May (anime): Difference between revisions

May (Japanese: ハルカ Haruka) is a ten-year-old Pokémon Coordinator from the anime and a traveling companion of Ash. Her goal is to compete in Pokémon Contests and win ribbons, win the Grand Festivals of the different regions, and become a top Coordinator. She traveled through Hoenn and Kanto with Ash, Brock, and her little brother Max. She is the daughter of Norman and Caroline, and her starter Pokémon was a Torchic given to her by Professor Birch.

Character

May is a young Coordinator who loves shopping and eating treats. She has a particular fondness for food, especially noodles. And when someone steals her food, she gets angered from head to toe. May is generally very sweet and optimistic, though she shows a tougher side sometimes, such as when she argues with her little brother, Max. Even though they argue often, she has shown that she deeply cares for her brother.

She loves cute Pokémon, flashy techniques, and has a tendency to rely on luck, often using her Skitty's Assist or her Munchlax's Metronome. She sometimes takes an interest in helping other people with romantic problems. She loves making her own Pokéblocks with recipes that she thinks up, including ones called "May's Purple Surprise" and "May's Pink Surprise" (Japanese: Haruka's Delicious and Haruka's Delicious 2).

When May debuted in the anime, she did not like Pokémon at all and was only interested in becoming a Pokémon Trainer so she could travel. Everyone expected her to become a Trainer, to follow in her Gym Leader father's footsteps. However, after seeing a Pokémon Contest in All Things Bright and Beautifly!, she decided to become a Pokémon Coordinator. Though she was initially shown to not know much about Pokémon or attacks, she gradually gained experience through her journey and soon became a talented coordinator, with her skill being displayed in her Grand Festival rankings in the Hoenn and Kanto regions. Dawn once referred to her as the "Princess of Hoenn" when they met.

During her journey, she finds a rival in Drew, a skilled and sometimes arrogant Coordinator who was one of her main inspirations to try harder to further her skills. Another rival of hers, Harley, is a flamboyant man who goes to extremes to beat May. At the Kanto Grand Festival, May competed against Solidad, an experienced Coordinator to whom she lost to in the semi-finals. At the end of the Advanced Generation series, she left to compete with Drew, Harley and Solidad in the Johto region, aiming to find "her own style". May has Contest Passes to compete in Hoenn, Kanto and Johto.

May reappeared from Our Cup Runneth Over! to Strategy With a Smile! to participate in the Wallace Cup alongside Ash, Dawn and Zoey. During this period, she wore the Emerald Version of her outfit. May made it all the way to the finals of the Wallace Cup, but narrowly lost to Dawn in the end.

May has a personal ending theme song, I Won't Lose! ~Haruka's Theme~, performed by KAORI. It was first used as background music in the episode Curbing the Crimson Tide and again in next episode, What I Did for Love.

Pokémon

This listing is of May's Pokémon as of Strategy with a Smile!:

→ → Torchic → Combusken → Blaziken

→ → Wurmple → Silcoon → Beautifly

Skitty

File:May's Bulbasaur.PNG → → Bulbasaur → Ivysaur → Venusaur

Munchlax

→ Squirtle → Wartortle

File:May's Eevee Egg.png → → Egg → Eevee → Glaceon

Borrowed

Hitmonchan

• Hitmonchan: Borrowed from Kyle Hamm in Pasta La Vista.

Ribbons

Hoenn

• Fallarbor Town Ribbon (Come What May!)
• Verdanturf Town Ribbon (Disguise Da Limit)
• Lilycove City Ribbon (Lessons in Lilycove!)
• Izabe Island Ribbon (A Cacturne for the Worse)
• Pacifidlog Town Ribbon (Pacifidlog Jam)

• Mayfallarborribbon.jpg

  May and the Fallarbor Ribbbon

• Maybulbasaurribbon.jpg

  May, Bulbasaur, and the Izabe Ribbon

Kanto

• Saffron City Ribbon (A Hurdle for Squirtle)
• Silver Town Ribbon (Weekend Warrior)
• Chrysanthemum Island Ribbon (Spontaneous Combusken!)
• Gardenia Town Ribbon (What I Did for Love)
• Mulberry Town Ribbon (Going for Choke!)

