Some readers might be wondering why Ash isn't in the top thirty-two.
First of all, while the official setting keeps Ash at ten years old—meaning that, by that logic, he's only been traveling for a single year—if we really followed that timeline, then within twelve months (maybe even less), Ash would have finished traveling through Kanto, the Orange Islands, Johto, Hoenn, Sinnoh, Unova, Kalos, gone to school in Alola, and then gone to Galar (World Coronation).
Is that reasonable? It's completely unreasonable.
Because if we agree with that timeframe, it means Ash spends, on average, less than two months in each region.
But in the anime, Ash and his friends travel entirely on foot, challenge Gyms, go on adventures, deal with incidents, and then take part in each region's League. Less than two months…
How could that possibly make sense?!
No matter how small a region is, it's impossible to finish visiting every city, join all those events, and complete the League cycle in under two months, right?
Unless the "one year" in the Pokémon world has far more than twelve months… or a month has far more than thirty days…
But anyway, I don't want to force these contradictions to line up.
So I simply set it as one region per year. Which means that at this point in the story's timeline, Ash is still traveling in Johto and is currently competing in the Silver Conference.
That's all.
(End of chapter)