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 player character in Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen. In her debut, Leaf is presumably 11 years old, the same age as her male counterpart, Red. She lives in Pallet Town, next door to her upcoming rival in Pokémon training, Blue.

Story

In Red, Green and Blue

Though Leaf didn't appear until Generation III, artworks of an unknown female character drawn by Ken Sugimori were released in the games' official strategy guide. This character shared many physical similarities with Leaf, and was also featured with a starter Pokémon, implying she was intended to be a main character.

In FireRed and LeafGreen

As the player character

Leaf is a curious girl from Pallet Town. It is assumed that it holds true that she, much like her male counterpart Red, became interested in Pokémon after her best friend, Blue, stopped playing with her and became a bully. 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 kind of Pokémon.

Leaf travels all over Kanto, filling in the Pokédex and defeating the 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 Indigo League Champion. Leaf defeats Blue in the final battle, and becomes the Champion herself. Her adventure continues even after that, having Leaf find herself into new places, including the Sevii Islands.

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 to revive the group.

As a non-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.

Artwork

File:Sugimori Starter artwork.png
Ken Sugimori artwork featuring Leaf with Red, Blue and the starters.	Ken Sugimori artwork from a 2005 New Year's postcard.	Ken Sugimori artwork.

Sprites

Sprite from Generation III	Back sprite from Generation III	Intro sprite from FireRed and LeafGreen	Credits sprite from FireRed and LeafGreen
Overworld sprite from FireRed and LeafGreen	Overworld sprite from Emerald	Model from Colosseum	Headshot from Pokémon XD

Names

Name origin

Although "Leaf" is by far the name she is most commonly known by in the community, she has no official given name. Her name is based on dummy Trainer data of FireRed and LeafGreen, with the male main character being named "Red". Oddly enough Blue also has dummy Trainer data under the name "Terry" so this raises a question about the validity of the names.

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).

Optional names

This section is incomplete. Please feel free to edit this section to add missing information and complete it. Reason: Names for Italian versions

Counterparts

Green, Leaf's counterpart in Pokémon Adventures

Though no counterpart to Leaf has appeared in the Pokémon anime, Melody shares some physical similarities with her.

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 and LeafGreen, a character model of Leaf is present 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.
• Also in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, the Pokémon Trainer has an alternate costume palette that makes his hat have the same color's as Leaf's.
• Leaf's hat somewhat resembles a Premier Ball.
• Leaf's FireRed and LeafGreen sprite 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.
• 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.
• Had Leaf been a player character in the Generation I, she would have been the only player character to not wear any head gear of any kind.

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.