who is this blue guy?

who names their kid blue??

well, dear viewer, im so glad you asked! blue (also known as green in japan because of a long translation story) is a recurring character in the pokemon series. debuting in the first games (the eponymous pokemon red blue and green), he has appeared in most of the games since then in some shape or form. hes undergone arguably the most character development in the series, with his development taking place over several games and over 20 real life years. ingame its probably more like 10. dont listen to what bulbapedia tells you those people are INSANE.

ahem, rant about bulbapedia aside... lets start talking about the man himself, shall we?

RBY / FRLG

blue's first appearance is his most well known, and most people dont look at his character beyond it. he takes the role of somewhat of an antagonist, teasing and antagonizing the player (red). he always seems to be one step ahead and takes pride in that fact. he gets to the champion's seat before the player has a chance, but you do defeat him shortly afterwards.

fire red and leaf green, the remakes of the original games, add a little more to his backstory that was skimmed over and/or nonexistent in the first games. his grandfather, professor oak, seems to favor red over him to an actually comical extent. if you are defeated by him in your first battle, oak will literally say "how dissapointing." WHICH IS JUST. SUPER FUCKED UP TO SAY TO YOUR OWN GRANDKID.

i feel like a lot of people dont get this, but i think its pretty obvious that blue is upset that oak favors red over him and takes it out on red. is it a nice thing to do? no, but the kids literally 11 in these games. and people treat him like hes literally satan and that his only character trait is being a terrible person, when the most he ever does is tease red and ambush him for a pokemon battle a few times, which is standard fare for a rival in pokemon.

GSC / HGSS

taking place three years after the original games, gold/silver/crystal pick up in the johto region, which is right next to where the original games take place. you dont meet blue until the postgame. in GSC, things are pretty bland, but in the remakes, blue is just. desolate. he rants to you about how a volcano blew some stuff up and how were all worthless in the eyes of nature or some depressing shit, complains about red beating him, and then tells the player to fight him at his gym. oh yeah, he became a gym leader, too.

hes kind of a jackass to this random kid he just met, but after the player defeats him, you can gain his phone number. and oh boy. this dude. calls you at unholy hours of the night to rant about how much you remind him of red. who happens to be missing at the current moment. he likes to play it off as hatred but its pretty obvious he misses the guy. you can go find red on top of a mountain in the middle of nowhere. its never specified why the hell hes there but he sure is! you can beat him, in which case you can go return to blue and he will take a picture with you to celebrate.

B2 / W2

blue makes a brief cameo appearence in the postgame of black 2 and white 2 as an opponent at the pokemon world tournament. red does as well, but you never get to see them interact... tragic.

SM / USUM

in sun and moon, blue makes another cameo appearence in the postgame! this time with red! they seem to have made up, with blue playfully poking fun at red and red remaining silent as ever, but not seeming to be upset about it. they run the battle tree together, with red being your final opponent in single battles, blue being the boss in doubles, and both of them being the boss in multi battles.

god i just. i love sun and moon blue, man. hes not a jackass anymore. hes just. some guy! hes nice to the player, only acting remotely rude at all if the player chooses to fight red over him, but thats just a "tch" or whatever. he made up with red!! theyre buddies again!! AHHH!!!

in the main series, thats all we have to go off of. but pokemon masters descended like an angel from the heavens to give me in particular more development for blue.

MASTERS

masters isn't canon, but the things presented about the characters in it are. it presumably takes place some time between HGSS and SM. he takes on a kind of mentor figure role for the player, being the one to do the intro instead of oak and being the final boss along with red and leaf. and it revealed that red and blue made up before sun and moon! and. well. i think they did more than make up. because i swear this is not me being batshit insane but its implied red and blue are crushing on each other.

gay people? in my pokemon game? its more likely than you think. most of their interactions are just friendly, they mention each other in their sync pair dex entires as best friends, which is all fine and dandy. not romantic coded, but can be interpreted that way if you squint a little. and then theres this one event. this one goddamn event that happened.

and it released on valentines day. where red and blue have this adorable little interaction and you see red smile for once and hes just absolutely fucking beaming at blue. and blue understands without words that red wants to go spend some time alone with him and he says "ok well go do our own thing" and. did they know?

they have a lot more cute interactions in this game but i dont feel like racking my brain for all of them at the given moment. trust me blue motherfucking oak is the greatest character in this series.

blue art of mine

i love blue. he is the character of all time to me. hes just like me fr. we are both utterly insufferable gingers and thats why i appreciate him so much. im not gonna lie im kind of a fake fan as i was not concieved and my parents were not even married when RBY released. my first exposure to him was at 12 when i was playing through sun and moon and saw this cool looking dude who looked vaguely familiar. i googled him and all the art of was of him and red kissing. thus my brain chemistry was permanently altered.

gonna publicly embarass myself here and say blue was my first fictional crush that i was actively crushing on. (cynthia was my first but i didnt feel very strongly about her i just thought she was really pretty) blue on the other hand. literally the day i met him in SM i drew him and red and it was actually the fucking ugliest thing ever. i could probably go fish up that sketchbook to find it but i dont want to publicly embarass myself even more than i already have.