Ash Ketchum began his Pokemon journey at 10 years, 10 months, and 10 days old.
Takeshi Shudo, who created the Pokemon anime, mentions this at the beginning of his story.
The rules for what’s canonical within the realm of Pokemon might not always be in black and white, but this is an encapsulated fact that it’s “real.”
What age does that make Ash in the present, after the show has run for just 1,020 episodes? It’s a major question, and the answer could alter your life in several ways.
That’s why people on the internet have put in many hours trying to find out the answer.
The method of research, as described in the above video of Game Theory, the YouTube game show Game Theory, involves looking at the roster of Pokemon seen in the Christmas seasons to identify them within the timeline.
The Pokemon needed to have been captured in a prior episode to be able to appear in an annual episode in the first place.
It also involved determining the time of year that apples are in season in the real-world locales that are the source of inspiration for the programme.
This way, you will be able to discern when the shows’ episodes involving apples were filmed.
Since we are aware of Ash’s exact age at the time the show first began, this information can be used to create, at a minimum, an exact timeline.
Here are a few other items that gave clues about the timeframe: the number of bananas, information from the short films of Pickachu, which were shown only on Japanese airlines, and the official start and ending dates of the Japanese school year.
This is only the first part of the story—and I cannot wait to see the next installment.
You’ve ever wondered how much someone could be concerned about something that isn’t even important? It’s a little too in-depth.
Updated in June, 2024, by Swati: Pokémon’s Ash Ketchum is ten canonically.
That’s true in Ash’s final Aim to Be a Master miniseries episodes and Kanto’s first.
How old would Ash be if he had always seen time flow?
There is no right answer to that issue, but there are several ways to estimate his age,
and some anime markers establish a chronology.
Many Pokémon fans believe Ash is protected from maturing, although other characters would have addressed it by now.
Why Doesn’t Ash Ketchum Age?
Ash Ketchum is 10 years old. At the age of 10, he started his journey, and even now, over 20 years after the start of the journey, he’s still a mere 10 years old.
It’s been a while since he was born in real life, as well as in the universe.
However, Ash’s age hasn’t changed, and this is a good thing within the realm of the Pokemon. The characters haven’t aged, which is what happens in the anime.
It is possible to disagree with this, but it is what it is.
Ash Ketchum is 10 years old in all the Pokemon anime and will stay at the age of 10 throughout the run of the show. In the next segment, we will discuss why this is.
As we’ve seen, Ash Ketchum doesn’t age and probably won’t get older, no matter how many seasons the show is scheduled to get shortly.
There are not-official calculations that claim Ash is about 17 years old.
But this isn’t an official figure and is just speculation since Ash has been confirmed to be 10 years old.
In the next paragraphs In the following paragraphs, we’ll discuss possible explanations for this phenomenon.
The anime does, however, sometimes include time indicators.
For example, it was revealed in the short before the third feature, Entei and the Spell of the Unown, that Ash and Pikachu had met in Pallet Town a year earlier (it’s mentioned elsewhere that Ash passed away on his tenth birthday).
Given that the movie debuted in Japan between episodes 155 and 156, it seems that the 155 episodes were released across a year at a slower rate than the one day per episode pace.
Since Episode 158 depicts a magnet train being created in Johto over a year and that train is ridden in the final episodes of the Black and White era, at least one year has gone between the 640 episodes.
Other episodes suggest more than one.
Other series seem to take place within a predetermined time limit, much like Sun and Moon, which nearly lasted an entire school year.
Events like Professor Burnett having a baby after Ash left Alola also offer proof that the first 36 episodes of Pokémon Journeys cover at least nine months.
Sometimes, like with competitions, additional significant events are advertised to be coming up in a particular amount of time, giving the intermittent episodes a duration.
Ash should be at least 17 years old, if not older, based on these exact chronometric data.
Eternal Youth Theory
“The immortal youth hypothesis” suggests that, like many animated show characters, they never grow old and are confined to the same age as their first appearance.
In Ash’s story, it’s his age of 10. The theory also suggests the show’s use of floating timelines, an element used in the plot to “explain or explain away inconsistencies in the way that events and characters exist within a world.”
Ash’s official explanation for his age, which is contained within the Pokemon.com mailbag, says the following:
This is a peculiar theory in that often the passing of time is mentioned without any mention of the birthday of a character.
The dub referred to it in In the Shadow of Zekrom! In the Shadow of Zekrom, they mention that many years have passed, but Ash is still 10 years old.
One of the most well-known reasons for these theories is the fact that Ash, and May, are thought to be of the same age at the time May begins their journey.
However, Ash had visited two regions and played in three leagues before meeting May.
It is the same at the moment Dawn embarks on her journey because she’s similar in age to Ash,
but at this point, he has four leagues to his credit and has already crossed Kanto twice.
However, the voices of a lot of characters have changed over the years, especially Ash’s.
His voice has become more distinct through the seasons, and it seems like he’s getting old. However, he’s not really.
Brock, along with his extended family members, is frequently cited as evidence for this belief in that Brock is believed to be five years younger than Ash,
and his siblings are only a few years older between the Pewter City showdown and DPS02.
Theorem of Slow Time
The theory of slowed time says that time on the show moves much more slowly than it does in real life, since each episode is about 30 minutes long and is shown once a week.
The character seems to be getting better, even if only a little bit, and there are familiar signs of time.
But, just like the eternal youth theory, this theory has its own problems.
This theory might explain why characters in other anime shows, like Detective Conan, One Piece, and Bleach, don’t seem to age much, or if they do, it’s only a little bit.
Arbitary Age Theory
The random age theory says that the word “age” in the Pokemon world means something different than it does in real life.
In their culture, “age” has nothing to do with how long someone has lived, but everything to do with whether or not they are married.
If a person is ten years old and wants to join the Pokemon world, they are called “ten.”
People with children are called “twenty.”
They are “fifty” if they have grandchildren.
There could be more pages, but there isn’t enough information to say how old these milestones or ages in life are.
The theory says that when it comes to things like (grand) children, the age of this child matches the shockingly young age at which children start to become adults.
Ash might have been 18 years old, but he hadn’t reached the age of “ten” yet.
Brock is just half of the age of “fifteen” when it comes to being a family member. He doesn’t have any kids of his own, but he looks after his younger siblings when their parents aren’t around.
As the name suggests, this idea is pretty random and isn’t based on any official statements or even facts.
Ash Would Be 36 Years Old If Pokémon Happened in Real Time
There’s no reason to believe Ash is experiencing time at the same speed as reality, even though if he developed like the real world, he would be 36 years old in Pokémon.
It would be as simple to figure out Ash’s age as to total the episodes.
Comparing one Pokémon episode to a day would imply that Ash is between the ages of 13 and 14 and that 1,232 days have passed between the beginning of his trip and the end,
or 3 years and 137 days. Most Pokémon episodes last for one day.
That seems like a respectably small amount of time, though.
But given it overlooks longer-running episodes or those that take place on the same day as a story arc, that number is fairly approximative.
Ash’s Companions Would Be Even Older
The same reasoning may also be used for Brock and Misty.
Though it is never stated clearly in the Pokémon adaptation, Misty is ten years old in the Japanese version as well.
By all of these measures, she would thus be around Ash’s age.
In his first introduction, Brock is fifteen years old. Using the 1-episode-per-day measure, Brock would really be in his 40s; if one uses the time increments given in the programme, he would be at least 22.
Note that this corresponds with Brock’s actions towards the end of the series, when he is shown undergoing training to become a Pokémon doctor.
Though strange for a 15-year-old, this makes sense for a young guy in his 20s.
