Best Kanto Gym Leaders: Every Gen 1 Pokémon Gym Leader, Ranked

Gen I simply had essentially the most memorable gymnasium leaders out of any era.

I used to be capable of comfortably recall seven out of eight of those gyms off the highest of my head, whereas I’d wrestle to let you know even one of many Kalos leaders.

That being mentioned, all eight of the Kanto badge holders should not made equal.

You may not agree with this checklist completely, however I’ve my causes for rating all the Kanto gymnasium leaders from worst to greatest.

8. Blaine

We’re working in descending order, which means Blaine is the “worst” Gen I gymnasium chief, for my part.

That’s to not say he’s unhealthy; he’s simply the least memorable for me.

That’s a disgrace, too. As a result of Blaine is the OG Pokémon quiz grasp.

It’s an concept that ought to have led to an extremely memorable coach, however for no matter motive, it didn’t.

If Blaine had been in nearly some other era(particularly gen 6) then he can be on the high of this checklist.

His Arcanine and Rapidash may give you critical bother whenever you’re not ready, so his workforce ticks that field, too.

It’s additionally a bit identified incontrovertible fact that the one time Blaine takes off his sun shades is when he’s designing a brand new quiz, which means he wears them in his sleep.

A lot potential, however the execution doesn’t stay as much as it.

7. Sabrina

Just about each coach on the checklist from right here on out might be fairly put in some other spot.

I’m going to keep away from speaking in regards to the anime for most of this checklist, however there are just a few exceptions the place I believe it has to return up. Particularly, we’ve to speak about Sabrina.

The Pokémon anime early days had been a bit…. On the market…. There’s no higher instance of the psychedelics that the writing room was taking than the Sabrina episodes.

She is(and I imply this fairly actually) a psychopathic supervillain with magic powers, and she or he additionally occurs to have dissociative id dysfunction apparently.

When Ash and the gang lose to her the primary time, she shrinks all of them down and traps them in a toy city. Once they fail a second time, she turns Misty and Brock into dolls and traps them in a dollhouse with her precise mom.

Sabrina within the video games is much tamer. However that anime episode is just too weird to gloss over.

6. Lt. Surge

I struggled with the place to place Lt. Surge on this checklist.

He began out at quantity three, and over time was relegated to quantity six. That’s a disgrace, too, as a result of the very existence of Surge is unbelievable.

The workforce at Recreation Freak designed his character based mostly on the Japanese stereotype of People on the time, and that actually reveals. He’s overly intense and OTT in every thing he does. On high of that, he’s like eight toes tall within the anime, and he’s ex-military.

Surge can be the primary time we ever acquired a point out of the notorious “Pokémon conflict,” which will get bonus factors with me. Critically Recreation Freak, when are you going to tug the set off on that 18+ mission?

His workforce isn’t very intimidating in-game, although.

I imply, you possibly can catch a Diglett down the highway and wreck him. However it’s the model factors that rely right here.

5. Brock

I do know, I do know, you possibly can put your pitchforks away.

The one motive that Brock is hitting mid-way is that I deal with his anime and sport characters like two utterly separate entities.

If this had been an inventory of greatest anime characters, he can be each single entry on the checklist; it will be like an ode to Brock.

Because it stands, he sucks within the sport.

Regardless of serving as the primary gymnasium chief, he has nothing attention-grabbing going for him. And he performs no half in any grander narrative. You may substitute him with Teen Joey and it will not make a distinction.

Granted Brock may be powerful to beat in the event you took Charmander. However as a Squirtle important, I by no means had that challenge.

4. Giovanni

Ah sure, the literal mob boss that in some way managed to get verified league standing as a gymnasium chief.

If there was ever any proof that the Indigo League was corrupt, that is it.

Giovanni serves because the villain to the whole thing of Gen I, in addition to the penultimate gymnasium battle. So logically, he must be increased on the checklist.

However I discovered that he was simply too straightforward to beat.

He’s a floor kind gymnasium chief, and in case you forgot, I used to be a Squirtle important. Not solely did this make his combat trivial, nevertheless it meant that I had nothing to recollect him by aside from being the annoying dude that I needed to preserve beating up.

It was solely years later that I noticed the darker context of him being a literal crime lord.

3. Koga

Koga has at all times been a cool gymnasium chief.

There’s nothing to complain a few ninja design that fights with poison varieties, which occurs to be a tricker factor to counter, making his battle not a right away sweep.

I’m not placing Koga on this checklist for his battle or his design, although.

I’m placing him right here as a result of he ought to function an inspiration to all working fathers across the globe.

After years of working a 9-to-5 on the gymnasium, he acquired promoted to the league after Lance took over as champion. Not solely that, however he additionally left the gymnasium to his daughter. He cemented his household’s legacy, and we must always all be happy with that.

2. Erika

I’ll confess: Erika was a large childhood crush of mine.

She was just a few block of pixels, however that was sufficient for my younger eyes.

She runs one of the memorable gyms within the sport that reveals off the clear lack of anti-discrimination legal guidelines in Kanto. As a younger boy, although, I had no complaints about that.

Then there was additionally the creepy previous man that used to stare by way of the gymnasium’s home windows all that. Speaking to him is certainly one of my most vivid Pokémon R/B/Y reminiscences, and it must be pretty apparent why.

To high all of it off, Erika is a grass coach. So she kicked me and my Squirtle’s ass.

An incredible design, an amazing workforce, and an amazing gymnasium all get Erika my quantity two spot.

1. Misty

I’ll confess as soon as once more: Misty was a large teenage crush of mine, and admittedly nonetheless is to this present day.

I shouldn’t have to elucidate why, particularly in the case of the later video games. If I do want to elucidate, then you definately could be too younger to fret about it.

Her design feels a lot extra like her anime one does, even after the redesign. There’s sufficient substance there that I can join the 2 characters.

The mirror matchup at all times offered an issue to me, too, due to that rattling Starmie.

She’s one of the iconic figures in Pokémon historical past for a motive. So there’s loads of justification for placing her in first place.