- Greetings Pokefans! Michael here and the
Pokémon protagonists are, well, you and me
and to anyone else who's ever played
a Pokémon game. Since these protagonists all
have countless different teams that have defeated the league and all these different
alternate universes, they don't have set
canonical teams, or do they? Today, I'm going
to be going through every main series
Pokémon game protagonist and giving them teams
that I think make the most sense for them. I'm gonna try to fill them with as much canonical official
Pokémon as possible, but there are gonna be
several situations where I just kind of have
to go with something that I think makes the
most sense for them. So don't forget to
subscribe to my channel 'cause I'd appreciate it. And let's dive in
to giving a team to every single main
series Pokémon protagonist. The first protagonist is Red. The one with the most amount
of appearances in games where he is not the protagonist, therefore he has a ton of
existing official teams. His Gen 2 team is
Pikachu, Espeon, Snorlax, Venusaur, Charizard,
and Blastoise His Gen 4 team swaps
in Lapras for Espeon. He then has this
same squad of six for Gen 5 and the Alola games, but then Let's Go changes it up and swaps in
Machamp and Arcanine for Blastoise and Charizard. Then in Pokémon Origins
he beats the league with Charizard, Lapras,
Jolteon, Persian, Scyther and Dodrio, a team that's almost
completely different from the other ones. Then in the Pokémon
Adventures Manga, he has Poliwrath,
Venusaur, Pikachu, Snorlax, Gyarados
and Aerodactyl. I should note about
the Manga though, the Adventures Manga is a
wildly different universe than what we're used to
in the main series games, or even the anime Red doesn't defeat
the Elite Four and then his rival,
like in the games, he just partakes in a tournament much like anime and wins. There's also other
crazy stuff that happens like fricking Zapmolcuno
which side note, I have a fun video about if you wanna hear the story of
what the heck that even was. What I'm trying to
say here is that since the Adventures
Manga universe is so incredibly different, I'm not going to
take it into account as much as I will other sources. But back to Red's team, clearly I have a lot of
Pokémon to pick from, but the first and
biggest decision, is which starter or
starters do I give him? In most of his main
series appearances, he has all three Venusaur,
Charizard and Blastoise. My understanding of the
reasoning for him having these three Pokémon
plus Pikachu, is to represent everyone
who played a game in Gen 1. He has all possible
Gen 1 starters, so he's not representing
some people over the other. The fallout of this though,
is that the rival Blue, when you fight him in Gen
2 or Gen 4 or other games, he doesn't have a
Kanto starter at all. But, as the traditional
story of the Gen 1 events go, he does have a starter, the one that's
strong against Reds. There are several
instances where Red does have just one specific
Kanto starter though. In the Adventures
Manga and Let's Go and some early art
depictions of him, he has Venusaur, but
then he has Charizard in Pokémon Origins
and Pokémon Masters. Him having either
Charizard or Venusaur I think is intentional
to how it works with the box arts of Gen 1. If Red goes with Venusaur, then Blue who's name
is Green in Japan goes with Charizard. Therefore you have the
two box art Pokémon for Red and Green. If Red goes with Charizard, then Blue goes with Blastoise, which then of course
are the box art Pokémon for the Western Gen 1
games, Red and Blue. To my knowledge,
we never see Red have just a member
of the Blastoise line and no other starters,
because that means Blue would have Venusaur, and Blastoise and Venusaur were never version pair Pokémon. But anyways, the choice
between giving Red all three starters or
just one is difficult, but I'm leaning more toward
giving him just one starter. It aligns with the
story of events better because we know Red, just
picked one originally and Blue picked the
one strong against him. That's just how those
events played out. So I think originally
he had just won. And for his team for this video, I'm just giving him one. As for whether it's
Charizard or Venusaur, I've decided to
go with Venusaur. My reasoning for this is that
in all of Red's appearances and all of the main
series games specifically, there's only one time where he only has one
starter in Let's Go and Let's Go Red has Venusaur. Plus, I think that
early art of him showing him with Bulbasaur is a pretty compelling
argument as well. So his starter is Venusaur and then for the
rest of his team, the immediate Pokémon
to fill in are Pikachu, Snorlax, and Lapras. Pokémon has across many
