Reviewing Pokemon's Human Characters - Johto

I'm still not sure where I'm going with this one, because for some of these characters I genuinely can't find much to say about, but hey, we'll try our best to talk about these dang humans in the Pokemon games.

JOHTO



Ethan, Kris & Lyra

• Position: Player Characters
• Japanese Name: Hibiki (Ethan); Kris (Kris); Kotone (Lyra)

I love the Johto games. I don't think I'll ever drum up of ranking the games in my head, but I've always felt like the Johto games has a nice, very warm place in my heart. Maybe it's because playing Crystal for the first time is always very cool. Maybe it's because Heartgold/Soulsilver are basically the best remakes out there. But one thing that I've noticed when I reviewed the second generation Pokemon is that... they were playing things very safe, making some of the creatures feel kind of boring instead. And honestly, that's sadly something that I feel is also the case for the human characters. I remember them fondly... but then I realized that a huge part of why I like the human characters so much is because of their comic-book counterparts, which are significantly more developed and retooled, probably because the Johto characters aren't very interesting.

These are the protagonists, and... and 'Ethan' is basically just Sugimori trying to catch lightning twice with the Red design, yeah? Sure, he's swapped the jacket for a hoodie, and swapped the colour of his pants (yellow in GSC, black in the remakes) but it's really hard not to see him as basically being pretty similar to Red. It's a safe, decent protagonist model, but as we continue on the generations a running complaint I will have is that so many of the male protagonists look too similar to each other.

Crystal, the 'third game' of Generation II, gave us the option to be a girl, and Kris is... well, she does take her cues from Ethan's design, with the same colour distribution on her clothes, albeit with a lot more white with her jacket. That inner shirt that goes up to the neck looks kind of uncomfortable, though. When they remade the Johto games, Kris is replaced with 'Lyra', who's... honestly, they look pretty similar (and the manga, at least, considers them the same character) but the difference in the hair probably means that they're different people or something. I dunno. She's got a more unique sense of fashion, at least, with that cute hat and, uh... those... what is that jean-apron-pants getup called? I am terrible at fashion terminology, but Lyra at least looks unique.

Silver

• Position: Rival
• Japanese Name: Silver

Silver is a Grade-A dick, and that's why we all remember him. The rival of the first-generation games, Blue, is introduced as an asshole childhood friend, and that's a bit more relatable, but Silver is introduced as a literal thief who is completely abrasive and always acts like a jackass. He's a walking anime trope, but that, I think, is what made him memorable. The designs of Silver between Generation II and IV are basically more or less the same, just with a haircut and a different art-style in regards to the proportions. But the thing is... other than being a complete dick to you and bumping into you in different parts of the game, Silver's just... he's just some dick. A cool schmuck for sure, but still just kind of a dick who just wants the strongest Pokemon there is because he is a strong boy... and after being beaten up by you one too many times, he decides to maybe try this 'be a friend to your Pokemon' thing out... and hey, his Golbat evolved into Crobat when you fight him for the last time! That's actually pretty neat, but ultimately, while Silver's attitude is memorable, I do feel that people overrate Silver a fair bit as a character in the games. Y'all are just remembering when you first encountered his damn Gastly for the first time in Azalea Town when you were a kid and had no idea what's going on.

It's planned in the games' development that Silver's actually the son of Giovanni, who feels abandoned by his father and feels a raging need to fight Team Rocket because of his daddy issues. This wouldn't really be explored at all in the original Johto games, and Silver's backstory and his one-man anti-hero crusade against Team Rocket, for the longest time, would only exist in the manga. The Generation IV games, at least, gives us better hints at Silver's backstory, and while being Giovanni's son ultimately doesn't amount to much, we do get a couple of extra bonus interactions with Silver in HG/SS.

