Meet the Protagonists of Pokémon Sun & Moon

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It was exciting to get our first look at the starting Pokémon of Sun and Moon, coming November 18th for the 3DS, but did you put much thought into the newest protagonists we were introduced to? From the looks of the trailer customization seems to have returned (THANK YOU) and we may even be able to remove our hats (although honestly it seems like a beginning cutscene when he is preparing)!

The male character starts out with longer hair and a simple baseball cap, while the female character has a rather unique hat almost reminiscent of Ruby’s. When you begin the game, you’ll get to choose a skin tone which all start with varying hair colors.

A new change is the way the characters are portrayed on the overworld; the chibi-style of Pokémon X&Y has disappeared and the protagonists are much more proportionate to their full display in battle.

What do you think?! Even if there is trainer customization, are these a good template with which to customize?

<3 PJ

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904 thoughts on “Meet the Protagonists of Pokémon Sun & Moon”

    • It could have leaked at any time after about midday on Tuesday in Japan, we could get it at any moment. It is actually on the late side this month.

      Don’t expect anything more than the legends’ names and artwork and Player artwork though.

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      • Yeah, I just looked back at the January 2013 CoroCoro leaks, and detailed stats for Xerneas and Yveltal were given. Unless Game Freak wants to delay this information another month, which seems very unlikely at this point.

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  2. Also just a little note on those saying if that’s the whole region or just one island.. Its definitely only part if it its cpbased on 1singular Hawaiian island and in the left there’s a dock to take you to other islands is my guess 🙂 here’s little pic to show you the region island comparison 🙂

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  4. Guys I am in love with this : Rowlet if it was a gen 2 starter on the gameboy. Omg I think it is just 10/10 (refresh for image )

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    • I actually love that darker shade of brown, makes it look more earthy! Either way, who cares, Rowlet is awesome! 😀

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      • Yes I have HUGE hopes for this generations Pokémon. I honestly am getting so greedy and want to see what they evolve into and other new designs !

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        • I just want them to release more new Pokemon than in Kalos. I don’t want this kind of laziness to become a trend for future generations. “Quality over quantity”, yeah right. Their job is to do both.

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          • Here here ! I agree and I wasnt a fan of oh but mega evolutions are basically new Pokemon…. No. Now I actually love megas and like the idea if done correctly. But don’t slap a wig on Ampharos and call it a new Pokemon coz that won’t fly haha

          • I like the Megas but not enough to sacrifice 40 real new Pokemon for them every generation from here on out.

  5. I am still thinking about Marshadow ….wat if his name from Mars-shadow ….urrrrrrgh I hope I can learn Japanese.

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  8. I want a Pokemon like Feebas and Magikarp! Something that at first glance looks foolish and weak but once it hits its second or third stage it’s a powerful and magnificent beast!

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      • xD No, something more meek and terrible than that… like an actual, flopping worm that evolves into a giant, armor-encased and intimidating beast!

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          • Honestly, GameFreak knows this and is just trolling with us! One of the biggest contenders for a mega-evolution was Dunsparce and then during generation four, when past Pokemon received evolutions, it was also a top contender. Not to mention how many times Ash has tried to catch that thing and failed miserably and how many times GameFreak has shoved it in her heads!

    • I want a Cod Pokémon. Why because fish fingers are made of COD. Do I want a Pokémon based off fish fingers or the actual fish… Who knows haha

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  9. Popplio’s last stage: Water or Water/Ice or Water/Ground
    Rowlet’s last stage: Grass/Flying or Grass/Fighting
    Litten’s last stage: Fire/Poison or Fire/Electric
    Lunaala, Fairy/Ghost
    Solgaleo, Fire/Psychic or Fire/Fairy

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  11. I don’t know why, but I imagined Rowlet’s evolutions having something to do with coconuts. Maybe it is it’s round shape. Mixed feelings about a coconut owl.

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  12. So how many new Pokemon do you guys think come out this Generation? I think somewhere around 90-100. And maybe 10-15 mega evolutions.