different teams and generations. In Let's Go, he
finishes the team off with Arcanine and Machamp. But to be honest, I disagree
with those being there. Machamp and Arcanine, are far more commonly found
on Blues teams, not Reds. So, I don't like that they're
there on his Let's Go team and so I'm choosing
not to include it in this version of Reds team 'cause it just doesn't
sit right with me. As for the final two slots
one would be Espeon's since he had that in Gen 2. And for the final spot, Mewtwo. I know this may seem a
little crazy, but hear me out because I eliminated Charizard, Blastoise, Arcanine and Machamp, I have now filled in every
single main series Pokémon that Red uses. I have no Pokémon left. While I could cherry
pick a Pokémon from his Origins team
or his Manga team, I think Mewtwo fits the best, because of the story of Gen 1, as it goes the Kanto protagonist
journeys into Cerulean cave after becoming champion and
there he catches Mewtwo. We literally see Red himself
doing this in Origins, therefore in a fantasy world where the game devs
don't have to worry about balancing or having
the Johto protagonist, be able to catch Mewtwo, Red, would have Mewtwo
and he would use it. So therefore I think it
works as his final Pokémon. The next protagonist is Leaf, the female player character
from FireRed and LeafGreen. And this character is in
a bit of a weird position because she actually
never appears anywhere, except the games where
she was the protagonist. And she also didn't even
exist as an option in Gen 1. So while we have limited
knowledge about Leaf, there is another character
that's extremely similar to her, that being Green, whose
name is Blue in Japan. Green and Blue's names
are swapped in the U.S compared to Japan. It gets a little confusing, but in the U.S we
call her Green. You find her in the
post game of Let's Go and while she is
not explicitly Leaf, since she has a different name, she is clearly a
different incarnation of the same character, just with a different name. Another link between
these two characters is that in the Manga, they
are not two characters. Green in the Pokémon
Adventures Manga, wears Leaf's outfit,
clearly indicating that they're the same character. I don't really know how
or why this happened. Why are they are designated
as Leaf versus Green? It's very confusing, but based on how extremely
similar they are in design and the fact that they
are the same character in the Manga, for the
sake of this video, I'm counting them as
just the same character. Therefore Leafs team would be the same as
Green's team from Let's Go, Blastoise, Clefable, Gengar, Victreebel, Ninetales
and Kangaskhan. There are two more
Kanto protagonists, Chase and Elaine in Let's Go, but I will be covering
them later in the video once I get to the Gen 7 segment. Now to move on to
the Johto region, but things are gonna
be a bit different from here on out. With Red and Green/Leaf, they both make
appearances in games where they are not
the protagonist. Therefore indicating that they are two distinct
unique characters. But with all the
subsequent protagonists, they either never appear
as not the protagonist or they do, but only
in their own game when you selected
the opposite gender. What this means is that for all the not Red and
Green/Leaf protagonists, they're the same character. They filled the exact same role and are completely
interchangeable. Therefore, I will just be giving
one team for both of them, because as I said, they're
the same character. To give you an example for
why I needed to do this, let's take a look at
the Johto protagonists, Ethan Kris and Lyra. Ethan is shown with
Typhlosion in multiple places. Kris is shown with Feraligatr
in multiple places, and Lyra is shown with Meganium. While I could try to give
them all unique teams, that causes a problem, because if all the
starters are taken up by these three, what the
hell does Silver have? Well, apparently in Masters, he gets freakin' Ho-ho, if all the starters are
taken up by the protagonists, it causes issues with how
the rival fits into the story in a lot of the regions. They have to be
counted as one entity since only one of them actually carries out the
events of a particular region. Yes, Ethan can talk to
Lyra and vice versa, but only one of them
ends up defeating Red. So what will the Johto
protagonist team be? Well, I'll be
taking Pokémon from a lot of different places. First is the starter, which rotates depending on the incarnation
of this protagonist, Typhlosion for Ethan, Feraligatr for Kris and Meganium for Lyra. Next is a Azumarill , since both Ethan and
Lyra have a Marill when not the