Falkner

• Position: Violet City Gym Leader
• Japanese Name: Hayato
• Type Specialization: Flying

The gym leaders now, and... honestly, I get the impression that none of the Generation II gym leaders were anything memorable, again, if not for the manga or the remakes. Hell, Generation II doesn't even give them official Sugimori artwork, just mugshots and the in-game sprites, and it's not until the anime and manga that we get to see what Falkner really looks like. And Falkner is... just a dude in a traditional kimono. His one deal that he repeats over and over again is that he's taken over the gym from his dad and he's striving to meet it. Which is a great character backstory, but that's ultimately it for him. The remakes try and give him a slightly neater-looking jacket and a gym that has you walk around on walkways, but still, Falkner's pretty boring. The anime and manga had to go to lengths to try and make him interesting -- anime!Falkner is a hang-glider who does so to be closer to his birds, and manga!Falkner is a police officer who uses the discarded feathers from his Skarmory as boomerangs.

He leads a Flying-type gym, the first in the franchise, but his gym is very basic, bare-bones, and Falkner's team is literally just a Pidgey and a Pidgeotto. I've always found him disappointing. Like, first gyms are not supposed to be hard, but at least have them feel exotic. That's why Brock's Onix or Roxanne's Nosepass or the triplets' elemental monkeys are. They're not hard at the point you are in the first gym, but they're at least something that's a bit more impressive visually, y'know?


Bugsy

• Position: Azalea Town Gym Leader
• Japanese Name: Tsukushi
• Type Specialization: Bug

One of the theories I've seen people make is that the Johto gym leaders are meant to be 'elite' versions of the common trainers you fight. Falkner's supposed to be an elite bird keeper, Chuck's supposed to be an elite black belt, Whitney's supposed to be an elite lass... and Bugsy, of course, is supposed to be the elite bug catcher. He's... he's literally just a kid with a bug net. And that's ultimately it. The remakes try to give him a bit more interest by having him show up in the in-game bug-catching contests, but ultimately Bugsy's another one that I feel like the game's taking the safe route -- he's a bug gym leader, so he's a bug catcher. I did like one aspect of his gym battle, though, where his first two Pokemon are a joke, just the cocoons (Metapod and Kakuna)... and you think it's going to be a pushover, and then he sics out his Scyther. Which, honestly, isn't super hard, but it's still something that surprised me as a kid.


Whitney

• Position: Goldenrod City Gym Leader
• Japanese Name: Akane
• Type Specialization: Normal

Whitney is memorable mostly because she throws a tantrum and cries after you beat her, but design-wise she's just a generic girl, y'know? Again, Whitney's a bit more interesting in the manga and anime, where they give her significantly more personality, but in the games she's mostly only memorable for being someone who talks big but cries and gives a tantrum and doesn't give you her badge until you turn to leave and one of the gym trainers talks to her. HG/SS tries to make her more interesting by having her show up in another in-game event, the Poke-athlon.

In the fandom, Whitney is particularly notorious for being a surprisingly difficult boss fight with her Miltank, whose Rollout has wiped out many a young Pokemon trainer. And I suppose after the cakewalk that was Falkner and Bugsy, Whitney's Miltank and her increasingly-powerful Rollout is a bit of a wake-up call. It's a bit of an exaggeration, of course, since I've never actually had that much of a problem with Whitney even as a kid, but it's neat that this otherwise unremarkable-looking gym leader is fondly remembered as one of the more difficult bosses in the franchise. Also, three gyms into the game, and Whitney's the first gym leader to even use a new Johto Pokemon in her team. Yeah, that's why a lot of the Generation II Pokemon are kind of forgotten, even the games themselves do a piss-poor job at promoting the new Pokemon.

