>>12994267Actually, yes!
The anime is a tutorial, designed so that scrubs (or children in most cases) can learn about the game before owning it.
Since the anime has continued the effect of Ash being like the children the anime is targeting (ie who have never played/ only just started playing the game) needed to be retconed so that the "tutorial effect" could still be used.
tl;dr The anime isn't about Ash's progression to Pokemon Master, it's about Ash teaching children how to play the game.
