Leaf (game)

Leaf リーフ Leaf
Art from Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen
Gender	Female
Hometown	Pallet Town
Region	Kanto
Relatives	Mother
Trainer class	Pokémon Trainer, Player character
Generation	III
Games	FireRed, LeafGreen
Manga counterpart(s)	Blue, Green

Leaf (Japanese: リーフ Leaf) is the female counterpart to Red and is the main playable character in Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen. She lives in Pallet Town, across from her upcoming rival in Pokémon training, Blue. Leaf is presumably 11 years old, the same age as her male counterpart.

Story

In FireRed and LeafGreen

When selected as the player character

Leaf is a curious girl from Pallet Town. The Generation I instruction booklets explain that Red became interested in Pokémon after his best friend, Blue, stopped playing with him and became a bully, so presumably this is true for Leaf, Red's female counterpart, as well. Her adventure begins one day when Professor Oak calls her to his lab and gives her a choice of Pokémon. Blue challenges Leaf to a Pokémon battle as soon as they get their Pokémon. A bit later, Professor Oak calls the two back, gives each of them a Pokédex, and sends them on a journey to fulfill their dream of capturing every type of Pokémon.

Leaf travels all over Kanto, filling in the Pokédex and defeating Gym Leaders. Her rival Blue constantly stays one step ahead, and shows up quite a few times to impede her progress. When Leaf eventually reaches the Elite Four, she finds that Blue has beaten her to a milestone yet again and has become the league champion. Leaf defeats Blue in the final battle, and becomes the champion herself.

Leaf's main conflict in the games, aside from Blue, is Team Rocket, an infamous group of Pokémon thieves. Leaf clashes with Team Rocket many times in her quest. She defeats a group of grunts at Mt. Moon who are attempting to steal rare Pokémon fossils, and defeats another group ahead at a bridge in Cerulean City. Leaf protects the Pokémon Tower and Mr. Fuji in Lavender Town and destroys their hold on the Game Corner. After she foils their plot to take over Silph Co., Leaf encounters Giovanni, the leader of Team Rocket, as the final Gym Leader in Viridian City. Upon defeating him, Leaf stops the group's world domination plots once and for all, though a few remaining grunts, many who appeared and were defeated by Leaf on Chrono Island in Generation III, would band together in Johto to try and revive the group.

When not selected as the player character

When not selected as the player character, Leaf does not appear in the game. Leaf's actions in this case are currently unknown.

In other games

Leaf makes a cameo appearance in both Pokémon Colosseum and Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness. While she does not appear in the games' Story Mode, she is playable in the Battle Mode when a FireRed or LeafGreen cartridge is used with her as the player character. She can take on the Mt. Battle's 100-battle challenge, as well as compete in Colosseum battles.

Optional names for Leaf

Sprites

File:FRLG Leaf.png			File:FRLG Leaf.gif
Leaf sprite from Generation III	Back sprite from Generation III	Intro sprite from Generation III	Credits sprite from Generation III	Leaf model from Colosseum	Leaf headshot from Pokémon XD

Counterparts

Though no counterpart to Leaf has appeared in the Pokémon anime, she has a few counterparts appearing in various Pokémon manga.

Green from the Pokémon Adventures manga, who appears to be based on an unused female player character from Pokémon Red and Green, is widely considered to be Leaf's counterpart in the manga. This is supported by the fact that Green's outfit changes to match Leaf's in the FireRed & LeafGreen arc.

Leaf also has a counterpart in the Pokémon Ruby-Sapphire manga series named Blue.

Trivia

• Although her official debut was in FireRed/LeafGreen, Leaf's artwork was in Pokémon Colosseum, which came out a full two months before the aforementioned remakes.
• In Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Jigglypuff can wear Leaf's hat as an alternate costume. This is similar to how Pikachu wears Red's hat as an alternate costume and coincidentally, Leaf's Pokémon Adventures counterpart is Green, whose main Pokémon is a Jigglypuff and Red's Pokémon Adventures counterpart's main Pokémon is a Pikachu.
• Leaf is the only player character who has not had an appearance in the anime, either through a counterpart (as is the case with Jimmy/Ethan and Ash/Red) or a movie cameo (as has happened to Brendan and Lucas).
  • Alongside Kris, Leaf is also the only player character who does not appear even if her alternate-gender counterpart has been selected as the player.
• One of Leaf's sprites shows her with blue eyes although every other sprite, and the official artwork, shows her with brown eyes.
• The majority of her Japanese default names are shared with Dawn and Lyra. She also shares all of Kris's alternate Japanese names.
• Leaf is the only female player character whose default name is not a common given name. Kris, May, Dawn, and Lyra are all somewhat common given names.
  • Leaf's name was found in FireRed and LeafGreen's data as a dummied-out opponent Trainer, alongside Red (whose name is Red as it was before).
• One of her default names in Japanese is "Satoko," the pseudonym used by Ash in Pokémon Scent-sation! to get into Erika's Gym.
• Despite popular belief that Leaf would reappear as an opponent, much like her male counterpart and her rival, in Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver (due to them being sequels to Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen, where she was introduced), she does not appear within the games, nor is she referred to.
• Though she is neither playable nor an opponent in the handheld Generation IV games, Leaf made a brief cameo battling against Red in an early trailer for Pokémon Battle Revolution on the Wii.
• Though "Leaf" is by far the name she is most commonly known by, she is also sometimes referred to as Fuguri (フグリ) in the Japanese fandom. The name is derived from リーフグリーン (rīfugurīn).

This game character article is part of Project CharacterDex, a Bulbapedia project that aims to write comprehensive articles on each character found in the Pokémon games.