Morty

• Position: Ecruteak City Gym Leader
• Japanese Name: Matsuba
• Type Specialization: Ghost

In generation II, Morty is just some dude with a headband. In Generation IV, Morty is just some dude with a headband and a scarf. And, okay, that scarf does make him look a tad bit more memorable, but Morty's another one of the Johto gym leaders that I feel they could've done a bit better at showcasing his powers. Like Sabrina, Morty is meant to actually have mystical powers, even in the games, being described as a seer who made his home in Ecruteak City to see the legendary Pokemon associated with the two towers in the city... but you never actually see this. I dunno. Morty's kind of a wasted opportunity, really, although I do like his cool 'bottomless pit' gym. His team is, again, disappointingly just made up entirely of Kanto's ghosts, although that Gengar was a pain in the ass.


Chuck

• Position: Cianwood City Gym Leader
• Japanese Name: Shijima
• Type Specialization: Fighting

Chuck hangs out in Cianwood City, and he's... he's a typical anime martial arts master, a bit old and a bit pudgy but he can swing around giant dumbells and runs a dojo. Again, he's another obvious trope.  He's a Fighting-type gym leader, so he's... a martial arts guy. The remakes make him a tad bit more interesting by having him meditating under a waterfall... but he's still kind of boring, just a martial arts guy who uses a paltry team of Primeape and Poliwrath, both of whom are very likely to be under-leveled by the time you reach him. Bordered by the more impressive Morty and Jasmine, Chuck has always felt like one of the blander Generation II gym leaders to me.


Jasmine

• Position: Olivine City Gym Leader
• Japanese Name: Mikan
• Type Specialization: Steel

Jasmine, on the other hand, is a way where an otherwise generic-looking design could become far, far more memorable character than the likes of Morty or Chuck or Falkner. Like, Jasmine's pretty much just a lady in a dress, right? She's even more simple in her original Generation II design, where she's wearing an even simpler-looking white dress. But she actually has a neat little storyline where you first encounter her not in her gym, but on top of her town's lighthouse where she's panicking and fretting over her sick Ampharos that runs the lighthouse, and refuses to leave her sick pet's side until you come back from a side-quest with a medicine. Aww.

And then you fight Jasmine and turns out that this demure girl is an expert in the tough Steel-type, wielding a pair of Magnemites and the ginormous Steelix. I've always liked that, and I really do like the trope of a person that's demure and kind and has all the non-aggressive character qualities, yet is actually a pretty fierce battler with a giant grinning metal snake monster. I think it's implied that Jasmine uses the Steel type because it's so different with her meek and shy personality, and whether it's a case of opposites attracting each other or because Jasmine's trying to compensate for her own shortcomings, it's pretty cool!


Pryce

• Position: Mahogany Town Gym Leader
• Japanese Name: Yanagi
• Type Specialization: Ice

An Ice-type gym leader, Pryce is another one whose gym is kind of a pushover, again, particularly compared to Jasmine and Clair before and after him. A Seel, a Dewgong and a Piloswine as the penultimate Johto gym, all of whom are around level 30... yeah, that's not particularly impressive. His personality is also just a pretty generic trope, just a cantankerous old man, just an old grandpa who sometimes forgets to have a filter when he's ranting about dem young 'uns. I do like his HG/SS redesign best among all, which makes him look less like just some old grandpa that's irritated by something you're wearing, and actually makes him look like an old man who's aged pretty gracefully and with his winter jacket and scarf, actually make him like a cool (heh) old man without losing that 'angry grandpa' look from his original design.

Also, it's literally impossible to talk about Pryce's manga counterpart without going into a huge plot summary, so let's just say that I think Pryce is a lot cooler than he actually is thanks to the manga.


Clair

• Position: Blackthorn City Gym Leader
• Japanese Name: Ibuki
• Type Specialization: Dragon

Our final gym leader in Johto is Clair, who's introduced as Lance's cousin and successor of the dragon-wielding Blackthorn Clan, and, like Whitney, Clair refuses to give you the badge. It's less of an emotional tantrum and more of a stubborn unwillingness to accept that she's lost, sending you off into the Dragon's Den as a side-quest to really prove your worth. In HG/SS, it's heavily implied that this stems from kind of an inferiority complex because she keeps being compared to her champion cousin Lance, and Clair's a mere gym leader. Her gym also got a pretty badass redesign to be lava-themed in HG/SS, which I thought was pretty impressive. Her original design is just a sexy bodysuit and a cape, and the HG/SS one gives her a bit more details and makes her kind of less monotonous. I never really considered Clair a whole ton, but she's actually a pretty neat character compared to the other, relatively more underwhelming Johto gym leaders.