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    • I’m thinking around 90-100 too, but how many would be evolution/pre-evolutions for pokemon of previous generations?

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    • I’d rather be pessimistic and think around 70 until proven wrong, though they could feasibly do 90-100 and that would be marginally better. I’d love to return to 130+ odd generations, but GF seem to have decided that megas take up new pokémon slots so I doubt we’ll get more than 100 pokés.
      As for megas I’d predict 20-30 as in XY and ORAS though maybe they will wind numbers down because the novelty factor is reduced and they can afford to dole out smaller offerings in each game.
      It would be really great to have proper evos back as well, alongside megas. I feel a lack of either would be jarring and a missed opportunity.

      I think without being wishful the best thing we can reasonably hope for is that they don’t commit the atrocity of revealing 70-100% of the new mons beforehand.(I’m glaring at you gen VI marketing strategists) That’s just poor treatment of us fans and an obvious case of criminally lazy and badly thought out hype train conducting, because it ruins a lot of the fun actually getting the game provides. And don’t strawman me with “well stay away from leaks then” because that doesn’t change anything to the fact it’s a bad promotional strategy (and not actually “leaks”).

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        • A lot of the old need work honestly, but megas are not the answer to every problem. Hopefully the new ones are better than those in Kalos, which was the weakest gen in my opinion.

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          • Yeah yeah bagging on XY the generation that gave us so much stuff
            Greedy sob’s

            I loved XY

          • I just don’t like a lot of them. I could probably count the ones that I do on my fingers. A lot of the megas are meh too.

  13. My friend just told me something that blew my mind in the Japanese commercial there’s milktanks face on milk carton lol

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  16. Am I the only one who wishes they updated the pokédex 3D pro app? It was genuinely amazing (-ly expensive heheh), with prettier and livelier models than xy, and a bunch of cool features. It’d really love to see gens VI and VII as well as megas added to it, would be nice to have the new cries as well (and an easy way to compare new and old ones), and a few extra features and bells and whistles. Would be prepared to pay for it, I find the steep price of the original was actually worth it in the long run.

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    • It’s unnecessary now that the games are in 3D though……If anything they should flesh out the real Pokedex in the games to make it more fun to use.

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      • Yeah fair point it would be nice to see the in-game pokédex fleshed out. I was angry they restricted camera angles in the ORAS pokedex for one. But the thing with Pokédex 3D is it had better models, both in terms of graphic quality but also in terms of pose and personality, compensating for the loss of the charm sprites had better than XY’s bland models did. Not needing to use the models in battles means they can do more with them. Plus I really liked seeing the pokémon in various backgrounds, and it would be great if the pokédex in the games did that as well. It would also be cool and much more practical to get learnsets and all in game as well.
        But I honestly doubt GF would ever be bothered to do that and as such I think a Pokédex 3D update would be a nice compromise.

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        • Oh don’t even get me started about the camera angles…..I loved being able to look at the bottom of all the Pokemon in XY and they took that away from me!!! lol As far as the Pokedex Pro having better models I’m not so sure. I think the models are the same and the only real difference is that the in game ones are cell shaded. I think being in game and having the cell shading gave them an unnecessary jaggedness to them unfortunately. You can blame the 3ds for being under powered for that hahaha

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    • Actually not a half bad idea (since I have it too).

      They could halve the original price and sell the extra gens as DLC. $1-$1.50 a pop seems fair.

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  17. Everybody I’ve seen is saying kukui is the professor, but I thought the professor was hala, with kukui being his assistant…what do you all think? Who’s the professor?

