Clemont: The Lumiose Gym Leader Whose Inventions Rarely Work

A brain renowned across the whole region, and a workshop that keeps going up in smoke. Clemont runs the fifth Gym of the Kalos League, the one in Lumiose City, and awards the Voltage Badge to Trainers who get the better of his Electric-type Pokémon. The whole character lives in that gap: science makes him famous, his prototypes make him funny, and the manga ends up having him build the part without which the ultimate weapon couldn't work, before placing him among those who try to defuse it.

Contents

• The Fifth Stop in the Kalos League
• A Genius Whose Machines Explode
• Bonnie, Shauna and a Name with a Hint of Lemon
• In the Manga: Hostage First, Rescuer Next
• A Pokédex, Two Sync Pairs and Some Cards
• Clemont at a Glance
• Frequently Asked Questions

The Fifth Stop in the Kalos League

The regional circuit reaches his Gym halfway through, in fifth position. It's housed in Prism Tower, Lumiose City's signature landmark, which gives this stop a backdrop the player spots long before being allowed inside.

His specialty is the Electric type, and he's presented as a formidable opponent rather than a mid-journey formality. Trainers who beat him leave with the Voltage Badge, the fifth of the milestones to collect before the League.

Gym Leader isn't the only title he holds, either. Clemont is also a Marquis of the Battle Chateau, a rank that belongs to a battle circuit separate from the Gym challenge and gives him a life outside his own Gym.

A Genius Whose Machines Explode

His scientific reputation reaches far beyond the walls of his Gym: all of Kalos regards him as a genius without equal. The flip side is as well documented as the talent, since his inventions only work once in a blue moon and end in an explosion more often than in a successful demo.

The most telling detail isn't about his brain but his legs: he's a poor runner, and his answer to the problem is supposedly to build a machine that makes him run faster. That reflex sums up the character — faced with a physical limit, he answers with a prototype.

His backpack is a gadget in itself. Two mechanical arms stick out of it, and their tips are shaped like an Aipom's tail and the head of a Heliolisk. With him, the tinkering never stops, right down to the gear he carries on his back.

⚡ Electric types have their own shelf stars: browse our Pokémon figures.

Bonnie, Shauna and a Name with a Hint of Lemon

Clemont rarely appears alone. His sister Bonnie goes almost everywhere with him, to the point that the sibling pair is as much a part of the character's description as his favorite type.

The brother and sister also count Shauna among their friends. That connection is established on the games' side, and it explains why Clemont crosses paths with the region's young Trainers somewhere other than on his Gym's battlefield.

His French name, Lem, is a colorist's joke. It comes from the English word "lemon", a nod to his hair and to his Japanese name, Citron: the French version kept the sound and dropped the fruit along the way.

One last tidbit comes from Gym Freaks, a TV show devoted to Gym Leaders, where host April lets slip a personal detail. Clemont is apparently saving up to treat himself to an amusement park trip in Unova — the kind of very ordinary plan that contrasts with his lab ambitions.

In the Manga: Hostage First, Rescuer Next

The sixth-generation manga adaptation gives him a far more eventful role than that of a Gym Leader sitting behind his Gym. He enters the story with his friend Grant and catches sight of Grace, Y's mother; he recognizes the heroine soon afterward thanks to a magazine Grant had passed him.

He then offers to help retrieve a Manectite stuck in a tree. A Team Flare Grunt snatches it and holds him prisoner along with Y, Shauna and Tierno, guarded by four Espurr. Cassius frees them, but Clemont wants to know what these Pokémon are hiding under their ears, which they keep folded shut to contain their power: the power breaks loose and sends him flying, just after he has warned Y that her mother is in Team Flare's hands.

Captured again later, he is forced by Xerosic to build the absorber the ultimate weapon needs in order to work, then thrown down the incinerator chute once the part is delivered. His Aipom Arm is what saves him: its built-in camera sends images back to his backpack, but also to his glasses, which are in X's hands; X works out where he is and races to Geosenge Town.

The final act flips the roles. At the last second, he snatches Shauna, Tierno and Trevor away from an attack by the Bisharp belonging to Bryony, heads with them deep into Team Flare's lair, then boosts them up to the ultimate weapon's activation key.

A Pokédex, Two Sync Pairs and Some Cards

His engineering signature turns up in a completely different archipelago. Pokémon Sun and Moon hints, through Samson Oak, that the Rotom Pokédex came out of his workshop, and Clemont does indeed appear in the device's concept art.

The mobile game built around sync pair battles added him on April 14, 2020, in his usual outfit. His default sync pair teams him up with a Heliolisk, while an alternate version puts him alongside a Magneton, unlocked by exchanging a BP Sync Pair Voucher.

The trading card game had welcomed him much earlier. He first appears there in the Generations expansion, released in France on March 19, 2016, before being featured on other cards in the lineup.

Clemont at a Glance

Frequently Asked Questions

• Where is Clemont's Gym?
  In Lumiose City, inside Prism Tower. It's the fifth Gym of the Kalos League, and it specializes in the Electric type.
• Which Badge does Clemont award?
  The Voltage Badge, given to Trainers who defeat his team.
• Who is Bonnie to Clemont?
  His sister. They're almost always seen together, to the point that the sibling pair is part of what defines the character.
• Where does Clemont's French name, Lem, come from?
  From the English word "lemon," which is "citron" in French. It's a nod to his hair and to his Japanese name, Citron.
• Did Clemont invent the Rotom Pokédex?
  Pokémon Sun and Moon suggests it through a line from Samson Oak, and Clemont appears in the device's concept art. Nothing more official has been stated.

In short

Clemont holds a special place among Kalos's Gym Leaders: his failures as an inventor are as memorable as his mastery of the Electric type. The manga takes the paradox all the way, turning the bespectacled tinkerer into both the engineer forced to build the absorber without which Team Flare's ultimate weapon couldn't work and one of those who try to defuse it. A Gym Leader whose workshop counts for more than his Badge.