That's all for the Johto gym leaders, although of course, in the Johto games, you're able to visit the entire region of Kanto as part of the post-game, which is the coolest thing ever as you fight Brock, Misty and the rest of the Kanto gym leaders with souped-up teams.


Will

• Position: Elite Four Member
• Japanese Name: Itsuki
• Type Specialization: Psychic

The Elite Four, now! Two of the four Elite Four members are characters from the first generation games, namely former Fuschia gym leader Koga and long-time Elite Four member Bruno, but we get two new characters. The first is Will, who's supposed to be a stage magician with a superhero-esque domino mask? The original Generation II artwork gave him this weird set of glasses with one exposed eye and one full-on lens, and I'm not sure what's going on there. The HG/SS redesign makes the performer vibe look a bit more obvious. There's really not a whole ton to say about Will, though. He's a decent design as a character, and his specialization of Psychic-types gives him a bunch of Pokemon to choose from, but him using two Xatus in his team is kind of underwhelming. 

Karen

• Position: Elite Four Member
• Japanese Name: Karin
• Type Specialization: Dark

Karen's our very first Dark-type specialist, since the game's where the Dark type debuts, and Karen's... just some lady in a dress (or in a tank top and pants in Generation IV). Either way, though, the game sort of wants to make it clear that Karen's not what you expect from a trainer of the Dark-type. Sure, she looks pretty cool, but the fact that she's a Dark-type expert always comes as a bit of a surprise. Karen's also famous for her post-defeat speech about how strong and weak pokemon are only the perception of people, and truly skilled trainers should win with their favourites. So yeah, Karen's just using Dark-types because she likes them! I also do like that her team is made up not exclusively of Dark-types, but with a group of edgy, evil-looking Pokemon -- including a Gengar and a Vileplume in her ranks. And I absolutely love that in Generation II, apparently Vileplume and its creepy dead-face expression is considered a 'creepy' Pokemon in the same vein of Houndoom and Murkrow.


Professor Elm

• Position: Pokemon Professor
• Japanese Name: Utsugi

Professor Elm starts off a tradition of each and every region having its own professor to start off your journey, but Elm has kind of the misfortune of appearing in the second-generation games, which means that it's still treated as a direct sequel and the development team isn't sure just how wide of a departure they'll have from the original Kanto games. Which means that Professor Oak himself kind of appears very early in the game, and Elm and Oak end up having to share the stage. Elm's meant to be kind of a contrast, though, being a younger, scatterbrained professor who ends up getting robbed in the early stages of the game. He doesn't even get to do the 'welcome to the world of Pokemon' speech! He's honestly kind of just there, and doesn't really have anything going on for him as part of the story or as a visual design.


Kurt

• Position: Ball Maker
• Japanese Name: Gantetsu

The development team really likes Kurt, huh? The Generation II games have got a bunch of other extra NPC's who have names, like Mr. Pokemon or whatever, but where nearly all the gym leaders wouldn't get official Sugimori artwork until the remakes, Kurt got an artwork and even a unique overworld sprite in the original gamse. He's just an old man in a kimono, but you first meet Kurt as one of the few NPC in the early games who actually do something against the evil team instead of relying on the ten-year-old to save the day. Sure, Kurt quite literally trips and falls into a well, but it's the thought that counts. Kurt's whole deal is that he's able to craft specialized Pokeballs with the Apricorns you find in your journey, which have bonuses compared to the factory-made Pokeballs, and presumably he rants about those Kalosian bastards from taking his job away from him. That said, though, not all his balls are particularly useful, but it's a neat little gimmick.