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    • Bulbasaur, Frog/Dinosaur seed
      Charmander Salamander
      Squirtle Turtle

      Chikarita Sauropod and herb
      Cyndaquil Echidna
      Totodile Crocodile

      Treecko Gecko
      Torchic Chick then Cock Fighting Chicken
      Mudkip Axolotol/Mudskipper

      Turtwig Turtle again then world turtle
      Chimchar Chimp then Sun Wukong
      Piplup Emperor Penguin

      Snivy Garden Snake
      Tepig Piglet then (can’t remember the name) Zhu Baje
      Oshawott Sea Otter w/ Clam then Sea Lion (design was settled)

      Chespin Hedgehog Knight
      Fennekin Fennec fox sage
      Froakie frog rookie then ninja

      Rowlet Rowan Tree Owl
      Litten Fiery Goth Kitten (may have ties to lava and sulfur)
      Popplio Sea Lion preformer/clown

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        • Though species wise they are all Reptiles, Mammals or avian
          They are all capable of transvering on land
          They share the same abilities Overgrow Blaze or Torrent
          Learn Grass Pledge Frenzy Plant, Fire Pledge Blast Burn, Water Pledge Hydro Cannon
          All have three stages in their evolution
          Have a male dominated gender ratio at 85/15
          And always the first Pokemon ever obtained in main games (Excluding Yellow)

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          • Hey dude not trying to rub you the wrong way, only filling the holes in your otherwise great analyses, just contributing extra stuff to the convo …
            Eh I know you’re quite fiery anyhoo but please don’t take it personally I literally just want to give us more information to think with 🙂

            (seriously not trying to one up you, you definitely know as much if not more than me and frankly I’ve better to do than try and one-up the one person most likely to call me out for it here)

            Actually a bug starter would be sweet for once.

          • Hmm interesting Ok now we know what they Have in Common Now What motif pattern that the Starters Have?

          • Arceus enough with the trivial stuff
            I may be savant for Pokemon but enough of the quizzing

            And I can’t really say Starters have a strict motif pattern

      • To complete this a smidge (though it’s mostly complete)

        The bulba line is more dicynodont than dinosaur, and venusaur incorporates a rafflesia

        Charizard is obvs a dragon but that goes without saying

        Wartortle has elements of a japanese yokai turtle iirc

        The Cyndaquil line goes echidna/hedgehog-stoat or similar mustelid-badger or wolverine

        Grovyle and Sceptile obviously are also based on theropod dinosaurs

        Torterra is an ankylosaur with world turtle thrown on top

        Empoleon is also based on Napoleon Bonaparte

        The snivy line incorporates elements of european influence (Serperior has Fleur de Lys on it’s body), the tepig line chinese influence, and the oshawott line japanese influence with the samurot the samurai (durgh)

        There’s a decent theory Chesnaught’s shell is based on that of a Glyptodont, which fits the fact that all grass types can be somewhat assimilated to prehistoric creatures, though less of a distinct and surefire pattern than zodiac fire types (wonder how the rowlett line will do this? Oh well there are fossil owls and seperior only fits in the theory through similar logic)

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          • Oh I don’t doubt that but you did cover the whole line on occasion and my ocd kicked in, plus having a more comprehensive look gives better insights 🙂

        • I believe that the water starters have some tie into war. Blastoise has guns, Swampert has a jet like propeller on its back, empoleon is obviously like an emperor, samurott is a samurai, greninja is a ninja, but I’m not sure with Feraligatr. But yah that’s a pretty popular theory

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          • AH yes I have seen this floating around (lel), seems even more tenuous than the grass thing but nonetheless it makes sense. It’s certainly more distinct as a conceptual theory than that whole thing about semi-aquaticness, that just seems artifactual IMO.

          • Yah. That’s kind of obvious. But I like the theory of the water starters being war themed. And if Popplio turns out to be a clown then we can all agree that the theory can be put to rest XD lol

          • Lol, for some reason its tail reminds me of a jet. But I guess it isnt :/ lol I don’t know why it reminds me of that though XD

          • I know the orange gill like things play a part as they swell with water
            They may propel it similar to a siphon but honestly we only got the one trailer

          • It’s also in it’s concept art from the ORAS pokédex guide. TBF though why would jet imply war? Feraligatr seems more war-prone than Swampert…

          • Because people use jets to fly. Mega Swampert uses jets to swim. Am I really pushing this? XD 😛

          • Screw pushing
            *Grabs you overhead and plainly chucks you off a conveniently placed precipice*

          • *Nonchalantly accepts this slightly early instance of an ultimately inevitable demise, looks back on life, feels grateful, appreciates Earthen’s thematic use of a precipice to cause death, dies in a colourful splatter of blood and organs”

          • Finally a confirmed kill, most would’ve smart alecced their way out of a gruesome Earthen death but damn finally

    • Fire: Chinese Zodiac (a bit of a stretch since Fennekin is the “dog”)
      Water: Semi-aquatic creatures
      Grass: Plant and animal hybrids (I think.)

