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In the Pokémon anime, May (known as Haruka in Japan) is the daughter of the Petalburg City Gym Leader, Norman and sister of Max. May also appears in the manga series Ash & Pikachu.
She is not to be confused with May Oak, Gary's sister in the Pokémon manga series (The Electrical Adventures of Pikachu), one of the translated (and unrelated, in terms of continuity) Pokémon manga.
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Her first anime episode
At the age of 10, May travelled from her home in Petalburg City to Littleroot Town to see Professor Birch. As a friend of her father's, he had agreed to give her one of the three Hoenn Starter Pokémon (Treecko, Torchic, and Mudkip) so that she could become a Pokémon Trainer.
However, when she arrives, she finds that the Hoenn Pokémon Professor has gone after an ill Pikachu belonging to Ash Ketchum.
She goes to look for the professor, only to find him stuck in a tree and about to be attacked by a group of angry Poochyena, similar to the start of Pokémon Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald. His only hope is for May to get a Pokémon out of his bag and use it to fend off the Poochyena. However, May, being completely inexperienced at commanding Pokémon, only gets water sprayed in her face by the Mudkip she pulls out. After some advice from Professor Birch, May manages to use Mudkip to chase off the Poochyena, though the experience was a less than pleasant one for her.
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After they find Ash, the group is attacked by Team Rocket. In an attempt to get rid of the criminals, Pikachu accidentally fries May's bicycle to a crisp, reminiscent of the first episode of the series in which Pikachu fries Misty's bike to a crisp, giving Misty a reason to follow Ash around for the rest of the series. The audience is led to believe that May will decide to follow Ash for the very same reason. However, the next morning, after choosing Torchic for her starter Pokémon, May stares at the charred remains of her bike in a remorseful fashion, only to shrug it off and say "Oh, well." She decides to follow Ash so that she can have a traveling companion to show her the ropes.
May's family
When May and Ash arrive at Petalburg City, Ash is eager to challenge its Leader. When May's brother, Max, sees him, he thinks he knows enough about Pokémon to pass himself off as a Gym Leader, except that he's too young to train Pokémon of his own yet. This upsets Max's parents -- Gym Leader Norman and his wife Caroline -- and May, but Ash insists in having a battle with Norman, even though he left all his other Pokémon with Professor Oak in Kanto. Although he challenges Norman and fights admirably, he is soundly defeated.
After seeing how well Ash battled, Max decides to travel with him and May, not only to learn from Ash's experience, but also to see many new Pokémon which he wouldn't be able to learn about from books.
Meeting Brock
When Ash, May, and Max are going through Petalburg Forest, they run out of food. Brock (who cooked for Ash & Misty during the earlier seasons of the anime) appears when Ash, May, and Max were about to be attacked by a whole flock of Taillow. After Ash tells May and his brother about how Brock was once the Pewter City Gym Leader, Brock rejoins our heroes and quickly whips up a sample of his cooking.
May's decision
When they reach Rustboro City, May decides that instead of collecting gym badges, she's going to dedicate her efforts completely to Pokémon Contests. Since then she has won several ribbons in them in most of the Contest halls she's travelled to. May has a rivalry with a Pokémon Coordinator (as Trainers who raise their Pokémon for contests instead of battles are called) named Drew (or Shū in Japanese) who appears at every other contest that May participates in, similar to the rivalry Ash shared with Gary Oak.
May's Pokémon
- Combusken
- Started out as Torchic
- Chosen as her starter Pokémon.
- She thinks it's cute though it's not her smartest nor her toughest Pokémon.
- It is very playful, but after evolution, it has also shown that it can be tough when it wants to be.
- Beautifly
- Caught as a Wurmple on Route 104 (South of Rustboro City).
- Was the first Pokémon she captured.
- Her first Contest Pokémon.
- Skitty
- Caught on Route 111 after being saved from Team Rocket.
- Since it learned to juggle, it has been one of her Contest Pokémon.
- Bulbasaur
- Decided to travel with May to explore the world outside of the forest in which it lived, which no human could leave nor enter.
- It is very curious and will try to play with anything that looks interesting.
- Swablu
- May took care of this Pokémon in one episode.
- Swablu wanted to go with May, but then decided to return to its flock.
- Munchlax
- Caught on the way to the Grand Festival.
Non-anime Info
May is based on the playable female trainer in Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire. Max is just a random sprite. In these games, when the player chooses to play as a male, May appears as the name of Professor Birch's child who fights against the player at certain points in the game, but helps them at others (for example, giving the player the Go Goggles needed to go through the Route 111 Desert).
External links
- The Haruka-Chan/May Fan Club! (http://haruka.ferretgames.com/) - Contains information, community forum, gallery of over 870 pictures, popular caption competitions, downloads, fan fiction (where threads are automatically made when new fan fics are submitted, for users to comment), and the fanlisting.