Eusine

• Position: Mystery Man
• Japanese Name: Minaki

Eusine is introduced in Crystal as sort of a bonus little pseudo-rival, showing up in his quest to hunt down the legendary Pokemon Suicune... it's just a shame for him that Suicune has its eyes set on you, the chosen one protagonist. Poor Eusine, he devoted his entire life to catching these legendary Pokemon and yet he has to watch as you capture every single one of them. Still, having an NPC there to inform you about the happenings in the legendary Pokemon side of things. You fight Eusine exactly once, and he's got a funny little team of Drowzee, Haunter and Electrode, a nice ecclectic mix of randoms. He has a pretty neat purple suit and a fancy mini-cape. He's a cool design, and pretty memorable among the otherwise pretty bland Johto characters.


Ariana

• Position: Team Rocket Admin
• Japanese Name: Athena

As I mentioned in my Kanto character reviews, Team Rocket, or rather, the remnants of Team Rocket, are the villains of the Johto games. And in the original Generation II games the closest you get to fighting the leaders of Team Rocket would be the 'Rocket Admins', which are just basically slightly stronger-than-normal Team Rocket goons. One of the best parts of the HG/SS remakes is actually giving the Rocket Admins names and characterization. And sure, it isn't much, but at least it makes you feel like you're fighting actual antagonists instead of literally just a bunch of 'Team Rocket Executives' schmucks.

Ariana and Archer act as the interim leaders of Team Rocket, with Ariana even introducing herself as the 'interim boss', and they manage to get a brief cameo (albeit as unnamed Rocket Grunts) in the Sevii Islands portion of FireRed/LeafGreen, which I've always thought to be pretty cool. Ariana herself doesn't have much of a personality beyond being a bad guy leader, though, sadly, and being the only female executive in the games. Her team is a bit unique with the addition of Murkrow and Vileplume... and, wow, they really kind of consider Vileplume a 'mean' looking Pokemon in the Generation II games, huh?

Archer

• Position: Team Rocket Admin
• Japanese Name: Apollo

You fight like three or four different male 'Team Rocket Executives' in the original Gold, Silver and Crystal games, and it's easy to handwave them as being generic goons, but, again, the remakes separeated these out into being different characters. Archer ends up being the final Executive to be fought in the main Johto storyline, the one who's pulling the strings. Archer also shows up in both FireRed/LeafGreen and, unexpectedly, the new remakes of Let's Go Pikachu/Eevee, and in all of his appearances he's basically portrayed as someone who is a bit of a Giovanni fanatic and wants to bring him back.

The HG/SS design gave both Archer and Ariana white suits, which denotes their higher rank. Does it mean that James and Jessie, despite their bumbling, are actually super high-up in the Team Rocket ranks? Archer uses a Houndoom in his Johto appearances, which is actually a pretty neat way to distinguish him from the other Team Rocket mooks, while still feeling pretty on-brand for the Pokemon gangsters. Also, all the HG/SS Rocket Executives get names after spaceships (i.e. rockets) in the English version, and after missiles (i.e. also rockets) in the Japanese version.


Petrel

• Position: Team Rocket Admin
• Japanese Name: Lambda

Petrel is a bit of a goon whose claim to being memorable in the original Generation II games is that he's got a team of five Koffings and one Weezing, all of them knowing Selfdestruct. That's it, and he's otherwise just a generic Executive. HG/SS gave him a pretty fun design with expressive eyes that just scream 'I'm a shifty motherfucker', and Petrel is given the gimmick that he's super-great with disguises, allowing himself to pretend to be Giovanni or the radio tower manager and stuff, expanded from his one-off line of pretending to be the radio director for a single scene in G/S/C. Petrel's pretty fun, and gave a pretty huge impression despite the fact that when I looked up the difference in dialogue between Generations II and IV it's not that much, giving him a memorable name and design really makes him significantly more memorable.

