I love how in the Jirachi movie there's multiple scenes of Ash and Max just hanging out and Ash being Max's big brother!
It's so adorable and I love them. Ash taught Max how to skip stones, and comforted Max over Jirachi going back to sleep, and they even slept slumped together and it's just so cute!
It's also really interesting how easily Ash slips into the role of big bro, not just with Max but Bonnie and even, in my opinion, Dawn[If you ship Ash and Dawn I get it, but to me ive always seen them as siblings]. Ash is always looking out for those younger than him in the middle seasons, and it's such a cool detail when you compare him to Indigo and Johto, where a lot of the time Ash was the one looked after by Brock and Misty, showing that he's matured mentally[until Sun and Moon messed it up], even if it's just slightly.
Ash's relationships with Max and Bonnie are way differnet than their relationships with May and Clemont, respectively, but also very brotherly. Ash is still wild but he's such a good role model for those two kids, and I so wish we got an Ash v Max battle in canon like they promised at the end of Battle Frontier