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      • One popular theory about grass types is them being based on prehistoric creatures, which definitely doesn’t hold as well as the zodiac thing but works pretty solidly for all but Serperior (who doesn’t contradict it, just means you have to stretch it to “there are fossil species of these things”-probably where Rowlett is headed though I’d love to be wrong).

        As for water types I couldn’t think of a pattern, I guess because the semi-aquatic one is just that blindingly obvious… It’d be nice to have a proper fish for once though. I’d always envisioned a water/poison clownfish with an anemone tail that evolves into a cleaner fish and and then a lionfish, with a signature poison bubble move!

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        • Well are there giant snakes or prehistoric owls in the past? Servine is arguably a raptor though. Maybe.

          As for plant and animal hybrids, there is a contrast between the starter grass types and the non-starter grass types. Almost all of the non-starter non-legend grass types–correct me if I’m wrong–can be described as “mobile plants”–contrast them with the starters, Shaymin, Virizion or Celebi.

          I don’t think the water ones being semi-aquatic is as obvious as you may think, though. But if it seems a bit shallow and maaaybe the connection should be something cooler or deeper like zodiac animals or dinosaurs, then unfortunately I don’t have a clue to a more cool commonality between the water starters yet.

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          • Yeah there are giant prehistoric snakes like Gigantophis or Titanoboa and prehistoric owls like Paleaoglaux.
            As for water types, dow below Pokemania88 brought up the war/weapon theme which seems even more tenuous than the prehistoric one but works on some levels.

            The things with semi-aquaticness and plant-animal hybrids is that thought the patterns do hold, I feel they’re not a thematic pattern as much as just representative of what gamefreak considers as suitable concepts for starters, because of the need creatures that are mobile on land, and the desire to keep it animal-based and more appealing I guess?

      • I saw that water is based on weapons ( guns, knuckle, i forgot swampert one, trident, sword, ninja stars) and grass were prehistoric fossils

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        • The water one is good! Very good!

          As for the grass, we already tried dinosaurs but we’re not sure about any prehistoric snakes or owls… unless Rowlet becomes some sort of hybrid with Pterodactyl or Archaeopteryx in the end.

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  20. Someone posted this on 4chan, and I actually would be really impressed if this happened:
    “Sun / Moon take place in Alola which is made up of 8 islands.

    The first island contains only brand new Pokemon. There is one main city on each island. The next 6 are based on previous regions only vastly scaled down, for instance the second island is modelled off Kanto, in that you start at a southern port town and travel north through a forest area and then through a mountain cave and so on, mostly Kanto Pokemon can be found.

    The third island is modelled on Johto and has a traditional theme. The fourth is Hoenn and has a wilderness theme. The fifth is based on Sinnoh and revolves around a large central volcano. The sixth is based on Unova and is a bunch of smaller islands connected by bridges. Seventh is Kalos and has a flower theme. Each island contains mostly native Pokemon to each region as well as some others.

    The final island is post-game and home to a large resort and hotel very similar to Unova’s World Tournament where previous leaders visit and challenge each other, however there are more facilities so it’s similar also the the frontiers.”

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    • If this happens, I will throw all my money at Game Freak. Although for the sake of the region and flow of the game I don’t think they will keep Alola pokemon exclusive to the first island. But bruh, this would be freakin amazing.
      And it would make sense since it is the 20th anniversary games!

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      • Absolutely agree! However, I wouldn’t like it filled with cameos either, since I don’t want S/M’s plot to intermingle with anything we’ve learned about past generations. It does fulfill my wish to see different landscapes, however.