Plus, that full Koffing team. Got to respect the fact that this crazy motherfucker literally just wants to blow you up with gas bombs.


Proton

• Position: Team Rocket Admin
• Japanese Name: Lance

Proton's a generically cool-looking design with that fancy blue hair, but Proton's basically the 'boring one'. Ariana and Archer are the leaders with Archer having a huge fanboy complex; Petrel's got a lot of personality, but Proton? Proton's basically barely better than a grunt, and in fact, one of his two appearances in HG/SS is actually filled by a generic grunt instead of an executive in original G/S/C. His team is genuinely sad, not much better than a generic Rocket Grunt, and he doesn't realyl have any interesting dialogue to speak off. I dunno, like Petrel, I feel like Proton could've been given a couple of extra lines of dialogue to give him any sort of personality.

Click below for trainer classes introduced in Generation II!


A lot of the basic trainer classes from Generation I basically got slightly updated sprites for Generation II, and, well, being a direct sequel, a lot of the classes and human characters stayed the same. We did get a bunch of new ones, though, mostly to replace ones like Channeler and Rocker and Engineer that got retired post-Generation-I. And it's kind of interesting to see what they brought up, and what they just made up to fill up a niche required in the game.

The Poke Fans (Daisuki Club; Lovers/Fandom Club) is a bit of an interesting class that I never quite fully 'got' until, well, I'm a bit older. See, I've always thought that the Pokefans are just members of the Pokemon Fan Club (a constant minor recurring theme in many regions), but why are they always shown -- particularly pre-Gen-VI -- to be middle-aged men and women with babies? Well, they're basically adults who didn't give up their love for their hobbies, and are healthily buying dolls and are giving their happy babies Pikachu hoodies and stuff. And I do love that all of the babies hanging around the dads are having a good old time, and the more detailed artwork of the Generation VI battle-artwork show the Pokefans being so, so happy with their purchases. You can just totally relate to them. They may be old, but that doesn't mean they can't like the Pokeymans, y'know? Don't judge, everyone has their hobbies. They are very wholesome, and every single sprite here makes me happy.

The Twins (Futagochan; Twins) are a character class that's pretty interesting. They were introduced in Generation II and basically had a pair of identical Pokemon, or version-exclusives, or counterparts of some sort (like Vileplume and Victreebel) but ultimately they were just neat, two little girls who fight together. Come Generation III, though, and the advent of double battles, and the Twins class is suddenly one of the few classes that will always fight you in double battles and tended to have a bunch of paired Pokemon, like Plusle and Minun and the like. They've shown up a lot, and they've been all pretty cute. Generation IV and V had the cutest sprites for them, I feel. They're all girls, too, which, actually, is truth in video games -- identical twins are far more likely to be girls than boys.

The School Kid (Jukugaeri; "coming home from cram school") are basically sort of younger versions of Lasses and... well, they're the same age as Youngsters, I suppose. Their Japanese name is kind of overly specific of a certain trope of stuper-studious young kid, and I'm actually surprised they show up a fair amount of times in the franchise. My favourite one is the HG/SS School Kid, who apparently is in such a hurry to pull out his pokeball that the rest of his schoolbag's spilled out. Notably, the School Kid sprite in Generation III is the inspiration of anime main character Max, and Max's appearance would be used for the School Kid's appearance in the Hoenn remakes.

Replacing the Engineer and Rocker classes is the new Electric-type specialist trainer, the Guitarist, who alternates between different sorts of homages to actual musicians. They're only active in Johto, Hoenn and Sinnoh, though, plus Roxie's gym in Unova. As the generations went on, there's a fun little shift from just using electric-types into using music and sound-related Pokemon, with later iterations of the Guitarist using Pokemon like Whismur, Loudred, Kricketune and Zubat, all Pokemon that have some sort of connection to sound waves or music. That's cool!

