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Green and Blue localization impacts on Pokémon fandom

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Related terms: Blue Oak (Pokémon Game Series), Blue (Pokémon Adventures), Green (Pokémon Adventures)
See also: Pokémon Red, Blue and Yellow, Pokémon Gold, Silver and Crystal, Pokémon Adventures, OriginalShipping, GuriBuru
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Green and Blue localization and Pokémon fandom

Overview

Pocket Monsters Red and Green were the first generation of Pokémon games released, on 27 February 1996, in Japan. Pocket Monsters Blue was was later released in Japan, first as a mail-order-only special edition on October 15, 1996, then released to general retail on October 10, 1999. It features updated in-game artwork and new dialogue. The code, script, and artwork for Blue were used for the international releases of Red and Green, which were titled Pokémon Red and Blue.

In the Pokémon series, the player character and the player character's rival are named by the player.

In the Japanese manuals accompanying the Generation I games, the characters names are given as:

Game version Protagonist's name Rival's name
Red Red (レッド) Green (グリーン)
Green Green (グリーン) Red (レッド)
Blue Blue (ブルー) Red (レッド)
Yellow Yellow (イエロー) Blue (ブルー)

In the original Japanese releases of media adaptations, the rival character has been named Green (グリーン); Midorikawa "Green" Kai (緑川 開), which contains the Japanese word for "green" (緑 midori); and Ookido Shigeru (オーキド・シゲル), known in the English localization as Gary Oak.

Inspired by an unnamed female character appearing in the illustrated strategy guides, the 1997 Pokémon Special manga included a female main character named Blue (ブルー), who joins Red and Green on their adventures.

Beginning with the second generation of Pokémon games, the Generation I player character returns as a non-player character known by the name Red. Red's rival also appears under the name Green (グリーン) in the original Japanese release and in other Asian releases, so that the two characters honor the first games, Red and Green—while being known under the name Blue in Western releases, in honor of the Red and Blue games that the West know as the first releases.

Because the rival character originally known as Green is instead known as Blue in Western releases, the female manga character originally known as Blue is instead known as Green in Western releases of the manga.

Names Language
male Green Oak, female Blue Japanese, Chinese, Korean
male Blue Oak, female Green English, French, Brazilian Portuguese, German, Spanish, Italian

The Generation I games were remade as Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen in 2004. The female playable protagonist option did not have a canon name for many years; she was popularly known by fans as Blue, Green, and Leaf, and that latter name has since been used in official merchandise and media. Leaf is identified as the counterpart of that unnamed female character from the original game strategy guides, and of the female manga character Green.

At some points, the localizations of the original Japanese media have run into errors and oversights when changing all references from Green to Blue.

Impact in fandom

In Western fandoms, fans have their own preferences about whether to use the original names or the localized names for these characters known as Green and/or Blue; generally Western Pokémon fans are otherwise content to use the localized names for most other characters, humans and Pokémon alike. The inconsistency causes confusion and debates.

Green is the grandson of Dr. Ōkido Yukinari (オーキド・ユキナリ博士), known in English as Professor Oak; in certain localizations of Pokémon media, Green and his older sister have shared their grandfather's surname; thus Green is often presumed to be named Green Oak (オーキド・グリーン Ōkido Green) or Blue Oak, which can help to distinguish him from the female character.

Referring to the female FRLG protagonist as Leaf has been noted to be a neat way to side-step the confusion. However, fans also very commonly refer to this character as Blue or Green without distinction.

For some reason, on FanFiction.Net (FFN), many fics starring female Green instead list the Generation V minor character Concordia (Japanese: Helena), while fics starring the male Green instead list Concordia's twin sister, Anthea (known Verbena in Japanese), despite neither Anthea nor Concordia appearing in those fics. The 150+ fics listing Concordia and Anthea are actually overwhelmingly Green/Blue (OldRivalShipping) fics, including the entire first page of fics when sorting fics by descending number favorites.[1] This technical error is the reason why Anthea appears to be one of the top fifteen pairings for the very popular character Red as of 2019,[2] despite a Red x Anthea pairing being essentially unheard of otherwise. The mix-up somehow happened due to a "Blue/Green (unspecified)" character filter being changed at some point in 2014-2018[3][4] to organize the confusing Blue-Green localization mix-up. The male Green Oak is currently listed on FFN as "Blue O./Green O. (male)", while the female Blue is listed as "Green/Blue (female)".

Some Western fans have expressed their confusion at the Kanto game remakes being titled FireRed and LeafGreen, instead of including a title relating to the color blue.

Arguments in favor of male rival Green and female Blue

  • Stick to the original names given; worldwide consistency with Japanese, Chinese, and Korean releases of Pokémon media
  • Eliminate extra work and potential mistakes in dubs, subs, and official graphics that must alter the original Japanese materials
  • The Kanto heroine's outfit emphasizes the color blue. Generation VII Green's pants are green, and he also wears green in other media.
  • Green's family have plant themed names (Oak and Daisy), therefore Green should have a similarly themed name associated with the Green Oak, the Green Orchid, and greenery in general.

Arguments in favor of male rival Blue and female Green

  • It's too late to change things and adjust now. All generations of Western kids that grew up on Pokémon have always known the rival as Blue.
  • Pokémon Red is associated with Charizard, Pokémon Blue is associated with Blastoise, and Pokémon Green is associated with Venusaur. If Red chooses Charmander, then his rival Blue Oak chooses Squirtle for the type advantage, naturally leaving Bulbasaur for Green. It all matches up nicely.
  • If we use the original Japanese names for two human characters, then we'd have to use the original Japanese names for every Pokémon species.
  • Blue Oak's traditional outfit features a bluish purple shirt; his updated FRLG outfit features bluish purple trousers and wristbands.
  • In Pokémon Special, Red chooses Bulbasaur, Blue chooses Charmander, and Green gets Squirtle; this way, they all consistently choose a Pokémon that doesn't align with their name color. Otherwise only one of them would match their name color with their Pokémon, while two do not—and that is just irritating.
  • Natural color association between counterparts Green and Leaf

External links

Notes

References

  1. ^ https://www.fanfiction.net/game/Pok%C3%A9mon/?&srt=4&r=103&c1=7503&c2=7499
  2. ^ https://phantomstatistician.tumblr.com/post/185863710101/fandom-pokemon-character-red-sample-size-363
  3. ^ https://web.archive.org/web/20141019212432/http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7354757/1/The-Game-of-Champions
  4. ^ https://web.archive.org/web/20170919052732/http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7354757/1/The-Game-of-Champions
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