Johto

• Three unknown Ribbons (prior to A Full Course Tag Battle!)

Grand Festival ranking

May placed in the following Grand Festival competitions:

• Hoenn Grand Festival (Top 8)
• Kanto Grand Festival (Top 4)

Other achievements

• Pokémon Orienteering - Runner-up
• Unofficial Terracotta Contest - Winner (tied with Ash)
• Wallace Cup - Runner-up

Voice actors

In the TCG

This listing is of cards mentioning or featuring May or her Pokémon in the Pokémon Trading Card Game.

Name	Type	Level	Rarity	Set	Set no.
May's Munchlax		-	-	8th Movie Half Deck (no English release)	8/20
May's Combusken		-	-	9th Movie Half Deck (no English release)	2/19
May's Torchic		-	-	"ADV-P" Promotional cards (no English release)	37/"ADV-P"

Trivia

• May was the first female in-game protagonist to travel with Ash.
• May is the only main character who has had two of the same Pokémon as Ash, which are Squirtle and Bulbasaur.
• She is the only one of Ash's friends to catch more than one starter Pokémon.
• She is the only one of Ash's friends who started off not liking Pokémon.
• She is the only beginner trainer that was not given an introduction by the Narrator in their first episode. Instead, she gave her own first person introduction.
• May was the second of Ash's friends to have a lead role in a Pokémon movie, the first being her brother Max.
• May and Max are the only friends of Ash not to meet Ash's rival, Gary Oak, at one time or another. Ironically, May took one of Professor Oak's Squirtle, just as Gary had done when he started out. Also they both ended up getting an Eevee along their journeys and evolving it into an Eeveelution that would debut in the next generation that they premiered in.
• May and Max are two of three of Ash's friends who has had their father make an appearance in the anime. The other is Brock.
• When May reappears as a guest character, she appeared in five episodes, compared to the two episodes Misty appeared in for her guest appearance during the Hoenn saga. However, Misty also made a second guest appearance from The Scheme Team to A Real Cleffa Hanger, a further three episodes. Misty also appeared in four Pokémon Sunday/Chronicles specials, an option not available to May.
• May owns the second most Pokémon that have evolved twice since they were obtained, with three, only after Ash who has four. Though, for both Trainers, they are the final form Template:Type2 starter from their own region (Blaziken), the final form Template:Type2 starter from the other region that appeared in Generation III's handheld games (Venusaur), and the first Pokémon that they caught from the wild, their region's native butterfly (Beautifly). These correspond to Ash's Charizard, Sceptile, and Butterfree. Ash also has a Staraptor.
• The only Pokémon she has that remained unevolved are Munchlax and Skitty. Coincidentally, both are Template:Type2, and each would only need to evolve once to reach their final stage.
• May is the only one of Ash's friends that has never owned a Generation II Pokémon (excluding Max, which does not yet have a Pokémon of his own).
• May is the only one of Ash's female friends to have never fought a gym leader of any sort. She did, however, initially intend to go on her own badge quest before deciding to be a Coordinator, and did in fact battle in a Gym, but with a Gym assistant.
• May's contest cry is "Take the stage!" (US) and "Stage on!" (Japan).
• All of May's major rivals have Template:Type2 Pokémon. Drew has Masquerain and Butterfree, Harley has Ariados and Solidad has Butterfree.
• May is the only female character Ash has traveled with who has met both of the other girls that Ash has traveled with.

Names

Related articles

• Episodes focusing on May

Pokemon is a show that has always known what its core audience is - young kids and progressively socially inept older people skewed more towards male than female. As such, there has always been a tendency (though less so than in other Japanese cartoons) for 'fan-service', or rather putting a female character into a sexual or provocative pose, usually by "accident". This feature is not limited to those female characters who - were they real life people - are of a legal age for such exploitation. There has been in the past a tendency to showcase some of the more 'adult' charms of characters who clearly are not adult. This is not so much fanservice then as it is jailbait - a person below the age of consent with whom sexual intercourse can constitute statutory rape. But it has been forgivable in the past since the core audience is primarily young boys and, of course, those progressively socially inept older male fans. We could forgive the odd bit here and there but in general this stuff is really quite sad. You could dismiss it as just a random quirk of one cell of animation requiring this particular pose, or just animators giving their fanboys a little thrill. At the end of the day, it is attractive women showing what God/Buddha/Vishnu/Nature/Gaea/The Great Clockmaker gave them, and there is nothing wrong with that at all.