One of the missing common professions in the original Generation I games was the Police Officer (Omawarisan; Policeman), which is probably why Team Rocket is so rampant. Swapping names in localizations from Officer to Policeman until finally settling on Police Officer, they are... they're more like street-patrolmen, yeah? At least until Generation V, where that's clearly a very Caucasian looking tough mall cop. Also, look at that positively TERRIFYING British cop from Sword/Shield, he looks less like a friendly policeman and more like a serial killer who's going to visit you in your sleep. Also, despite basically all the recurring major characters from the original season of the anime being represented in some way in the games, I'm surprised we never had an Officer Jenny-esque sprite among the Police Officers.


The Kimono Girls (Maiko-han) are originally just a set of fancy dancers in Ecruteak City that you meet in a specific dancing lounge, and there's exactly five of them -- each with an Eevee evolution. In HG/SS, though, the five Kimono Girls get upgraded into a recurring, enigmatic set of NPC's that sort of follow your character around and would give you hints about your eventual destiny and be the ones that dance around to help you summon Lugia or Ho-Oh, depending on your game. After all, the original G/S/C didn't have Lugia and Ho-Oh, the mascot legendaries, as part of the main plot, and the remake team ended up using the already-present set of quirky minibosses as a way to end up with a bunch of neat new NPC's and a fun presence in the very traditional-Japan vibe of Johto.

All the trainers from here on only ever appeared in Johto games, so they only have Generation II and IV artworks.

Something most kids can relate to... a Teacher (Sensei; teacher). But surprisingly, they only show up in Johto. Plus, only a single trainer (who reuses the Office Worker model) in Alola. Considering this franchise is meant for children, I'm surprised we don't see them a bit more in the many Pokemon Schools that show up in most of the regions. Not much to say here, they're ladies and I'm grateful that the Generation IV Teacher sprite has dropped the cane.


The Sage (Bozu; monk) is basically there as part of a specific 'dungeon', for lack of a better term, in Johto, namely the Bellsprout Tower in Violet City, which has its roots on the Buddhist fixtures in the region that Johto is based upon. The ones in Violet Tower use Bellsprouts and Hoothoots due to the whole theme of the area they're in, and they also double up as Morty's gym grunts. They sure are monks, and they have a bunch of alternate artwork thanks to localization problems.


The Medium (Itako, a specific blind medium) sort of replaces the Channelers as someone that's clearly not possessed, but they're basically trading a religious theme for a different religious theme, and that's basically a no-no and the reason these old ladies also never showed up outside of Johto. There's only a handful of these around, and they basically only show up in Ecruteak and Saffron's gyms.


The Firebreather (Hifukiyaro; Fire-Breathing Guy) is... a dude breathing fire? Obviously, they're Fire-type specialists, although they do show up in a region where there's no Fire-type specialist, and Blaine's appearance in the original Generation II games didn't come with gym grunts. I've always found their sprite to be weird, like they're some sort of Santa Claus elf or something. They're carnival performers or something, I suppose? They're also associated with Koffing, which I do find interesting how Koffings get associated with Fire-type trainers sometimes in these early games. Where there's fire, there's some, I suppose.


The Boarder (Boda) is a dude doing some snow-boarding. They're basically there to give the Ice-type a specialized trainer, so Pryce has a bunch of gym grunts in his giant ice rink of a gym. I don't think the Boarder is even seen outside of the Mahogany gym, since the ice-themed cave, the Ice Path, doesn't have any trainers. Man, Ice got real shafted among the types, huh?

The Skier (Sukiya) is also an Ice-themed trainer, hanging out in Pryce's ice rink gym... but they do appear in Sinnoh's icy areas, in both male and female flavours. I guess snowboarders is just not popular in Sinnoh? I don't have anything to say here. They sure are skiers.

And... and that's it for Johto. I expected this to be a lot shorter, and my original draft for this article is basically combining this and Hoenn, but I guess I'll take things slowly and just talk about the human characters one generation at a time.