Saffron City: Sabrina's Psychic Gym, Silph Co. and the Dojo That Lost Its Title

In the heart of Kanto, Saffron City wears many hats. Its official Gym hasn't always been Sabrina's: before the Psychic-type specialist, a karate dojo held that rank. The city is also home to the headquarters of Silph Co., which makes the Master Ball and draws Team Rocket's attention, and later, in the Johto games, a Magnet Train station.

Contents

• Saffron City, a Guarded City in the Heart of Kanto
• Sabrina's Gym and the City's Residents
• Silph Co., Maker of the Master Ball
• What Saffron City Becomes in the Johto Era
• The Saffron City Fighting Dojo: From Official Gym to Rematches
• Saffron City in the Anime and in Pokémon Origins
• Saffron City at a Glance
• Frequently Asked Questions

Saffron City, a Guarded City in the Heart of Kanto

Saffron City is a Kanto city at the junction of four routes: Route 5 comes in from the north, Route 6 from the south, Route 7 from the west and Route 8 from the east. You can visit it in Red and Blue, Yellow, Gold and Silver and Crystal, then in the remakes FireRed and LeafGreen as well as HeartGold and SoulSilver, and finally in both versions of Let's Go.

Getting in is another matter: in Red, Blue, Yellow and their remakes, thirsty guards block every entrance. A little water wins them over in the first generation, tea in FireRed and LeafGreen and in Let's Go, and Celadon City supplies both. FireRed and LeafGreen are the only games that put the Pokémon Trainer Fan Club in the city: you can battle other Trainers there, and every Badge you win draws a bigger crowd of admirers.

Outside the main series, Super Smash Bros. and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate turned it into a battle stage: fighters brawl perched on three rooftops, Silph Co.'s included, and Pokémon burst in every so often to shake up the match. In Ultimate, the Tips point out that the door of the central building starts to glow just before each appearance; out may then come Chansey, Electrode, Porygon, Charmander or Venusaur. Electrode's appearance is short-lived: a few shudders, then it explodes.

Sabrina's Gym and the City's Residents

Devoted to the Psychic type, the Saffron City Gym is part of the circuit of eight Gyms across the region. Whatever the game, its Gym Leader is always Sabrina, who awards the Marsh Badge to anyone who beats her.

Two residents are worth a visit. In every game, Mr. Psychic keeps a Psychic TM for the player, a move that matches the Gym's type. Copycat lives up to her name: she mimics every visitor's words and gestures. In exchange for a Poké Doll, she hands over TM31 Mimic in Red, Blue and Yellow; since FireRed and LeafGreen dropped Mimic from the TMs, for the same gift, she teaches the move in person. In Let's Go, she gives you TM08 Substitute instead, as long as you're traveling with a Clefairy.

Let's Go has other encounters in store. In exchange for a Raichu in its regular form, an Ace Trainer at the Pokémon Center hands over her Alolan Raichu, a trade you can repeat; near the same Center, you also receive a Porygon. In these versions, the items hidden around town come back after twenty-four hours once picked up.

Silph Co., Maker of the Master Ball

At the heart of the city stands the headquarters of Silph Co., a high-tech multinational. It was Silph that developed Porygon, the artificial Pokémon, in the laboratory on Cinnabar Island. Its catalog runs from the Silph Scope to the MoBee IV by way of Technical Machines, but its reputation rests first and foremost on Poké Balls, right up to the precious Master Ball. A Scientist on the seventh floor, who already pictures himself being transferred, names a different destination depending on the language: “Trifouilli” in French, a nod to Trifouilly-les-Oies, the proverbial French backwater, lost in the middle of nowhere as he puts it; Tiksi, a real town in Russia, in English; and in Japanese, a branch in “Ponaya Tunguska,” possibly a reference to Russia's Tunguska.

In Red, Blue and Yellow, as later in FireRed and LeafGreen and Let's Go, Team Rocket occupies the city and seizes the building: the employees become hostages, and Giovanni holds the president captive in his office on the eleventh floor to bend the company to his will. To reach him, you have to find your way through a maze of warp panels, open the locked doors with the Card Key and defeat, floor after floor, the Grunts and the Scientists who have joined the Rocket side. In the first- and third-generation games, Blue even lies in wait for the player on the seventh floor.

At the end of the road, the freed president entrusts the Master Ball to the player. A stop on the ninth floor lets you get your team back on its feet; Let's Go puts a self-styled “beautiful spy” there (Steffie Fatale in the French version), who poses as Nurse Joy. The remake also reworks the battles: on the fifth floor, Archer and a female Grunt team up against you, and Trace rushes in, his Cubone leading the charge, so the hero isn't left fighting two on one. On the eleventh floor, you still have to beat Jessie and James before facing Giovanni.

🚀 Team Rocket has stormed Silph Co.: find them in our Team Rocket collection.

What Saffron City Becomes in the Johto Era

In Gold, Silver and Crystal, as in their remakes, a Magnet Train station opens in the city: the line now links the two regions, with Goldenrod City as its other terminus, over in Johto. You get the Pass to ride it from Copycat, provided you return the doll she lost when her family had to move to make way for the construction work; the toy ended up in Vermilion City, at the Pokémon Fan Club. At Silph Co., only the lobby is still open: a guard gives you the Up-Grade as a souvenir, but for security reasons, the upper floors are now off-limits.