Then along came May.

May is, without a doubt, the most blatant piece of jailbait to ever grace such a popular 'kids show' and perhaps goes the furtherest yet towards proving that Pokemon really isn't. Her first appearance on the show caused a few giggles and guffaws as poor taste jokes were made about how well developed she was for a supposedly 10 year old girl. But then as the show continued, the laughter turned to amused disbelief. Could they really get away with stuff like this? As May began modelling swimsuits for a deceptively calm Brock and forcing him to take her shopping everywhere, as her poses began to call more and more for thrusting her chest out at camera we began to get a sense that something deliberate was going on here. Perhaps an attempt to appeal to the aging younger fans who might be starting to think Pokemon was beneath them? Or an attempt to retain the older fans, some of whom it must be admitted have shown a tendency to write and draw VERY adult works based on very young characters. Is it just a coincidence or something a little more dodgy going on here?

Suspension of disbelief

Ignoring conspiracy theories about the creators/animators/translators for a second, let us look at things from within the shows characters points of view. Just how is May's provocative attire and poses going to (or will it) affect the 'men' of the group anyway? Ash is old enough to be attracted to that body while at the same time be digusted by thinking that way about a girl that age. Upon seeing something like the below, how would he react?

Luckily it seems we will not be seeing a new kind of AAML in Pokemon Advance, as Ash appears to be entirely immune/confused/oblivious to May's 'other' charms.

But just what the hell is going on in those three earlier pictures anyway? Shouldn't May be finding some more privacy to 'purge her inner demons? Or is this all part of some scheme of hers? Maybe her character is not as innocent as she portrays? Is she like one of those new young whor.... models you find on the internet nowadays playing with dolls while wearing a thong and putting up an Amazon Wishlist? But what kind of sick, lonely, intensely desperate individual would fall for her charms?

Sugar Daddy

Yes Brock is a sad, sad, sad man. Since he has returned to Ash's group Brock has found himself following May around, going shopping with her (and May has no money, so who is buying this stuff for her? Methinks it starts with B, ends with Rock, rhymes with Drock and is Brock) to watch her model her costumes for him. Misty was always off-limits, Jenny and Joy won't return his calls, the older girls all have boyfriends (real or imaginary) and May at least doesn't sweatdrop in terror at the sight of him, all she asks of him is that he buy her things and give her anything she wants and in return he gets nothing but a chance to sneak a perve and then sit around all day feeling guilty about it.... or does he??

Defender Of Virtue

But all is not lost, while May jaunts around the Hoenn region (not ho'ing through the Hoenn region yet at least) at least one person is trying to preserve her innocence, dignity and their good family name. May's brother Max is the defender of her virtue, doing his utmost to not only cover up her utter incompetence in all things Pokemon but also keep HER covered up. Whether it be taking one for the team by blocking Brock's crotch, showing disdain for the skimpy outfits she flouts herself with or admonishing her not to strip naked on the beach (it happened! even if she turned out to have a swimsuit on underneath, albeit a skin tight, hip hugging green one).

Alabama Boy?

But is even Max immune? He is a growing boy after all, sent out into the world with his only parental guidance now a moron with a talent for battling, a comparatively together breeder who appears to want to get into Max's sisters pants, and the pants wearing sister herself. All alone with no one to tuck him in at night and kiss his forehead, alone in an alien world is Max seeking solace in the only female figure around? Is Cartshipping (a phrase one dodger insists on above the altogether more appropriate Alabamashipping) a reality? Or even a possibility? If so it is wrong, wrong wrong wrong wrong, wrong. Everyone knows this (even people from Alabama), Max knows this, hell even Ash would suspect something was a little off.

External links

• Cherry Girl, the fanlisting for May
• Haruka's Profile on Pokeani (Japanese)
• Haruka's Pokémon on Pokeani (Japanese)
• May Club on the Bulbagarden forums

May's Pokémon
In rotation:	Blaziken	Beautifly	Skitty	Venusaur	Munchlax	Wartortle
	Glaceon
Temporary:	Mudkip	Hitmonchan