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.

Her first anime episode

When she turned 10, May gets on her Acro Bike and pedaled from Petalburg City in Hoenn, her hometown, to Littleroot Town, where Professor Birch lives. 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 and do what she likes best, travelling.

However, when she gots there she finds that the Hoenn Pokémon Professor has gone after an ill Pikachu belonging to Ash Ketchum who, as far as she was concerned, was only a trainer that had just arrived in Hoenn by ferry that very morning.

Since she wanted to find Professor Birch, she went to look for him, only to find that he has just fallen off a cliff and (similarly to the beginning of the Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire games) was about to be attacked by a group of angry Poochyena! His only hope is for May to get a Pokémon out of his bag (which stayed on top of the cliff) and use it to fend off the Poochyena. However, May, being completely inexperienced at commanding Pokémon, only gets water sprayed in her face by Mudkip. It's not until Professor Birch tells her that she has to tell the Mudkip to use Water Gun does she do so and successfully save the Professor.

Afterwards they go to find Ash with Pikachu. Once they do, Jessie and James appeared with their Meowth. Pikachu, sending them blasting off with its electric-type attacks, ends up leaving May's bike useless.

The next day, May chooses Torchic as her starter Pokémon and, after seeing how well Torchic and Pikachu and get along, decides to travel together with Ash.

May's family

When May and Ash arrive at Petalburg City, Ash is eager to go into the gym. When May's brother, Max sees him, he thinks he knows enough about Pokémon himself to pass 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. Due to this reason, he can't compete for the badge, but stages a great battle with him even though he loses.

After seeing how well he battled, Max decides to travel with them not only to learn from Ash's experience, but also to see many new Pokémon.

They meet 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 Brock was once the Pewter City Gym Leader, Brock rejoined our heroes, and then quickly whips up a sample of his cooking. Since then, Brock has been travelling with them.

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.
  • Beautifly was also her first Contest Pokémon.
• Skitty
  • She caught it on Route 111 after saving it 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 nowhere in the games. 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! - 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.