protagonist in Gen 4, and Lyra has Marill
in the anime. Next is Togekiss, the gift Togepi
now fully evolved, and as we saw with
Red having Lapras, gift Pokémon makes sense to represent on
protagonist teams. Next would be Donphan, since we see Ethan, or maybe it's Jimmy
with a new look? Unclear. Use one during the
intro for Zoroark, Master of illusions. Next is Girafarig, since Lyra has one in the anime and finally is Ho-oh
or Lugia or Suicune, depending on the
version of events. None of these
characters are ever seen actually possessing a legend, but in my opinion, if a protagonist has to fight a legendary as
part of the story, then it should be assumed
that they catch it. Post-game legendaries
don't count because those are
totally optional. I'm just talking
about legendaries you have to battle and have the chance to catch
during the main story. The only exception is
Red with Mewtwo because that's always tacked
on to the Kanto story and hell we see Red
literally catch it. One last thing I should
mention before I move on from the Johto
protagonists though, is that in HeartGold
and SoulSilver, Ethan or Lyra, depending on who
you're playing as, mentions having four Pokémon that I did not put
onto this team, Tauros, Tangela,
Bulbasaur and Porygon, depending on where you call them and they'd say something on the PokeGear or
something like that. I could have included these, but I just personally didn't
think they fit as well. So we can say that
they have them as backup Pokémon in
the box or something. Now we can move on
to the Hoenn games, the protagonist being
Brendan and May. And once again these characters are interchangeable. One of them is the protagonist and one of them is the rival, which one is which
just depends on the version of
events you go with. First is the starter pick
and Brendan's is Sceptile. Brendan is seen with Sceptile in Pokémon Generations, Pokémon Masters and the
ORAS animated trailer. And he's only seen
with other starters in one of his brief anime cameos and an old art from the
Ruby-Sapphire guidebook. May's is harder to pin down. She has Blaziken in the anime, as does her Manga
counterpart Sapphire and she's depicted with Torchic in Jirachi promotional art. However, she has
Mudkip in her figurine and another piece of art, and she has both of them in the ORAS animated trailer. It's not an easy call, but I've decided to
give her Blaziken. This is a personal decision, but I just more heavily
associate her with Blaziken, due to how much of
the Hoenn season of the anime I watched
when I was younger. For most of the
rest of the team, I can simply select
Pokémon that they use at some point or another in the main series
games when rivals. Wailord is the first one, since neither of them
are using Swampert. Men Brendan gets Magcargo while May gets Breloom, covering the elemental type their starter does not. Swellow is used for them
in Ruby and Sapphire, and then Raichu is used in the after-credits
battle for ORAS. Finally is Groudon or Kyogre, since the battle with
them is part of the story. Although in the Emerald
version of events, they don't actually
battle Groudon or Kyogre as part of the main story they don't actually
battle a legendary at all. All they have to do
is summon Rayquaza they don't actually have to go and battle it and
try to catch it. That's completely optional. So for the Emerald version
of these protagonists, they wouldn't have
Groudon or Kyogre. To fill this gap,
I'd say Ludicolo it obviously overlaps types, but Emerald, Brendan
and May have Ludicolo even if they chose Swampert. And I liked Ludicolo,
so they get to have one. Next is Sinnoh, the protagonist
being Lucas and Dawn. First, we have to
designate starters, but this decision is
honestly pretty tough because ideally I can have
Lucas with one of them, Dawn with another, and Barry with another but that's not as
easy as it may seem. Barry is most often
seen with Empoleon, having it in the anime
and Pokémon Masters. But then his Adventures Manga counterpart Pearl has Infernape. Dawn, has Piplup in the anime, but then Turtwig in Masters. Lucas is never seen anywhere
with a specific starter, even including this Battle
Frontier arts where he has none, but it's implied he has Empoleon due to Dawn having Infernape and Barry having Torterra, starters we don't see
them having anywhere else. In short, It's a mess. I think the best solution
is to give Barry Empoleon because we see him with
Empoleon more often than either of the
other two starters. That means that
Dawn/Lucas has Infernape since Barry is supposed
to have the starter that is strong against
the protagonist starter. Then Dawn/Lucas, whichever one ends up
