Leaf: the Kanto heroine who spent fifteen years nameless

Choosing Leaf means erasing Red. The two protagonists of FireRed and LeafGreen never coexist: one takes the other's place, and you cross Kanto in exactly the same way. Yet the character waited fifteen years for an official name, and it took until 2018 to see her on screen again — under another identity, and this time facing the player.

Contents

• FireRed and LeafGreen: The Kanto Journey, Without Red
• The Girl in Black: Fifteen Years Before Getting a Name
• Green: The Return, the Grudge and Mewtwo
• "The Discovery": Hunting Mewtwo on Screen
• Six Pokémon, Five Sync Pairs and a Smash Fighter
• Verte and Blue: Her Paper Doubles
• Leaf at a Glance
• Frequently Asked Questions

FireRed and LeafGreen: The Kanto Journey, Without Red

The start is the one everyone knows. Leaf lives in Pallet Town with her mother, and on the day she decides to set out, Professor Oak stops her in the tall grass just north of town. He takes her to the lab, where Blue, the neighbor who serves as her rival, is already waiting. Each of them leaves with a Pokémon, and the very first battle follows right away.

The Pokédex, though, has to be earned: she has to go to the Viridian City Poké Mart to pick up a parcel, which she then brings back to the professor in exchange for the device. Then begins the journey across Kanto and the Sevii Islands, with the Gym Leaders, Team Rocket and a Blue who demands a battle every time he spots her along the way.

The team comes together place by place: the starter Pokémon picked from the Kanto trio — Bulbasaur, Charmander or Squirtle — the Eevee from Celadon Mansion, the fossil from Mt. Moon, the Lapras handed over in the offices of Silph Co., and Mewtwo lurking deep in Cerulean Cave. Only one thing really sets this journey apart from that of Red: choosing Leaf as the heroine simply removes her male counterpart from the story.

The Girl in Black: Fifteen Years Before Getting a Name

The character existed as an image long before she existed in a game. The cover of the official guide from April 1996, drawn by Ken Sugimori, shows a nameless female Trainer, Squirtle at her feet, facing the two rivals from Pallet Town; the same illustration would be reused for the Japanese re-release devoted to Pokémon Blue. The artist has since explained that he was simply transposing a Mexican standoff into the Pokémon world, with no intention whatsoever of giving the games a playable heroine.

This girl in black then resurfaced in waves. Emiko Yoshino redrew her for the magazine Pokémon Craft DX; Verte, who joined Pocket Monsters Special (Pokémon Adventures) in March 1997, draws directly on her; then came Leaf, in 2004. Then you have to wait until 2018's Let's Go, Pikachu! and Let's Go, Eevee! to see her again — renamed Green, with a silhouette that openly quotes the 1996 illustration. The artist confirmed it himself in a message dated November 2012: Red's female counterpart does come from that nameless Trainer, whom he had never managed to give a name.

The name Leaf, for its part, circulated for a long time without official status. Players had spotted it in three places: the game's internal files, the naming screen at the start of the game that offers preset names, and the E3 2004 trailer, where the heroine already bears it — hence its spread through fan communities. It only became official fifteen years later, when Pokémon Masters EX, followed by figures from Kotobukiya and Bandai, needed a name to print. That list of preset names holds a curiosity: Flo and Marion sit alongside Green, Red and Fire — two names borrowed from the Eterna City Gym Leader and the Dark-type specialist of Johto's Elite Four (Gardenia and Karen in English).

Green: The Return, the Grudge and Mewtwo

In Let's Go, she only shows up once the game is wrapped up. Green is reserved for the post-game: you have to have beaten the Indigo League once and caught Mewtwo to run into her. It's Trace who gives the game away, mentioning a girl who went off to hunt a powerful Pokémon near Cerulean Cave: he saw her disappear inside without ever seeing her come out. She is waiting exactly where the legendary Pokémon used to stand.

The encounter opens with a symbolic slap: she throws a Poké Ball at the player's face, convinced there's a Pokémon in front of her. When she learns that Mewtwo was snatched out from under her, the battle starts without warning. Once defeated, she forfeits the two Mega Stones meant for the Psychic-type legendary, tries once more to trap her victor in a Poké Ball, then runs off. The same ritual plays out again in Cerulean City, once a day, where she's after a rematch as much as getting her hands on the pair.

Her wardrobe changes along with her name. The white bucket hat with red trim, a nod to the Premier Ball, the light blue tank top, the red skirt and the ocher satchel of the original game are all gone; Green appears bareheaded, in a black jersey pulled over a tank top and turquoise mini shorts, with black sneakers whose soles match her ankle socks.

"The Discovery": Hunting Mewtwo on Screen

The animation devoted an episode to her, "The Discovery," in Pokémon Evolutions, built entirely around this hunt. She appears on Nugget Bridge, map in hand to locate Cerulean Cave and Mewtwonite X and Y at the bottom of her bag, binoculars trained on the cave entrance, where she spots Trace and his Pidgeot. The five Trainers guarding the bridge try to stop her: she dispatches them one after another.

