Pokémon Hunter J: The Mercenary Who Turned Pokémon to Stone

She doesn't steal for a cause, she steals for a client. Pokémon Hunter J moves through the anime's Diamond & Pearl series as a mercenary: you pay her, she captures, she delivers. Where the other villains defend an ideology or a dream of conquest, she runs a business, leads a crew of hunters and flies a massive airborne base. Across the five episodes she appears in, nobody ever gets the cuffs on her.

Contents

• One beam, one Trainer taken out, one statue to deliver
• The first contracts: Pikachu, the Shieldon, a Riolu
• Snowpoint City: the day the job got bigger than the hunter
• One contract too many: Uxie, Azelf, Mesprit
• What makes her unique in the anime
• Pokémon Hunter J at a glance
• Frequently Asked Questions

One beam, one Trainer taken out, one statue to deliver

Her trade fits in a single line: stealing Pokémon to sell them to the highest bidder, almost always as part of an order placed in advance. She doesn't pick her targets; her clients pick them for her, which makes her more of a contractor than a criminal with an agenda.

The operation always runs in the same order. First the Trainer is put out of action, then a beam hits the targeted Pokémon and freezes it in place. The petrification comes from a bracelet she wears on her wrist, a detail the series only demonstrates on the day an attack shatters it. The merchandise, now immobilized, then goes to the buyer in exchange for payment.

Around her is a complete organization: a team of hunters under her command and a huge flying craft that serves as both headquarters and cargo hold. None of her appearances ends in an arrest — right up to the last one, she takes off before anyone can stop her.

The first contracts: Pikachu, the Shieldon, a Riolu

Her entrance wastes no time: four Pokémon fall into her hands almost immediately, including a Gardevoir, an Absol, Team Rocket's Meowth and the hero's Pikachu. Brock then declares that this kind of behavior always catches up with you, a line the series will take more than a hundred episodes to make good on. Ash frees the captives, J escapes.

A little later, she's wrongly blamed for the theft of the Adamant Orb — the job had actually been pulled off by Team Galactic. Her next order is for some Shieldon in Gary's care. She only manages to immobilize one of them, and a plan hatched by Ash and Gary is enough to get it back; the client backs out, and J leaves empty-handed.

The contract for a Riolu pits her for two episodes against Kellyn, the Pokémon Ranger, and ends in a way that sets her apart from every other villain in the series. Riolu is only freed after it has been handed over to the buyer: the rescue comes too late to cancel the deal, the mission counts as accomplished, and J walks away paid.

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Snowpoint City: the day the job got bigger than the hunter

In Snowpoint City, the job changes in scale: this time, she's come for Regigigas. Waking the colossus instantly turns into a disaster and the city and its temple alike are left at the mercy of a foe nobody controls anymore, herself included.

Regice, Registeel and Regirock step in to try to stop the disaster and are petrified one after another; Brandon, their Trainer, suffers the same fate. Petrification stops being a business tool and becomes a mass threat, used on Trainers as much as on Pokémon.

The battle that follows, against Ash and Dawn, costs J her main tool of the trade: an attack shatters the bracelet. Her clients drop the order and she pulls out once again, while Regigigas frees Brandon and his three Pokémon from the stone.

One contract too many: Uxie, Azelf, Mesprit

Her last mission comes from Cyrus, backed by Team Galactic's three Commanders: capture Uxie, Azelf and Mesprit. Everywhere else, the series refers to her buyers only as "the client"; here, it gives them a name.

The operation succeeds. Backed by Saturn, Jupiter and Mars, she gets her hands on all three Legendaries — the only one of her contracts the series lets her see through to the end without a reversal. But two of the captives, Uxie and Mesprit, had time to use Future Sight before being taken down.

The move strikes the airship, just as foreseen, and destroys it on a delay. The craft plunges into Lake Valor, then explodes with J, her Pokémon and her henchmen still on board. The last shot involving her shows nothing but a pair of hunter's goggles sinking: the reckoning Brock predicted in her very first episode finally arrives.

What makes her unique in the anime

Along with Mars, she belongs to the very small group of villains the series shows genuinely trying to kill the hero. In her very first appearance, she jettisons the cargo hold where Ash is trapped, knowing full well that several of her own henchmen are locked inside: her men matter as little to her as her targets.

What follows drives the point home. She orders her Salamence to fire a Hyper Beam straight at Ash, then, aboard her airship, has her Drapion crush him in its pincers. She ends up throwing him into the void from a great height, and the series makes no attempt to soften the scene.

Her exit is just as exceptional: she is one of only two major characters, along with Lysandre, whose implied death is shown on screen — leaving aside Dr. Fuji and his assistants from the first movie. She also bears a striking physical resemblance to Wes, the hero of Pokémon Colosseum, a design curiosity that is often pointed out.

Pokémon Hunter J at a glance

Frequently Asked Questions

• Who is Pokémon Hunter J?
  A mercenary from the anime's Diamond & Pearl series. She captures Pokémon to order and sells them to the highest bidder, at the head of a crew of hunters and a huge flying base.
• How does J capture Pokémon?
  She starts by putting the Trainer out of action, then a beam freezes the targeted Pokémon in place. The device comes from a bracelet she wears on her wrist, which an attack ends up shattering in the episode centered on Regigigas.
• Which Pokémon actually belong to J?
  Salamence, Ariados and Drapion. The other species often associated with her, like Gardevoir, Absol, Shieldon or Riolu, are victims she steals from their Trainers, not Pokémon on her team.
• How does Pokémon Hunter J's story end?
  On her final contract, she captures Uxie, Azelf and Mesprit for Team Galactic, but two of them had used Future Sight before being taken down. The move destroys her airship, which sinks into Lake Valor and explodes with her, her Pokémon and her henchmen aboard.
• Was J ever arrested?
  Never. In all five of her appearances, she escapes before anyone can stop her. Her career isn't ended by justice but by the destruction of her own aircraft.

In short

Pokémon Hunter J holds a place of her own among Sinnoh's villains: she has no dream of a new world and no cause to defend, only an order book. That cold, businesslike approach lets her win where the others fail — a Riolu delivered, a legendary trio captured — and walk away free from every one of her jobs, right up to the last. It took a delayed attack, not a Trainer, to close her file at the bottom of Lake Valor.