Harley: Difference between revisions

Harley (Japanese: ハーリー Harley) is a Coordinator from Slateport City. His Japanese voice actor is 金丸淳一 Jun'ichi Kanemaru and his English voice actors are Andrew Rannells (Template:4Kids dub) and Billy Regan (TPCi dub). Internationally, he is played by Marcelo Campos (initial appearance) and Dado Monteiro (other appearances) in the Brazilian Portuguese dub.

Harley first competed against May in A Cacturne for the Worse!. When the two Coordinators met, Harley was annoyed at May for several petty reasons: she was not familiar with his Cacturne, she called Cacturne "scary," and she spoke as if she was unsure of her statements, specifically regarding cookies Harley offered her. Later, the two competed in a Contest, Harley using Cacturne and May using Bulbasaur. In an attempt to publicly humiliate May, Harley played a recording of Max recalling a time when May was younger and she became stuck in water with a swarm of Tentacool and was extremely frightened. May was embarrassed, but went on to defeat Harley.

Harley and May met up again in the episodes Hi Ho Silver Wind!, Deceit and Assist!, and Rhapsody in Drew!. Harley pretended that he was friends with May, and she initially believed him. He gave her "advice" to have her Skitty use its Assist move repeatedly to make a good appeal; this resulted in Skitty becoming confused after using Bulbasaur's Petal Dance, having to DoubleSlap itself out of confusion. Meanwhile, Drew watched Harley, noticing how he tricked May. Later, May realized Harley's ploy, and soon the two were to battle once again. This time, it was Harley's Cacturne and Banette versus May's Beautifly and Bulbasaur. May won this battle as well, and progressed further into the tournament.

The next time May and Harley met was in Saffron City during the episodes The Saffron Con and A Hurdle for Squirtle. They met on this occasion in the Pokémon Center where Harley stated he was working as an assistant to Nurse Joy in gratitude for her healing his Cacturne. He stated that he was sorry and that he was working hard to make up for things. All of it was a lie and May nearly couldn’t compete because he “mistakenly” told her that she could use her Hoenn pass to compete. However Lilian Meridian, the Kanto Contest MC, gave her a Kanto contest pass and ribbon box in thanks for her help in repelling Team Rocket when they raided the Pokémon Center.

Harley competed in the contest using Cacturne for the appeals and Ariados for the battles. He defeated Jessie who entered with Wobbuffet, but was defeated himself by May and her Squirtle in the finals.

The next time he appeared was in Harley Rides Again, where he competed in the Wisteria Town Contest, using Ariados in the appeals before pitting his Octillery against May’s Munchlax and won for the first and only time so far.

Then he appeared in New Plot-Odd Lot and Going for Choke. This time after learning that May needed one more ribbon to enter the grand festival, he devised a plan to prevent this. To do this, he enlisted the help of Team Rocket, promising to help Jessie win and having James and Meowth help him sabotage May behind the scenes. However Ash, Brock, Max and Drew got wind of this and thwarted his plan.

The next time was in May, we Harley Drew’d Ya, Thinning the Hoard and Channeling the Battle Zone where he competed against May in the Kanto Grand Festival. He used Cacturne and Wigglytuff against Muchlax and Eevee but both defeated his Pokémon.

The final major appearance he had was in The Unbeatable Lightness of Seeing where he simply watched May and Drew have a practice contest battle.

Harley tended to use nicknames for May behind her back. The first was Meno-chan (English equivalent: Miss Tent) after embarrassing her with the Tentacool story. The second was Kamo-chan, referring to the word often used at the end of May's sentences in Japanese that can imply unsureness.

Character

Harley has a rather peculiar personality. He is undeniably flamboyant, wearing an outfit similar in appearance to Cacturne. He has very effeminate mannerisms, which include wiggling his hips as he walks and using アタシ atashi, the Japanese feminine version of I. He also has a tendency to use select English words intermixed with his normal Japanese speech; for example, he calls Cacturne and Banette my buddies and tells May good morning. In the Latin-American dub, this is replaced by using Latin-American slang and allusions to local urban culture; for example, he sings a song by the Mexican showman Juan Gabriel in the Grand Festival, as his Octillery dances in the flames. He talks with a high voice, another sign of effeminacy. Another example of his feminine side is in May, We Harley Drew'd Ya! where Harley cross-dresses as May, calling himself "Mayley," much to May's embarrassment and Solidad's amusement. He is apparently old friends with Solidad, as she said so herself. Fans have speculated that he may be homosexual. In Hi Ho Silver Wind, he was shown to admire "Norman" who was really James in disguise (ironic, considering he hates Norman's kids with all his heart). Then in Harley Rides Again when he makes his entrance he calls Brock "that big boy" (the expression of which is considered homosexual when used by a man). Then in New Plot-Odd Lot, he calls the male members of the group "May's brood of boy toys". Based on the common understanding toy boy/boy toy is defined as a sexually attractive man who is controlled by a most of the time unattractive women, usually with money. This could be a possible ambivalent indication of his distaste of May and his homosexuality.

Beneath his quirks, however, Harley is a deadly Machiavellian character with little to no regard for anybody but himself and his Pokémon. He is arrogant and bad tempered. It is due to his arrogance that he gets angry easily at small things e.g. the reason why he started his feud with May. His arrogance causes him to get angry when his opponent gets the best of him (when they battled the first time he got mad when May had Bulbasaur use Vine Whip to block Cacturne's Poison Sting). He displays signs of sadism in that he humiliates or demeans people in front of others (he played a recording of an embarrassing incident involving May), is amused by and takes pleasure in the suffering of others (in Hi Ho Silver Wind he shows signs of sadism when talking about getting revenge on May and does so in a maniacal nature) and has lied for the purpose of harming or inflicting pain on others (he lied to Max to get him to tell him about the embarrassing incident). He shows signs of Schadenfreude (pleasure in the misfortune of others) in his continual torment of May and her friends. He is similar to the Shakespeare character Iago in the play Othello in that he was upset with the title character and instead of explaining he went and did a spiteful, vindictive scheme. This is due to Harley's own arrogance. Finally as evidenced by his contest performances, Harley shows no qualms in using dirty tactics to win.

He has Contest Passes to compete in Hoenn, Kanto, and presumably now Johto as well.

In A Full Course Tag Battle!, he and Wigglytuff appeared in a flashback. Then Harley, Solidad and Drew made a cameo appearance in Pruning a Passel of Pals!, watching May perform in the Wallace Cup.

Pokémon

Harley seems to take immense pride in his Pokémon, so much so in fact that he dresses up in clothing modeled after his signature Pokémon, Cacturne. None of Harley's Pokémon share a particular typing, but they all have one attribute in common: they can all be quite menacing in contests, even the normally cute Wigglytuff.

This listing is of Harley's known Pokémon:

Cacturne

Banette

Ariados

Octillery

File:HarleysWigglytuff.png Wigglytuff

Trivia

External links

• Atashi, the fanlisting for Harley.
• Harley's Profile on Pokeani (Japanese)
• Harley's Pokémon on Pokeani (Japanese)

Template:Harley's Pokémon