HeartGold and SoulSilver still hide a surprise there, though. Placed at the front of your party, a Rotom gets the broken elevator running again, which leads to a room whose motors let Rotom change its form; the notebook left on the desk is signed “the scientific genius Char…,” most likely meaning Charon. Once you have met the challenge of Mt. Silver and received a Kanto starter from Professor Oak, Steven Stone waits in the lobby to give you a starter Pokémon from Hoenn, chosen according to your answer. After another meeting at the Museum of Science in Pewter City, he comes back to offer his Beldum named Iron, which holds a Dawn Stone, in exchange for a Forretress.

The Johto remakes add a few more weekly appointments. Cameron photographs the player and their team in front of the station from Monday to Wednesday, then at the foot of Silph Co. on Fridays and Saturdays. The station also hosts a trade, available once Lt. Surge has been beaten twice: in exchange for a Pikachu caught in Viridian Forest, you receive a foreign-language Pikachu (French in the English versions).

The Saffron City Fighting Dojo: From Official Gym to Rematches

Before Sabrina established her Psychic Gym, it was the Dojo, in the north of the city, that served as the official Gym, specializing in the Fighting type. In Red, Blue and Yellow as in the remakes, four Black Belts guard its leader, the Karate Master Koichi; once defeated, he lets the player leave with the Hitmonlee or the Hitmonchan of their choice. FireRed and LeafGreen make the challenge tougher: every opposing Pokémon there holds a Black Belt.

The second generation shows a deserted hall. The last Black Belt still there in Gold, Silver and Crystal tells visitors that the man nicknamed the “Karate King” now lives as a hermit, somewhere in a cave in Johto. HeartGold and SoulSilver, however, give the Dojo a use again: Gym Leaders from both regions accept rematches there, provided the player has registered their number in the Pokégear.

These numbers are often earned away from the Gyms. Once beaten, Sabrina gets some fresh air every Friday on the S.S. Aqua dock in Olivine City; to reach Blue, you first need seven massages from his sister Daisy Oak, then you have to show off a Pokémon at maximum friendship. Lastly, the Dojo has its own trading card, called “Martial Arts Dojo”: it debuted in Unbroken Bonds, an expansion of the Sun & Moon series released on May 3, 2019.

Saffron City in the Anime and in Pokémon Origins

Heads-up: this section reveals how several episodes end. In the first season, Ash Ketchum, Misty and Brock discover the city in EP022. Against Sabrina, Ash watches the opposing Abra evolve into Kadabra mid-match and turn Pikachu's own shock right back on it; the group then ends up teleported, shrunk, into a deserted village. The EP024 rematch is won through laughter: the antics of Haunter make Sabrina burst out laughing, a first in her life, and Kadabra, telepathically linked to her, laughs so hard it can no longer battle. Ash leaves with the Marsh Badge, and Haunter stays with the Gym Leader.

After that, the city goes back to being just a stop along the way. In EP159, in season 4, Team Rocket rides the Magnet Train line while it is still under construction and crashes into a building in Saffron City, before walking all the way back to Johto. In season 8, Drew tells May that a Contest is being held in town (AG139); there the group runs into Lilian, who hosts the Kanto Contests and whose sister is none other than Vivian Meridian, then Harley, now Nurse Joy's assistant, who takes the opportunity to feed May false information (AG143). May wins her first Ribbon in Kanto in the next episode. In AG145, Ash and Max visit the Dojo, where Master Hamm wants to hand the hall down to his son Kyle, who dreams of running a noodle restaurant: the master finally entrusts it to Terri, whose Hitmontop drove off Team Rocket. In season 16, Iris and Cilan part ways with Ash and decide to head to the city to catch the Magnet Train to Johto (BW141).

In episode JN034 of season 23, Ash and Goh arrive at the Fighting Dojo just after its Karate Master has been routed by Bea, Galar's Fighting-type Gym Leader. Ash challenges her to a Great Class match, which ends in his first defeat in the World Coronation Series; Goh, for his part, beats the Karate Master off-screen and leaves with a Hitmonchan. In Pokémon Origins (File 3: Giovanni), Red and Blue rescue a woman attacked by Team Rocket: the secretary of Silph Co.'s boss, she tells them that the organization has taken over the company and is after the Master Ball prototype. Red frees the captives and scientists and receives a Lapras as thanks, but falls to the Nidoqueen of Giovanni, who sweeps aside his Charizard before fleeing by helicopter; Red then defeats Sabrina, and Koichi off-screen.

Saffron City at a Glance

Frequently Asked Questions

• What type of Pokémon does the Saffron City Gym use?
  The Psychic type. Sabrina, its Gym Leader, gives the Marsh Badge to anyone who beats her.
• How do you get into Saffron City in the Kanto games?
  The guards want a drink before they'll let you through: water in Red, Blue and Yellow, tea in FireRed and LeafGreen and in Let's Go. You can find these drinks in Celadon City.
• How do you get the Master Ball at Silph Co.?
  By driving Team Rocket out of the building: the president, freed in his office on the eleventh floor, gives it to the player. To save time, take the elevator to the fifth floor to pick up the Card Key, then, on the ninth, use the warp panel in the northwest corner and the one facing it in the next room.
• Which Pokémon do you get at the Saffron City Fighting Dojo?
  After his defeat, Karate Master Koichi lets you choose between Hitmonlee and Hitmonchan, but only one of the two.
• In which episodes does Ash battle Sabrina?
  In EP022, on his first visit to Saffron City, and then in EP024, when he comes back to try his luck with Haunter on his team.

In short

Saffron City packs a lot of Kanto into a single city: a Psychic-type Gym, a company held hostage by Team Rocket and a karate Dojo stripped of its Gym title. With its station, it also becomes the link between Kanto and Johto, and the anime has returned to it time and again, from Sabrina to Bea.