Ash Ketchum has been traveling all around the big wide world of Pokémon for many years now. Between exploring new regions, catching all kinds of Pokémon, and battling gyms and other trainers, he's definitely come a long way from where he started. That being said, nobody's perfect and Ash has more than a couple of bad moments under his belt.
Sometimes Ash makes a bad call as a trainer, other times it's his naïveté getting him into trouble, and there have even been times where Ash acts like a brat who needs to be put in his place. Whatever the case, this up-and-coming Pokémon Master has acted like a jerk way too many times across the series.
10 Neglecting Pikachu until He Ran Away
While a lot of Ash's worst moments have come in the early days of his journey, there are a few that come from even the most recent seasons. In a Pokémon Journeys episode ("Betrayed, Bothered, and Beleaguered!") Ash puts all of his focus into training his Riolu, so much so that he actually starts ignoring Pikachu.
Pikachu's frustration becomes so bad that he begins feeling unappreciated and decides to run away to live with Ash's mom in Pallet Town, forcing Mimey to go after him. In the end, Ash and Pikachu reunite and everything goes back to normal, but it was still pretty out of character for Ash to neglect Pikachu like that.
9 Throwing A Rock At A Spearow
Probably one of the most famous mistakes Ash has ever made was when he enraged an entire flock of Spearow. Trying to catch his second Pokémon, and with Pikachu refusing to help, Ash tries to take matters into his own hands and decides that throwing rocks at Pidgeys will help him. He manages to land a hit, but his target turned out to be a Spearow who eventually calls its flock to attack Ash and Pikachu.
Despite how aggressive the Spearow are, one can't really blame them for being so mad, since Ash basically committed animal abuse for the sake of his pride and his mistake ended up injuring Pikachu.
8 Being A Sore Loser During The Indigo League
Despite trials and tribulations during his Kanto journey, Ash did eventually get all eight badges and made it to the Indigo League. While Ash manages to get to the top sixteen, he ends up losing to Richtie when his Charizard refuses to listen to him, eliminating him from the league. This ends up being a hard pill for Ash to swallow and he acts like a real sore loser afterward.
Mad about his loss, Ash argues about how good of a trainer he is, but he's forced to face the reality that his shortcomings as a trainer are ultimately what sunk him. Fortunately, after this, Ash became a little better at handling tough losses.
7 He Stole Misty's Bike & Then Destroyed It
Honestly, there could be a whole list of examples where Ash was a real jerk toward Misty, but the most popular one was actually the first time they met. On the run from the angry Spearow flock, Ash and Pikachu are pulled out of the water by Misty. Seeing the angry Pokémon on the horizon, Ash steals Misty's bike in the hopes of making it to the Pokémon Center.
To make matters worse, Pikachu ends up frying the bike when he scared off the Spearow, forcing an angry Misty to follow Ash and demand that he pay for it. While it was the start of their travels together, it wasn't exactly the best first impression for Ash to make.
6 He Forced An Unwilling Pikachu To Fight Lt. Surge's Raichu
Lt. Surge ended up being a pretty tough opponent for Ash, one that made him even consider evolving Pikachu to match his Raichu, but in the end, Ash and Pikachu pulled through with a good strategy. However, Pikachu was pretty unwilling to fight in round one of this clash, seeing all the trainers that lost to Surge and the state that their Pokémon were in.
Despite Pikachu making it pretty obvious that he didn't want to fight, Ash pretty much ignores his partner and forces him to battle anyway. Ash doesn't even consider sending out another Pokémon, and this battle ends with Raichu mopping the floor with Pikachu.
5 Abandoning His Friends When They Got Turned Into Dolls
Most know Ash for being pretty loyal to his friends, but there have been times when he hasn't always treated them right. One of the best examples of that was when Sabrina turned Brock and Misty into dolls and Ash pretty much just abandoned them there while he escaped the gym.
Truthfully, Sabrina was the scariest Gym Leader Ash had to face in the Kanto Region, between her insanely strong Kadabra, her intense psychic powers, and her intimidating demeanor. That being said, Ash probably could've shown a little more bravery during this moment or at least promise that he'd come back for Brock and Misty, instead he runs for the hills in a heartbeat.
4 His Agressivness Towards Lorelei/Prima
Ash has been known to get a little too overconfident when he's on a winning streak, this was especially so during his early days. Whenever this happened, Ash would really act like a cocky brat and the best example of this was when he met Lorelei (aka "Prima" in the dub) of the Elite Four.
Throughout this Orange Island episode, Ash is extremely aggressive while trying to force Lorelei to battle him and mocks her when she initially declines the challenge. Eventually, Lorelei does battle Ash, winning pretty easily too and knocking Ash's attitude down a peg for good measure.
3 That Time He Snapped At Serena
With time, Ash became better and better at handling a loss. Despite that, there have still been times where a particularly hard loss still got him down. In the XY episode "Seeing the Forest for the Trees!" Ash laments his loss to the Kalos Gym Leader Wulfric, prompting Serena to go after him.
Serena tries to tell Ash he can talk to her about this, but Ash snaps at her and says that it's none of her business. Serena gets mad at Ash and runs off in tears. While Ash just needed time to process his loss, it wasn't right for him to be so harsh to Serena, who only wanted to help him.
2 Abandoning Pidgeot
Many longtime fans know of Ash's habit of leaving Pokémon behind and even releasing them, one of the more infamous examples being his Pidgeot. After it evolved while trying to protect wild Pidgeys from an angry Fearow, Ash leaves Pidgeot behind to protect its fellow bird Pokémon.
While Ash promises that he'll come back for Pidgeot when he returns from the Orange Islands, he's never attempted to since then. Unlike Charizard or Primeape, Ash didn't leave Pidgeot to be trained, and worse is that where he left Pidgeot was so close to Pallet Town that he could've come back for it at any time, even just to visit it, but he hasn't.
1 That Time He Got A Swelled Head Too Early In His Career
Even at the earliest points in his career, Ash managed to get rather full of himself even when it was for very little. He was particularly insufferable during that period of time in between his second and third badges where he mostly boasted about his supposed "victories" and his current Pokémon team.
As Misty and Brock both point out in "Mystery at the Lighthouse," a lot of Ash's Pokémon weren't ones he actually caught, they chose to go with him, and on top of that both badges he had earned at the time weren't because Ash won those gym battles, they were given to him on special exception. Yet during this time, Ash would keep bragging about it anyway.