backstory of both when he and Serena were kids was really cute.
 * 10) His character is so faithful to the games, that people consider Ash to be the anime version of Red.
 * 11) He has a tendency of surprising people with out-of-the-box thinking and unpredictable strategies in grave situations, one of the most notable being in a battle against Viola when Pikachu stuck its tail into the ground to avoid getting blown away.
 * 12) In Pokémon Journeys, he now has a Riolu of his very own after its egg was hatched. However, that wasn't the first time he has a Pokémon that he first got as an egg. It was notably Phanpy.
 * 13) On the twenty second season of the series, he finally won a Pokémon Championship Finals League in Alola, much to the joy of most fans.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) Ash was portrayed more out of character in the Black & White seasons as he poorly-written, stuck up, moronic, rude, and bad trainer who messes everything up and constantly forgets the simplest of advice. Luckily, he started to improve in later episodes, otherwise his portrayal would have gotten worse if the writers of Black & White stuck with it.
 * 2) Disappointingly, he rarely wins in Pokemon leagues, the only leagues he won are only two:
 * 3) *The Orange Islands league.
 * 4) *The Alola League (where he finally won a general league).
 * 5) He has done a lot of stupid things and made a lot of bad mistakes in the past.
 * 6) *Like the infamous and miraculous feat of losing against Trip's Snivy with his Pikachu, which has defeated legendaries before. Even if Pikachu couldn't use electric type moves at the time, he has two other good moves and should have been able to overpower Snivy. Not to mention, that Snivy has no training experience, let alone the first episode of Best Wishes feel relentlessly nonsensical when it comes to this infamous part.
 * 7) He can be kind of a jerk towards his friends at times, especially when he was around May.
 * 8) His Sun and Moon design looks pretty off-looking to most people, but it's mainly the face. Luckily, his personality was still the same (unlike the beginning of the Unova era), but after Sun and Moon, his face design thankfully changed to a much better looking one in the currently running Journeys series.

Trivia

 * His English name, Ash is derived from his Japanese name Satoshi as those letters came from that name (Satoshi).
 * In turn, he is named after his creator, Satoshi Tajiri.
 * In fact, his Japanese name meant "wisdom" or "reason".
 * His outfit varies as he travels through regions (His Kalos/Gen VI outfit pictured).