Bill: The Pokémaniac Who Invented PC Boxes

Without Bill, no Trainer would ever get past six Pokémon. This Route 25 Pokémaniac has no lab, no Pokédex to hand out and no battle team — the games even call him a particularly bad Trainer. He simply developed the Storage System, then spent the rest of his appearances fixing it, giving away Eevee and, once, getting turned into a Pokémon by accident.

Contents

• A Pokémaniac Filed Among the Professors
• Kanto: The Sea Cottage and the Failed Experiment
• Johto: The Time Capsule, an Eevee and a Portrait by Phone
• His Traces in Hoenn, Sinnoh and Alola
• Outside the Games: A Lighthouse, a Rattata, a Dratini
• Bill at a Glance
• Frequently Asked Questions

A Pokémaniac Filed Among the Professors

His profile groups him with the Pokémon professors and his official line of work points that way, but the games' dialogue only ever presents him as a Pokémaniac: a private individual who piles up research on Pokémon, with no institute behind him and no mission to hand to anyone.

His nickname comes from his collection, a trove where rare species sit alongside perfectly ordinary ones, and whose centerpiece is the complete evolutionary line of Eevee. In Fuchsia City, his grandfather sums it up in his own way: the boy has apparently had collector-itis since childhood.

One manga pins down exactly when this obsession began. In it, Bill explains that he hated school and that he hit the road the very year young Trainers were first allowed to leave it; one morning, he watches his Ivysaur evolve into Venusaur right before his eyes. That moment is when he decided to devote everything to Pokémon — and, later, to develop the Storage System.

Kanto: The Sea Cottage and the Failed Experiment

In the games set in Kanto, Bill lives on Route 25, north of Cerulean City, in a house the game calls the Sea Cottage. The address is out of the way, away from the city, and the character works there alone.

The first encounter isn't with a man but with a Pokémon: an experiment went wrong and Bill came out of it in a different form. The player can restore his appearance, and that's the whole point of the detour — once he's himself again, he hands over the S.S. Ticket.

In Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen, it's his friend Celio who tells the player about him from the Sevii Islands: Bill likes every type equally, his very first Pokémon was an Abra, his family still lives in Goldenrod City, and rumor has it he can't stand milk. Bill even writes to the player himself, inviting them to come show him their rare Pokémon.

Johto: The Time Capsule, an Eevee and a Portrait by Phone

The games set in Johto have you cross paths with him somewhere else, and earlier. The player runs into Bill at the Ecruteak City Pokémon Center, and that meeting is what unlocks the Time Capsule, a feature exclusive to Gold, Silver and Crystal.

He doesn't linger in Ecruteak City: he heads to his mother's house in Goldenrod City, where his sister also lives, and settles there for good. Anyone who drops by leaves with an Eevee at level 20. Meanwhile, the cottage near Cerulean City is looked after by his grandfather, and the HeartGold and SoulSilver remakes place another of his sisters in Fuchsia City, in the house next to the Gym.

The most detailed portrait comes over the phone. Brent, a Pokémaniac on Route 43, calls the player to share Bill's story bit by bit: an Abra as his first partner, a father who is also a Pokémon expert, a mother who used to be a Kimono Girl, a birth in Goldenrod City, a crush on a girl at Goldenrod's flower shop, an aversion to milk — and a reputation as a terrible battler. His sister, he adds, can't wink.

📦 Eevee's entire evolutionary line is in his collection: see our section dedicated to Eevee.

His Traces in Hoenn, Sinnoh and Alola

Hoenn never shows him: there, he exists only through a message. In Ruby and Sapphire as well as in Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, an e-mail from Bill congratulates Lanette on her storage system: easy to use, he says, and he's glad to have played a part in developing it.

From Diamond and Pearl to Platinum, and then in their remakes, he still acts from afar. Bill entrusted a baby Eevee to his Sinnoh counterpart, Bebe, who hands it over to the player once they've obtained the National Pokédex.

