The original Gym Leaders in Pokémon Red & Blue are likely engraved in minds of the first Pokémon fans, and they almost featured a different line-up. Pokémon Red & Green had a tumultuous development that lasted years, with designs changing drastically throughout its production.
Over the past few years, unused Pokémon designs have slowly filtered out through various sources. These include a leaked build of Pokémon Red & Green made its way online in 2019, which included a very different look at how the series could have turned out.
It's always exciting when unused Pokémon designs make their way online, but players rarely see unused content regarding the human characters in the series. In 2015, longtime Pokémon designer/director Ken Sugimori ed concept art for the Gym Leaders from Pokémon Red & Green on Twitter. His initial post showed Brock, Misty, Lt. Surge, and Erika, with designs that were close to their final forms in the games. Fans quickly noticed that the numbers were different beneath the pictures. In Pokémon Red & Green, Brock is the first Gym Leader, but he was listed as the second in the concept art.
Pokémon's Original First Gym Leader
Sugimori posted a follow-up picture that showed the original first Gym Leader. It was a young kid whose design was similar to Giovanni. This led to speculation that the Viridian City Gym Leader was originally a kid who was fought first, but their design was changed to Giovanni of Team Rocket, and he was pushed to the end of the queue.
Pokémon's Original Blaine Design
The other major design change was Blaine. The original Blaine design was that of a saluting soldier. He was changed to a scientist at some point during development, possibly to avoid having two soldiers among the Gym Leaders. Blaine was also the only Gym Leader to retain their original position in all iterations of the game, as he was listed as seventh in the line-up.
Pokémon's Original Gym Leader Line-Up Explained
The original Gym Leader line-up was meant to be the kid, Brock, Misty, Lt. Surge, Erika, Koga, Blaine, and Sabrina. In the final version of the game, it was Brock, Misty, Lt. Surge, Erika, Sabrina, Koga, Blaine, and Giovanni. It's interesting that Sabrina was intended to be the last Gym Leader, especially as Psychic-type Pokémon were so overwhelmingly dominant during the first generation of Pokémon games. Pokémon Red & Green underwent a lot of changes during development, and it's fascinating to see how different these iconic games could have been, had they been released earlier.
Source: Ken Sugimori/Twitter