The cave turns into a showcase. She crosses a lake riding on her Blastoise, brushing Poliwhirl and Poliwrath aside on the way; she crosses a chasm hanging from a stalactite with her Victreebel, which then sweeps away, with a barrage of Razor Leaf, the swarm of Golbat pinning down her rival. At the entrance, though, a flock of Zubat had caught her, and it was Trace who got her out.

The ending is merciless. A suspicious silhouette she takes for Mewtwo gets hit with her Poké Ball: it's actually Elaine, the legendary's new Trainer; in the battle that follows, her Blastoise Mega Evolves without tipping the scales for a moment. Green admits defeat, hands over her Mega Stones, still offers the winner and her Pokémon the chance to become "her Pokémon," then runs off. She comes out of it well all the same: Professor Oak's Pokédex was completed thanks to her two rivals, and the final scene shows her smiling in the meadows of Pallet Town.

Six Pokémon, Five Sync Pairs and a Smash Fighter

Six species are tied to her: Gengar, Victreebel, Ninetales, Kangaskhan, Clefable and Blastoise. The last one is her signature Pokémon, and it's indeed the one you see on screen, from the lake in Cerulean Cave to the Mega Evolution that fell flat.

The mobile game Pokémon Masters EX added her on January 22, 2020, in three outfits. In her original outfit, her standard sync pair teams her with Eevee, a second one pairs her with Clefable — available once you reach friendship level 100 in the Trainer Lodge — and a third gives her a Blastoise that can Dynamax. The Sygna Suit outfit puts her behind a Venusaur that Mega Evolves, and the Neo Champion outfit behind a Moltres.

Since 2018, she has also been playable outside the Pokémon games. The fifth Super Smash Bros. game lists her under the label "Pokémon Trainer," as the female version of the Trainer fighter: she stays in the background while three Shiny Pokémon take turns, Squirtle, Ivysaur and Charizard. You first have to unlock her male counterpart, then scroll through his alternate costumes. Four color options are available: her own, plus three modeled on May, Hilda and Selene — and she also exists as a spirit.

🔥 Her signature Pokémon has its own section: see the items for Blastoise.

Verte and Blue: Her Paper Doubles

Pocket Monsters Special gives her an alter ego, named Verte in the French edition. A self-taught Trainer born in Pallet Town and a former prisoner of the Masked Man, she knows every technique for making a Pokémon evolve. In Japan, this same heroine is named Blue — the name the French version gives to the rival.

Kosaku Anakubo picks her up as well, under the name Blue, in his take on Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire. That version lives in Hoenn and has to put her adventure on hold because her parents won't let her leave. Red and his Clefairy show up at her home in chapter 24; the housework she assigns them is just a ruse to secretly feed a Charmander that isn't allowed in the house.

What follows turns into a domestic disaster. Charmander disappears in the downpour, Blue hurts herself tripping over a root and is carried home by Red's Tyrogue, which barricades the bedroom with a tree trunk before negotiating with her father. The lizard is finally allowed into the house, which Clefairy promptly blows to pieces with dynamite. One last naming trap: in Anakubo's manga, Green doesn't refer to Leaf but to Oak's grandson.

Leaf at a Glance

Frequently Asked Questions

• Can Leaf and Red coexist?
  Not in the main games: choosing Leaf as the protagonist of FireRed and LeafGreen makes Red disappear from the story. They do, however, come face to face in the trailer for Pokémon Battle Revolution, where she sends out a Groudon and a Pikachu against him, even though neither Trainer appears in the game released on Wii.
• Are Leaf and Green the same character?
  Yes. Green is the name under which Leaf returns, as a non-player character, in Let's Go, Pikachu! and Let's Go, Eevee!, with a design that harks back to the anonymous Trainer drawn by Ken Sugimori for the cover of the 1996 guide.
• What do you get for beating Green in Let's Go?
  The two Mega Stones specific to Mewtwo. She then tries to catch the player in a Poké Ball before running away, and you can battle her again in Cerulean City once a day.
• Is Leaf playable in Super Smash Bros.?
  Yes, in the fifth installment, as the female Pokémon Trainer. You have to unlock the Trainer and then scroll through his alternate costumes; she commands a Shiny Squirtle, Ivysaur and Charizard, has four color options and also appears as a spirit.
• Who is Verte in the manga?
  She's Leaf's alter ego in Pocket Monsters Special, as the French edition names her: a self-taught Trainer born in Pallet Town, a former prisoner of the Masked Man, who has mastered every evolution technique. The Japanese edition calls her Blue.

In short

Born from a drawing that wasn't trying to create her, left without an official name for fifteen years, Leaf only came back to play the relentless rival. Choosing Leaf means erasing Red: the two never coexist in the Kanto story, and yet everything plays out identically, from the parcel in Viridian City to the depths of Cerulean Cave. Between a 1996 guide cover, a post-game obsessed with Mewtwo and two manga series that call her Blue, her story comes down above all to a game of names the franchise has never fully settled.