Bad luck? If you want to overthink it, that's a childish understatement. It's
morally wrong for Ash to be travelling with Team Rocket tailing him.
Ash knows very well that he is targeted by Team Rocket. He has known this since Kanto. Misty is Ash's only partner who--plausibly--believably began followed Ash despite TR, given the bike and Pikachu's power. Brock, Tracy, May, et al. should have sensed something wrong. Yes, we can sing Kumbaya and adore the friendship of magic all day but when you've known someone for merely a few days and constantly this someone is targeted and jeopardized, you're gonna hesitate at the very least.
To take it to an apparent extreme, would you really continue hanging out with someone you just met who is constantly tracked down by, say an actual gang? By protagonist archetyping, of course, he has the ability to ward of the gang, sometimes effortlessly, but the danger is no less despite the available counterattack measures, which are not necessarily as accessible to yourself. In this particular case, Ash's friend's don't have direct command of Pikachu's powers (though arguably the counterattack measure to ward off TR is Pikachu's alone).
At a more abstract level, Ash is the first cause of episode conflicts. Naturally, one might argue, a lot of story conflicts have the protagonist as the first cause. In Ash's case, however, there is a morally reprehensible context:
- Ash and his companions are negligent about Team Rocket. It should take no more than a week to understand that wherever you go, they go. The proper steps should be to report to authorities, and if under attack to defeat them, as usual, but do not assume the usual final blast off is the end of the problem; make a citizen's arrest and take their Pokemon, for instance. Instead, they have the shortsightedness to see the Blast Off as the solution of the day without actually dealing with the problem. Is that the kind of moral we want for children? Push your problems off for tomorrow?
- Ash and his companions willingly offer their help and presence to strangers. OK, fine, if it weren't for the previous circumstance. Again, there is an apparent pattern that their presence puts anyone they meet with rare Pokemon at risk and injury (mind you TR liberally applies bombs and mechas). Ash should be grounded at a town until Team Rocket is taken care of.
- But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe all this trouble is worth it because there is some great goal that brings about more good than the evil brought about by TR and Ash's negligence. Spoiler alert:
Is that it, Ash? Is that your cosmic plan? Team Rocket is worth it to become the world's greatest Pokemon master? No alien invasion, cure for AIDS, or occasion to save the world that Team Rocket has anything to do with? No kitten stuck in a tree? Just your absolutely self-centered goal of being a Pokemon Master?
Give me a break.
