Blue: from Kanto's throne to the Viridian City Gym

Blue has been a rival, League Champion and then Gym Leader, in that order. Professor Oak's grandson, he grows up in Pallet Town with Daisy, his older sister, always takes the starter Pokémon that counters the player's, claims the top title at the Indigo Plateau — and loses it before he can even tell his family. The rest of his career flows from that one minute.

Contents

• Pallet Town, and a starter chosen against you
• League Champion, and already dethroned
• Viridian City, the Gym Giovanni left empty
• Unova, Alola, Kanto: the career that followed
• Shigeru, Sony, Terry: the long history of his name
• Anime, manga, cards: Blue outside the main games
• Blue at a glance
• Frequently Asked Questions

Pallet Town, and a starter chosen against you

Blue lives in Pallet Town with Daisy, his older sister, until the day their grandfather calls them to his lab to hand out the starter Pokémon. The rival picks second, and that's no accident: in Red and Blue, as in FireRed and LeafGreen, he waits until the player has made up their mind, then claims the species with the type advantage over that choice.

Pokémon Yellow shakes things up by giving him the Poké Ball holding an Eevee, while the player ends up with Pikachu. How that Eevee evolves depends on the first two battles: a loss at the lab gives a Vaporeon, a win followed by a second one on Route 22 gives a Jolteon, and a win followed by a loss gives a Flareon.

The opening battle always takes place in Professor Oak's lab, right after the choice. After that, Blue challenges the player every time they cross paths — the Sevii Islands, exclusive to the newer versions, are the only exception — and walks away beaten every single time. The character is built on that gap: ahead on the journey, never ahead in battle.

⚡ Pokémon Yellow's Eevee has its own section: see the collection dedicated to Eevee.

League Champion, and already dethroned

While the player collects badges, Blue runs the same campaign on his own and finishes it first. He defeats the Elite Four and becomes Indigo League Champion, which automatically puts him on the top floor of the Plateau as the game's final opponent.

The title doesn't survive the day. Red climbs the Plateau in turn and takes it from him before Blue can even celebrate his win with his grandfather. The family verdict comes right away: if he lost, it's because he didn't love his Pokémon enough.

Blue doesn't buy that diagnosis for a second, but he still acts on it and leaves Kanto to work on what he's missing. The arrogance of the first games — where he calls the player a "loser" nonstop — softens from there: later installments give him maturity without ever stripping away his smugness.

Viridian City, the Gym Giovanni left empty

Blue returns as a Gym Leader in Gold, Silver and Crystal, then in their remakes. The Gym Leader post in Viridian City had been vacant for three years, abandoned by Giovanni, the other big loser against Red: the fallen rival takes over the Team Rocket boss's Gym.

Finding him there is another matter. His repeated absences leave Trainers who come for the Earth Badge stuck, and the Johto hero first has to run into him on Cinnabar Island before he agrees to go back and hold his Gym for a proper battle.

HeartGold and SoulSilver add a rematch, and his sister holds the key to it. You have to get your Pokémon groomed seven times by Daisy Oak, who only works between 3 and 4 p.m., then show her a Pokémon with maximum friendship: she then adds her brother's number to your Pokégear. From then on, the battle takes place once a week, at the Fighting Dojo in Saffron City, on Sunday night into Monday.

Unova, Alola, Kanto: the career that followed

As an adult, Blue travels for good. Black 2 and White 2 sign him up for the Pokémon World Tournament, in the tournament reserved for former Champions, where his team is drawn at random at the start of each match: three Pokémon in Single Battles, four in Double or Rotation Battles, and his full roster in Triple Battles.

He also stops in Kalos to learn Mega Evolution, without ever appearing in that region's games. Sun and Moon station him on Poni Island, running the Battle Tree alongside Red, whose endless silence he pokes fun at: freshly crowned, Alola's new Champion has to beat one of the two before gaining access to the tower.

Let's Go, Pikachu! and Let's Go, Eevee! bring him back about three years after his journey with Red and Green. He gives the player five Great Balls as they leave the Gym in Pewter City, a Shalour Sable aboard the S.S. Anne, then battles, one after the other, the protagonist and Trace in the Silph Co. offices. He tests them before turning them loose on Team Rocket, later gives the protagonist alone, at his grandfather's lab, a Key Stone and the four Mega Stones for the Kanto starters, and takes back the Viridian City Gym once the adventure is over.