Sun and Moon gives him his most unexpected role without showing him any more than before: Lillie announces that she is leaving the islands for Kanto to meet him. His accidental transformation into a Pokémon, and his return to normal, are now known the world over — and the young girl sees it as a lead for her mother, weakened after fusing with an Ultra Beast. She hopes to find a way to free her mother from the Nihilego's lingering hold and its toxins.

Outside the Games: A Lighthouse, a Rattata, a Dratini

The anime swaps the Sea Cottage for a lighthouse and drops the failed experiment. Ash and his friends find Bill in his lighthouse during an episode of the original series, not turned into a Pokémon but squeezed into a costume shaped like a Kabuto — a disguise he uses to observe how Pokémon act and react. The meeting sparks Ash's desire to learn as much as he can about Pokémon, which makes this version of Bill more of a starting point than a supporting character.

The manga give him an official profile — born in Goldenrod City on December 31, blood type O — and a far more serious accident. The Storage System's teleportation machine fuses him with a Rattata; turned into prey, he is attacked by a Fearow and owes his rescue entirely to a passerby. He then comes back on and off, helping the heroes as far as his limited abilities allow.

The battle against the Elite Four gives him a teammate by default: since the fate-reading spoons of Sabrina had picked no partner for either him or Lt. Surge, the two men team up and take on Bruno, until reinforcements step in. Two Storage System breakdowns set the pace for what follows: the first one defeats him until the end of the arc, when the people of Kanto and Johto come to lend a hand with their Pokémon in Ilex Forest; the second sends him to Celio's place on the Sevii Islands, where he mostly ends up helping Red and Blue with their expeditions and hiding Green from the locals.

Another manga shows him as a child, in a world where humans and Pokémon cross paths so rarely that Pokémon are considered a legend. Some children throw stones at a Dratini that had wandered off on an adventure and lock it in a cage; young Bill sets it free and gives it its name, watched by a professor who looks a lot like Professor Oak. The two spend a few days together, until the little dragon's father, a Dragonite, turns on the humans; Bill returns the little one to its father, and the two friends promise to stay friends.

Bill at a Glance

Frequently Asked Questions

• Who is Bill in Pokémon?
  A Pokémaniac living in Kanto, presented as the man behind the Pokémon Storage System. He owes his nickname to a collection that includes rare and common species alike, among them Eevee's entire evolutionary line.
• Where do you meet Bill?
  In the games set in Kanto, on Route 25 north of Cerulean City, in the house called the Sea Cottage. In the Johto games, the first meeting takes place at the Ecruteak City Pokémon Center, after which he settles for good at his mother's house in Goldenrod City.
• How do you get Bill's Eevee?
  You need to visit him in Goldenrod City, once he has left Ecruteak City for his mother's house: he then gives you a level 20 Eevee. In the Sinnoh games, a baby Eevee he entrusted to Bebe is given to the player after they obtain the National Pokédex.
• Why is Bill turned into a Pokémon?
  An experiment went wrong. In the Kanto games, the player finds him in Pokémon form and can restore his human appearance, which earns them the S.S. Ticket. The incident is famous enough that, in Sun and Moon, Lillie leaves for Kanto to meet him, hoping to find a way to heal her mother.
• Does Bill have any Pokémon?
  The games give him no battle team and describe him as particularly bad at battling. His first Pokémon was an Abra and his collection brings together Eevee's evolutions; the manga, for their part, give him a small team — Vulpix, Farfetch’d, Magikarp, an Exeggcute that became Exeggutor and a Rattata — along with an Ivysaur that evolved into Venusaur before his eyes.

In short

The games give him no team and call him a bad Trainer, and he spends a good share of his appearances fixing a machine or getting pulled out of a tight spot. He is still the man without whom no one would ever have gotten past six Pokémon: the Storage System is his work, and Hoenn, Sinnoh and then Alola keep pointing back to him long after he retired to Goldenrod City. The card game has even given him a steady role since the Base Set: his cards let you draw.