as not the protagonist in any given universe,
ends up with Torterra. The next members after Infernape are Clefable and Alakazam, fully evolved forms for
the Pokémon Lucas and Dawn using one of the multi
battles against Team Galactic. Next is Magmortar,
the only Pokémon Lucas has ever been seen using
outside of the main series. Next is Lucario, the evolved form of the Riolu
egg given an Iron Island. And finally as Dialga,
Palkia or Giratina, depending on the game and
the version of events. Next is the pair of
Unova protagonists, Hilbert and Hilda. And these once again, have
to be the same entity. As the black and
white story goes, the protagonist has one starter, then Cheren has the starter
strong against that one while Bianca has the
one week against that. If Hilbert and Hilda are
two different characters, that's then four people
who have to have starters, and that just doesn't work, Hilbert Hilda, same person. As for which one of them
tends to have which starter, the choice is not easy because Hilda is most often
seen with Tepig/Emboar, but then that means Bianca
would have Serperior a starter she is literally never
seen with, to my knowledge. But I think that's
just something we're gonna have to live with. So for the sake of simplicity, I'm just giving Hilbert or
Hilda their Masters starter. Hilbert starter is
Samurott in Masters and Hilda's is Emboar, which she also has
in her figurine. Then would be
Reshiram or Zekrom, depending on the version
of events that played out. After these two, though, we have to get more creative because Hilbert and Hilda don't really appear anywhere
as not the protagonist. Well, that's not
completely true. There are multi battle
partners in the Battle Subway, but there are lists of
potential Pokémon they can use is a mile long. So it's not super helpful. I probably will pick some
Pokémon from this list, but I'm not going to populate
the rest of their team with exclusively
Pokémon from that list. The next member I
think they should have is the elemental monkey
strong against the starter, the gift one from the Dreamyard. So Simisage for Hilbert
and Simipour for Hilda. Then would be Volcarona, either the evolved egg
received on Route 18 or the one found
in Relic Castle. Finally, it would be
Archeops and Beartic. These are Pokémon they
use in the Battle Subway, with the most amount
of different sets. Archeops having four and
Beartic having three. And neither of them
overlap with any Pokémon on Cheren's or Bianca's teams, or with any existing
typings they already have. Next are the other
protagonists Nate and Rosa, and they're starter choices
are made more clear. Nate has Emboar as seen
in the Black 2 to White 2 animated trailer and
Rosa has Serperior seen in that trailer as well, also in Masters and
in her figurine, leaving Hugh with Samurrot. As multi battle partners
outside the Battle subway, they have the elemental monkey
that's weak to their starter. So Nate has Simisage
and Rosa has Simipour. Next are Lucario and Arcanine, two Pokémon Nate uses in the black 2 white
2 animated trailer. Finally are Zoroark
and Sawsbuck. The evolved forms of two
gift Pokémon received during the Black
2 White 2 story. Remember Lapras and
honestly Espeon 2 set a precedent on Red's team for gift Pokémon making sense. So that's why I'm going
with the gift Pokémon here. Also remember that
during the story of Black 2 and White 2, the protagonist doesn't
actually have the chance to catch Kyurem or
Zekrom or Reshiram until after
defeating the league. So therefore, it's more optional and I'm not going
with that here. Now onto the Kalos
protagonists, Calem and Serena. Now these two serve as rivals
in their respective games when they are not
the protagonist. So it's easier to
fill out their teams. However, I'm not just
gonna make it flat out their rival teams because there are Pokémon that they would obtain
in the main story as the protagonist that
makes sense to go in there. Calem's starter is Chesnaught
as seen in Generations. Serena's is Delphox
as seen in Masters, her figurine and the anime. Next would be the Kanto starter strong against
their Kalos starter. Since Calem has
Charizard in Generations, meaning Serena would
have Blastoise. Next is Xerneas or Yveltal, depending on the
version of events. After that would be
Meowstic, Altaria and Mega Absol Pokémon from
their squads when rivals. The gender of the
Meowstic matches the gender of the protagonists. Now onto the Alola
protagonists, Elio and Selene, protagonists names I've heard
a very few number of times because they have a literally
no appearances anywhere as not the protagonist. They're not the rival if
you choose the other gender, they don't show up anywhere,