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    • Seems like a cool idea rolled into a rumour by the usual temptations of human nature to me, but it’s definitely interesting.
      I’ve got to say cool as it is though I’m not a fan of it being true, because then Alola wouldn’t be it’s own region which doesn’t seem quite fair. Plus this makes it seem like a farewell tour which is alarming…

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      • I agree. If this concept doesn’t come into fruition, I would still like some kind of differentiation between the islands–I don’t want them all looking the same, like the same color scheme and everything.

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      • I have to agree with you as well. But I think the word needed is sprinkled. I think if they “sprinkled” some hints on the islands of them loosely based on the 6 regions then that would be cool. I think I just really want there to be variety in the region lol

        I just kinda hope we don’t have to look at palm trees the whole freakin game. I want towering Mountains, huge cities, small villages, desert, swamps, jungle, foresty areas etc.

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        • Honestly, for these games, this is the thing that I want the most. Variation. With one massive region, there is a plethora of variation from city to city, but in this case, GF is (likely) throwing a curveball at us with different islands. As a result, they have to make it up by giving each island its own feel or landmark, so we feel like we’re in a different part of the region, not just plots of land that look the same with a few exceptions.

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          • Yep. I feel like Hawaii/Islands don’t have a ton of variation, so I really want confirmation eventually that we will see something interesting and not water, sand, tree, volcano, water, volcano, tree, beach, tree, water, tree lol

    • I call bullshit, but sounds cool. I don’t like that old pokemon appear though, unless they appear in the postgame.

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  21. RIGHT I NEED YOUR OPINION ON THIS TO SEE IF OTHER PEOPLE THINK I’M RIGHT:

    Know how sun is often male ( appollo for instance) and moon female ( artimis), is this same design seen in the legends? Is that winged bat thing in anyone elses eyes feminine at all ? Not sure if it fits with the whole blood sucking bad thing, right…

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  23. So particularly the Sun and Moon anime peaked my thoughts
    I wonder what hair colored Female will be the next sucker to be paired with Ash, I’m leaning towards the brunette
    And I can see her picking Rowlet but Ash’s Grass type history could come into play I really don’t want to see Ash or the Female get Litten only because Litten just does not seem like Ash and we just had Serena get Fennekin also fire
    Now as tradition a young Gym Leader most likely the mature one of the group and cooking the dinner, maybe some wise for his age tan island boy who wants to explore the world but yadda yadda reasons

    Also freaking give us another Paul we need more jerks

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    • Yeah I was thinking Ash would get Rowlett or Popplio, I have a gut feeling probably Rowlett. I’d wager the girl still gets Litten because it fits the usual pattern, but it would be nice to shake things up. Haven’t watched the anime in years so don’t know much of the more recent rivals, but Paul was definitely one of the more interesting characters the show has put out.

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      • Well, Miete is a pretty good rival for Serena. Sawyer’s alright. I like the trio of Shauna, Trevor and Tierno. They stand out more in the anime than the video games.

        But none of them are like Gary/Paul.

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        • Miete and Serena are two bitches fighting over Ash’s Butt
          Sawyer’s a nerd
          And the Ditz, Nerd #2 and Fatboy

          We need a rival that is not only better but straight up dick
          I’m sick of all friendly “I’m your rival but also your buddy” bullcrap

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          • Ash is definitely more interesting when he has someone to hate/obsess over beating. Then you actually get pumped watching his matches.

          • Lol, I personally love the Miete and Serena duel. It cracks me up.

            But Sawyer is meh. I think the trio is alright. Who else is there? That’s all I can think of.

        • Nah, he’ll get Popplio. Or he will get all of them like he did with the Unova starters. I hope not. I like when each person gets a different starter. But, I think Popplio and Ash is what it’s going to be.

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    • I feel like Ash will get Rowlet, save Popplio from a Circus, and Litten… I’m still unsure about Litten. Doesn’t have that starter feel.

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    • I hope we get a Darker skinned female companion, and hopefully she will get Rowlet.
      Would wish for Serena to tag along, so we’d have two female companions for the first time.

      Reply

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