Ash Ketchum Is Strong

About

Ash Ketchum Is Strong refers to a concept and series of memes revolving around the Pokemon character Ash Ketchum and his perceived superhuman strength. The basis for the jokes and trend takes inspiration from both the anime in showing feats of strength that Ash has done, as well as the video game series' official data on various Pokemon weights and sizes.

Origin

On April 4th, 2019, Tumblr user Psychic-Sylveon posted a now-deleted thread detailing different feats of strength that were accomplished by Ash in the anime series, such as lifting and throwing a large log or one-handed holding several in-universe heavy Pokemon. This thread was later uploaded to Imgur^[1] by the user GeneralNuclear, where it gained over 151,000 views in three years (example shown below).

Spread

Ash being perceived as incredibly strong became an in-community meme over the following years, with his strength often being brought up when another related meme started to go viral. For example, on September 15th, 2021, Redditor Rude-Boy-Bass^[2] posted a combined Tumblr reacting to a Twitter thread in which Ash's decision to throw a punch at Mewtwo was met with people calling it a useless gesture. This reignited the conversation about Ash being secretly very strong, and that Mewtwo using protect to shield himself is proof of Ash's true strength. The post received over 1,800 likes in two years and created the nickname "Ash Flexem" for buff Ash fan art (shown below).

On December 29th, 2021, iFunny user CosmicMeteor117^[3] uploaded a meme in which they were inquiring as to why Ash is always physically fighting with Pokemon in the show, using the Mewtwo example, another with Lucario and then Ash facing an entire hoard of Pidgey, with several comments mentioning his true strength in the comments (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References