Shigeru, Sony, Terry: the long history of his name

Blue had no canonical name before Gold and Silver. In the games where he plays the rival, the player names him, right after naming their own character, either by typing a name freely or by picking from a short list of suggestions — a list that changes from one version to the next.

The color name comes first on that list, except in the Japanese Pokémon Blue, which offers Red, Green and Hiroshi. In the Japanese Red, Green tops the list, because Red's companion version in Japan was originally Green, with Blue arriving only eight months later. The Japanese editions also slip a Shigeru into Red, Yellow and FireRed, and a Satoshi into Green and LeafGreen.

Those two first names belong to Shigeru Miyamoto and Satoshi Tajiri, two rival creators in the Nintendo family, and they would go on to become the Japanese names of Gary and Ash in the anime. The drafts go further: the data of the English versions still holds traces of Sony and Ninten, and during the development of Red and Green, Gyarao had been picked for a rival who could field a Gyarados instead of the Water-type starter, while other options pointed to producer Tsunekazu Ishihara, art director Wataru Yamaguchi, or the Creatures and Game Freak studios. The official 1998 English guide flat-out calls him Gary, and the internal data of FireRed and LeafGreen gives him Terry as his default name.

Anime, manga, cards: Blue outside the main games

Gary Oak, the very first rival the anime pits against Ash, is a loose adaptation of the character: same Pallet Town, same grandfather, same condescension toward the hero, right up to the one defeat too many. He has since traded competition for a career as a researcher and joined Project Mew.

Two short animated series bring him back: Pokémon Origins, four episodes based on the first generation, restores his role as the rival, while Pokémon Generations gives him an entire episode, "The Challenger." In it, he dispatches Lorelei, treats Bruno as a warm-up, takes from Agatha the only jab that hits home — the shadow of an all-too-famous grandfather — and then gets past Lance at the end of a far tighter battle. Seated on the Champion's throne, he greets Red with a "Let's go, loser!" straight out of the first games. Another set of episodes later shows him leaning back in his Gym Leader's chair in Viridian City, with Venusaur at his side.

The manga explores the character across several series. The manga adaptation of HeartGold and SoulSilver makes him the last of the Kanto Gym Leaders that Jō has to topple: his Pidgeot, even armed with Twister, falls to the hero's Feraligatr, and Blue takes the opportunity to reveal that an even more formidable Trainer lurks in Mt. Silver Cave. Elsewhere, an alter ego named Blue, a seasoned Trainer, takes center stage in four of the first five arcs — Glénat's French edition renames him Régis.

The card game added him late, with the Unified Minds expansion released in France on August 2, 2019. His Blue's Tactics card refills your hand up to eight cards at the end of the turn, while the TAG TEAM card Red & Blue directly evolves one of your Pokémon into a Pokémon-GX taken from your deck, and attaches up to two basic Energy cards to it at the cost of two discarded cards.

Blue at a glance

Frequently Asked Questions

• Who is Blue in the Pokémon games?
  He's the player character's rival in Red, Blue and Yellow and their remakes, and Professor Oak's grandson. He becomes Indigo League Champion before being beaten by Red, then becomes the Viridian City Gym Leader.
• Which starter Pokémon does Blue choose?
  The one with the type advantage over the player's starter, since he always picks second. Pokémon Yellow is the exception: there he takes Eevee, which evolves into Vaporeon, Jolteon or Flareon depending on the outcome of the first two battles.
• Was Blue really the League Champion?
  Yes. He beats the Indigo Plateau's Elite Four before the player does and takes the throne, but Red takes it from him before he can even share the news with his grandfather. He then leaves Kanto to get stronger.
• Where can you battle Blue after the first generation?
  At the Viridian City Gym in Gold, Silver and Crystal and their remakes, at the Fighting Dojo in Saffron City for the rematch, in the Champions Tournament in Black 2 and White 2, and at Alola's Battle Tree, which he co-runs with Red.
• Why is Blue called Shigeru in the Japanese versions?
  Shigeru and Satoshi, offered as rival names in the Japanese lists, refer to Shigeru Miyamoto and Satoshi Tajiri, two rival creators at Nintendo. Those names went on to become the Japanese names of Gary and Ash in the anime.

In short

Blue's path fits in a single sentence: he comes first everywhere, except in the final battle. The games give him the lead on badges, the Champion title and the Viridian City Gym, then hand Red the only role that matters. Later installments let him grow older without redeeming him — a battle facility to co-run, Mega Stones to hand out, a Gym he keeps deserting. Gary, the anime's first rival, comes straight from him.