but their own games. So it's really tough to
fill their teams, or is it? The first tricky part is
that there's not really a clear starter
for either of them. Most art featuring
Elio and Selene shows all three
starters, not just one. There are a few instances
of them having just one like Elio with Decidueye, Elio with Incineroar,
Selene with Rowlet or Selene with the two
that are not Rowlet. However, there is a more
clear starter for Hau, that being Decidueye, since
he has it in the anime. Hau has the starter
weak to the protagonist, which means the starter
for Elio and Selene would be Incineroar. This means the art for
Team Rainbow Rocket, literally gives us an entire
team for Elio and Selene. Incineroar, Toucannon,
Dusk Lycanroc, Tsareena, Alolan Ninetales
and Alolan Raichu. I should note though that for the Sun and
Moon version of events, Solgaleo or Lunala would
swap in for one of them, probably Alolan Raichu
due to the type overlap, while Necrozma would swap in for the ultra version of events. Next are the Let's Go
protagonists, Chase and Elaine. First is their starter,
Pikachu or Eevee. Chase is more often
shown with Pikachu while Elaine is more
often shown with Eevee but they can be interchanged. Next are all three
Kanto starters, Chase is shown with Charizard and since Red was not given
all three in this video, I think it makes sense to give these Kanto
protagonists, all three, after all in the
Let's Go universe, it's much more easy to
get all three of them. The only way to get
all three of them without trading in all
the other Kanto games, is if you play Yellow,
whereas in Let's Go, you get all three
Kantos starters, every time due to gifts. And also they spun in the wild. The last two slots are
tough to fill though because they don't canonically have any other Pokémon. I could fill it with
Snorlax and Lapras, since those are iconic
Kanto Pokémon to have, but then their team would
just be the same as Red's. Instead, I suggest Aerodactyl
and Hitmonlee/Hitmonchan. These are other relatively
iconic Kanto Pokémon obtained in ways
that are not simply catching them in the grass,
at least prior to Let's Go, and I think they fill
out the team nicely. They're not canon or anything, but they work well
in my opinion. The final protagonists
are Victor and Gloria, the sword and
shield protagonists. These ones have nothing. Well, not nothing,
just very, very little. They don't appear as not
the protagonist as of now and the art of them,
doesn't really tend to show them with
Pokémon specifically. The first I could find
is the Pokémon camp art, which is so chock
full of Pokémon that I can't really know
which one belongs to who. The next is this
gym art of Victor about to face off against Milo, and Victor has Scorbunny here. And that's it. They do have manga counterparts whose names have not
been translated yet so I'm not gonna
try to pronounce it 'cause I know I'll butcher them. But their teams are sad, like
Gloria's manga counterpart, lost her entire
team of six Pokémon after encountering illusions
of Zacian and Zamazenta. That's like the
quest of the manga has try to get them back, which is just like,
God dang dude. So instead of using that,
I'm just gonna get creative. First is Cinderace, since we have that art of
Victor using Scorbunny. Then is Zacian or Zamazenta, depending on the
version of events. I know it's a post-game
legendary encounter that is technically optional, but it's a post-game story. You know, it's not just
like poking into a cave and also I'm desperate, okay. Next is Toxricity, the evolved-up gift
Toxel from the daycare. Then is Centiskorch, the
evolved-up Sizzlipede caught during the Motostoke
gym challenge. Next is Boltund, found
on an early route and not used by
other main characters that you actually battle,
and finally is Urshifu. I know the Isle of Armor
is totally optional and a lot of players
can't even access it 'cause they don't have the DLC, but it is an in universe story and the things that
happen there are canon, so it's a canon story Pokémon
that this character got. And like I said, I'm
desperate so I think it works. But there we go, that's teams
for all the protagonists. Thank you guys so
much for watching and an extra special thanks to my patrons over on patron, we're helping support
the channel independent of fluctuating YouTube ad rates. If you wanna help
support the same way, the link's in the
description below also don't forget MML match, I think is still available
when this video is going up. And if you wanna check out some more of my fun Pokémon content, I recommend these videos here. Alright, that's
all I have for now. So the next time events. Gotta catch them all.
