Professor Kukui: the Alola researcher who built himself a League

A Pokémon Professor who steps into a wrestling ring isn't something you see every day. Kukui welcomes the player to Alola, entrusts them with their first partner and their Rotom Dex, then spends the rest of the adventure chasing a single obsession: giving the islands the League he couldn't conquer elsewhere. In between bouts of research on moves, he puts on a mask and battles under another name.

Contents

• Hau'oli City, the Rotom Dex and the First Partner
• From Defeat at Lance's Hands to the Mount Lanakila League
• The Masked Royal, the Second Identity He Guards
• In the Anime, a Teacher Turned Wrestling Champion
• Six Pokémon, a Plant and a "Cousin"
• Professor Kukui at a Glance
• Frequently Asked Questions

Hau'oli City, the Rotom Dex and the First Partner

Kukui holds the post of the region's official scientist in Sun and Moon: he's the one who welcomes the player arriving in the islands, and the one who oversees the choice of first partner between Rowlet, Litten and Popplio. In Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, handing over that starter Pokémon falls to him directly.

His house stands in the Hau'oli Outskirts, which are also home to his assistant Lillie. The Rotom Dex is entirely under his management, and he hands it to the player shortly after their arrival; the game's playable demo even made it the centerpiece of a small trial, in which you had to photograph two Jangmo-o and two Hakamo-o with the device's Poké Finder.

Two figures orbit around him and explain a great deal about the character. Molayne is a childhood friend with whom he completed the island challenge back in the day; his wife is Professor Burnet, a researcher at the Dimensional Research Lab in Heahea City. His own research, meanwhile, focuses on Pokémon moves.

🌺 Rowlet, Litten, Popplio: choosing your first partner has its own section, check out the Pokémon starters.

From Defeat at Lance's Hands to the Mount Lanakila League

Before Alola, there was Kanto. Kukui went there to take on the Indigo League, worked his way up to the Elite Four, then stopped dead: Lance beat him. That setback gave rise to an obsession with coming home: giving the islands their own League, and finally winning there the title that crowns the island challenge.

The player first hears him lay out the project at Hokulani Observatory on Mount Hokulani, just before the trial of Sophocles. The site has already been chosen: it will be Mount Lanakila, but he's still short of names to fill the local Elite Four, and Kukui is actively looking for its future members.

The project earns him a sworn enemy. Guzma, the head of Team Skull, sees the island challenge as a relic and the Alolan Elite Four as a whim, since he already considers himself the strongest Trainer in the region. When the League finally opens, Kukui is waiting at the end of the road on the player's first run — without holding the title of Champion, though.

The Masked Royal, the Second Identity He Guards

Battle Royal is his great passion, and he doesn't compete in it unmasked. In the ring, the professor gives way to the Masked Royal, a masked wrestler whom he's determined no one will ever link to him.

The wrestler's official profile says a lot about the care put into this façade: it presents an Alolan celebrity tasked with preserving the legacy of the Battle Royal, followed by a crowd that puts on masks of its own during the battles.

The mobile game added the character and fully embraces the split, with two distinct outfits. In his researcher's clothes, he teams up with a Lycanroc in its Midday Form; under the mask, it's an Incineroar that keeps him company.

In the Anime, a Teacher Turned Wrestling Champion

The anime's Sun & Moon series makes him a recurring character, but gives him a different job: he teaches a class that includes Ash, and the school replaces the lab as the main setting.

His plan for an Alolan League comes back twice, a few dozen episodes apart. The series also shows his wedding to Professor Burnet, which the games merely mentioned.

Then comes the reveal that stitches the two versions of the character back together. The anime eventually establishes that he secretly works as a wrestling champion, with Incineroar at his side: the double life isn't an invention of the games, then, but something that carries across every medium.

Six Pokémon, a Plant and a "Cousin"

When facing the player, the game gives him special treatment. He fields the starter Pokémon that has the type advantage over the player's, and Sun and Moon makes him the only League challenger to show up with six Pokémon instead of the usual lineup. His signature species remains Midday Form Lycanroc.

His name comes from a plant, as with most of his colleagues: kukui is the Hawaiian name for the candlenut tree, and his French name, Euphorbe, points to the spurge family the candlenut belongs to. The Pokémon Professor naming tradition is respected to the end, even when the character spends half his time in a ring.

One translation detail rounds out the portrait. In the English version of Sun and Moon, he calls the player "cousin", not to signal kinship but because the term is a typically Hawaiian mark of familiarity — fitting for the islands Alola is modeled on. On the trading card side, his first appearance dates back to the Sun & Moon expansion, released in France on February 3, 2017.

Professor Kukui at a Glance

Frequently Asked Questions

• Who is Professor Kukui?
  He's the Pokémon Professor of Alola. He welcomes the player when they arrive, gives them the Rotom Dex and their starter Pokémon, and his research focuses on Pokémon moves. He lives in the Hau'oli Outskirts.
• Why does Professor Kukui want to create a League in Alola?
  Because he failed elsewhere. Having set out to challenge the Indigo League in Kanto, he reached the Elite Four before being beaten by Lance. Back home, he decided to found a League on Mount Lanakila so he could win the title that crowns the island challenge there himself.
• Who is the Masked Royal?
  It's the alias under which Kukui competes in Battle Royals, wearing a mask and a wrestler's costume. He's determined that no one connect his two identities. The mobile game even features him in both outfits, with Lycanroc for one and Incineroar for the other.
• Is Professor Kukui the Champion of the Alola League?
  No. He's the last Trainer the player faces when taking on the Alola Elite Four for the first time, but he still isn't considered the League Champion.
• Where does Professor Kukui's name come from?
  From a plant, as with the other Pokémon Professors: kukui is the Hawaiian name for the candlenut tree, and his French name, Euphorbe, refers to the spurge family the candlenut belongs to. In the English version of the game, he also calls the player "cousin," a Hawaiian-inspired term of familiarity rather than a family tie.

In short

Kukui is the only Pokémon Professor whose biography owes as much to the frustrated Trainer as to the researcher: beaten at the Kanto Elite Four, he responds by building his own League on the other side of the world. The Masked Royal's mask follows the same logic, that of a man who would rather take part than watch. Few scientists in the series are waiting to battle you at the end of a League.